Latin America is very angry. In Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, there are a plethora of protests for lack the of democracy; in Chile, Ecuador, and Haiti, there are protests due to the lack of opportunities and greater equality. Meanwhile, Argentina returns to the Peronist-Kirchnerist left, and Mexico does not see the exit to the growing spiral of narco-violence.
Latin America's rich and not-so-rich are very separated from its many poor and not-so-poor. The sad lesson is that democracy is necessary but not sufficient. From the Colonies to the present day, Latin American economies have been organized for the benefit of a few. After decades of dictatorships and authoritarian governments, many countries — in addition to electing their leaders with votes — expected a time of economic well-being for all. But this majority welfare has still not arrived. The future of Latin America is uncertain. It will always be like this until this changes.
Nevertheless, I am hopeful. I believe the new era of social organization will change the traditional attitude many civilians have towards the social contract. These protests that we are watching unfold are actually the product of the new spaces created by democracy; in the dictatorships of Pinochet, of Videla in Argentina or in Mexico of 1968, citizens were massacred for protesting. Today citizens are no longer afraid. These new spaces are the new forms of social organization that take place thanks to new technologies - from the internet and social networks to the use of cell phones - these tools will hopefully circumvent any attempt at control and censorship. Official press releases have to compete on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook with the fluidity of millions of videos, photos, and texts that contradict them. You can no longer govern if legitimacy and credibility are lost in networks. In my opinion, there is hope for our uncertain future due to an increase in certainty in the networks.
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Monday, November 18, 2019
Short Research and Writing Assignment
First Source: Pereira, A. W. (2018), The US Role in the 1964 Coup in Brazil: A Reassessment. Bull Lat Am Res, 37: 5-17. https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.12518
This article talks about the 1964 coup in Brazil against the elected President João Goulart. As the article stipulates, the role of the US in the coup is well known. There are important books about this, for example, by Parker (2011), and Dreifuss (2006). However, the difference between these books and the article I chose is that Pereira sees the US role in the coup as stemming from the interest of the US capitalist class in inhibiting autonomous, nationalist industrialization in Brazil. In this reading, the clash between the US and the Goulart government was inevitable and driven by the increasing lack of complementarity between the two national economies, once Brazil began to industrialize in the mid‐twentieth century. For Pereira, the Kennedy administration joined the opposition and showed a predisposition to depose, Goulart well before 1963. Thus, the economic interests of imperialistic US corporations made the US government's opposition to Goulart inevitable.
Specifically, Pereira mentions two main factors drove a wedge between these two nations. Firstly, the US was engaged in the process of preventive counter‐revolution on a world scale that made a clash with Goulart inevitable. This is because Goulart's ideologies were primarily influenced by communist ideas. For example, the US objected to his left-wing tendencies, and his willingness to seek closer relations with Communist countries. Secondly, Pereira states that Goulart's nationalist policies such as the agrarian reform and the nationalization of oil caused the US support for the coup as stemming inevitably from US capitalists' desire to stifle autonomous economic development in Brazil.
Second Source: Smith, R. (1980). Intervention, Revolution, and Politics in Cuba, 1913-1921. doi:10.2307/981068
This book analyzes eight years of international relations between the US and Cuba. Smith proposes a study on the various economic, political, and diplomatic methods used by the United States government to exert hegemony over Cuba from 1913-1921. In this book, I was particularly moved by Smith's chapter eight, in which he talks about the economic conditions of US-Cuban relations during this time. Specifically, Smith states that the World War curtailed sugar production in Europe, resulting in a boom in sugar production in Cuba and a boom in Cuba's economy. Many Caribbean islands were put into sugar production, and numerous new sugar mills were built, some of them funded by US investors. Smith stipulates very clearly how Cuba's economic well-being and the conditions of these sugar mills were increasingly important for US businesses. So much so, that whenever Cuban politics curtailed the production of sugar, the US did not doubt to intervene in the Cuban political landscape to assure the production of this valuable resource. Thus came the "Sugar Intervention."
