The following passages are excerpted from the book Amérique latine. Introduction à l’Extrême-Occident by Alain Rouquié, a French political scientist linked to the Socialist Party and France’s former ambassador to Brazil (2000–03). Here, Rouquié considers Latin America’s lack of unity and the limitations of the term “Latin America,” while at the same time arguing that the region is united by its unique economic relationship with the United States. Rouquié describes the continent as a “peripheral America” at the fringes of the Western world. Although it cannot occupy the space of the “developed ‘center’,” Latin America, which Rouquié posits as “Far-Western,” is still intrinsically connected to the larger Western culture. Rouquié wrote prolifically on Latin America throughout his long career and published Amérique Latine in 1987 [(Paris: Éditions du Seuil)]; this translation is based on the popular Spanish edition, America Latina: Introducción al extremo occidente [first edition (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1989)].
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Like many before it, this book takes a comparative approach, which is best suited to Latin American realities. Once again I have resisted using any standard national monographs, since those kinds of convenient, cookie-cutter descriptions are of no use here. In fact, the more details they provide, the less comprehensible they become. André Siegfried [SEE DOCUMENT I.2.4] made this very astute observation concerning Latin America: “The individual characteristics of each country should, I believe, be explained in terms of the continent to which they belong; we can then realize…that the general points of view help to clarify the individual ones. Hence, when one studies a particular country, it is helpful to view it from a continental perspective…”1 This is why the subject has been approached from a diametrically different angle. Suffice it to say that it goes beyond superficial generalizations and approximate extrapolations to find significant differences2 or explanatory coincidences in time and space. Sometimes I wondered if this was to be the last time that a comparative and global grasp of the subcontinent might seem appropriate. Would the idea of a Latin America united by destiny now become passé? Is not the clamoring of the subcontinent and the divergent paths taken by its various countries the death knell of those undeniable parallels of history and weighty continental tendencies? I have not found the answer to this problem, but at least I have not ignored it. It is the essence of this book, among others that will seem less abstract and more consequential to the reader: independence, development, and democracy. Surely it would never occur to anyone to consider any of the three from one single, universal perspective.
From now on, all that the so-called “Latin” America loses in unity, it undoubtedly gains in universality. Even though it is not partial to those who enjoy living in a Diaspora, our problems seem larger, over-expanded and more dramatic. That is why, just as it did five centuries ago, this New World has much to teach us. May this book make a modest contribution to the discourse.
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It may seem paradoxical to begin dealing with a “cultural area” by stressing the precariousness of its definition. As strange as it may seem, the very construct of Latin America is complicated. It is therefore helpful to try to review the history of the concept and critique the way in which it is used. The fact that it is in regular use everywhere in the world does not necessarily endorse its accuracy. It is somewhat reminiscent of the recent ambiguous term “Third World,” which seems to be a source of confusion rather than a means of precise definition.
What is understood geographically by Latin America? Is it the group of countries in Central and South America? Yes, but according to the geographers, Mexico is part of North America. In the interests of simplification, could the term refer to all the countries lying south of the Rio Grande? But then, we should agree that Guyana and Belize, where English is spoken, as well as Dutch- speaking Surinam, are part of “Latin” America. At first sight, there would seem to be a cultural concept involved. We might also say that it only includes American countries with a Latin culture. But even though Quebec, Canada, is undoubtedly far more Latin than Belize—and just as Latin as the unincorporated Commonwealth of Puerto Rico—nobody would ever consider the French-speaking province to be part of Latin America.
Looking beyond these inaccuracies, we might consider the emergence of a strong sense of subcontinental identity, woven from the various regional threads of solidarity that are based on a common culture or on links of other kinds. The very diversity of Latin American nations, however, threatens such an arrangement. In spite of the inevitable deluge of discussion that is always unleashed by this subject, such a level of unity might be too much of a utopian dream, given the lackluster economic (and, therefore, cultural) relations between a group of countries that, in over a century of independence, have turned their backs on each other in order to focus on Europe and the USA. Another obstacle involves the huge disparities among countries in terms of their size, economic potential, and regional roles.
