Pseudocoup, mistrust and mental health | Pseudogolpe, desconfianza y salud mental

By Cecilia Vargas, Brujula Digital:

Bolivians, particularly those of us who live in La Paz, have witnessed events that have marked history due to the fact that it is the seat of government. These facts have been associated, in terms of each family or each person, with particular situations that could lead to classifying our society as highly resilient.

After the last event that occurred in the afternoon of Wednesday, June 26, when filming and photos circulated in the media about the presence of military tanks in Murillo Square, many citizens surely remembered those hard times of coups d’état when they took place. deaths and suffering, many of us had never experienced a coup d’état, which is defined as the sudden and illegal seizure of power by a specific social sector or group, violating constitutional norms and laws that regulate the institutional transmission of power; Yes, there were social upheavals, such as Black October, the water war, marches and blockades due to changes to the penal code, and in 2019, when the entire country experienced complicated times, moments of joy because a tyrant had resigned, moments of anxiety and anguish due to clashes between Bolivians.

Almost five years have passed since that great citizen demonstration due to the fraud and the attempt at chaos and ungovernability caused by someone who today wants to qualify (re re re) again to run as a presidential candidate, and one of his close friends, today apparently an archenemy, is the president of Bolivia, Mr. Luis Arce Catacora, who supposedly carried out a self-coup to take a mass bath and increase his popularity, according to General Zúñiga.

Whoever governs today wanted to paint himself as the savior of democracy and tirelessly repeat that we are very well, that there are dollars, that there is no inflation and that the people support him and are calm, a situation very far from reality, in which not only the people He lives day to day with many worries, mainly due to economic issues.

People have also been spectators of a tragicomedy, in which the president, smiling, changes to the military high command, where an alleged coup plotter argues without being detained with the first president at the door of the Quemado Palace, and where strangely and prior to what described, a minister without a bulletproof vest orders, by knocking on the window of a tank, that the military “coup leader” get off the motor vehicle.

Aren’t the blows surprising? Perhaps after the presence of the military, individuals magically appear who, in addition to shouting defending democracy, shout: “I fight, you are not alone”?; And the rest of the population? Those families who had children at school or university at that time? And the workers who simply go out to find bread?

The Government’s lack of empathy with the people is impressive. Bolivia’s first authority has put on a show with the aim of improving its popularity and has only deepened the people’s distrust; If you go to the market and pay more than you paid before for regular consumer products and at the same time you hear on the radio or see on television the president saying that everything is fine and that they are heroes because they have saved the country from whom He was his boss and promoter of the “process of change” and the social, economic and productive economic model; All of this simply outrages the Bolivian citizen.

Congested streets, passing public transportation, many people walking trying to reach their destination, with simultaneous information that was reviewed by citizens on their cell phones, listening to the radio on public and private transportation, following up on what they were doing. was happening, the anguish and distrust in relation to fuel shortages and the withholding of funds from savings banks, caused people to queue at service stations, queues at ATMs and a feeling of anguish, a concern that added to what The mental health of the population is already compromised.

Whether we like it or not, the lack of tranquility in economic and social terms influences the mental state of people, as triggers or part of the sum that ends in violent events, and in crises not only the measurable or palpable one such as the economic crisis, but also an anxiety or depression crisis that translates into a highly vulnerable social climate.

The story of the lying shepherd, who says that the wolf is coming when it is not, and when in reality the wolf attacks the sheep, no one pays attention to his call, can occur in a context where there is more distrust and where crises of all kinds are not surpassed.

Cecilia Vargas is a doctor.

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