The Sugar Intervention refers to the events in Cuba between 1917 and 1922 when the United States Marine Corps was situated on the island. As Smith details, an increase in banditry and illegal sacking of the sugar mills prompted the US to intervene. In August 1917, the US Marines sent the first contingent, consisting of under 1000 American Marines. During the first year of arrival, the US Marines assumed responsibility for the objects of infrastructure related to sugar plantations. This presence of American troops caused anti-American protests, and so, in December 1917, another thousand Marines arrived. The primary focus of these troops was to perform patrols of the Cuban sugar mills to ensure their safety and make sure that these sugar production sites are safe to operate. As Smith argues, these measures imposed by the Marines worked since, in 1918, partially as a result of the actions undertaken, Cuba produced a record sugar harvest. Although disturbances continued in the cities throughout 1918, the US's answer to these protests was to simply send more marine troops to the island. By the end of the 1920s, there were around 8,000 naval troops in Cuba.
This article talks about the 1964 coup in Brazil against the elected President João Goulart. As the article stipulates, the role of the US in the coup is well known. There are important books about this, for example, by Parker (2011), and Dreifuss (2006). However, the difference between these books and the article I chose is that Pereira sees the US role in the coup as stemming from the interest of the US capitalist class in inhibiting autonomous, nationalist industrialization in Brazil. In this reading, the clash between the US and the Goulart government was inevitable and driven by the increasing lack of complementarity between the two national economies, once Brazil began to industrialize in the mid‐twentieth century. For Pereira, the Kennedy administration joined the opposition and showed a predisposition to depose, Goulart well before 1963. Thus, the economic interests of imperialistic US corporations made the US government's opposition to Goulart inevitable.
Specifically, Pereira mentions two main factors drove a wedge between these two nations. Firstly, the US was engaged in the process of preventive counter‐revolution on a world scale that made a clash with Goulart inevitable. This is because Goulart's ideologies were primarily influenced by communist ideas. For example, the US objected to his left-wing tendencies, and his willingness to seek closer relations with Communist countries. Secondly, Pereira states that Goulart's nationalist policies such as the agrarian reform and the nationalization of oil caused the US support for the coup as stemming inevitably from US capitalists' desire to stifle autonomous economic development in Brazil.
Second Source: Smith, R. (1980). Intervention, Revolution, and Politics in Cuba, 1913-1921. doi:10.2307/981068
This book analyzes eight years of international relations between the US and Cuba. Smith proposes a study on the various economic, political, and diplomatic methods used by the United States government to exert hegemony over Cuba from 1913-1921. In this book, I was particularly moved by Smith's chapter eight, in which he talks about the economic conditions of US-Cuban relations during this time. Specifically, Smith states that the World War curtailed sugar production in Europe, resulting in a boom in sugar production in Cuba and a boom in Cuba's economy. Many Caribbean islands were put into sugar production, and numerous new sugar mills were built, some of them funded by US investors. Smith stipulates very clearly how Cuba's economic well-being and the conditions of these sugar mills were increasingly important for US businesses. So much so, that whenever Cuban politics curtailed the production of sugar, the US did not doubt to intervene in the Cuban political landscape to assure the production of this valuable resource. Thus came the "Sugar Intervention."
The Sugar Intervention refers to the events in Cuba between 1917 and 1922 when the United States Marine Corps was situated on the island. As Smith details, an increase in banditry and illegal sacking of the sugar mills prompted the US to intervene. In August 1917, the US Marines sent the first contingent, consisting of under 1000 American Marines. During the first year of arrival, the US Marines assumed responsibility for the objects of infrastructure related to sugar plantations. This presence of American troops caused anti-American protests, and so, in December 1917, another thousand Marines arrived. The primary focus of these troops was to perform patrols of the Cuban sugar mills to ensure their safety and make sure that these sugar production sites are safe to operate. As Smith argues, these measures imposed by the Marines worked since, in 1918, partially as a result of the actions undertaken, Cuba produced a record sugar harvest. Although disturbances continued in the cities throughout 1918, the US's answer to these protests was to simply send more marine troops to the island. By the end of the 1920s, there were around 8,000 naval troops in Cuba.
