Week Thirteen: Protests in Colombia

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    Protests throughout Colombia began on Thursday November 21st, and continued the next day. They were led by labor unions, and student and indigenous organizations. The were protesting potential changes in minimum wage, tax reforms, and pensions, as well as the privatisation of state companies, alleged corruption, and the government’s supposed failure to follow a peace deal that was made in 2016 with left-wing rebels. Initial reports of the protests were positive, referring to them as “peaceful and joyful”. The article in question (linked below) briefly mentioned that there were a few cases of minor violence, but overall it focused on the good, highlighting the generally calm reaction of police officers to the protest and the fact that some of the protestors in the city of Cali were campaigning against violence. This article was published on the 21st, the day that the protests began. An article published on the 22nd, however, had the opposite focus, only briefly mentioning that the protests were mostly peaceful and then going into detail about the violent exceptions. According to the more recent article, the protests resulted in 3 deaths, 98 arrests, 122 civilian injuries, and 151 security force member injuries. While the first article painted a better picture of relations between the protestors and the police, the second article reported potential police brutality, vandalism by protestors in Cali (the city with “anti-violence” marches), the use of tear gas in the capital city of Bogotá, and a ban on alcohol sales in the capital from Friday to Saturday. Comparing the two articles was interesting, because they gave two completely different impressions of the protests. I think the difference between the articles shows why it is sometimes better to wait a little while before reporting on something rather than trying to get articles out as soon as an event begins. I assume that the earlier article was written before any of the deaths that occurred became public knowledge, or else it likely wouldn’t have brushed off the violence as so minor. While people who follow news closely may like getting reports as soon as events begin, not waiting long enough can mean that you don’t end up telling the whole story, and readers may come away with incorrect or incomplete portrayals of what happened. 

Research Assignment – The Terror

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For our video on The Terror, we are going to be focusing on the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. We will use testimonials from people who survived these wars to give a more personal perspective on the events. For more general background information on the region as a whole, we will use Latin America Since Independence: A History with Primary Sources, by Alexander Dawson, and Guerillas: War and Peace in Central America, by Dirk Kruijt. We will likely use this information in the introduction of the video to explain what was going on throughout Latin America at the time before going into the specific examples of El Salvador and Guatemala. Knowing the regional and global context of the time period, specifically regarding the Cold War, is important for understanding the events of the Terror, as US interventions to stop communism were very significant factors in starting, continuing, or worsening conflicts. US Presidents and Latin American Interventions, by Michael Grow, has a chapter on Guatemala that we can use to explain the role that the US played starting in the Guatemalan Civil War. Escaping the Fire: How an Ixil Mayan Pastor Led His People Out of a Holocaust During the Guatemalan Civil War, by Tomas Guzaro, the pastor himself, is a first person account of the Guatemalan Civil War, and tells the story of the occupation of his village by a guerilla army and his subsequent escape from it with many other refugees. This book provides a lot of information on how the guerilla armies operated, gathered support, and recruited followers. It also gives information on the genocide of Mayan peoples during the war, which will also be discussed in the video to show examples of violence during the Terror outside of the wars themselves. Stories of Civil War in El Salvador: A Battle Over Memory, by Erik Ching, provides a detailed history of the El Salvadorean war and includes memoirs and testimonials from people who lived through it, which we will be able to use to create a better understanding of what was happening in the war and what life was like for those who had to live through it. We want to use personal testimonials to make the video more interesting and to create a more personal and sympathetic connection between the viewers and the events being discussed, as history can often feel disconnected and distant. For students who were raised in relatively peaceful countries like Canada, and who weren’t even alive when these wars were taking place, it can be especially difficult to relate to the material or understand what wars are really like.

Week 12: Repeating History

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The thing that I noticed the most in this week’s reading was how history was repeating itself in Latin America. In particular, the rise of drug lords was very reminiscent of the rise of caudillos a century before. Just as caudillos took advantage of a power vacuum to become local leaders by giving out favors, the drug lords took advantage of weakened central powers to exert influence over communities. They gained favor and power in communities by giving back to the people, and eventually became very powerful. I was surprised to learn about Pablo Escobar being elected to the Colombian Congress, as it seemed strange that a famous drug lord could ever win a government seat, but I saw that it made sense in the situation. In the US, drugs and those who deal them are vilified and seen only as threats to the society, but in Colombia they were seen by many as beneficial to society; drug lords were thought to be helping the poor by employing and aiding them. In that context, electing one to office would seem logical, while in the US it would be laughable to even consider it.

