Monthly Archives: October 2017

Commerce, Coercion, and America’s Empire

We discussed in the past few week’s discussion that the United States was starting to become a threat to the majority of the nations in Latin America. Latin American nations became wary of American military interventions in their country. Such examples were Puerto Rico, Guantanamo Bay, and Panama. Although the United States did not rule these territories with respect to imperialism, the presence of American military has given enough threat to the Latin American nations.

Ironically, at the same time, the United States has influenced the whole continent culturally, such as cola, movie stars, baseball, and jazz. The United States was already a wealthy and world-leading nation, who provided or over-influenced the ones without their privilege (comestibles, modern conveniences, music, films and television). I believe that the citizens of the Latin America were ambivalent about the United States.

Latin America remained to be rich in resources since the colonial times, which pulled the interest of the American businessman. Bananas, sugar, and coffee were grown outside of the United States, where it eventually became a popular household food. While in Latin America, infrastructures were not as developed as in the United States. “Bananas came north, and construction materials and merchandise traveled south.” I believe that this trade mutually benefited both sides.

I have two types of question regarding the cultural influence of the United States, as I was curious since the beginning of class.

For those who are familiar with music…

Bossa nova (Brazilian style, samba and jazz fusion) is one of my favourite music genres that I listen in to. Jazz was founded in the United States and the popularity grew since the late 19th century, and then the world (in this case Brazil) admired it. Samba originated in the former African slave communities and the mix created this new genre. Was this new music genre created purely because the American music culture was so powerful or could it be one way to ‘culturally’ rebel and differentiate their music culture apart from the United States?

For those who are familiar with sports…

Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua and many others are known to be the powerhouse of baseball, but this sport was created by the United States. Those powerhouse nations saw the United States as their enemies. So, why did such countries play a sports enemy have created? Is it to feel the accomplishment if they ever get to defeat the United States in this sport? Was this one type of way to culturally rebel against the United States?

Signs of Crisis in a Gilded Age

Alec Dawson states that the concept of a revolution is the claim of ownership of history, endeavoring to shape a view of the past that organizes the power in the past.

In the case of Mexico, PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) laid claim to a revolutionary process. There were 3 main components of revolution, who were ‘The Old Guard’, ‘Villa and the Serrano revolutionaries’, and ‘Zapata and the Agrarian revolutionaries’.

The Old Guard: People of European roots who benefited politically and economically during the Diaz regime. They wanted to maintain the current political system and did not desire a change in the social construction.

Villa and the Serrano revolutionaries: Frontiersman who saw their lives change since Diaz came into power and wanted freedom from outside the authority.

Zapata and the Agrarian revolutionaries: Indigenous or mestizo people whom land was taken away during the Diaz regime. They wanted restitution of land and have rights for local governance, claiming that they should be able to control the land.

So, the aftermath of the revolution, who won the revolution? The answer to this question remains unclear. Nobody is sure which faction won from this revolution, as some powers were empowered and some did not. Relatively victorious factions were the constitutionalists who became the Serrano revolutionists, who gained in power as one of the presidents; ability to assume power was predicated upon the deals that made to incorporate the subordinate groups, created clauses in the constition, for the agrarian.

Dawson touched upon his observations of revolutionary leaders, that they get assassinated young, and that death is attributable to power. President of post-revolution died due to a political conflict, as an example. Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata are the two iconic revolutionary leader figures. Pancho Villa who was a retired soldier who pledged to not enter politics was assassinated in the fear that he re-enters. He made another point that young revolutionaries die with a reputable image, as they did not live long enough to disappoint others.

The EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) and neo-Zapatistas were the first guerrilla movement to connect with people through the internet. Following from 1994, people laid claim to the Zapatista mantra ever since there was an Emiliano Zapata. He represents land and liberty, an icon they claim to use because it is available, and the majority can recognize.

Emiliano Zapata broke in the alliance of Francesco Madero, who became the president after Diaz was overthrown. Madero didn’t put land reforms, so Zapatistas became furious upon his regime. This marks a historical movement in which the Zapatista rebellion comes to the fore as one of the critical movements for social justice.

