III.1.4 DIGITAL ARCHIVE 832506
The following segments—“A opinião corrente” and “Conseqüências da malevolência européia”—are excerpted from the first chapter of Manoel Bomfim’s A América Latina: Males de Origem of 1905. Here, Bomfim offers his opinion on the European concept of “South America”: a largely imagined space of vast lands filled with riches suggesting the legends of El Dorado during colonial times and a place harboring an unruly populace since independence. He declares that North American objectives for a continental defense (under the aegis of the Monroe Doctrine) are focused on its “absorption” of Latin America. Furthermore, Bomfim translates the European recognition of this implicit threat as the continental result of a protector/protectorate relationship. Here, as he does elsewhere in Males de Origem, the author stresses the “bad reputation” of Latin American nations abroad. The first edition of the book was published in 1906 [(Porto: Livraria Chardon Lello & Irmão]. As with other excerpts featured in this volume [SEE DOCUMENTS I.3.5 AND I.4.1], this translation is derived from the centennial edition of the book [Manoel Bomfim, A América Latina: Males de Origem, prefaces by Darcy Ribeiro, Franklin de Oliveira, and Azevedo Amaral (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2005), 41–43; 47–51].
European public opinion knows that Latin America exists. . . . And it knows more: that it is a vast chunk of continent, populated by Spanish peoples, an extremely rich continent, whose populations frequently revolt. These things, however, already appear in a poorly defined void; riches; vast lands; revolutions; and peoples; everything gets confused to create [images of] a legendary land of stories without great enchantment because they lack the prestige of antiquity. Where are these riches? What are they worth? How are these revolutions carried out? Who carries them out? Where do they take place? These are questions that do not find answers in the faraway obscurity of this single vision: South America. . . . That’s what we talk about. Even when particular names come up—Peru, Venezuela, Uruguay…—it does not matter where; the image that comes to mind is that of South America.
Even if Europe is ignorant of what this piece of the Occident is, it does not forget that it exists; and, in recent times, it has actually given it special attention. It is not given the space and importance consecrated to the Balkans, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Africa, or the Far East, because, in the end, it worries about what already belongs to it. However, the Latin nations of the New World cannot complain of being forgotten. Every incident, even if not of great import, finds some repercussion in the European press. It is true that there are none of those long studies, contextualized and wise, where masters in international affairs say what they know about the political, social, and economic history of the country they are dealing with in order to demonstrate their wisdom. No; as is customary whenever dealing with the Latin American republics, scholars and publicists of world politics limit themselves to cultivating judgments—invariable and condemnatory. To hear them, there is no possible salvation for such nationalities. This opinion is profoundly and absolutely deep-rooted in the soul of European governments, sociologists, and economists. As variants of these judgments, they limit themselves to dictating, from time to time, some axiomatic advice; but they dictate from pursed lips, in the tone of a schoolmaster directed at an undisciplined and failing student: “If you listened to me, if you weren’t a lazy bum, you would do this and also this and this…; but you are worthless! You will never do anything! You will never know anything! You will never be anything!”
That is the way we are treated and, in the meantime, South America has the reputation of being “the richest continent on the globe,” where all the Pactolus rivers run—the El Dorado, lands that contain and have accumulated all the riches, waiting only for dignified, hardworking, and wise men to occupy them to make it all worthwhile. And Europe, who already cannot contain its number of inhabitants and whose greed and rapacity intensify in proportion to the spread of its population, cannot take its eyes off the legendary continent. Condemning the societies that live on it, the spokesmen of current opinion in the Old World cannot manage to hide their feelings about the future that they expect for the South American nations. The more enlightened say it with no qualms; others—those who know how things are done—shroud their thoughts a little. But whoever wants to read between the lines will find the reflection of this general concept: “It’s sad and irritating that, while Europe, wise, civilized, hardworking, and rich, contorts itself along these narrow lands, millions of lazy bums, degenerate, noisy and barbaric creoles claim to be lords of rich and immense territories, granting themselves the nouveau riche ostentation of considering themselves nations. It is proven that they are incapable of organizing true nationalities; what Europe has to do is stop its idiotic contemplations and temporizing… .”
This is the general sentiment that translated into not only a categorically unfavorable judgment about us, but also into a certain ill will from anyone who sees in today’s South American nations an obstacle to the possession and enjoyment of an appetizing richness.1 Once in a while, this ill will explodes. The suppressed appetites come to light in the form of demands, to which formal investment would have already followed were it not for the United States; this continent would already be infinitely more bloody, more barbaric than it currently is.
. . .
However, there would be a true advantage for Europe to know well, in order to judge with assuredness and justice the political and social conditions and situation of the South American countries. There would be a great advantage for them and, consequently, for humanity and civilization in general, and it would be an advantage for us in particular.