The US was another repetitive issue. It was very frustrating to hear about the constant counter-productive, failed interventions staged by the US. Just decades before, the US had sent billions to Latin American militaries so they could fight the dangerous communists, resulting in more conflict and violence. All that conflict weakened those countries, leaving power gaps that were filled by drug lords, so the US sent billions more to Latin American militaries so they could fight the dangerous drug cartels, resulting in more conflict and violence. One would have thought that the US would learn its lesson the first time, and realize that sending weapons into already fraught situations was a bad idea, yet they did it again only years later. The first time, the American attempt to prevent the harm that would supposedly come from communism or socialism caused harm under military dictatorships instead. The second time, their attempt to combat drug cartels with weapons only put weapons in the hands of the cartels, making it harder to fight them. The second failed attempt to remedy a problem by funding the militaries is even more frustrating, because there were so many better ways that the US could have spent that money. The drug cartels were able to gain so much power in part because they had so many people in them; the extreme poverty throughout the region left many with little choice but to join a cartel. Instead of throwing billions of dollars at the military, which had already proven many times over to be a horrible idea, the US could have used that money to strengthen the economies or governments of Latin American countries, or to fund social programs to help people out of poverty.

Week Eleven: The Terror

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I think that this is the topic that I’ve struggled with the most, because of how complex it is. The Terror encompasses so many different conflicts that it was very had for me to keep track of what was happening where, and why. The conflicts were all related but somewhat disconnected from each other, so it’s difficult to talk about all of them at once. There doesn’t even appear to be a consensus on what to call this period; the textbook calls is “The Terror”, but I couldn’t find many other sources that refer to it as such. The textbook says that the wars are also called the “Dirty Wars”, but other sources say that the term “dirty war” refers only to the war that occurred in Argentina. I got the best results from the term “guerilla wars”, likely because that is one of the main similarities between the many conflicts. Yet even the presence of guerillas in all of the conflicts seems questionable. Dawson mentioned Chile as one of the countries in which guerilla movements never threatened go to war. Can they be considered guerilla movements with so little fighting? When he later described the Chilean conflict in more detail, it didn’t seem like guerillas played much of a part at all. A socialist was democratically elected, then overthrown by a military coup, who immediately arrested, exiled, or killed most leftist opponents. If there were guerilla uprisings against the new military dictatorship afterwards, it wasn’t mentioned at all, making Chile seem a bit out of place among the other countries that had guerilla insurgencies. This stood in especially sharp contrast to Peru, the country that was discussed at length in the lecture. The entire conflict in Peru was caused by the war between the government and a guerilla insurgency, and the conflict mostly ended once the leader of the insurgency was captured. Strangely, while the video made it seem as if the Peruvian Civil War ended in 1993 with the collapse of the Shining Path, it apparently didn’t officially end until 2000, when Fujimori left office. Did fighting continue after the collapse of the Shining Path, and if so, who continued it?

I often forget that the Cold War was actually a relatively recent event. It seems as if it was so long ago to me, even though it didn’t end until the 1990s. Seeing that the Peruvian Civil War didn’t end until 2000, only a year before I was born, reminded me of how modern these issues are. I would be interested in learning about how the events of the Terror have influenced current events in Latin America, and how things have changed since this textbook was written. Dawson said that democratic institutions in Peru are healing, but not fully intact after Fujimori’s dictatorship, and that Peruvian people still fear any criticism of the government. I believe the textbook was written around 2014, so I imagine that things could have changed since then. I would guess that social media in particular could make a change in free speech and criticisms of the government by allowing people the anonymity to say whatever they want without fear.

