Neither Peace Nor Freedom
Ingredients:
1. CCF (or Congress of Cultural Freedom)
2. WPC (World Peace Council)
3. Well-defined and preferably strong plot device
4. Rigorousness defined archives for re-examination
5. MLN, Mexican support for Cuba (doesn’t have to be strong, it will still satisfy Cuba and revolutionaries at home)
6. Any revolutionary projects that may be lying around

Instructions:
1. Graft global tensions onto existing struggles in Latin America, remembering that this recipe is ultimately a struggle for ideas.
2. Set aside your Mexican support for Communist Cuba and let it simmer on low heat while you prepare the rest.
3. Agitate the WPC until it becomes thick and frothy- you’re going to want to see the various leftist factions splinter off and form their own little bubbles.
4. Note that before you even started this recipe, Leon Trotsky and Victor Serge, among other European intellectuals, have been long since arrived in Mexico, rendering your battle of ideas all the more stronger.
5. As the mix reaches 1950 or so, notice that the CCF and WPC will begin using similar tactics and become more liquid. You should now see that these two ingredients (which have been used throughout Latin America) have such loosely defined flavours that they will at times be indistinguishable from one another.
6. As repressive views of humanism spread by about the 1960 mark, you will see revolutionary projects come to be defined on the basis of liberty. Ignore these.
7. Let local tensions simmer for they can be exploited later on by adding in some of your CCF, WPC mix
8. As you approach the 1970 mark, you may become disenfranchised with your recipe at this point. This is normal. CIA infiltration of the mix can lead to a souring, while public shaming of national poets will make you wonder whether freedom will truly be achieved in this recipe at all.
9. As the mix comes to an end (or at least the end of what you’re willing to periodize), several chickens will come home to roost and you will begin to see authoritarianism that has long been simmering, all but take over as the major flavour, rendering the CCF and WPC flavours inconsequential.

Notes: Iber prepares this recipe with much zeal for the inner politics of public intellectuals and ideas that have been fomenting for decades but importantly leaves out some of the local agency and other actors that I think make this recipe much more palatable. While not used here explicitly, consider adding social history too add complexity and nuance. Ultimately this recipe is one that will satisfy but may leave questions about to what extent a long standing international left-wing war can be extended.

The Last Colonial Massacre
Ingredients:
1. Clearly stated, contained goal
2. Personal stories of state terror
3. Long threads of cultural and political threads
4. Horrifying oppressive terror tactics used in the name of liberty
5. Marxism
6. Local beliefs
7. Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT)
8. Gabriel Garcia Marquez acceptance speech (for who indeed do we celebrate and remember?)

Instructions:

1. Mix in a steady amount of conventional means of rendering lives believable whilst allowing traditional recipe to rise.
2. Stir in the PGT to the Marxism and begin to see the meaningful changes it makes to local communities. Where exploitative tactics had become the norm, you will now see communities become organized as their condition is aided by the arrival of the PGT.
3. At this point, the United States will intervene, at least to some degree, in fear that social democratic change, even though close to perhaps what the US would like to see in Latin America, is too aligned with Communism and therefore a threat to stability and US hegemony in the area.
4. As the recipe begins to take on it’s new PGT/local belief stewing, changes to rural life and concepts of modernization will begin to reveal themselves. Add in the personal accounts of oppressive labour practices.
5. With the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz, extreme violence will begin to permeate throughout, shattering any semblance of peaceful political transition.
6. Separate the Communists into the armed left and popular reform. Note the similarity to the Iber recipe.
7. As males become the targets of political violence, space will open up for women’s involvement, making important political gains in the patriarchal political movements, while also now opening them up to be the focus of state violence.
8. At this point, you will see that all of these ingredients have combined to make a recipe that is quite a bit different, or at least unfinished, than the one that was originally stated. While certainly the last colonial massacre, US involvement has been more implied than fully demonstrated, and in fact somewhat negated by the Carter administrations admonishment of extreme violence. Perhaps greater focus next time on tying back in inflamed and exploited Cold War ideologies will allow for the personal stories to really shine through.

Notes: Grandin prefers to highlight historical irony in this recipe, where the land reforms of the left (or something like them) where actually achieved by a shockingly violent attempt to win social support. For Grandin’s recipe, actual firsthand accounts bring this recipe to life, allowing for a much deeper understanding of cultural history. While Grandin generally mentions US backing of state terror in Guatemala, it only figures heavily in his argument, rather than the body of this recipe. In fact, it may well have been that US intervention in Guatemala is inadvertently sidelined by the intense focus on Cold War terror that seemed to be more about grafting in Cold War ideologies onto local tensions.

Cultural History Stew

Ingredients: (of your own choosing)

1. Choose cultural through-line like labour organizations, CIA funded operatives, or public intellectuals
2. One giant helping of political history (defined here as the politics of cultural ideas?)
3. Personal accounts and local beliefs, which may well serve to better define culture than political organization

Steps

1. When does cultural history begin and when does social history begin? Substitute the CCF for CIA operatives (or any other loosely affiliated group) and mix well. Result may vary.
2. Find your leftist radicals and stir until there is little differentiation between them.
3. Fall down a hole of does society inform culture or does culture inform society.
4. Settle on a loose definition that is perhaps not broadly understood as unanimous but incorporates all of the above elements, with a focus towards trends.

