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Latin American
Views: same shades of gray?
It is true: latinos may look
similar. Poverty, underdevelopment,
factious politics, social unrest, and
occasional instability are elements that
fit a simple description of the politics
of the region. But that is one side of
the coin. By looking closely at the
Western Hemisphere’s underdeveloped
region the observer realizes that things
become complex.
Most Latin American countries have
polarized societies. Brazil ranks first
place and Mexico comes second in the
list of most unequal societies in the
world. In these countries the richest
ten percent of the population control
almost half of the economy while the ten
poorest percent gets barely two
percent of the country’s wealth. In the
rest of Latin America the situation is
almost the same. One just needs to
remember that the second world’s richest
man, Carlos Slim, is Mexican (a country
where 40 percent of the population lives
in poverty).
Democracy in Latin America arrived after
the shutting down of decades of
dictatorships, authoritarian regimes,
and civil wars. Stagnation, inflation,
public debt, corruption and clientelism
have maintained a continuous slump in
economic growth throughout the region.
Organized crime is commonly found in
today’s societies as a product of social
dissolution, low opportunities and
expectations, and very weak systems of
justice. The majority of the people in
these countries distrusts their
institutions and perceives itself as
being exploited by foreign powers
because of the inability of their
politicians to act in their favor.
There is a wide range of similarities
between Latin American societies. Still,
not all latinos like each other.
There exists an abrupt Latin American
dialogue.
Many people still remember the "why
don’t you shut up" exchange between King
of Spain Juan Carlos and Venezuela’s
President Hugo Chávez at the
Inter-American Meeting Conference at the
beginning of this year in Chile. This
episode is more than a popular YouTube
video; it is an instance that crudely
reflects the broken dialogue in the
region.
That’s why
one convenient big starting point in
analyzing Latin American reality, and
the one that continues not to be fully
explained, is the reasons of the wrecked
dialogue in the region that has been
able to surmount efforts toward the
rapprochement of the Latin American
countries. The unsuccessful Free Trade
Area of the Americas initiative shows
how different the core interests are in
each country. Today eleven nations have
a FTA with the U.S. individually. In
other areas the same path is observed.
Just remember the last civil unrest in
Haiti. None of the neighbouring nations
took the step of pressing President
Aristide to give up power, until
Washington handled the situation. The
most active Latin American foreign
policy in the globe is Brazilian, and
the country exerts it independently.
One more example is energy. In spite of
the enormous potential of biofuels as
the possible next source of energy in
the world, and despite the fact that
Latin America is the major reserve of
agricultural products in the world, no
formal discussion has taken place in the
region. There is one leading actor,
Brazil, some opponents, Cuba, Venezuela,
and reticent efforts in some countries,
Mexico, Argentina. We could go further,
with current divisions derived from the
conflict between Colombia and
Ecuador/Venezuela for the Colombian
“invasion” in Ecuador to capture key
leaders of the Armed Revolutionary
Forces of Colombia (FARC).
If Latin America looked at itself in the
mirror today, it would realize that this
year the region is accomplishing its
fifth year of economic surge. However,
it lags behind other regions such as
India and China. Recent forums have
proved less useful to reach agreements
in the region, and divisionism is a
luxury that Latin American countries
cannot afford.
This blog is intended to explore a
likely debate that the region would
need, taking the experiences from one
country to discuss their feasibility in
other nations.
The blog will be addressing several
views that exist in Latin America to
show how they differ, how they approach
the same purposes and tackle with the
same aspirations, and still how they are
unnecessarily confronted.
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