Week 10a: Fidel Castro

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Reading this week’s chapter reminded me of how biased education systems can be. While I will be talking mostly about the American education system, because that is the one I grew up in, I doubt that it is a purely American problem. Subjects such as math are fairly objective, as there are universal rules governing them, and they’re not related to politics or ideologies. Subjects such as literature and history are very subjective, the way that they are taught varies based on agendas and beliefs. Classes in American schools are very anti-communist. Communism, despite being a major economic system that has had a huge impact on history, is barely talked about. The few times it is mentioned, it is usually to enumerate its failures and the superiority of capitalism. Fidel Castro, in particular, is always depicted as nothing but a horrible dictator. That picture isn’t wrong, but it is incomplete. He silenced dissent through unfair laws, exile, or execution; he cruelly oppressed certain minority groups such as gay people; his mismanagement of the country led to economic chaos within years of his taking office. All of this seemed to fit the picture of him that I had always been given by my schools: a stupid violent brute who remained in power through fear and oppression. So I was surprised to see that in many ways, he was actually very intelligent and capable. Upon taking office, he had to navigate a complex web of conflicting demands from every group across the country. He wisely made the US a scapegoat as the enemy to be blamed for any problem or failure. He was able to summon extraordinary amounts of patriotism and loyalty, even after his policies stopped working and suffering became widespread. He was so popular that even after years of massive failures, people still wouldn’t let him resign because he had made them believe so much in him, his ideals, and his idea of Cuba. Even some of his programs that eventually failed had started out as very good ideas. His mass organizations were a very smart solution to his problem of keeping control while allowing his people political power. I may have found these organizations morally questionable, as they were mostly in place to ensure that true power stayed with him instead of the people, but I recognize that it was a very good political move at the time. I wondered why I was never taught about this side of him in school. After all, knowing that he was intelligent and politically savvy doesn’t lessen any of his evils. I suppose Americans generally don’t want to give him any type of credit; they don’t want to acknowledge any possible good that any of his programs might have done, and they don’t want to call him smart or capable in any way. It’s easier to view see things only in black and white; America is a prosperous capitalist country, Cuba was a mess under the terrible communist brute Castro. It’s also easier to downplay America’s role in hurting Cuba. I don’t think that all of Cuba’s problems were America’s fault, some of them were caused by inherently flawed policies, but I think America should get better at acknowledging the part that it played in the downfall of many communist countries.

Week Ten: The Power of Art

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It was very surprising to see the power that art, particularly music, had in 20th century Latin America. While it isn’t unusual for individual artists to make political statements, I generally see that as the limit to any interaction between art and politics. Yet music was so significant in some Latin American countries that it was acknowledged and used by politicians. People were able to rebel against their government with as seemingly simple and small an action as listening to a particular song that they enjoyed. I couldn’t tell who, exactly, gave the music so much power. Did the people give it so much power that their leaders had no choice but to acknowledge it, or did the leaders give it power by acknowledging it that the people were later able to use to their advantage? Would samba in Brazil or tango in Argentina have had so much power if the governments had simply ignored it? In a way, the leaders of those two countries created their own enemies in the music. By trying to limit or ban it, those governments were telling the people that they were bothered by it, therefore giving it political significance. Listening to music, even if the message was anti-government, wouldn’t have carried the same weight among the people if the government hadn’t banned it. It is hard to say then if the power surrounding music was something that the people took for themselves, or if the power was inadvertently given to them by their governments. Among politicians who didn’t understand or even like their people, music was a dividing factor that deepened existing separations between the lower and upper/ruling classes. However, Peron was able to use that music to unite people and create a connection between himself and the lower classes by incorporating elements of it into his speeches. I found it strange, at first, to learn about rulers giving so much respect and significance to popular music. I can’t imagine that happening in Canada or the US(where I’m from). Presidents and Prime Ministers may make the occasional reference to pop culture, but I can’t remember any times in which one of them gave that kind of honor or respect to art, or made any attempt to incorporate in into their political strategies or use it to better connect with the people. I’d be interested to hear any examples of a time when a President or PM did give art that kind of recognition, if you can think of any. 

