Luisa Valenzuela has an interesting editorial in the New York Times.
THE fervent welcome that greeted President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela during his visit to Argentina a week ago was inexplicable to some Argentines and left others indignant. Many here tend to mistrust populism and demagoguery, finding them redolent of Peronism. But even among the wary, a window of hope has opened, with Mr. Chávez as its symbol.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since Juan Perón’s time. And it was the expansive waters of our own broad river that defined the vectors of force last weekend. For once, the tensions in the American hemisphere flowed on an east-west axis along the Río de la Plata — which means “River of Silver” and by extension, very appropriately in this case, “River of Money.”
The struggle was about energy, both concrete and metaphorical, and equally combustible in both forms. Across the river in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, the presence of President George W. Bush caused red-hot passions to flare, along with sizable protests like those he faced in Brazil. In Buenos Aires, my city, on the opposite bank of that river of money, red abounded as well, though in our case it had a very different connotation. Red was the color of President Chávez’s jacket and of many of the flags brought by the masses who flooded into a stadium to hear the president of Venezuela speak.
Unlike the homogenous rallies of Peronist times, the 30,000 people in this crowd came from very diverse backgrounds. In Argentina, the economic crisis of December 2001 significantly altered not only our social dynamic but our semantics. We no longer talk about the “pueblo” — which means town or village as well as people. Now we talk about the “gente,” which also means people, but with a different nuance, derived as it is from the Latin gens meaning race, clan or breed.
The new vocabulary transcends distinctions of class: the middle classes have now merged with the poor to demand their rights. Hence many students and professionals were in attendance that day, not necessarily attracted by the figure of President Chávez himself so much as by the anti-imperialist opportunity he symbolized. We Argentines, who once imagined ourselves more sophisticated, or more European, than the citizens of neighboring states, were brought closer to the rest of the continent by our impoverishment, and we find ourselves more open to the idea of pan-Latin American solidarity.
Perhaps last week’s crowd also recognized the part that President Chávez’s monetary aid played in our recuperation of that illusion known as “national identity.” For Argentina had virtually disappeared as an autonomous country during the presidency of Carlos Menem from 1989 to 1999, the era of our “carnal relations” with the United States, which took the form of spurious privatizations and a fictitious exchange rate.
While many in Argentina would, nevertheless, not hesitate to call the Venezuelan president a clown or a madman, it’s worth keeping in mind that a very heady dose of megalomania is a prerequisite for even dreaming of confronting a rival as overwhelmingly powerful as the United States — which is also led by a president viewed, in many quarters, as a clown and a madman.
Read the rest. It’s not surprising, given our history, but it still sad to see Hugo Chavez embraced because he offers hope against the oppressive hegemony of the United States. It doesn’t really have to do with Mr. Chavez, who is neither as bad as our government and media would have you believe, nor as innocuous or heroic as his supporters suggest. What’s sad is that a continent could define itself so much by their ability or inability to throw off our yoke and finds wings to fly on their own. This development in not all George W. Bush’s fault. But it has certainly developed to this current pass in the context of Bush’s presidency.
Partly, this is a result of America’s neglect, which should be viewed, historically speaking, as a somewhat benign or even opportunity creating development. Latin America has been able to move forward, or back, during the Bush years, without any CIA backed coups (2002 Venezuela and 2006 Mexican elections possibly excepted), Operation Condors, or Contra Wars.
Perhaps a positive can come out of this and America can develop a more healthy and reciprocal relationship with its southern neighbors. And maybe, one day soon, Latin America won’t define itself so closely by its ability to defy the United States…and maybe we will be worthy of their trust and friendship.
