A Dialogue of the Deaf: The United States and Latin America
Randall, Laura
"The Mexican tells lies because he delights in fantasy, or be cause he is desperate, or because he wants to rise above the sordid facts of his life; the North American does not tell lies, but...
...When a genuine social revolution took place in Bolivia, the Communists opposed it on the (erroneous) grounds that it was Trotskyite...
...We have the power, don't we...
...And with good reason...
...Yet the presence of nationalists is not an indication of a nationalism that elicits cooperative behavior from divergent groups...
...Unfortunately, these paragraphs were no more than desperately wishful thinking...
...Even more so are the majority of Latin American nations...
...It is light and decorous, but capable of being a sharply wielded weapon...
...When North Americans insist, both early and often, on asking about Communism in his host's or guest's country, the Latin American will be irritated, not only because he can think of a dozen things more important on his own political scene (or more flattering), but because the North American falls so dismally into the boring stereotype: persistence in talking about all Latin American problems in terms of "anti-Communism" only betrays to Latin Americans the North Americans' parochial refusal to pay any real attention to Latin America...
...How do you measure it...
...These acts in part explain the poor showing of Frondizi in the March elections, and the suspension of formal democracy when the army overthrew and imprisoned him almost immediately thereafter...
...Perhaps in part because it had earlier advised against calling the Punta del Este meeting, Argentina abstained from voting to condemn Castro's Cuba...
...You mean you want more...
...A country is a democracy if it has a parliament, even if the parlament is a gentlemen's club which occasionally gathers for the purpose of blocking all change, or even if it is more or less a rubber stamp for a reactionary strong man...
...Worse, what is moral in Spanish may seem moralistic in English...
...Spanish is an "easy" language to learn...
...The end of the fighting made these changes possible...
...Certain key words and phrases take on symbolic value, elicit stock responses, and achieve a life of their own, making rational exchange of views difficult...
...In response to Latin assertions of sovereignty North Americans reply: "Let's send a little man down there to get rid of Castro...
...our sovereignty is as important as our virility...
...Welfare programs, except for your own clamorous supporters who must be paid off, may be unrealistically expensive in a country whose poverty brought on the revolution in the first place...
...The revolution appears as not only a simple seizure of power, but also a continuous (if often uneven) process in which a relatively static, semi-"feudal" society is shattered and a new society is constructed...
...Conversely, sober meaty English may translate as uninspired Spanish...
...Since attention to substance did not resolve continuing political difficulties, Frondizi hoped that changing the form in which the problems were posed might lead to their resolution...
...There is probably not much quarrel with such liberal ideals, but these ideals are not always the object of serious political action...
...Elected in 1958, Frondizi was faced with the twin tasks of establishing wide areas of national consensus and fostering economic growth...
...For the educated North American, "sovereignty" recalls the somewhat embarrassing posturing and foreign adventures of the 1850s or 1890s, or the wholly embarrassing senators from the sovereign State of South Carolina...
...United States intransigence in calling for open condemnation of Cuba had a disastrous effect on Argentina...
...Democracy" in North America not only denotes a specific political system which allows for a wide degree of participation through elections, congresses or parliaments, and parties, but it also connotes a prosperous, industrialized, and relatively egalitarian society, unhampered by major class rigidities, with large areas of agreement between all significant social groups, i.e., a somewhat idealized version of countries such as the United States or Canada...
...But they took place—and will take place—as a process of accretion over several years...
...The dialogue of the deaf that has gone on for at least the last fifteen years should be transformed into a mutually intelligible conversation...
...Unless the government were to be composed of union officials, or of representatives of political parties dominated by unions, the spectacle of a labor union on good terms with the government might well appear a sell-out to union members in Latin America who often assume that unless the revolution has already taken place, the interests of labor and of the regime must be irreconcilably hostile...
...These phrases, left over from the days of Teddy Roosevelt, crop up in North American discussions about what, if anything, we ought to do about Latin America...
...If Uruguay should fail this norm, we would be handing over the future of the republic because the large nations could dispose of our national destiny on the pretext that our precedent made us the first to violate that norm...
...The result is the tragicomic dance so often observed in the cities of this hemi sphere, a dance in which the North American backs nervously away, while the Latin American pushes aggressively forward, the one annoyed by an unwanted physical intrusion, the other by a snobbish coldness...
...Argentine society, one of the richest in Latin America, is deeply divided...
...and when they are thriving in abundance, as a duty imposed upon the nation by the multitude of interests asserted but never entirely satisfied...