‘Plan de Ayala’ is a document that states an explanation of the legal right to rebel against the Madero government. This document is read by mexican schools even currently, as a founding document of mexican nationhood.

So my question for this week is, what is ‘gilded age’ represented as in this context, what is really ‘glided’ here?

The Export Boom as Modernity

Alec Dawson, a professor of History from Simon Fraser Univerity defined ‘modernity’ in Latin America (with a focus on Mexico) is from the 16th century and the following 5 centuries. In addition, he claimed that there are four factors that contribute the periodical shift from the preceding era to modernity.

1. Innovative: A society that improved, standards of living goes up, new technologies were invented.
2. Emancipation: A society where slavery is abolished and woman rights are respected.
3. Secularisation: A process of cultural and social change in which education, property, art, etc. are released from the church’s control to the general public; modern society is less religious.
4. Universalism: Modern values are discovered: the value of freedom.

Most regions across Latin America in the late 19th century, elites wanted their society to look like Western Europe. By the early 20th century, Mexico wanted to look and feel like the United States, not from the philosophical viewpoint but to actually build a city that physically looks like.

As a result, Mexican cities had a sewage system, electricity, built modern armies, built railroads, integrated new ideas, and technology, by modeling what they aimed for.

Mexico was entering the stage of modernity without liberty. Again, Dawson defined that ‘liberal democracy’ is the rights invested in individuals, unlike in corporations and organisations. However, Mexico was too backward to have liberty flourish in the country according to 2 reasons:

1.  Not solely in Mexico, but Latin America as a whole had political chaos (civil war).
2. Latin American society in the 19th century was shaped by system where a small white elite group ruling over societies where the majority of the citizens were not of European ancestry.

White elites realized that these populations were not suitable for democracy from the demographic and many other perspectives. So what did modernity mean in this case? It was an economic and aesthetic modernity ruled over by strong elites. Instead of ‘liberty’, ‘order’ was replaced by the Mexico’s political system, as the style to impose order from above was one of the few solutions to create progress in the country’s development.

Creelman wrote an article, and he was shocked for what he witnessed in Mexico, ruled under a dictatorship, as there were modern roads and lights, elevators, and electricity. In contrast, there are two factors where Creelman may not be shocked at what he saw in Mexico.

1. His background: US wasn’t perfect in democracy yet, as racial dictatorship remained, and political corruption in the South.
2. Bought into an idea, that Mexico was experiencing a civil war, they needed an ‘iron fist’ to transform a nation to an orderly place. Therefore, democracy couldn’t take off.

Domestic elites came to believe that a miraculous transformation had taken place but ignored the signs of crisis, that was happening behind their backs. We try to make sense of the world according to the values that we live in at the moment, so it is unfair to judge Creelman’s depictions and thoughts on Diaz’s administration.

Creelman’s article impacted the 1910 elections for the successor fo Diaz and it helped spur Francisco Madero to run an independence campaign, and so on. ut all of these pressures suddenly had an outlet and for a brief moment, ordinary people hoped that something might change. However, the hope became public and became uncontrollable, it led to the Mexican revolution. So, my question is: Is it possible to call this paradigm shift towards modernity, as a successful boom?

Citizenship and Rights in the New Republics

Early years of Latin American history was brutal, with campaigns such as Argentina’s ‘Conquest of the Desert’ that decreased the Mapuches population significantly. Corruption and violence prevented liberal ideas to flourish in Latin America, which may have affected citizenship and rights issues among these young republics.

A powerful patron offers concrete benefits rather than the abstract rights promised by the liberal state. Under the Caudillo system, ‘clientelism’ appealed to those excluded by liberal elites.

Black Africans were forced to be transported across the Atlantic to work as slaves in Latin America. Many have died while crossing the sea and had short life expectancies, due to harsh treatments from the slave owners.

