translated from Spanish: Neoliberal Irrationality – The Shower

The danger affecting the symbol of Inca culture and Indo-American peoples, “Machu Picchu”, turns out to be unequivocal displays the neoliberal irrationality that intensely penetrates the mindset of rulers today.
According to the knowledge available this human settlement was built before the fifteenth century, in the eastern mountain range of Peru, about 2,400 m.s.n.m. It is separated by a hundred kms from El Cuzco, which was the capital city of the Inca Empire.
Over time, adventurers or researchers, hunt fortunes or selfless scholars, historians and poets, were taking note of its value, which turns out to be an incalculable heritage; especially during the twentieth century its vital transcendence was recognized. The explorer Hiram Bingham who arrived at her in July 1911, intuited the historical and cultural wealth depicted there. Later a National Geographic paper motivated historical, cultural and scientific perspectives and interest.
In 1981, Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary, in 1983, acquired the world heritage status, then in 2007 it gained the distinction of being considered one of the 7 wonders of the modern world.
This is not coincidental, there was sheltered one of the fundamental centers of a civilization full of vitality that managed to transform nature and itself into an intense practice that meant incomparable technical and scientific advances. The complex set of human actions, social relations and productive and scientific activity, which occurred in Machu Picchu, is not yet sized, but there is no doubt that the knowledge treasured and put into practice by his sages and scholars is a marvel of the creative capacity of the human being.
Confirming that there is not only a mercantilist route to progress, the Inca civilization had a remarkable and original development in different fields, that process was closed in its matrix by the bigoted and dogmatic colonial invader, whose obsession was nothing more than accumulate precious metals, especially gold, in order to respond to the limitless demands of the parasitic bureaucrats of the Crown of Spain, urging wealth to appease the greed of the decadent monarchs and their courts, and to justify the shipments of weapons and men, from the metropolis.
Ships brimming with gold and valuable products had to cross the ocean on a long path that only attracted pirates and bandits motivated by the same vileness, but coming from other powers and latitudes, who assaulted them at the first occasion, in an uninterrupted but calamitous banditry, generating fires and / or boardings that concluded with its precious load at the bottom of the seas.
With these shipwrecks, the work of thousands of Indo-Americans that the brutal colonizer forced to produce in subhuman conditions was lost forever, but the pirate’s irrational prey sank those riches again, making that coveted metal unattainable torn from the depth of the mountain; thus, greed plunged him into impenetrable waters.
But neither did those lucky ships that managed to arrive with their precious cargo in Seville did so to serve human progress, it was not what was happening, the resources had already been spent and the new treasures were used to lengthen the survival of monarchies despotic and decadent lineages, that wealth was promptly deposited in bank vaults to settle debts that squeezed autocrats or flowed into lenders’ safes to finance more wasteandy “real” whims.
It was a time of irrepressible obscurantism, imposed by ultraconservative forces, with the enthronement of powerful sects, expression of the worst alliances in the Spanish Vatican and Crown, parasitic groups that were ensnariated with terrible persecutions, executed by the Inquisition in Europe and by the “evangelizing” barbarism against indigenous people in America.
In Machu Picchu, after centuries upright and impassive, there are these feats of engineering, majestic constructions, erected for the study of astronomy and for their religious practices; as well as the farming terraces indicate a formidable drainage technique to give sustainability to agriculture and, consequently, ensure the nutrition of theirs and their visitors.
It is the imposing force, in the middle of the mountain, of its works and buildings, of its canals and terraces, subjugating the observer of the present, thrilling him as Pablo Neruda, whose art immortalized his artists, builders, goldsmiths, labradors and all those who with their hands and sweat, they pierced their spirit to the rock that seems self-absorbed, but which every day as the sun rises revives its former dwellers, to whom they excavated and forged their unshakable serenity and exposed, endlessly, the infinite greatness of will and effort Human.
The inexhaustible power of nature and the creative sense of human work generate the energy of the flow of feelings that are reflected in the inexhaustible force of music that is born and endures in the immortal “heights” of Machu Picchu. This civilizational sense is distinguished as the night of the day, from the speculative and mercantilist impetus of the current neoliberal cycle.
Now, in Peru, the authority’s insistency on installing in the town of Chinchero, in the vicinity of this unrivalled heritage, a mega airport that will facilitate a “schock” of foreign exchange with the impetuous consumption of many millions of visitors that, they say will make tourism an unlimited source of income.
By the way, it will be the profits of the consortiums that are in the global stake in the global commercial aviation business that will become out of control thanks to this infrastructure that will leave the State of Peru compromised for many years.
They claim that this portentous air terminal is to grow. And Machu Picchu, you can withstand this new occupation?, or your destination will be collapse and perish, covered in waste, drowned by junk food and the sale of trinkets….
That is the neoliberal irrationality of the present, to squeeze out all that brings some gain, regardless of the cost that this means to the heritage of humanity. So soon there won’t even be any memories to share, maybe some Whatsapp.

The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.

Original source in Spanish

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