For the countries of South America, this represents almost a question of life or death. In the first place, this universal, condemnatory judgment reflects on us in a very pernicious way. . . . In the second place, if these conditions persist, sooner or later we will be attacked brutally or insidiously in our sovereignties, and, to some extent, the development of these South American societies will be disturbed profoundly; nothing in the world will be able to stop the development on this continent of bloody battles, which would be significantly more fierce and more barbaric than current revolutions. If Europe does not change [its outlook toward us to reflect] feelings of relative equity, and the civilized nations do not decide to conduct their acts according to principles of justice and human solidarity that people individually accept—if such a miracle does not occur—South America, the Latin American populations, will have the same fate as those of India, Indochina, Africa, the Philippines, etc. [Louis] Guétant proclaims the truth when he affirms that: “The right of persons does not exist except for those who apply it advantageously; they are permitted, however, to traitorously attack the peoples who do not have a deliberative voice in the Congress of The Hague to denounce such infamy.” For now, we are protected by the Monroe Doctrine [SEE DOCUMENT III.1.1] behind the power and richness of the United States; and this is one of the serious inconveniences of Europe’s malevolent and aggressive attitude. [Despite the power of such protections,] the possibility of an attack does not disappear; nothing guarantees us that the great Republic wants to forever play this role of lifeguard and defender of the South American nations. It must be noted that North American public opinion reflects the effects of the judgments and ideas with which Europe condemns us and that the American politicians also consider us: ungovernable, almost useless. Under these conditions, the Monroe Doctrine figures for them—as far as what is reported in South America—as a platonic, sentimental preoccupation. They keep to it more for national pride perhaps than for any other reason. So, to a practical people interested directly in all of the great international questions of the day, it must seem, in the end, nonsensical to be accepting challenges and taking risks in stubborn battles to protect the life and sovereignty of nations that, deep down, are considered inferior. And it is valid, therefore, to believe that, one day, the great Republic might change its behavior and admit diplomatic combinations that tend toward the hoped-for invasion of Latin America.2 The forecast does not change, and it will drag, today or tomorrow, the poor Latin American nations into disturbing even more their social and economic organization, arming themselves as best they can for self-defense. Moreover—even given the United States’s disposition toward helping and protecting us ab œternum, we will still end up losing our sovereignty and our status as free peoples. The sovereignty of a people is annulled the moment it has to take shelter in the protection of another. By defending us, North America will fatally absorb us. I believe that this absorption is not in the plans of the American statesmen; but it is a natural consequence of the situation of “protected” and “protector.” In fact, part of our national sovereignty has already disappeared; for Europe, Latin America is already considered the protectorate of the United States. On the occasion of the [first] Peace Conference at The Hague [in 1898], everyone remembers that the South American nations were not invited because the European governments understood that they were not sufficiently sovereign. Moreover, the interests and opinions of the American peoples were perfectly represented and guaranteed by the United States, which was thus tacitly invited to function as a kind of protector over the rest of America. It is only under these conditions that Europe recognizes the Monroe theory.3
Such is the reality of things.
Can, [I mean,] should the Latin American nationalities resign themselves to this situation? Certainly not. As friendly as the United States—a nation whose development and progress all American peoples see with pleasure and pride—may be to us [and] as large as these feelings of esteem may be, there is no country in Latin America that isn’t repelled by the idea of abdicating its sovereignty and being absorbed by North American protection. Putting aside even the natural patriotic biases, there is the incontestable fact that this absorption could not be done without prejudice and damage to our progress, without great disturbances in our social development. I am referring to the condition of the societies that currently exist in South America: if one day the United States has to intervene in their political life, their luck will worsen, [and] they will suffer even more. . . .
Such are the consequences for us of the malevolent reputation that Europe creates about us.
1
There is no exaggeration nor misunderstanding when talking about ill will in these terms. It is clearly there. All one has to do is read the European press—any of it—and reflect on its way of dealing with acts by South American nations. Not that long ago, in the Anglo-Germanic-Venezuelan conflict, there were two facts to consider and to judge: the political life of Venezuela—the way in which it, represented by its government, conducts itself—and the actions of the blockading nations.
2
This work was already written when the Argentine government, understanding very well that this Monroe Doctrine, applied and formulated as it was in the great Republic—without any agreement with the other American powers—was more an attack on the sovereignty of those other nations than a guarantee, intervened in the American foreign commerce department. It asked for a reduction of that same doctrine to explicit terms, on the advice of other governments of interested countries. . . . The principles alleged in the cited note are the current principles of international law; nonetheless, the American government responded evasively, recognizing the legitimacy of such interventions and reserving for itself the right to interpret, by itself, the Monroe Doctrine, as most appropriate at the moment, or even to revoke it, if that seemed best.
3
In 1887, the recognized writer Mr. [Ernesto] Quesada already explicitly protested, voicing his aprehensions regarding the subalternity to which the Monroe Doctrine reduces Latin America: “It is indeed a seventy-two-year-old North American invention with no practical application. People say: The Américas for the Americans, coldly adding North Americans. Such has been the frank interpretation.” In 1900, during a commemorative speech in Paris, the Argentinean jurist voiced his fears once more, affirming: “A sharp, albeit slow-motion action deployed by the U.S.A. within Iberian American nations is already noticeable: the Monroe Doctrine implies nothing less than the disguised trusteeship of those who consider themselves as superior, due to initiative, riches, and consciousness of their own worth.” La Nación itself, an intentionally and carefully circumspect newspaper, recognizes that: “This is a tough one, if considering the protectorate status offered by the U.S.A.” These are apprehensions... one might say; but they are generalized apprehensions throughout all of Latin America, inexorably treated by North American sociology as a sick continent; apprehensions which only propogate in this way because they are natural.