Tag Archives: Barbarims

Week Twelve: “Speaking Truth to Power”

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This week’s reading was centered on the idea that Latin American States are seeing as not strong enough to maintain social order, collect taxes, or even maintain the normal level or political stability which is expected of them. In contrast, strong states are considered robust because they rely relatively little on violence and more on explicit deal-making to maintain order and to get things done. It was because of such weak leadership and the lack of political stability that many Latin American countries advanced towards militarized regimes. Governments such as the Argentine, Chilean, Guatemalan, and Salvadorian, were able to inflict terror upon their citizens and incorporate dehumanizing techniques such as coercion, terror and kidnapping which came from the cold war period. On the other hand, their victims, powerless, found in international allies a much strong support than what they could ever get at home. They also found a language which superseded the one the moment was using and which in a sense gave them strength to keep fighting. Many people with conservative views also thought that, in order to achieve order and prosperity, they needed to allow the government to track down the ‘bad guys’ and put some order in the country. This presumption of vulnerability allowed many of these governments to act with such disregard for the law and the well-being of the citizen that they became some of the most violent regimens at the time.

We also learned about Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, mothers of individuals who were disappeared by the Juntas because of the dissonance with the dictatorships and their political views. These mothers saw to become the voice of desperation at first, but later they begun to politically organize publically on the main squares in Buenos Aires in order to protest for the many abuses that the Argentinian government had committed against their children. Their demand was: their return of their children. This valiant act, allowed to put a face of grieves out in the open, making a stand where many Argentinian people did not want to voice their opinions out in the open. At the same time that, it also helped bring down one of the bloodiest dictatorships that the region had seen in decades. I think that the fear of thinking that chaos and instability was going to reign the streets of the country, many Argentinians wanted to have stability and the middle class and upper class, blamed anyone who did not looked like the typical or average good citizen, so feminist, freedom-fighters, peace lovers, and especially youth were targeted at the main causes of the problem which plagued the country.

The government of Argentina started to track down the Madres because they saw the enemy in them and because, by the time they were politically present in the Buenos Aires, the government could not get rid of them. Just by being vocal about the brutality of the government, and by talking about the loss of their children, many people within the country and internationally, started to pay close attention to the Madres, giving them a political platform from where they could fight back and know about the circumstances in which their loves ones had disappeared. The Argentinian government were conducting civilian executions, torture, extortion, and kidnapping of many citizens whom opposed to what the Junta Militar wanted for the future of the country. In some respect, this week’s reading reminds me of that short story we read, “The slaughterhouse”, in which barbarism versus civilization practices were presented to us also in Argentina. Later on, during the regime, the Argentinian government were being pressured by exterior forces (President Regan, ONGs, France, etc.) to change its aggressive and horrifying coercive measures.

Week Five: “Caudillos versus the Nation State”

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It is clear that right after independence was gained by different countries in Latin America, the ‘caudillo’ figure was born out of necessity. Consequently, this was the care because some political similarities were necessary to maintaining pre-existing colonial ways of managing power relations. I find it interesting to know the story of Santa Anna, Mexico’s first and perhaps most famous caudillo and how he was regard as a hero in good times and as a villain when things went wrong. As I see it, caudillos were important political and military figures that used force to achieve their political goals throughout Latin America. Caudillos had powerful regional power alliances with other less important male caudillos in the country, not only to achieve dominion over vast territories, but also to maintain loyalties as a reciprocity relation with the main caudillo in power. Hence, hierarchical masculinity, commerce interaction, and political control by the use of arms, is what tied together all this new model of governance in the region.

As power struggle goes, I find even more interesting to study how other social groups resisted caudillo forces in Latin America. For example, the book mentions the Argentinian gauchos (cowboys) and their struggle to maintain a regional identity. This is why I’ve always found literary works related to the gauchesco subject and the ‘pampa’ region of Argentina very appealing to read. Indeed, I remember reading “Don Segundo Sombra” and “El gaucho Martin Fierro”, as two great best examples of this type of literature having powerful rebellious figures as protagonists and whom counteracted the authoritarian figures imposed by caudillos like Rosas may have presented at the time. On the other hand, figures like Juan Manuel de Rosas in Argentina can be seen as a mediator for the poor and less political dominant people within the region. In contrast, many other prominent opposition leaders blamed him of being cruel and authoritarian and someone whose political doctrine brought upon Argentinians barbarism forms of governing. On the other hand, Unitarians may have seen to fight such backward measures with a more liberal and progressive forms of governing.

In Esteban Echeverría’s “El Matadero” (the Slaughterhouse), we see a clear division between barbarism versus civilization. On one hand, we have the Nationalist party where Rosas is a leader representing backwardness, inter-racial mixing, and the interface of a conservative catholic charge in governmental affairs. On the other hand, we have the Unitarians who saw themselves in favour of liberal reforms, progress within their countries, but nonetheless, as people who could be unified progressively into one homogenous race of European origin. Likewise, in the “Slaughterhouse”, Echeverria makes many allusions to the bible such as the Great Flood and the crucifixion of Jesus. It is also important to notice that, even though there are some biblical references in the story as a way to criticize the influence capabilities of the Catholic Church in Argentina, one cannot forget how divisive and racist the views of the Unitarians were against blacks, mulatos, and mestizos in the story. People of other races are depicted as barbaric, scavengers, chaotic, almost non-human, to which I do not agree with. Furthermore, I presume that Echeverria’s intention was to represent a precise dark political period of Argentine’s history by showing Rosas as barbaric; however, one must not forget that history has many manifestations and that not all is white and black and that we need to be critical of what we read.