Peru - Lonely Planet Publications [27]
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Afro-Peruvians, Asians and other immigrant groups are also represented, but cumulatively make up only 3% of the population. Among the elite, retrograde ideas about race persist. Nonwhite people are often discriminated against, especially in Lima’s upmarket bars, nightclubs and discos.
More than a quarter of all Peruvians – mostly indígenas – live in rural settings, surviving from subsistence farming or working as laborers. This statistic represents a shift from the 1960s, when more than half of the population lived in the countryside. The turmoil of the 1980s helped fuel an exodus from the highlands to the cities, which taxed overburdened municipal infrastructures, particularly in the capital. Issues of effective sanitation and electrification remain challenges for some informal squatter settlements known as pueblos jovenes (young towns). Moreover, life doesn’t always get better for people who move to the cities. Though the national unemployment rate is officially 8.4%, underemployment is rampant – especially in Lima, with some experts estimating that more than half of the city’s residents are underemployed.
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One of the few works by Julio Ramón Ribeyro available in translation, Chronicle of San Gabriel is a poignant tale of a young man from Lima who goes to live with his frayed, extended family at a highland ranch.
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MEDIA
The situation for the working press has improved greatly since the 1980s, when civil strife resulted in the deaths of both foreign and domestic journalists. But Alberto Fujimori’s regime still casts a shadow over the industry: his administration was renowned for spying on opposition journalists and bribing broadcasters for favorable coverage. Though things have improved, first under Toledo, and then under Alan García, free expression has its limits. Television and radio stations critical of government policy are often shut down for procedural reasons, such as expired licenses. In June 2009, for example, a broadcaster in Bagua was shut down on a technicality following the area’s violent protests against the development of Amazonian lands. (The government accused the station of inciting riots. The station’s management responded that they simply aired interviews with individuals who had witnessed the clashes.) In addition, the government owns two TV networks, a radio station and a print news agency (Andina) – which means that it has a strong role in shaping the news.
Working conditions are most difficult for journalists who work in the provinces, with physical aggression and death threats (from private interests, government officials and drug traffickers) being the most common problems, according to Freedom House, an international nonprofit that monitors press freedoms.
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RELIGION
Though there is widespread freedom of religion, Peru remains largely Roman Catholic. More than 81% of the population identifies as such (though only 15% of them attend services on a weekly basis). The Church enjoys support from the state: it has a largely tax-exempt status and Catholicism is the official religion of the military. Moreover, all of the Church’s bishops, and up to an eighth of its overall clergy, receive monthly government stipends. This has generated outcries from some evangelical groups that do not receive the same generous treatment. Even so, evangelicals and other Protestants are a growing force, representing up to 13% of the nation’s population.
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It was a Peruvian priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez, who first articulated the principles of liberation theology – the theory that links Christian thought to social justice – in 1971. He now teaches in the United States.
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Indigenous people have largely adapted Catholic deities to their own beliefs. Viracocha (the creator) is symbolized by the Christian God, while Pachamama (the earth mother) is represented by the Virgin Mary. Indigenous festivities that are