Monday, November 4, 2019
Blog Post #12: Week 12
For this week's blog post, I wanted to learn more about Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, which was one of the videos assigned for the week. In this blog, I provide a brief overview of what they have done and how they arose as one of the most important movements in Latin America.
The motivations for the movement started on March 24, 1976. On this day, Armed Forces seized power in Argentina through a coup d'etat. The military regime, which called itself the "National Reorganization Process," disappeared 30,000 people of all ages and social conditions. Hundreds of babies were kidnapped with their parents or born during the care of their pregnant mothers.
In many detention centers of the dictatorship, there were real clandestine maternity homes, even with lists of marriages waiting for a birth, and the 500 missing children were affected as "spoils of war ”by the forces of repression. Some children were delivered directly to military families, others abandoned in institutes such as NN, others sold. In all cases, they were annulled of their identity and deprived of living with their legitimate families.
Among their many achievements, one of their main contributions was in the type of DNA research. Until 1983 to know the identity of a child one had to analyze the blood of his parents. Thanks to the Grandmothers, science discovered that the blood of grandparents was enough; It was the so-called "grandfather index" and its 99.9% certainty is legal proof of affiliation.
Nothing and no one stopped the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo to look for their children's children. Detective tasks alternated with days visits to orphanages, or public offices while investigating adoptions of the time. The Grandmothers are still looking for their grandchildren, now adults, but also their great-grandchildren. The movement transcended political ideologies and it showed the devastating effects of political turmoil in a country.
The motivations for the movement started on March 24, 1976. On this day, Armed Forces seized power in Argentina through a coup d'etat. The military regime, which called itself the "National Reorganization Process," disappeared 30,000 people of all ages and social conditions. Hundreds of babies were kidnapped with their parents or born during the care of their pregnant mothers.
In many detention centers of the dictatorship, there were real clandestine maternity homes, even with lists of marriages waiting for a birth, and the 500 missing children were affected as "spoils of war ”by the forces of repression. Some children were delivered directly to military families, others abandoned in institutes such as NN, others sold. In all cases, they were annulled of their identity and deprived of living with their legitimate families.
Among their many achievements, one of their main contributions was in the type of DNA research. Until 1983 to know the identity of a child one had to analyze the blood of his parents. Thanks to the Grandmothers, science discovered that the blood of grandparents was enough; It was the so-called "grandfather index" and its 99.9% certainty is legal proof of affiliation.
Nothing and no one stopped the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo to look for their children's children. Detective tasks alternated with days visits to orphanages, or public offices while investigating adoptions of the time. The Grandmothers are still looking for their grandchildren, now adults, but also their great-grandchildren. The movement transcended political ideologies and it showed the devastating effects of political turmoil in a country.
Blog Post #11: Week 11
For this week's blog post, I want to discuss one of the movements of terror that Dawson elucidates in his book. Namely, Abimael Guzman and his movement of El Sendero Luminoso. In this blog post, I want to explain their principal beliefs, alongside a brief historical overview of the movement.
The objective of the Shining Path, in principle, was to carry out the revolution through armed struggle and to position the countryside as the most important aspect of the country (the city as complimentary). Also, another of his goals was to replace the selected bourgeois institutions or entities with other organizations representing the countryside revolution, something very similar to what Mao did in China. However, the political guidelines of the Shining Path are based on the political positions proposed by Marx, Lenin, and Mao, which expose the various guidelines that characterize communism and socialism as the best political, philosophical, economic and moral tendency to put into practice.
I was able to pinpoint what Guzman tried to adopt from each ideology below:
The objective of the Shining Path, in principle, was to carry out the revolution through armed struggle and to position the countryside as the most important aspect of the country (the city as complimentary). Also, another of his goals was to replace the selected bourgeois institutions or entities with other organizations representing the countryside revolution, something very similar to what Mao did in China. However, the political guidelines of the Shining Path are based on the political positions proposed by Marx, Lenin, and Mao, which expose the various guidelines that characterize communism and socialism as the best political, philosophical, economic and moral tendency to put into practice.
