PART THREE: Force for Liberty or for Oppression? Latin America

“The means and the measures (of the Revolution) are the proper objects of investigation. These may be of use to posterity, not only in this nation, but in South America and all other countries.”
John Adams, 1818

National myths become important to the rest of the world only when they are coupled to national power sufficient to impose one nation’s will on another.
Backfire, 1985

Throughout history the pursuit of wealth, power and resources have instigated war and strategies of domination of one group by another. So in looking at Latin America I will restrict my assessment to characteristics and outcomes common to most countries. To look closely at any one is to invite the many differences that make each nation’s history unique as Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala will demonstrate. They share one common denominator. Each inherited a European style socio-economic class system where only a few had wealth and power.

The highly stratified societies generated two dominant but opposing explanations as to why. On the one hand there are the supporters of developmental theory and, on the other, those who subscribe to dependency theory. The former argues that with business skills and sufficient capital investment any country can produce rapid internal development and a large middle class. Dependency theory sees the necessity of breaking ties with the international capitalist system in favor of national socialist regimes in order to achieve autonomy and enjoy a greater number of economic options. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the current shift to authoritarian socialist regimes in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and the attempt in Honduras are symptomatic of Latin America’s heritage. The answers have nothing to do with international versus national, not with developmental theory versus dependency theory but in the cultural makeup of each particular nation and their historical experiences.

The ideal of self-advancement which the civilizing West offers to backward populations brings with it the plague of individual frustration. All the advantages brought by the West are ineffectual substitutes for the soothing and sheltering anonymity of a communal existence.
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, 1951

During the colonial period, European nations were able to project power around the world in their quest for new markets and raw materials. Latin America was primarily colonized by Spain and Portugal. I will focus on the Spanish colonial experience which was characterized by the rural institutions, the hacienda and the plantation. Of the two the hacienda was more self-sufficient and its production was usually not for export. Often the hacienda allowed for large tracts of unused land which denied land ownership to native populations and helped shape the availability of the labor pool. Plantations existed primarily to support the export market. This export market became both a blessing and a curse as it was subject to the world market’s price fluctuations. The cycles of “feast and famine” generated the long-lasting economic debates between those favoring economic growth and those wanting economic development. These debates would fuel armed confrontations, the revolutions of the 20th century.

The export markets have defined most of the economies in Latin America. Exports produced economic growth but did little to raise the standard of living of the average person. What the elites required was stability and this was the priority for both the government and military alike. The political system was run by elites and for the elites. As colonialists raised families in the New World their children began to identify more with their locality than with a distant monarch. Coupled with the inspiration drawn from the American and French revolutions, Latin America pursued independence.

In the 19th century independence in Latin America was tied to the growing economies and the industrialization in both Europe and the United States. The newly independent countries had to grapple with the question of restructuring colonial institutions. Not surprisingly the elites did not want these institutions tampered with and little was done. They still favored economic growth through exports; internal development was not a priority.

With very few exceptions, the disenfranchised natives under the colonial system remained disenfranchised after independence was won. Those born of mixed marriages or those who adopted the Creole dress and customs achieved a somewhat better but lower intermediate class. These would, by and large, be representative of the future middle class in the larger urban areas. The newfound nationalism or patriotism did not protect those who had been discovered by the Spanish conquistadors and who chose to cling to their indigenous cultural heritage.

“Equality without freedom creates a more stable social pattern that freedom without equality.”
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, 1951

“Tyrants always support themselves with standing armies! And if possible the people are disarmed.”
Samuel Webster, 1777

The political philosophy that inspired the Declaration of Independence was absent in Latin America. The classical conservative political philosophy was what the colonial powers brought to the New World. It justified the autocratic rule from the top down by the Spanish and it garnered the enthusiastic support of the Roman Catholic Church for “the conquest and spread of Christianity” in the New World. The individual had no inherent rights or privileges beyond the class he had been born into. Those in power enumerated an individual’s responsibilities and directed daily activities. The indigenous “heathens” evolved little. To the Spanish they were beasts of burden; to the Creoles a source of cheap labor. Peasants who did not work on plantations lived as sharecroppers on the haciendas. The masses were ruled with an iron fist. The export sector of the national economies represented modernization. Raw materials went out and purchases of manufactured goods came in. The elites were few and dominated the political landscape. The military and the church offered upward mobility opportunities to those not born to wealth or not in line to inherit it. It was also the duty of the Church and the military to support the government and maintain stability, the status quo.

“Soldiers are taught to consider arms as the only arbiters by which every dispute is to be decided…They are instructed implicitly to obey their commanders without enquiring them into the justice of the cause they are engaged to support; hence it is, that they are ever to be dreaded as the ready engines of tyranny and oppression.”
Joseph Warren, 1772

“If there is no respect for the nation, for its laws, and for its leaders, its society is a state of confusion, an abyss.”
Simon Bolivar

The few number of major cities in each country are representative of a long legacy of the export focused economies. The two world wars of the 20th century would increase demand for Latin American exports and the pursuit of raw materials by growing corporate interests. This period also ushered in labor unions and organized protests to counter the excesses and iniquities of the dominant rural and industrial employers. The Bolshevik Revolution glorified the act of revolution in the name of the workers in 1917. It would inspire political activists in Latin America to fight the status quo “on behalf of the have-nots”. After World War II and with the advent of the Cold War, the stage was set for confrontation, violence and death.

I will focus on three interesting but different expressions of the revolutionary period in Central America, specifically Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala.