I wanted to use my platform to discuss some of the beautiful literature from Latin America, that characterise the cultural differences but also harsh realities that people live with on a daily basis.
The first piece of literature I would like to discuss is written by Eduardo Galeano, a famous author from Uruguay. “Open Veins of Latin America” (1970s) critically reflects on the discourse regarding colonialism. (This was part of an assignment for Technologico de Monterrey)
The Untold Story
Mexico was part officially part of Spain from 1521 until the Independence in 1821. The effects of colonialism not only on Mexico, but all of Latin America, are still very much present in today’s society. How did this system come about:
The Conquest
The Spanish in fact conquered all of Latin America in a rather short period of time. How were they able to do this, wipe out entire empires that had survived and thrived for over centuries? According to Galeano there are a few reasons for this: First, the Spanish had many advantages in weaponry: they came with horses and canons loaded with gunpowder.
“The unequal development of the two world explains the relative ease with which native civilizations succumbed”
The native population of Latin America was scared, having never seen such inventions. In Mexico, there were rumours of the return of Quetzalcoatl (a god with blond hair).
“He was very alarmed by the report of how the cannon exploded, how its thunder reverberated, and how it filled one with awe and stunned one’s ears. And when it went off, a sort of stone hail came from its entrails and it rained fire.” The strangers sat on “deer as high as the rooftops.” Their bodies were completely covered, “only their faces can be seen. They are white, as if made of lime. They have yellow hair, although some have black. Long are their beards.”
Moreover, Galeano mentions the following:
“The conquistadors also practiced the arts of treachery and intrigue with refined expertise.”
The Spanish were especially smart when it came to strategy, they used internal enemies to fight off tribes that were too difficult to defeat on their own. It is important to say that without Mexican indigenous soldiers joining the Spanish during some battles, they would not have been very successful against some of the empires that existed at the time.
Lastly:
“Bacteria and viruses were the most effective allies”
Above all, Galeano recognises the power of biological warfare. The Europeans brought with them a large variety of diseases: measles, the plague, typhus, smallpox, tetanus etc. Diseases led to the decimation of native population (you have to understand an estimated 70% of the Latin American population died)
“The Indians died like flies; their organisms had no defense against the new diseases. Those who survived were feeble and useless.”
Discourse: Civilise the Savages
“Latin America seemed like another invention to be incorporated along with gun powder, printing, paper, and the compass, in the bubbling birth of the Modern Age”
Important is to consider the discourse at that time in Europe. During that time people thought that the rest of the world consisted of savages, and it was their “religious duty” to civilise the savages, bring them religion, art and modernity.
As an example: Religion played a huge role in legalising slavery.
The Pope declared that before each military action the captains of the conquest had to read out a long and rhetorical Requerimiento (without interpreter). If this was done in front of a notary public, and they did not adopt Christianity (not understanding what was being said to them), enslaving them would be legal.
Part of the Requerimiento:
“If you do not, or if you maliciously delay in so doing, I certify that with God’s help I will advance powerfully against you and make war on you wherever and however I am able, and will subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of their majesties and take your women and children to be slaves, and as such I will sell and dispose of them as their majesties may order, and I will take your possessions and do you all the harm and damage that I can.”
For Galeano, What is Latin America’s relationship to Europe?
Galeano uses an important metaphor in his text under the heading: “The distribution of functions between horseman and horse”.
The following passage describes this metaphor very well:
“The resources flowed out so that emergent European nations across the ocean could accumulate them. This was the basic mission of the pioneers, although they applied the Bible almost as often as the whip to the dying Indians. The Spanish colonies’ economic structure was born subordinated to the external market and was thus centralized around the export sector, where profit and power were concentrated.
The international division of labor, as it emerged along with capitalism, resembled the distribution of function between a horseman and a horse. The markets of the colonial world grew as mere appendices to the internal market of invading capitalism.”
At the time European nations needed more and more metals, however there was little available in Europe. Instead, they searched for other land in which they could exploit metals to use for the growing internal demand. It was never the plan to necessarily move to this “new land” but rather exploit it. The people native to the “new land” were almost not considered human. It was a big question at the time whether they even had a soul or not. Therefore, exploiting them was never seen as a problem or violation.
Even after the Independence, most of Mexican land was owned by foreign investors. This brings us to the final part of Galeano’s book:
Have power dynamics shifted in modern Latin America?
Despite most of Galeano’s book discussing the distant past, he finishes his novel with a passage explaining modern power dynamics between Latin America and the United States.
He argues that although the products of transport have changed, the power dynamic is still very much present.
First, he discusses the heavy influence of the US in Latin American politics
“Recently official admissions of U.S. responsibility for various disasters have multiplied. Full public confessions have proved among other things that the U.S. government directly participated in Chilean politics by bribery, espionage, and blackmail.”
Secondly, he discusses the skewed trade divisions, by focussing on Haiti as an example:
“For internal consumption the barren mountain sides are cultivated. For export, the fertile valleys: the best lands are given to coffee, sugar, cacao, and other products needed by the U.S. market. No one plays baseball in Haiti, but Haiti is the world’s chief producer of baseballs. There is no shortage of workshops where children assemble cassettes and electronic parts for a dollar a day. These are naturally for export; and naturally the profits are also exported, after the administrators of the terror have duly got theirs.”
Also poverty is pointed out to increase this skewed relationship:
“Massive poverty, the key to success for an economy skewed to the outside, prevents such growth of the internal consumer market as is necessary for smooth economic development. Our countries are becoming echoes and losing their own voice. They depend on others, they exist to the extent that they respond to others’ needs. And in turn the remodeling of the economy as a function of external demand brings us back to the original hangman’s rope: it opens the doors for pillage by foreign monopolies and forces us to seek new and larger loans from the international bankers. The vicious circle is perfect: foreign debt and foreign investment oblige us to multiply exports that they themselves devour. The task can’t be accomplished with gentlemanly matters. To fulfill their function as hostages of foreign prosperity, Latin American workers must be held prisoner, either inside or outside the bars of the jails.”
In conclusion:
Today the slavers operate from the ministries of labor, African wages, European prices. Although times have changed, the inequality has not, according to Galeano.
Latin America’s underdevelopment arises from external development, and continues to feed it. A system made impotent by its function of international servitude, and moribund since birth, has feet of clay. It pretends to be destiny and would like to be thought eternal.
An Exchange Experience: Mexico 