I was able to pinpoint what Guzman tried to adopt from each ideology below:
- From Marxism, the Shining Path adopts the position that the peasants and all those who live in rural areas and the proletariat are those who must fight against those who consider themselves capitalists, or exploiters.
- From the Leninist position, as a model of Russian communism, the members of the organization took the idea to impose, through force and arms, their power over all people and in all possible spaces that were under their control.
- From the Maoist thought, the organization adopted the idea that the main actors of the revolution and changes that they wanted to impose in Peru, must be effected by the peasant population and the proletariat through violent acts.
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Blog Post #10: Week 10
In today's blog post I wanted to learn more about the origin and main characteristics of Peronism to better understand Evita's reading. Here is what I found:
Peronism firstly began as a movement in the 1940s, when Juan Domingo Perón, being a colonel, began his participation in Argentine public life. He began being in charge of the secretary of labor and forecasting, where he did a job with the workers that quickly increased his popularity, climbing positions in the government. The Argentine government started to worry about Peron's relationship with the unions so he was imprisoned by the Farrell dictatorship on October 13, 1945.
The birth of Peronism dates back to October 17, 1945, when a popular demonstration in Buenos Aires demanded his release from prison, after which he became the most relevant political figure of the moment. Thanks to several actions he took during this period: such as social insurance that benefited 2 million workers, creation of labor courts that tended to support workers, salary improvements, recognition of professional and union associations and the establishment of the minimum wage.
So we can see that the main characteristics of Peronism tend to favor the working class. Namely, we can list out the main characteristics like so:
Peronism firstly began as a movement in the 1940s, when Juan Domingo Perón, being a colonel, began his participation in Argentine public life. He began being in charge of the secretary of labor and forecasting, where he did a job with the workers that quickly increased his popularity, climbing positions in the government. The Argentine government started to worry about Peron's relationship with the unions so he was imprisoned by the Farrell dictatorship on October 13, 1945.
The birth of Peronism dates back to October 17, 1945, when a popular demonstration in Buenos Aires demanded his release from prison, after which he became the most relevant political figure of the moment. Thanks to several actions he took during this period: such as social insurance that benefited 2 million workers, creation of labor courts that tended to support workers, salary improvements, recognition of professional and union associations and the establishment of the minimum wage.
So we can see that the main characteristics of Peronism tend to favor the working class. Namely, we can list out the main characteristics like so:
- Opposition to imperialist policies: Promoting local solutions to the problems without international support of large economies.
- Labor rights claim - Concern for job creation and adequate conditions for workers. Since its inception, the payment of bonuses, workers' compensation for accidents at work, labor rights for women, among others, was promulgated.
- Defense of national interests: Increasing the sense of sovereignty and care of national identity.
- Protective state: Generate social benefits, especially for the neediest lower classes.
- Nationalization of public services: such as electricity, gas, water, transport and rail networks, with a tendency to subsidies to reduce the impact of the actual costs of setting up and maintaining these services.
- Promote national industry, stimulation of domestic consumption and self-supply
Blog Post #9: Week 9
This week we had to read about Augusto Sandino, a figure I did not know much about. Thus, I went ahead and investigated a bit about his life and craft a biography of sorts. Here is what I found:
Sandino was a Nicaraguan guerrilla leader who tenaciously fought against the US occupation and intervention until he forced the United States to withdraw his troops from Nicaragua. After his murder at the hands of the then head of the National Guard, Anastasio Somoza, Sandino became the ideological reference of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and the revolution promoted by this movement that, years later, would end the dictatorship somocista. Thus, we're talking about one of the most central figures of the country of Nicaragua.
