I had been thinking a lot about American privilege and how bizarre it is that rich Americans go to Peru (poor because of America, and Europe--basically America's mother). And no one in Peru, no white person I met was really okay talking about it while I was there. It really drove me nuts, it seems to bizarre to be unveiling the truth and avoid that. And I was with good people (the road to hell is paved with good intentions). But finally I am starting to find some things on the subject online, at last:
“So while a morbid guilt has invaded the western world, a secret rancour rots the indigenous soul. The invasive extroversion of the western world is answered by the sick introversion of the indigenous people. The occidental complex of superiority stands across the inferiority complex of the traditional peoples, with the subconscious reverse compensations that it generates. All of us are thus living a dramatic schizophrenia that generates multiple deliriums. We need to cure ourselves of our mutual projections, and of the alienating fascination product of our reciprocal ignorance. The indigenous youth let themselves be seduced by the sirens of materialism, of easy money, of technological magic, of the mirage of licentiousness mistaken for freedom. Meanwhile the westerners ingenuously idealize the exotic spiritualities, the return of the “noble savage,” and the myth of primitive man that was innocent, pure, and good, by nature. We are all dreaming awake between unreal exaltation and imaginary fear towards the other, at the same time avoiding confrontation with our own selves, with our past, with our history, both at the individual and collective levels.
We have no option but to mutually heal one another.”
-Jacques Mabit – The times of reconciliation
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