THE FORGOTTEN CONTINENT

Don‘t cry for me
Latin America is moving closer to democracy
Bill King
Special to the Sun
Saturday, April 19, 2008

CREDIT: Jorge Silva, Reuters
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a practitioner of ‘Bolivarian‘ socialism, holds grandchild Jorge during a military parade.
THE FORGOTTEN CONTINENT: THE BATTLE FOR LATIN AMERICA‘S SOUL
BY MICHAEL REID
Yale University Press, 384 pages ($30.75)
- - -
In the past few weeks, one nation bombed its neighbour‘s territory in a hunt for armed insurgents, another nation‘s leader threatened to cut off part of the U.S. oil supply and, in yet another, angry farmers blocked roads to protest government policies. Is it possible to be optimistic about Latin America?
As counterintuitive as it may seem, the answer to that question is yes -- at least according to long-time Latin America watcher Michael Reid‘s new book, The Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America‘s Soul.
Reid‘s optimism is neither superficial nor ideological. His background covering Latin America for The Guardian and the BBC, and his current position as editor of the Americas section of The Economist, give his work a grounded -- if at times an overly quantitative -- quality.
His positive take on the region rests on two interrelated arguments. The first is that democracy is, at long last, "within striking distance" of being consolidated in Latin America, particularly in political success stories like Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Mexico.
He makes a strong case that factors such as the military‘s pullback from political life, the increased inclusion of indigenous peoples and the shift in American foreign policy from backing dictators to promoting democracy that began during the Reagan era have nearly put an end to the traditional pendulum swing between democracy and dictatorship.
The major exception to this trend (aside from the continued dictatorship in Cuba) is Hugo Chavez‘s Venezuela. For Reid, Chavez and his brand of authoritarian populism, also known as "Bolivarian" socialism, represent the major political challenge to the advance of democracy in Latin America.
Despite using democratic means to attain power, Chavez, -- and, to a lesser degree, Bolivia‘s Evo Morales and Ecuador‘s Rafael Correa -- offer a rehashed leftist paternalism that is loudly "anti-imperialist" but in practice weakens democratic institutions and governance while still failing to meet the needs of the poor.
In clearly distinguishing Chavez and his allies from centre-left governments like those of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Reid aligns himself with those who call for a left that is committed to democratic values and is profoundly reformist, rather than "revolutionary." This won‘t endear him to many in the North American solidarity and anti-globalization movements, but it‘s unlikely Reid would lose much sleep over that.
His second argument is that throughout Latin America there is now a widespread acceptance of capitalism in the form of open, market economies. This claim will also rankle many on the activist left, for whom the privatization policies of the 1990s, or the "Washington consensus," were the cause of many of the region‘s recent economic problems.
The heart of the so-called Washington consensus lay in attaining macroeconomic stability, lowering inflation and opening up trade. Despite the heated rhetoric, left-of-centre governments have continued to adhere to these principles. Where the reforms of the 1990s went wrong was in their implementation, particularly in poorly regulated privatizations that were plagued by corruption and the emergence of private monopolies in place of public ones.
For Reid, the emergence of a moderate left that embraces the market but also pays attention to regulation and to social policies aimed at reducing poverty and inequality has been one of the crucial factors in the region‘s progress. In the battle for Latin America‘s soul, economic and political salvation lies in this moderate approach.
Few would disagree with Reid that a new pro-market reformism has emerged in parts of Latin America, and that democracy is close to consolidation in a number of countries. This is a major step forward for a region in which, as Reid puts it, "little more than a generation ago, many were being murdered for their political beliefs."
Yet although it is more carefully made than many of the knee-jerk attacks on "neo-liberalism," there is a major tension in Reid‘s argument. His own analysis points to this new trend being a geographically limited one. For every advance in a Chile or a Brazil, a Venezuela or a Bolivia introduces another nationalization or further threatens democratic rights.
And despite his generous balance sheet, the fact remains that many Latin Americans will remain susceptible to the appeal of radical populists, in part because of the failures of earlier attempts at free-market reforms. Chavez‘s penchant for interfering in his neighbours‘ affairs will ensure that his "21st-century socialism" remains one of the options on the table.