Week Eight: Fear in the Gilded Age

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I was very interested in the aspect of fear that seemed to drive most of the events that the readings discuss. It seemed that throughout the Americas, every group of people was scared of another group. That fear sometimes led those groups to lash out at another, creating a self-sustaining cycle of fear as violence was answered with more violence. In Mexico, people of the lower classes feared the loss of land and liberty, so they continually overthrew leaders who didn’t return their property to them. Meanwhile, the upper classes feared the “uncivilized” lower classes, particularly after the occupation of Mexico City by Zapato’s and Villa’s armies, so much that they chose to support the Constitutionalist enemies of the peasant revolutionaries. When the Constitutionalists took over and started silencing political dissidents, lower classes again began to fear the government, and more fighting broke out.

Similarly, that fear between groups caused mass violence in Argentina. The working class feared for their ways of life after stagnating wages started to impoverish them, and some began turning to socialist ideas. The upper classes, who would lose much if communism or socialism was instituted, and who were distrustful of foreign workers, feared for their way of life if the working class gained power. This mutual fear eventually caused the mass killings during the semana tragica.

There also seemed to be the ever-present, overarching fear of the USA throughout all of Latin America, which makes sense given that American imperialism was starting around that time. While the US primarily focused on islands such as Hawaii and the Philippines, Latin America’s proximity to the US and its abundant natural resources were more than enough reason to cause concern. In 1893, the government of Hawaii was overthrown, and the country later annexed by the US, entirely for business purposes; American planters wanted more control over the land. America also had business interests in many Latin American countries, which might further explain why the lower classes were so concerned over their rights to land. In addition to wanting their own land to be more independent from cruel landlords, they may have also feared allowing the US to get any more land in their countries. I wonder if the widespread fear and panic caused by WWI might have also contributed to the general fear throughout Latin America in the early 1900s.

Week Seven: “Hero of the Americas” by Creelman

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I was shocked by how incredibly positive and obviously biased Creelman’s article was. It seemed less like an objective article written by an American journalist about the leader of a foreign country than a propaganda piece written by a dictator about himself to convince his country and the world of how amazing he was. The way Diaz’s every gesture, expression, and action was excessively fawned over made the article as a whole less and less credible, as it became increasingly apparent that the writer had no intention whatsoever of portraying Diaz in anything but the best light, no matter what. It was slightly disturbing to see how easily some of Diaz’s questionable actions were glossed over or made out to be good. The article portrayed the brutal suppression tactics and harsh, unjust laws that Diaz had enforced as very minor, necessary evils required to ensure peace and order. These cruel practices, and his undemocratic practice of staying in office for so long, were portrayed as being for the people, especially for the lowly peons who needed him. Yet it was those lowly peons who were suffering under his unfair economic policies, none of which were brought up in the article at all. The few times that Creelman did bring up some subject that might cause discomfort among American readers, such as Diaz’s many terms in office, he was obviously doing so to allow Diaz to explain them away rather than to truly challenge some of Diaz’s actions.

Despite Creelman doing everything in his power to make Diaz seem like the most perfect, accomplished person in the world, I couldn’t help but get the impression that Diaz was condescending and either naive or deceitful. He claimed that the poor couldn’t properly participate in democracy because they were too uneducated, yet he claimed that universal education was one of his main goals. If his country’s poor were uneducated, that would be his failing, not theirs. I struggled to tell if Diaz was naive or deceitful because I couldn’t tell how much he truly believed what he was saying. He claimed that as soon as the USA gave Cuba and the Philippines their independence, any fear or hatred between those countries would vanish and there would be peace. If he really believed that long, bad histories of oppression could be forgiven that easily, he was naive. It is possible, however, that he knew that was an oversimplification, but he just wanted to say something that would gratify the American readers and make them like him more. He also claimed to believe that, after his decades of brutal policies, power would transfer peacefully and easily from him to whoever succeeded him. Considering that when the time came to retire as promised, he refused and ran for President again, this seems like it might also have been a manipulation tactic. The more he stressed how much he wanted to retire, the more selfless he would seem when he chose to stay in office for the supposed good of his people.