Slavery was abolished in the late 19th century, and it was not long time ago. Slaves were considered as objects or tools that work for the slave owners and clearly did not have a citizenship or any rights. Slavery’s legacies are still with us because there are biographies written that uncovered the hardships of being a slave. Still, racial violence and oppression continued in new forms even after slavery was abolished.

1888 was also the final date, where the slavery was abolished across the whole continent. It was first abolished in 1793 during the Haitian Revolution. However, the abolition of the slave trade was a different story, as there were illegal shipments continued to Cuba and Brazil until 1860.

Also, the motives for liberals or leaders who decided to abolish slavery was not only because it was advantageous for themselves to do so, but you cannot forget the effort of the slaves running revolts.

Dawson observed, ‘emancipated slaves sometimes demanded the right to recompense for their suffering,.’ Rights upon which people agreed depended on different interpretations of each individuals. Rights have to be first agreed upon by the public and then interpreted before they can be implemented as a policy.

Echenique used the term, ‘regeneration’. She claimed that a new womanhood is being born, ‘The women of today are not the women of the past’. she explains that this rebirth requires new conceptions. Later on, she discussed that ‘there are so many ideas and feelings overwhelming me’, bursting her imagination about the beginning of a new era.

Pelliza argued spiritedly that women should be ‘everything but emancipated, less free in independence and rights than men.’ However, she worries about the inequality, white and middle class whom held advantageous over the past regime may lose their rights.

Social issues such as slavery and anti-feminism are unresolved conflicts and there are many different ways to bring justice for this topic, just like how María Eugenia Echenique and Josefina Pelliza challenged. So here is my question. What could’ve or should’ve the government have done for the slaves to (try to) compensate their suffrage?

Caudillos Versus the Nation State

Throughout past few weeks, we discussed the challenges and the difficulties to identify Latin American objects from politics, demographics, economic and cultural aspects. On this blog post, I would like to discuss the perspectives of the Caudillos and the nation states in respect to following independence movements.

The newly founded Latin American countries were facing many troubles due to highly complicated internal politics. As Bolivar took leadership in the Spanish-speaking Latin American states, he feared the uprisal from the lower class. He dreamt of Latin America unifying as a nation instead of a colony, but Gran Colombia dissolved into three republics and the Federal Republic of Central America followed this trend.

Latin America suffered from cross-border wars to civil wars. ‘Triple Alliance’, that was formed by Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay and went into war with Paraguay. Paraguay lost the war, and the population decreased heavily. I still remember having a discussion with my friend from Argentina two years ago, that since then, Paraguay has struggled to re-construct. Civil wars

Civil wars also erupted in various areas in Latin America, where people fought from the difference in their skin colour and political ideas. From the whites and the coloured in Uruguay to the Conservatives to Liberals in Colombia, the nineteenth century was perhaps bloodier than Europe.

Latin Americans dreamt of liberalism, but violence, the whole continent suffered shattered its possibilities. Liberalism involves a collective commitment to abstract principles of rights and freedoms. However, with such diversity in demographics, politics, and culture, it was too challenging to adopt and convince one’s idea as an ideology.

Brazilian cultural critic, Roberto Schwarz commented that liberalism does have a place in Europe, under industrial capitalism, workers had the freedom to some degree, when compared to the Brazilian system at the time, where slavery remained.

Instead of liberalism, the caudillo system, clientism, took place where citizens remained to have unequal social status. Merriam-Webster defined Caudillos as: ‘a Spanish or a Latin American military dictator.’ Although the dictionary gave a simple definition of the term, I believe this term could be expanded more upon how violent these strongmen were.

In ‘The Slaughterhouse’, by Esteban Echeverría showed how cruel these strongmen were but yet popular, as he bent the law and provided ‘meat’ to his supporters. However, Echeverría’s texts were ambivalent, as it was not an easy to task to see whether if he was sympathizing for the indigenous, due to his grotesque expressions of characterising the indigenous.

I may be wrong, but I believe that United States was successful with this ideology because the indigenous population was so little. So, I wonder if an ideology of liberalism would’ve been successful if the indigenous population was insignificant (so little)?