Ultimately, Reid‘s recognition that authoritarian populism in democratic garb is the central obstacle to the consolidation of market democracies serves to weaken his argument about the progress of the region as a whole. But this is no reason to discard his assessment completely. If anything, his optimism is best complemented by the view that democratic capitalism must not only provide for political representation and material well-being but must also serve as a "fighting faith" with which to challenge Chavez‘s backward-looking "socialism" in a battle of ideas.
Whether Latin America‘s democratic leaders and intellectuals are up to the challenge remains an open question.
Bill King is a PhD student in history at Ohio University. He was born in Colombia and maintains an active interest in Latin American affairs.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Latin America has often been condemned to failure. Neither poor enough to evoke Africa’s moral crusade, nor as explosively booming as India and China, it has largely been overlooked by the West. Yet this vast continent, home to half a billion people, the world’s largest reserves of arable land, and 8.5 percent of global oil, is busily transforming its political and economic landscape.
This book argues that rather than failing the test, Latin America’s efforts to build fairer and more prosperous societies make it one of the world’s most vigorous laboratories for capitalist democracy. In many countries—including Brazil, Chile and Mexico—democratic leaders are laying the foundations for faster economic growth and more inclusive politics, as well as tackling deep-rooted problems of poverty, inequality, and social injustice. They face a new challenge from Hugo Chávez’s oil-fuelled populism, and much is at stake. Failure will increase the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants to the United States and Europe, jeopardize stability in a region rich in oil and other strategic commodities, and threaten some of the world‘s most majestic natural environments.
Drawing on Michael Reid’s many years of reporting from inside Latin America’s cities, presidential palaces, and shantytowns, the book provides a vivid, immediate, and informed account of a dynamic continent and its struggle to compete in a globalized world.
Hello, NeighborGregg Newton/Corbis
Brazil’s capital, Brasilia. The country is working to spread democracy’s benefits among all social classes.
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By CAROLYN CURIEL
Published: February 3, 2008
Anyone who caughtHugo Chávez’s act at theUnited Nations in September 2006 — in which Chávez, the president of Venezuela, comparedGeorge W. Bush to Satan — might infer that relations between Latin America and the United States have gone to hell. But Chávez’s extreme theatrics mask the real problem. Our mostly Spanish-speaking neighbors have reason to suspect that except for occasional military and economic interventions, American leaders don’t pay them much mind, let alone give them the respect they’ve earned.
Skip to next paragraph FORGOTTEN CONTINENT
The Battle for Latin America’s Soul.
By Michael Reid.
Illustrated. 384 pp. Yale University Press. $30.
PresidentRonald Reagan, returning from a 1982 trip to Latin America, said: “You’d be surprised. They’re all individual countries.”Richard Nixon, tutoringDonald Rumsfeld in 1971 on foreign policy, found importance in Russia and China, but noted, “People don’t give one damn about Latin America.” The myopia is not limited to Washington. In 1992,Margaret Thatcher — perhaps more familiar with the desolate Falkland Islands, which her military had reclaimed from Argentina when she was the prime minister of Britain — seemed nonplused to see skyscrapers over São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere: “Why didn’t anybody tell me about this?”
For his part, President Bush, from a border state, initially instilled great expectations. Then 9/11 happened. LikeFranklin D. Roosevelt, who seemed to acknowledge Latin America’s significance until the attack on Pearl Harbor, Bush settled for the false sense of partnership that comes from proximity.
Michael Reid, a longtime Latin America correspondent and the editor of the fine Americas section of The Economist, takes exception to such benign neglect, and worse, in “Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul.” In a brilliantly researched and annotated work of scholarship, Reid makes a cogent case that the battle has become more internal — but of necessity, not by choice. Since Latin American nations are beginning to get their true democratic bearings, he argues, now would be a good time for old hands at stable democracy — particularly in Washington and Europe — to come off the bench and enter the game. The consequence of not doing so would be to forfeit this critical relationship to China and India, both eager to assert themselves, at least economically, in the region.
