with concern, warning the newspaper El Comercio, in its edition of Sunday 13 January on the fact that the constant demands of the population Puno department for more attention from the state are adopting "an ethnic content." Recall that Puno has occupied the front pages of newspapers when there was the lynching of the mayor's key. Several commented, in a critical sense, that this behavior was typical of the Aymara culture. Unfortunately
lynchings also occur in other parts of the country that have no Aymara population, including the city of Lima, so that explanation, not free of racism, lack of any support. Puno also called attention to other facts amplified by the press as the multiplication of ALBA houses and the strong support of regional president of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Unlike Bolivia and Ecuador, the issue of multiculturalism and ethnic groups hardly deserves more attention in Peru that you provide some anthropologists and philosophers. Has failed to motivate the generation of social movements, as has happened in these countries, and has attracted the attention of the public. In this regard, as to that has to do with the obvious racism of colonial origin, our country has a position: that of the ostrich.
The ethnic identity may have many contents. The most obvious is the legitimate calls for recognition of their particularity and equal rights in a society where they are, ethnic groups, poor and marginalized minority. It is quite plain that Peru there is an unacceptable ethnic segregation. Suffice it to mention the fact that millions of Peruvians who have no mother tongue is Castilian are in a situation of inferiority in relation to the rest of the population in the different dimensions of life. In Peru, Quechua or Aymara being, mainly, but also native settler Amazon is carrying a stigma.
ethnic minority populations generally are predominantly rural, which means a double segregation, given the limited attention of state and private sector in rural areas, especially in the mountains and forests.
No wonder, then, Aymara, Quechua and Amazon come to strengthen ethnic identity to achieve articular who feel like part of a community, and increase their capacity to lobby for access to rights and resources that are denied, including the recognition of their dignity.
There is a risk, it is true, that the guidance of the ethnic movement leading to racism and demagoguery, as it is, in Bolivia, the minority but influential movement led by Felipe Quispe aymara called The Mallku .. This risk, however, should not be an argument for ignoring the righteousness of the ethnic identity, and still less to deny that the main cause of the more extreme claims is the contempt towards those sectors of the population, shared by successive governments and most political and business classes.
large extent depends on the changing attitudes of these sectors and the design and implementation of public policies that are at the same time, inclusive and respectful of cultural differences, the ethnic movement that contributes to building a country while unique and diverse, the strengthening of democracy and equitable economic development and decentralized