***Some of this conversation is imagined, some of it was had with a 4 year old and some with an 11 year old, so we’ll just pretend that averages out to a five year old***

“I want a story-read this one.”
“The frog the blue truck? We’ve read this one a thousand times.”
“Do the voices.”
“Why don’t we read this one instead? ‘Beyond the Eagle’s Shadow. Sounds exciting, right?”
“Is it about animals?”
“Not really, no.”
“I want animals.”
“Okay, can I tell you about it?”
“Are there frogs?”
“No. But I can do voices.”
“Okay. Don’t make it scary though.”
“So. There’s these this place way far away, in the Caribbean…”
“With pirates?!”
“No. Well… no, just let me finish. In the Caribbean, things are different. Very different from how we live here. And long ago, there was something called the Cold War.”
“Was there snow?”
“No. But there was a lot of fighting. But instead of countries going to war, the United States tried to make their friends in other countries do things for them.”
“But where is the eagle?”
“The eagle is the United States. You know when an eagle flies, how you can see it’s shadow on the ground?”
“Yeah.”
“Well that’s like the United States during the Cold War, casting a big shadow over everything, because it was the biggest animal. But this made it afraid to lose the power of being so important, so it started making other people do things for it.”
“So there was no war?”
“There were a lot of smaller wars but they took place in other countries, the United States would just support or try to stop wars from far away. Or they would train people or give them money to fight. But now when we look back at this time, we sometimes forget that there are more stories than just the story of the eagle trying to keep power. We forget about all the other countries and the people in them who were fighting against all kinds of different things.”
“So where is the Cold War?”
“The Cold War is happening everywhere because the eagle, the United States, is afraid of the other big animal… the… bear.”
“Why were they afraid of the bear?”
“Well, because the United States was afraid other countries would no longer be their friend if they were being friends with the bear instead. They had many friends a long time ago but they weren’t always nice to their friends. Especially their friends in the Caribbean.”
“Why weren’t they nice to their friends?”
“Because they wanted things. They wanted their friends to do what they wanted and to take things from them. And because the United States was afraid of other people trying to take things from the Caribbean too, they tried to make sure that every country had a leader who would be friendly to them.”
“Even though they were a bad friend?”
“Even though they were a bad friend. But when we look back at this time, we sometimes only look at the United States, we forget to look at ordinary people. Sometimes we just look at leaders, very powerful people, and we ignore what else is happening. Because ordinary people, like students and farmers, were organizing and getting angry that their leaders weren’t being very good to them. Leaders were taking bribes and not allowing neighborhoods to organize, so people got very upset. This happened in many different countries, and for different reasons. For some, it was about being able to access land, to use it for what they wanted. For others, it was because the leaders in the villages and towns weren’t doing their jobs and just taking a lot of things for themselves. But the United States would see these neighborhoods, these ordinary people, and think that they were organizing against them.”
“But they weren’t being good friends.”
“No, but in a lot of the countries, people had their own things to worry about, not what the United States was worried about. And when we tell this story, and we look at all the little details, all the reasons why people organized and got angry, then the United States and what it was worried about, begins to fade into the background. We almost can’t see it anymore. But it is still there.”
“Like the sun.”
“What?”
“The sun is still there at night, it’s just on the other side of the world. But it doesn’t go away.”
“Sure. I guess you’re right.”

——–

“I have one more story, ‘In From the Cold.'”
“Is it about bad guys?”
“No, it’s about labour rights.”
“Mommy was in labour…”
“No, not like a having a baby, although Castro might have used that metaphor… this story is about workers.”
“Like truck drivers.”
“Sure. Like truck drivers. People who go to work and have problems with how they are treated. And sometimes people stay in their country to work, but sometimes they have to go a long way, like to the USA to work.”
“Like in Disneyland?”
“Yeah, sometimes in Disneyland. But also at stores, farms, all kinds if places. But let’s go back to the king of all the land.”
“The king was bad in the first story.”
“Well the king was very afraid. The king was afraid because all of the people who worked for the kingdom wanted to make a living for themselves but not for the king.”
“But why did they live near the king then.?”
“They didn’t, they lived far far away.”
“How come they didn’t ignore the king?”
“Because even if you lived in a very, very small village, very far away, the king would come and find you. And he would be very angry that you and all the other farmers, or your neighbors, were making a new club. A club that didn’t include the king.”
“But the king was very far away. Why would he be invited to the new club. Maybe it wasn’t for him.”
“Umm. Well the king still cared. He wanted to be in control.”
“Why? He was so far away. Did he even know what was going on?”
“Not really, but he was afraid of what could be going on. He was afraid that the big red dragon was trying to turn all of the villagers against him.”
“What dragon?!”
“Exactly. There was no dragon. But sometimes we believe in things that may not be real but can be very scary. So every time anybody, even students got together and said ‘Hey! We want to do things differently!” the king got very upset.”
“Why? He was so far away? Why not just leave them alone?”
“Well the king was very scared because a lot of tiny villages all together makes a big, big village that has a lot of power.”
“How do farmers have more power than the king?”
“Each farmer, or each teacher, or student, there were many people involved, by themselves didn’t have much power. But together, even if they didn’t talk to each other, or know about each other, were very powerful and dangerous all together.”
“So who wins?”
“Well… nobody wins. The king gets more power by frightening the farmers, teachers, and ordinary people.”
“But why were they afraid?”
“Okay, it wasn’t always the king, it was local interests, it was other kings in those villages who kept people afraid.”
“So it wasn’t the king?”
“The king helped keep people afraid but maybe only a little bit. Maybe not at all. Maybe the king was just shivering in his palace all alone while the villagers tried to live their lives.”
“Did they know about the king? How did they know, if he was so far away?”
“Some of them knew, but in truth, the story says that they were doing their own thing. They were busy. They did not like their neighborhood, that is why they were angry. But to the king, every sign of anger, or unhappiness, was because of him. So ‘In From the Cold’ is about how sometimes there are two stories happening at the same time. One story is what one person thinks is happening, the other story is what the other person thinks is happening. Both can sometimes be true.”
“This story is a lot like the other story.”
“Yes, it is.”
“There were a lot of voices.”