...It is a mentality which speaks of sovereignty and independence without recognizing that these are theoretical concepts which are not based on the reality of a nation united in its great spiritual ideals, and which, in the material field, uses its natural resources to promote a solid economic structure which defends that nation against the pressures of foreign domination...
...At first glance it seems surprising that Communists play so minor a role in almost every Latin American scene...
...These divergent usages reflect disparate conditions in the two societies...
...Of the left...
...Who knows what's moral...
...When Castro took to the mountains, the Communists maintained their working agreement with Batista—and it has taken an extraordinary combination of circumstances to let them recover from that blunder...
...For Latin Americans, national sovereignty is not an echo from the past but a present necessity, a first line of defense against a foreign colossus that has intervened in a majority of Latin American republics within living memory...
...it may be a crashing bore, with a directness and informality that appear uncultivated and boorish...
...In such a society, for a man with a revolutionary program, North American "liberal" ideas are often irrelevant...
...Yet, because the United States is the strongest nation in the hemisphere, in matters of form it should have been the most flexible...
...Foreign Affairs, October, 1961...
...OCTAvio PAZ "The trouble is, you Americans always want to castrate us," said the Mexican nationalist who wore American shoes...
...after all, national sovereignty is national sex...
...Just before the 1962 Argentine Congressional elections, he attacked the form of his opponents' charges directly: This mentality which is opposed to our national plan belongs to the past which is gone...
...In a revolutionary situation, "freedom" for your allies, such as the trade unions, may mean the dispersion of your slender and desperately embattled forces...
...Clear evidence for such a generalization are the Cuban unions (sell-outs) that supported Batista, or the newly formed railroad unions in Mexico (not sell-outs), whose leaders are in jail at least partly because of the anti-government nature of their political activities...
...The old upper classes had to be dispossessed, the Roman Catholic Church had to be crushed, land, wealth, and income had to be distributed, education and social mobility had to be granted to the masses, a modern economy had to be constructed...
...the North American does not tell lies, but he substitutes social truth for the real truth, which is always disagreeable...
...The break with Cuba, and the too-close-to-elections timing of the announcement of economic aid to Argentina, are two actions for which the United States bears much responsibility...
...Frondizi's claim that his new policies were necessary "to save the country" did not convince the leftists who had elected him...
...For example, Latin pleas based on the "moral imperative of change," and on "just price" may strike us as vague, imprecise, and possibly hostile...
...In an attempt to explain this to a North American audience, Janio Quadros wrote that There are two moments in the life of nations when complete freedom is permitted in the expression of what might be called a national ideology: when they are undergoing dire poverty, as the sole romantic consolation left to the people...
...The North American business man squirms uneasily: "Wha' d'ya mean, a just price...
...Unresponsive to their environment, often too late, and often unlucky, the Communist parties of Latin America have failed to capture the allegiance of the masses, which usually support xenophobic left-wing movements instead...
...Let's be practical...
...We have no right to dream...
...This angered the Army into forcing Frondizi to break diplomatic relations with Cuba...
...the form favored by North Americans is clearly technical...
...It may fall heavily...
...Clearly, Latin American ideology—nationalism—arises from the first of Quadros' conditions, United States ideology from the second...
...Latin Americans appear to be less than certain that they want anything done to them...
...More important, the Communists focus on two problems central to Latin America: grinding poverty and frustratingly limited social mobility...
...His aim is not to modify or to tinker, but to overthrow the existing ruling class, overturn the social structure and build it anew...
...Betancourt grows less and less radical, carries out land reform less rapidly than his rural supporters demand, does not seem able to alleviate urban unemployment, and becomes more dependent on the military...
...In other cases they cast away their opportunities by rigidly adhering to a number of Stalin's policies that were of little relevance to Latin America...
...The most recent example of a leader trapped by the diametrically opposed requirements of domestic and foreign politics is deposed President Arturo Frondizi of Argentina...
...Why don't you say what you mean...
...Most North Americans become uncomfortable when another person edges within two feet of them...
...That is to say, an international conference was called because of domestic United States needs, and an agenda was set up in terms appropriate to domestic United States politics...
...The Latin Americans disregard of "the Communist danger" appears irresponsible to most Yankees...
...United States' programs that run counter to either will probably fail...
...The conference evidently was called in hopes of convincing the United States Congress of the antiCommunist, anti-Castro worthiness of Latin American countries to receive aid under the Alliance for Progress...
...Social justice is linked in their minds not with "democracy" but with quite another concept: revolution...
...What is the origin of such contradictory attitudes...
...Our own nationalists are better...
...Haya de la Torre develops more centrist policies...
...There is no necessary connection between "democracy" and the will or welfare of the people...