Latin America has undergone dramatic change since 1977, when all but four countries were dictatorships. Today, with the exception of Cuba, each has evolved into a democracy — though sometimes the results have been so flawed that, likeBarry Bonds and his home run record, they require an asterisk, to explain that the leader was elected but under less than ideal circumstances. These include constitutional rewrites to perpetuate power (notably in the cases of Chávez andAlberto Fujimori of Peru) and large-scale fraud (Mexico, for decades, in every charade of an election under the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI). There are exceptions. Costa Rica, one of the world’s sturdier democracies, offers valuable — although not always readily applicable — lessons in democracy building through demilitarization, selective development, expansive education and a free press. Unfortunately, Reid does not dwell much on it.
As an outsider with a keen inside view, however, he performs an important service, outlining the historical record and a prognosis. Reid has no ideological ax to grind, chiding both the left and the right for treating the region with “the utmost condescension.” He carefully documents little-known or -remembered American missteps, including zealous anti-Communist interventions that ousted elected leaders, like Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala during the early years of the cold war, a move that set back the cause of democracy. At the same time, though, he advises against wallowing in defeatist blame games.
The right approach for the United States involves a commitment to fostering cooperation, particularly on the economic front, emphasizing free trade and offering Latin nations support for building democratic institutions. Latin American hopes for the beginnings of just such a partnership with Washington were prematurely lifted when PresidentBill Clinton organized the first Summit of the Americas in 1994, vowing to work toward the Free Trade Area of the Americas, as an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement. That never materialized, and bilateral agreements, most recently with Peru, have been slow in coming. Reid works especially hard to make the case for a pact with Colombia, which has so far not satisfied human rights concerns from monitors and in Congress.
He is an admirer of the Washington Consensus, a mix of fiscal austerity, privatization and market liberalization intended to fix the widespread debt crises and hyperinflation of the 1980s. Economies did become steady, though tenuously in many instances. Reid sees that the remedy was incomplete: “Perhaps the most important missing commitment was to equity, to slashing poverty and inequality.” He believes such gaps, with help, are not insurmountable. Considering how far much of Latin America has come in recent decades, overcoming civil wars, mass murders, dictatorships and military juntas, he may turn out to be right.
Reid tirelessly seeks out signs of progress, but there’s no escaping that tens of millions of people still live in abject poverty. He correctly faults the legacy of the brutal conquest of an indigenous population many times larger than that north of Mexico. Pervasive racism impedes darker-skinned people, including not only descendants of the Aztec, Incan and Mayan civilizations but also the millions whose ancestors were brought enslaved from Africa. Divisions have been perpetuated by the failure to achieve land reform. The resulting migration, legal and not, has drained nations of their strongest and potentially brightest, who nonetheless often receive a cold welcome in the North. The separation of families has taken a toll, offset somewhat by tens of billions of dollars in cash remittances that buoy economies.
The most acute disparities have given rise to leaders like Chávez and PresidentEvo Morales of Bolivia, who pander to the downtrodden but whose policies can scare off the foreign investment needed to provide jobs. In an argument that could be lifted wholesale into the American presidential campaign playbook, Reid maintains that populists, powered more by charisma than by meaningful experience or constructive ideas, constitute a dangerous trend. Yet Chávez’s recent defeat at the polls, as he sought permission to be president for life, was reassuring.
The good things Latin American governments are doing to keep their people home usually go unreported. Some countries have tried to spread the benefits of democracy to every social class. As Reid points out, while the United States has backed away from affirmative action, Brazil has used it to integrate the courts and universities. Under PresidentErnesto Zedillo, Mexico began experimenting with ways to alleviate poverty. PresidentVicente Fox built on the program, known as Oportunidades, which offers some five million families incentives for doing the right thing, like keeping children in school. The results, including improved graduation rates, prompted MayorMichael Bloomberg to attempt a similar program in New York.
On its own, Latin America has made undeniable strides, slowly and surely. Michael Reid urges the naysayers to liberate their thinking and perhaps also an unfairly disregarded part of the world.
Carolyn Curiel, a member of the editorial board of The Times, previously served as United States ambassador to Belize.