This is the reason for questioning the very existence of Latin America. Intellectuals, from Peru’s Luis Alberto Sánchez [SEE DOCUMENT I.2.6] to Mexico’s Leopoldo Zea [SEE DOCUMENT I.4.6], have pondered the essential question but have been unable to answer it. At issue here is not just the question of unity implied in the name, but the identity it refers to vis-à-vis the plurality of societies in a so-called “Latin” America. In this sense, it would suffice to emphasize diversity, thus avoiding the temptation to generalize and, as has already been done, to circumvent the question concerning the “Latin Americas.”3 Such a formula has the advantage of identifying one of the difficulties involved, although it overstates the cultural dimension, which still makes the point.
This label is now widely accepted, but what does it mask? Where does it come from? Common sense conclusions quickly disappear when confronted by socio-cultural facts. Are the Black Americas—described by Roger Bastide—Latin? Could we attach a Latin label to Guatemala, a country where half the population is of Mayan descent and speaks indigenous languages, a situation we also find in the Andean highlands where most people speak Quechua? Does the term Latin apply to the Guarani in Paraguay, the Gallic settlers in Patagonia, or the Brazilian State of Santa Catarina which was, like southern Chile, settled by Germans? In fact, one should refer back to the culture of the conquistadors and colonizers from Spain and Portugal to define the social groupings within their multiple components. This can be understood when our Spanish friends, among others, use the term Hispanic America or even Iberian America in an attempt to avoid overlooking the Portuguese-language component inherited by gigantic Brazil. The epithet “Latin” has its own history, even if Haiti—whose elites speak French—can produce an alibi these days. The epithet appeared in imperial France under Napoleon III as part of the noble purpose of “helping” the “Latin” nations to halt North American expansion. The unfortunate Mexican caper was the actual implementation of that idea on a grand scale. By eliminating certain links between Spain and the New World, Latin-ness had the advantage of providing France with legitimate responsibilities vis-à-vis her American “sisters,” who were Roman Catholic. Madrid, which rejected Latin-ness on behalf of Hispanic-ness and the rights of the Motherland, never granted citizenship to the idea of Latin America. In turn, the United States encouraged the policies of Americanism in order to confront this European war machine before adopting its vertical use in accordance with its own designs and contributing to its widespread use.
Until at least the 1930s, the Latin brand of this America conquered by the Spanish and the Portuguese was accepted by educated elites wherever French culture reigned supreme. Does that mean that this America is only Latin to the ruling classes and the oligarchies? Or is the true representative of the subcontinent the America of the indigenous people and the under classes (los de abajo)—the “Underdogs” who have no claim to Latin-ness and resist the culture of the conquerors? By rediscovering the unknown, forgotten Natives, intellectuals of the 1930s, mainly in Andean countries, actually created them. [Víctor Raúl] Haya de la Torre, a powerful political figure in Peru, suggested a new regional denomination: “Indo America.” It was even less successful than the literary Indian-ism he promoted or the APRA [American Revolutionary Popular Alliance], the political party with continental ambitions that he founded. The Indian was unable to develop a following among the ruling classes of the Americas. Secluded and relegated to the margins of society, Natives are minorities—culturally speaking—in all the great States [of the region], even in those with a strong Indian population linked to ancestral pre-Columbian civilizations. According to the 1980 census, out of 66 million Mexicans, only 2 million did not speak Spanish, and less than 7 million were conversant in one or more native languages. It is entirely possible to dream of a Mexico such as the one conceived by [anthropologist and politician] Jacques Soustelle, who wished that, “like modern Japan, it would be able to preserve its essential indigenous personality while being inserted into today’s world.” But that did not happen, and the entire continent has inevitably become a racial and cultural melting pot.