...Oligarchic Colombia and Chile at the beginning of the century were thus "democracies...
...How much more...
...This mentality has been left behind by the progressive forces of the nation...
...The injection of controversial international issues, such as Cuba and Communism, into domestic politics by calling the Punta del Este conference predictably sharpened the divisions within Argentine society and weakened Frondizi's government...
...But the Communists' lot is not a happy one...
...Rather, it is an indication of almost irreconcilably deep divisions within society...
...Take Cuba: its assertion of national sovereignty is like kicking you in the balls...
...At this time, when the creation of wide areas of consensus was probably the most pressing domestic concern in almost all Latin American countries, the United States chose to introduce the issue of Communism, and the emotional problems of self-determination and sovereignty into the domestic politics of all Latin American countries by calling the Punta del Este conference to deal with Castro's Cuba...
...In Latin America, perhaps the most emotionally charged word of all is "sovereignty...
...Rather it is our duty to work...
...Until this happens, the United States will continue to attack Latin American dreams and images, to no avail, because, like the rest of us, Latin Americans identify with their faults and fantasies...
...Both reject the simplistic anti-Americanism of their leftist opponents, both have been forced to conciliate local rightists...
...When Kennedy sent the Navy late in 1961 to protect left-centrists in the Dominican Republic against the resurgent Trujillos, many Latin American nationalists were strangely silent...
...He successfully obtained the money from foreign private investors, governments, and international organizations, but under conditions requiring a degree of economic austerity and an encouragement of foreign capital that bore little resemblance to his nationalist, statist, and pro-labor campaign promises...
...In nationalist terms, these changes were inherent in the ideology of the revolution, but it took time to turn them into reality...
...Compromise...
...What in Spanish is a civilized attention to form may appear in English an absence of substance, as well as snobbish and undemocratic...
...If United States foreign policy is to succeed, the United States must acquire a more flexible and sympathetic understanding of radical or revolutionary programs and language...
...ORIT, however, both by its regional character and by the apparent cordiality of its relations with the State Department, has been frequently attacked as a paid agent of the United States government...
...The next steps are predictable...
...Five minutes of brilliant Spanish may take fifteen minutes in English translation...
...But of course sovereignty is a joke left over from the last century...
...and "To the extent their societies differ from ours, theirs are inferior...
...It is but a short step to misunderstandings about substantive political problems...
...In a country where relative shares of wealth and power often appear more important than absolute levels of either, a failure to increase the share of his original supporters was predictably considered by them to be a sell-out...
...At the same time, Frondizi's policies did not unify the remainder of popular opinion, or gain Frondizi a majority of votes for his Party...
...Recently, a four-volume publication entitled Mexico, Fifty Years of Revolution was published in honor of the Mexican Revolution which began in 1910...
...And in Latin America, "sovereignty" often has a left-wing connotation, since North Americans have almost always violated their sovereignty by intervening on behalf of conservatives...
...Eduardo Haedo, a former President of Uruguay's National Council of Government, has said In international policy, we must prefer to be without dollars and even face misery while holding high the sovereignty and independence of the nation...
...Healthy and just societies are rare in Latin America, so that the intellectual is more apt to be a revolutionary than a reformer...
...While adherence to a strict Party line is impossible for Latin Americans who aspire to intellectual leadership in their countries, the Party's simple slogans that seem to solve the most pressing social questions are quite attractive to many students and workers who demand hard definite answers rather than the amorphous complexities of "balanced" North American views...
...There is more to a dance than motion...
...North Americans are widely accused of caring for no sovereignty save their own...
...Of the left...
...Two famous examples are Betancourt of Venezuela and Haya de la Torre of Peru, much admired by academic specialists in Latin American affairs, the leadership of the AFL—CIO and liberal Democrats in Washington...
...Pragmatic...
...Such values are important in prosperous societies with large middle classes, as refinements of an essentially healthy and just society...
...Latin Americans are more apt to regard it as a long-term process...
...The North American official—or intellectual—will groan inwardly: "Change, sure...
...The psychosexual theory of international relations probably doesn't quite account for all of the difficulties between "anglo-saxons" and "latins...
...The large countries have economic resources, guns, and bullets to defend themselves, but Uruguay has no other defense than the juridical norm and acknowledges no other empire than that of the law...
...Castro was able to resume screaming only by pretending that the Navy sought to protect center-rightists against real leftists...
...The AFL—CIO sponsors an interAmerican labor organization (Organizacion Regional Internacional de Trabajo known as ORIT) which, among other things, organizes an exchange of North and Latin American union personnel...
