Getting past the fact that it was Hugo Chavez …
By Maia Draper | April 27, 2009 at 5:16 pmAt the Summit of the Americas last week, the smiling encounters between President Barack Obama and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez had pundits speculating about the new administration’s approach to Latin America, in particular to the controversial, America-is-the-Devil President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela (and to his shunned political ally Raúl Castro of Cuba).
In a gesture caught on camera and analyzed ad infinitum , Hugo Chavez gave President Obama a book entitled Open Veins of Latin America, a critique of Imperialist American involvement in Latin America written in1970 (revised 1978) by the Uruguayan journalist and writer Eduardo Galeano. The book presents the history of Latin America from its initial colonization and exploitation by its Spanish and Portuguese colonizers in the 1500’s through the 20th century, in which it argues that the very structure of the world economic system (organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank) encourages the prosperity of the United States and the continued exploitation of Latin America. The IMF, for instance, is said to have preferentially given loans to Latin America’s right-wing military dictatorships of the 1970’s and ‘80’s, whose economic policies were beneficial to U.S. and European corporations, despite these regimes’ flagrant abuse of human rights.
That Hugo Chavez is the giver of this well-reasoned and influential book certainly adds another layer to its interpretation, Chavez himself having positioned himself as something of a radical ideologue (albeit a radical ideologue of the left). However, thinking of Chavez’s rise to power in light of the historical context laid out in Galeano’s book certainly should be a crucial aspect of the Obama administration’s consideration of diplomatic relations with Latin America, the majority of whose current governments have been deeply influenced by theories like Galeano’s. Reading it certainly won’t hurt the thousands of people who have obtained a copy in the wake of Chavez’s gesture.
Filed under: Current Events and Issues | Tags: barack obama, hugo chavez, latin america, summit of the americas, venezuela | 4 Comments »
I do agree with your implication that Mr. Chavez’s choice of literature indicates an evenness, even moderation, of thought on his part. He did not, for instance, give Obama a book by Che, for instance.
Nonetheless, the book is a rather narrow historical interpretation of Latin American history. As a student in Santiago, Chile I remember citing the work in a course on Latin American history. The Chilean professor rolled his eyes and assured me that there is more to Latin American history than the sort of victimization that Galeano traffics in.
I feel like referring to Galeano’s position as victimization is a little misleading – in historiographical context, the book’s actually pretty empowering. Up until Galeano looked at the issue, there was no reasonable, comprehensive answer to the question of why Latin America was in such terrible straits – or at least not one that didn’t blame the people themselves or compare them unfavorably to yanquilandia. Open Veins is not just a book of history, but a pretty trenchant policy suggestion (with, yes, a blatantly socialist viewpoint, if that’s the sort of thing that bothers you). In it, Galeano essentially tells the people of Latin America that failure is not inevitable, and is certainly not part of their blood, but is simply a result of their lack of regional (read: class) consciousness.
It’s also worth pointing out, in all the flurry over the political significance of Galeano’s leftist leanings, that Open Veins is one of the best-written histories of Latin America. Galeano is not just a compelling theorist, but an excellent prose stylist, and I think his book’s rediscovery is overdue, if anything.
Also: what did Che ever do to you? How can you not be charmed by a bearded motorcyclist?
Did you see “Regift, Please!” at TNR?
The appeal of the book to Chavez, I believe, was to appear that he was giving Obama a scholarly account of Latin American suffering, that he was engaging the issue in a serious way, not sloganeering or preaching.
But the New Republic article speaks strongly to my point, which is that book is no longer taken particularly seriously in Latin American/academic circles. Its general points, as Max says, are of value, but the book itself is not.