Nevertheless, even in the “whiter” countries, the indigenous thread has never been absent from the national tapestry and has clearly helped to define the physical look of the people. According to [the Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto César] Sandino, this America is definitely “Indo Latin.”
Even if the Latin definition of the subcontinent is found lacking as an umbrella term to adequately include the evolving plurality, such an evocative label cannot be abandoned when it is in widespread use, most especially among the residents of the region themselves: we, the Latin(os) (“nosotros los latinos”). These comments remind us that the construct of “Latin America” is neither entirely cultural nor specifically geographical. But we can still use this very comfortable term, while remaining aware of its limitations and ambiguities. Latin America does indeed exist, but only through opposition and from the outside. This means that “Latin Americans,” if considered as a category, do not represent a tangible quality beyond certain vague extrapolations and unconstrained generalizations. That also means that the term possesses a hidden dimension that complements the meaning involved.
At first glance, we are looking at an America branded by Spanish and Portuguese colonization (see the French historical case in Haiti) that stands in stark contrast to Anglo-Saxon America. Basically, Spanish and Portuguese languages are spoken there, in spite of the flourishing pre-Columbian cultures, with recent immigrant nuclei being more or less assimilated. However, the absence of Canada in this group—in spite of Quebec—and the fact that international organizations such as SELA [Latin American Economic System] or BID [Inter-American Development Bank] consider Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas, and Guyana to be Latin American States,4 gives the “Other America” an undeniable socioeconomic, even geopolitical profile.
All these nations, regardless of their wealth and prosperity, occupy the same place in terms of the North-South divide. They look like developing or industrialized countries but none of them is part of the developed “center.” In other words, all these countries are considered “peripheral” States by the industrialized world. And, of course, they all have much in common.
Historically, as producers of raw materials, they all depend on the world marketplace. They also provide food (in this sense, Bolivian tin is no different than nutmeg from Grenada), but also depend on the “center” that governs the flow. The “center” supplies civil and military technology, capital, and cultural models. There is one particular unifying factor: all these countries located in the “Western Hemisphere” enjoy different relationships with the major industrial power of the world, which is also the main capitalist nation. This is undoubtedly a dangerous privilege that no other Third World region shares. In this respect, the 2,000-mile border between Mexico and the United States is a unique phenomenon. The famous “tortilla curtain” that tempts millions of Mexicans to slip across the border into the richest country on the planet, draws a cultural, socioeconomic, and hugely symbolic dividing line.
Perhaps one could count all the developing countries on the American continent as Latin American nations since—if we overlook the language and culture—nobody would consider the English-speaking Caribbean islands or Guyana to be part of wealthy Anglo-Saxon America. By the same token, political zones sometime extend beyond geography. For instance, didn’t President [Ronald] Reagan recently name El Salvador—a country whose only shoreline is on the Pacific Ocean—as an eventual beneficiary of his Caribbean Basin Initiative? And then, casting all limits to the winds, why not follow those who (putting geography aside) proposed calling the “wretched,” underdeveloped part of the continent “South America”?
With regard to the rest of the developing world, the singularity of the “Latin” subcontinent is also brilliant. To quote [poet Paul] Valéry: it is a world that was “deduced,” it is part of a European “invention” which was drawn into Western culture as a result of the conquest. Pre-Columbian civilizations, which had been in a state of crisis when the Spaniards arrived, were in no condition to resist the invaders who imposed their languages, their values, and their religion. The indigenous people and the Africans brought as slaves to the New World adopted Christianity—albeit disguised under various forms of syncretism. Brazil is currently the biggest Catholic nation in the world. All this creates a special place for the region among underdeveloped nations. Many years ago, in this context, Latin America was considered as either the Western Third World or the Western region of the Third World. This was an ambiguous situation in which the colonized identified with the colonizer.