Of very humble origin, Augusto Sandino worked as a miner in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Mexico. In 1926 he returned to his country, occupied since 1916 by US troops defending the interests of fruit companies in the United States. He opted to defend national autonomy, affected by the Bryan-Chamorro agreement and the signing of the Stimpson-Moncada treaty, so he assembled a group of guerrillas and raised arms.
For six years Sandino fought against the troops of different governments supported by the United States, at the end of which he had managed to gather around three thousand men around him and had won popular admiration. Organized under his command, the rebel guerrilla took refuge in the jungles of Nueva Segovia, where he became practically invincible.
However, his political prestige continued to be a threat to the country's leaders, so, after accepting an invitation to go to the presidential palace, he was ambushed and killed by Anastasio Somoza, head of the National Guard and nephew of former President José María Moncada.
However, as per usual, ideas don't die when the one that starts them dies. The death of the leader did not mean the disappearance of his movement, and his name went on to embody the liberation struggle of Nicaragua. The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), a political alignment created in 1962, established itself as a continuation of Sandino's ideology and focused its sights on the overthrow of the Somoza through armed struggle, an objective that he would achieve many years later (in 1979) force the fall of President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, son of Anastasio Somoza.
Sandino was a Nicaraguan guerrilla leader who tenaciously fought against the US occupation and intervention until he forced the United States to withdraw his troops from Nicaragua. After his murder at the hands of the then head of the National Guard, Anastasio Somoza, Sandino became the ideological reference of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and the revolution promoted by this movement that, years later, would end the dictatorship somocista. Thus, we're talking about one of the most central figures of the country of Nicaragua.
Of very humble origin, Augusto Sandino worked as a miner in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Mexico. In 1926 he returned to his country, occupied since 1916 by US troops defending the interests of fruit companies in the United States. He opted to defend national autonomy, affected by the Bryan-Chamorro agreement and the signing of the Stimpson-Moncada treaty, so he assembled a group of guerrillas and raised arms.
For six years Sandino fought against the troops of different governments supported by the United States, at the end of which he had managed to gather around three thousand men around him and had won popular admiration. Organized under his command, the rebel guerrilla took refuge in the jungles of Nueva Segovia, where he became practically invincible.
However, his political prestige continued to be a threat to the country's leaders, so, after accepting an invitation to go to the presidential palace, he was ambushed and killed by Anastasio Somoza, head of the National Guard and nephew of former President José María Moncada.
However, as per usual, ideas don't die when the one that starts them dies. The death of the leader did not mean the disappearance of his movement, and his name went on to embody the liberation struggle of Nicaragua. The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), a political alignment created in 1962, established itself as a continuation of Sandino's ideology and focused its sights on the overthrow of the Somoza through armed struggle, an objective that he would achieve many years later (in 1979) force the fall of President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, son of Anastasio Somoza.
Blog Post #8: Week 8
Throughout history, there are several works of literature that can guide us and help us to understand in a very exhaustive way a certain era of the unique history of our world. Sometimes and in various contexts it may be that the pen and the inkwell, when accompanied by a current mind and a surface on which the owner of that clever and perceptive mind can write, are the most useful tools for painting a historical moment. Surely, the outstanding poem A Roosevelt by Nicaraguan Rubén Darío written in 1904 is a good example of this phenomenon, as it allows the reader to perceive the acute feelings of Latin Americans more than a century ago during the summit of the era of US imperialism in American continent.
Written in the early twentieth century during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, this poem can be seen primarily as a social order text and in addition to a strong denunciation against the continued interference of the United States government in national matters concerning Latin American countries , particularly from the Caribbean. The United States, which is described by the poem as a powerful but unjust entity that continues to carry out its interventionist and selfish policies, is represented by the unpopular and imposing figure of Theodore Roosevelt - its imperialist president at that time that had already harmed and considerably dismissed the Latin American people and lands during his presidency.
Undoubtedly, this work forms an essential and valuable part of the historical complex not only of Latin America but of the whole world, and that is why it is worth reading and analyzing it. In addition, despite the fact that it is often despised by many people, this poem continues with the tradition of literature that has a truly significant impact on history and even today to better understand the events of our past
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