...North Americans think of a revolution as a putsch, a civil war, a bloodbath...
...By the time they have "matured" enough to become acceptable to the State Department, they are no longer wholly acceptable to the younger members of their own party...
...Consider first some simple matters of national style...
...There is tempo...
...United States policy towards Cuba, following actions of Castro that clearly violated North American legal precepts, illustrates Haedo's point neatly...
...In such a society, the economic and political independence of the citizen allows governmental institutions to function with a minimum of corruption and a maximum of representation of popular wishes...
...It seems to me that North Americans consider the world to be something that can be perfected, and that we consider it to be something that can be redeemed...
...Too much change too soon encourages extremists of the left as well as of the right...
...Soon afterwards, younger and more fiery groups within the traditional radical parties split off—the "Ars" from Betancourt's Accion Democratica, and APRA Rebelde from Haya de la Torre's APRA—leaving the formerly heroic leaders with a smaller following of aging moderates from the past, and in the case of Betancourt, no resort but to rule by repression...
...Spanish is usually spoken more rapidly than English...
...As long as poverty and inequality exist, the revolution cannot end...
...When Communism reached Latin America in the twenties and thirties, it entered an arena of long-established nationalist and left-wing political movements...
...Increased national welfare does not necessarily increase the relative benefits of any one group within society...
...Frondizi's domestic difficulties stemmed from the fact that although he campaigned on a highly nationalistic platform, he adopted after his election economic policies which required massive foreign assistance...
...Further, the form of expression favored by Latin Americans is often overwhelmingly moral...
...Gone are the days when Alfred Korzybski could recommend the study of semantics as an antidote to everything from toothache to Communism, yet there are words, ostensibly identical in the two languages, which are in fact used in very different ways...
...He lives not in a relatively homogeneous society, but in a sharply polarized two-class world...
...The Mexican tells lies because he delights in fantasy, or be cause he is desperate, or because he wants to rise above the sordid facts of his life...
...In most cases the Communists were too late to found the first mass party...
...Worse, attempts to placate allies in terms appropriate to international relations may have disastrous repercussions on domestic politics...
...you'd like to make a state out of Cuba—castrate the country, just the way you castrated Puerto Rico...
...They do guard their own sovereignty, but they don't usually think about it under that name, which makes them even less likely to comprehend the widespread Latin American obsession with the concept...
...many liberal North Americans believe that absolute non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations is an obsolete ideal, that non-interference is often the cruelest form of interference, that it is far from moral to non-interfere with a drowning child, and that Latin America, at best, is a drowning adolescent...
...In frequent Spanish usage, a country is a democracy if it has elections, even if the country is so poverty-stricken that buying votes is an inexpensive transaction, or even if the qualifications for voting limit the voters to the dominant social class...
...But many Latin Americans are used to standing closer than that to any person with whom they are interested in talking...
...Yet the insistent use of forceful language by men who so openly identify their personal with their political power—to the amusement and dismay of the "puritans" who largely control the hemisphere's destiny— points to a major failure in communications between North and Latin Americans...
...To many Latin Americans "democracy" signifies only an electoral process...
...New groups—the Union Republicana Democratica in Venezuela and the Accibn Popular in Peru—fill the vacuum on the left...
...Small countries must be more vigilant of their sovereignty...
...Small wonder that when Communism is mentioned, either all communication ceases, or the only response is a derisive: "What do we need to import Communists for...
...Of the left...
...And joining the Communists is not yet too dangerous a way of annoying the United States...
...Worse still, when Latin American leaders learn to talk the language of the Yankees they have difficulty at home...
...These changes did not occur the year the fighting stopped...
...for their own good, let's do something about it...
...so many Spanish words look like English words, and the bilingual dictionaries tell us they are cognates...
...Nor are such ideas confined to reactionary circles...
...In a Latin American country today, to say the revolution is finished is to say that the revolution has failed...
...Local Communists supported the United States from Russia's entry into World War II, and so Peron was able to capture the leftist, nationalist, anti-North American masses of Argentina...
...North American liberals often assume that Latin American nationalists are pro-labor, in which case contacts made through labor channels should be especially well-received...
...Liberal intellectuals in this country are often surprised that their Latin American counterparts so often lack a specific commitment to free elections, the rights of political opposition, free speech and press, procedural rights for arrested persons, social democracy, free trade unions, a variety of welfare measures...
...Even when language is similar, the dissimilarity of the situations language reflects effectively prevents communication from taking place...
...freedom" for oppositionists may mean that they can organize quicker and deadlier counterblows...
Vol. 9 • September 1962 • No. 4