We should therefore not be surprised when, in 1982, the assembly of Latin American nations proposed, against the opposition of African and Asian countries that had only recently entered their post-colonial phase, that the UN should celebrate the journey of Christopher Columbus and the fifth centennial of the 1492 discovery. As distinct from Africa and Asia, isn’t this continent a province of our civilization, admittedly distant at times, yet always recognizable, that overwhelmed, reclaimed, and absorbed the preexisting ethnic and cultural elements?
The “European” character of Latin American societies has had obvious consequences on the socioeconomic development of all countries concerned. The constant Western influence facilitates cultural and technical exchanges unhindered by linguistic or ideological obstacles. The waves of immigration from the Old World to the New multiplied the transfer of capital and knowledge. In the international hierarchy, Latin American nations are seen as a kind of “middle class,” positioned at an intermediate level. Among all these nations in transition, only one, Haiti, is designated as a less-advanced country [pays les moins avancés] (PMA), along with several other Asian and African comrades in misfortune, but with a per capita income that is equal to or double to levels in Chad or Ethiopia. Most of the large countries in Latin America are already semi-industrial economies—in which industry contributes 20–30 percent of the GNP—and the three main ones, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, are considered Brand New Industrialized Countries as well as “Emerging Markets.” Modernization indexes rank Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela above all African countries and most of the Asian nations—except the city-states. And, in this context, both Argentina and Uruguay are grouped with developed countries.
Our research must go beyond vague definitions regarding this group of countries that are neither the West nor the Third World but which often appear to be a synthesis or a juxtaposition of both. If factors of homogeneity are taken into account, then we perceive that almost all the countries originally come from outside the subcontinent, especially if we rely on a limited interpretation of the meaning of Latin America that is essentially cultural and classic: Spain’s and Portugal’s old colonies in the New World.
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There was a time when essays on Latin America were brought to a close with rosetinted remarks about the future. These days, the perspective for the subcontinent involves light and shadow, uncertainties as well as assurances of a bright tomorrow. According to some studies conducted by the UN in 1991, one in every three Latin Americans lives in poverty—53 percent in the case of rural populations—and 18 percent (equivalent to the entire population of Mexico) live in extreme poverty. Who can still believe that “God is Brazilian,” or that, as is often heard in Argentina, being criollo means being Latin American? First of all, the New World implies a great deal of hope. Are we witnessing the erosion, perchance the decay of those high expectations? Has the prodigious future once promised to those distant lands become nothing but a memory? Has El Dorado been transformed into the “dismal tropics” or the “geography of starvation?” It is true that the promised land of thousands of European immigrants has become haunted by the “culture of poverty,” and the much-vaunted second independence is always just around the corner; development seems to be at a standstill, at the mercy of the fluctuation of the global economy.
The opulence of the USA—the neighbor to the north—is a challenge to the less fortunate America, since it provides a model that seems within easy reach yet permanently inaccessible. The technological gap deepens with regard to industrialized nations, and the possibility of catching up to them seems like a mirage. After more than a century, questions still persist concerning the divergent destinies of each part of the Western Hemisphere. Both Latin-ness and Iberian Catholicism have been blamed. At a time of independence in the Caribbean, following the financial crises in Asia, the “Latin disease” is hardly a formula to be taken seriously by observers, and the elementary psychology of the people has taken the place of history and economic analysis. The various forms of colonization and insertion into the world economy taught more about the specificity of this Far-Western focus than culture-based approaches that convey nothing but their authors’ preconceived ideas. In terms of culture, the outermost limits of our geographical region are Western when both expectations and consumer models are taken into account. [Latin America] is located at the periphery of the developed universe because of its production and trade; in fact, one can’t help wondering whether this particular Third World hasn’t been held back by its own bastard-like illegitimacy.
