Brave New Ecuador

Ecuador might be a small country, weighing in at only 109,483 sq miles and roughly 14 million in population, but its land and its people have experienced more challenges and evolution in a decade than some countries have in a century. Within the shifting tides of influences over the Ecuadorian people, some interesting contrasts emerge that can only make one question how on earth the people here can build a consensus as to their collective identity and what it means to be an ‘Ecuadorian.’

Evidence of their culture can be found as far back as 8,800 BC. Yet, their current constitution only dates back to 2008. The people of Ecuador balance allegiances between el país (the country or ‘fatherland’) with an equally strong if not more durable lapatria (the ‘motherland’ or reverential country) that mixes with prevailing indigenous notions of pachamama (‘Mother Earth’). Additionally, the people also balance various complexities of racial and ethnic identity: remnant European influence from the colonial era with the staggering fourteen different ethnic groups, including perhaps the most rallied indigenous groups in the Americas. Politically, Ecuador has felt the brunt of the Washington Consensus epitome of neoliberal capitalism and the newest movement of “radical” neo-populism. Within this new front, the Ecuadorian people see and shape their lives under an unquestionably authoritarian government in contrast with a fervent civic activism and popular mobilization that almost rings of direct democracy. (…Is your head spinning yet?)

There is no question that this diversity has pushed Ecuador to face arduous battles. Yet, what many people have designated to be the roots of Ecuadorian’s dilemmas have actually endowed it with what I’ve found to be a profound courage to examine their own identity and to stand up to domineering forces far larger than their own. As Carlos de La Torre accurately summarized, “Ecuadorians have neither shaped their situations as they have pleased nor have they sat by and waited for global events to overtake them.” I challenge myself and those who read this blog to do the same: to challenge the forces that try to define, limit, or inundate them and to have the courage to look their country’s flaws in the eyes and push for a newer, happier, more millennial future.