Week Six: Citizenship and Rights in the New Republics

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It was really interesting to read about all of the differences and similarities between the USA and Latin America in regards to how they treated women, racial minorities, and slaves. The thing that surprised me most was the stereotype in Latin America that women who worked in any job had “loose sexual morals” and were therefore little better than actual prostitutes. While women in the US at the time were also discouraged form working, as far as I know people achieved that by making jobs unavailable to them and teaching them that their place and duty was in the home. I’d never heard that harmful stereotype about their sexuality before, so I’m not sure if the stereotype wasn’t present in the US or if I’ve just never been taught about it. It does seem like it would be a sadly effective way of keeping women in homes and not at work. In a time when a women was only valued for how well she married, and she couldn’t marry well if she was branded as a “prostitute”, women would almost never want to risk getting a job. I wondered where the stereotype came from. Maybe it was a way of enforcing gender roles; it implies that real jobs are for men, so by taking a real job a woman is acting like a man. Men could have sex with whoever they wanted, so a woman acting like a man must also have sex with whoever she wanted. The stereotype manages to shame women into staying in the domestic sphere while reinforcing other beliefs about masculinity. I wonder when that stereotype began disappearing from society enough for women to start working alongside men as they do now.

The differing stories of emancipation and discrimination between various countries in the Americas were also intriguing. In the US, we learn more about how white people brought about emancipation during the Civil War. While we are taught about slaves and former slaves joining the fight for their freedom, it’s not focused on very much. I wasn’t aware that slaves had been such a major part of the fight for abolition anywhere except Haiti, where I knew there had been a successful slave rebellion. It was depressing to see how across the Americas, slavery was almost always immediately replaced by systems that were almost as bad. Systems of sharecropping, which tied a farmer to their employer and limited their choices and freedoms almost as much as slavery did, became common in the US and many Latin American countries, as did de facto or de jure discrimination. The Americas took a huge step forward in the 19th century by abolishing slavery, but it seems that most countries then started backtracking as much as possible to make sure things didn’t change very much. In the US, the process of abolition went fairly quickly once started; slaves in Confederate states were freed as soon as the war ended, and an amendment banning slavery in the rest of the country followed within a year. In Latin America, countries put strange limits on slavery that would only free some or would only free them at some point in the future, but ultimately the process of abolition had similar results across the Americas.

Week Five: The Slaughterhouse

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I wondered, while reading “The Slaughterhouse”, who Echevarria was writing the piece for. He was obviously denouncing caudillos, Rosas in particular, but I couldn’t tell who his intended audience was. He was so condescending and insulting to supporters of Rosas and the caudillos that I doubt he was trying to speak to any of them, and any fellow libertarians would likely share his view of caudillo-controlled areas already. Maybe he wanted outsiders, those in North America and Europe, to read it and become convinced of the righteousness of his cause. While he was clearly trying to make liberalism seem superior to caudillo rule, I don’t think he did a very good job of making liberalism look good. He mostly focused on how bad the caudillo-run town was, but didn’t do anything to show how the situation would be improved by liberalism. He also made the Unitarian character seem a but naive and idealistic; he rode into a caudillo town covered in posters demanding the death of Unitarians, yet acted perfectly at ease until people began threatening him, as if he hadn’t guessed it might happen. In a way, I think this does represent liberalism, although not in the way I’m sure Echevarria was trying for. Liberalism is very idealistic, and often seems unaware of itself and the situation it’s in, like the Unitarian of the story. It preaches good ideals, but often doesn’t put them into practice, and either ignores or hides its own flaws while criticizing other systems for their shortcomings. Liberal systems can contain violence and mob mentalities, just like the town in the story, the difference lies mainly in how the system presents itself. The caudillo system is much more honest and straightforward about itself, while liberal systems tend to paint themselves as better than they really are. Rather than proving why liberalism was needed in Latin America, I think that this story could be used to discourage anyone trying to spread it. The story very clearly shows that most Latin American people hated liberalism and anyone associated with it, and didn’t want anything to do with it. Trying to establish a form of government that the majority of its people hate would be extremely difficult, if possible at all, and would likely end badly for anyone involved. Instead of showing why liberalism was needed in Latin America, he showed how unlikely it was for Liberalism to be established. I think this story would be more effective in proving his intended points if it included sections better showing why liberalism was better, instead of focusing to much on how horrible caudillos were. One system being bad doesn’t automatically make a different system good, but he didn’t seem to take that into account.