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After all, if being Latin American is not—as [Jorge Luis] Borges suggested in his cool appraisal before the Peronist dictatorship forced him to discover his “South American destiny”—belonging to an overseas extension of Europe, then what is it? Are neither the image of the Patria Grande (Great Fatherland) nor Bolivar’s dream enough to overcome the border-crossing difficulties that are part of any international trip to this America that still claims to be a Latin brotherhood? Is the Western background incomplete? Is the Third World flawed? In Africa and Asia, imitation and borrowing barely affect anything beyond the material civilization. A core of religion or culture resists all forms of glittering worldly seduction. In a “deduced continent,” on the other hand, everything is second-hand: gods and words. The daily spiritual imitation cannot avoid a repetition of the original Malinchismo; that is, a willing cooperation with the Conquistador.5 This is demonstrated by the success of the “American” schools throughout the continent and the importance attached to diplomas from Ivy League colleges. Central Americans are not the only ones who naively celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving as though they are their own local holidays. Both Protestantism and the American way of life became devastatingly popular in countries that fell under the spell of “post-national” capitalism, even before constructing their Nation-States. Miami has become the capital of the dollarized economies in an uncertain New World.
Nevertheless, if elites are experiencing a troubling identity crisis, Latin American countries as a whole enjoy a strong national sense of who they are. Nobody doubts that. But in fact, imitative development is also involved. That is why certain segments of the population have been admitted to the sphere inhabited by wealthy countries. The spread of sophisticated consumer models is the basic cause of a social heterogeneity that, though it has always existed, is more widespread than in the past and is sometimes reminiscent of the colonial situation. Those who benefit from a regressive re-distribution of national income live in synchronicity with the metropolis and are usually light-years ahead of their less fortunate fellow citizens and those living in the country’s more remote regions. Brazil is not the only State in which national symbols are paradoxically borrowed from the dominant races and classes. Humiliated and repressed almost everywhere, the Black and the Native are the standard-bearers of a national identity. This social tension, which is essentially racial, is both an expression of a crisis and a defining trait of Latin American societies.
The social divide mentioned above was partly responsible for the extraordinary rise in the popularity of the novel in the 1960s. The Latin American [literary] boom provided an outlet for the talent and creativity of the people and, mainly, for the restlessness of an intellectual class in search of its roots. In a way, it was expressed as an anti-Miami focused attitude.
Whether tellurian or magical, the Latin American novel—from [Ernesto] Sábato to [Gabriel] García Márquez, and from [Mario] Vargas Llosa to [Mario] Benedetti—was an expression of the troubled conscience of a generation trying to bridge the gap between popular culture and the world of the elites. It was the work of those who were looking for a deeper connection to their roots than the more frivolous interpretations of the local folklore. Some of them, tired of having to make a choice, believed that both the “revolution” and their lyrical creation offered a solution that could reconcile the culture and the people and would help to shape the nation. But they were all aware that they must avoid diluting the national character into a cosmopolitan, commercial mediocrity that passed for modernity.
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1
André Siegfried, preface to Jacques Lauwe, L’Amérique ibérique (Paris: Gallimard, 1938), 2.
2
See R. P. Dore, “Latin America and Japan Compared,” in J. J. Johnson, ed. Continuity and Change in Latin America (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1962), 227–49.
3
After the appearance of the famous issue Annales 1949, no, 4, subtitled “À travers les Amérique Latines”, this formula became overused by all who preferred to stress national characteristics while ignoring broad generalities. In this vein, see the Cahiers des Amériques latines published in Paris by the Institut des Hautes Études de l’Amérique latine, or the classic work by Marcel Niedergang, Les vingt Amériques latines (Paris: Aux Éditions du Seuil, 1962). [SEE DIGITAL ARCHIVE 1052740 (http://icaadocs.mfah.org/icaadocs/THEARCHIVE/FullRecord/tabid/88/doc/1052740/language/en-US/Default.aspx)]
4
See as an example: Inter American Bank of Development, Progrés économique et social en Amérique latine, Washington, D.C., Annual Report.
5
Malintzin (La Malinche) was the daughter of an Aztec noble who became the collaborator and mistress of [Hernán] Cortez during the conquest. According to Mexican history of symbolism, she represents both a betrayal with regard to the invader and a racial mixture that fathered a mestizo country.