Although I am for over a decade a staunch supporter of Evo Morales, I must admit that, after reading about the confusion after Morales’ disputed electoral victory, I was beset by doubts: did he also succumb to the authoritarian temptation, as it happened to so many radical Leftists in power? However, after a day or two, things became clear.

Brandishing a giant leather-bound bible and declaring herself Bolivia’s interim president, Jeanine Añez, the second-vice president of the country’s Senate, declared: “The Bible has returned to the government palace.” She added: “We want to be a democratic tool of inclusion and unity” – and the transitional cabinet sworn into office did not include a single indigenous person.

This tells it all: although the majority of the population of Bolivia are indigenous or mixed, they were till the rise of Morales de facto excluded from political life, reduced to the silent majority. What happened with Morales was the political awakening of this silent majority which did not fit in the network of capitalist relations.

They were not yet proletarian in the modern sense, they remained locked into their premodern tribal social identities – here is how Alvaro Garcia Linera, Morales’ vice-president, described their lot: “In Bolivia, food was produced by Indigenous farmers, buildings and houses were built by Indigenous workers, streets were cleaned by Indigenous people, and the elite and the middle classes entrusted the care of their children to them. Yet the traditional left seemed oblivious to this and occupied itself only with workers in large-scale industry, paying no attention to their ethnic identity.”

To understand them, we should bring into picture the entire historical weight of their predicament: they are the survivors of perhaps the greatest holocaust in the history of humanity, the obliteration of the indigenous communities by the Spanish and English colonisation of the Americas.

The religious expression of their premodern status is the unique combination of Catholicism and belief in the Pachamama or Mother Earth figure. This is why, although Morales stated that he is a Catholic, in the current Bolivian Constitution (enacted in 2009) the Roman Catholic church lost its official status – its article 4 states: “The State respects and guarantees the freedom of religion and spiritual beliefs, in accordance to every individual’s world view. The State is independent from religion.”

Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests Show all 15 1 /15 Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests People protest against Bolivia's President Evo Morales in La Paz Reuters Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests Police officers standing on the rooftop of a security booth at a police station wave Bolivian flags AP Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests Protesters cheer at police officers Reuters Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests Supporters of President Evo Morales clash with a bus caravan that was heading to La Paz to march against the government EPA Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests A police officer waves a national flag on top of a police station during a protest against Bolivia's President Reuters Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests Police officers, who have joined a rebellion, take part in a march to protest against the government AFP via Getty Images Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests Demonstrators with makeshift shields protest against President Evo Morales AP Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests Police officers, who have joined a rebellion, take part in a march AFP via Getty Images Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests A wounded person who was heading to La Paz to join a march against the president EPA Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests Citizens cheer the bus caravan that was attacked while heading to La Paz in support of marches EPA Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests epaselect epa07984177 Policemen wave the tricolor flag of Bolivia while they retreat to a police station in the city of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, 09 November 2019. Several Bolivian Police units have mutinied in various parts of the country in disagreement with the actions of President Evo Morales over the crisis that Bolivia is going through since the last elections, as he defends his victory at the polls against the allegations of fraud from opposition and civic committees who do not recognize the president's victory for a fourth consecutive period, and demand his resignation and that new elections be called. EPA/Juan Carlos TorrejÃ³n Juan Carlos Torrejón EPA Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests A motorcycle on fire on a road leading to La Paz, EPA Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests Anti-government protesters against the reelection of President Evo Morales gather just meters away from the presidential palace AP Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests A person is treated EPA Police abandon posts to join Bolivia protests epa07985138 Citizens cheer the bus caravan that was attacked while heading to La Paz in support of marches against the President of Bolivia Evo Morales, as it returns to Oruro, Bolivia, 09 November 2019. A caravan of buses that was heading to La Paz in support of marches against the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, was attacked on a highway in the Andean area, in an incident in which an undetermined number of wounded. The buses came from the regions of Potosi and Chuquisaca, in the west and south of the country, and suffered an attack after leaving for La Paz in the morning after stopping at night in the Andean city of Oruro. EPA/EMILIO CASTILLO EMILIO CASTILLO EPA

And it is against this affirmation of indigenous culture that Anez’s display of the bible is directed – the message is clear: an open assertion of white religious supremacism, and a no less open attempt to put the silent majority back to their proper subordinate place. From his Mexican exile, Morales already appealed to Pope to intervene, and the Pope’s reaction will tell us a lot. Will Francis react as a true Christian and unambiguously reject the enforced re-Catholisation of Bolivia as what it is, as a political power-play which betrays the emancipatory core of Christianity?

If we leave aside any possible role of lithium in the coup (Bolivia has big reserves of lithium which is needed for batteries in electric cars and it has featured in a number of theories about what brought down Morales), the big question is: why is for overt a decade Bolivia such a thorn in the flesh of Western liberal establishment? The reason is a very peculiar one: the surprising fact that the political awakening of premodern tribalism in Bolivia did not result in a new version of the Sendero Luminoso or Khmer Rouge horror show. The reign of Morales was not the usual story of the radical Left in power which screws things up, economically and politically, generating poverty and trying to maintain its power through authoritarian measures. A proof of the non-authoritarian character of the Morales reign is that he didn’t purge army and police of his opponents (which is why they turned against him).

Morales and his followers were, of course, not perfect, they made mistakes, there were conflicts of interests in his movement. However, the overall balance is an outstanding one. Morales not Chavez, he did not have not oil money to quell problems, so his government has to engage in a hard and patient work of solving problems in the poorest country in Latin America. The result was nothing short of a miracle: economy thrived, poverty rate fell, healthcare improved, while all the democratic institutions so dear to liberals continued to function. The Morales government maintained a delicate balance between indigenous forms of communal activity and modern politics, fighting simultaneously for tradition and women rights,