The Latin America thread (VE, BR, AR, CU, MX...)

Ooh, I've been meaning to read up on the Vilcabamba Incas for a while. Any good place to start?

I would recommend The Incas before Spain: The Wars of Resistance by historian Juan José Vega. Although he writes with indigenist leanings, he's very impartial when it comes to the reasons why the Inca Empire fell, one being the cuzquean domination over the other peoples of ancient Peru.

I never really got the chance to learn about Peruvian history. How did the republic's approach to the indigenous change over time?

It's a mixed bag to be honest.

I do not kid when I say that the amerindians had more rights during the Viceroyalty period than the Republic one for periods of time.

If I must oversimplify, the amerindians -and by them I mean the andean ones- were treated with more respect by the state during the military presidencies than during the civilian ones, this is because the military still had a feudal element to it and generals recluted people from their lands, being the most productive the ones in the highlands.

The incursion to the Amazon rainforest, as well as the "scientific" racism and dominance of the civilian aristoracy brought more pain to the jungle amerindians during the time of the explotation of natural rubber. The Velasco dictarorship saw a revival of amerindian and national ideas to counteract the cultural influence of the USA, something that has seen a steady resurrection with brand Peru nowadays. Most notoriously, Velasco started the process of making official the many native languages of Peru, giving them the same status as Spanish; and he implemented the Agrarian reforms that broke the power of the aristocracy.

Today, we are embracing more and more of our andean roots, there's still racism but it's being fought more openly than in previous years; in a way, the impulse given to a sort of "benign" nationalism here is part of why our country is starting to come together more and more.

It's a good thing to hear. I hope that spirit shall endure for future generations.

Velasco...he was certainly a caudillo, but a very unusual one. Kayuza talked about him one time, he's definitely a very controversial personality.

That said his statement of telling Chile to fuck off appears to have gone memetic.

I still won't forget the glorious junta grudge matches.

The Argentines say they would've stormed into Chile and taken the Beagles if the damn Brits hadn't showed up.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Mar 31st 2020 at 5:40:36 AM

Our government current slogan literally is "Peru First"

Vizcarra is becoming popular nowadays given his relatively successful campaign against Covid 19. Though the debate of "Why the best peruvian presidents are those unelected" has started again

About fidel, as venezuelan I can said to fuck off, cuban influence was a big reason of why Chavismo turn like it did(kinda, chavismo was always polarizing fucktards but it have many good people there), shfiting the perpective of a typical old guard comunism, they are active participant in the corruption of my country.

I dont mind cubans per se but their goverment is nothing but poison.

For me, honestly, it's not actually what occured in Cuba afterwards that interests me.

It's the insurrection stage of the revolution itself. My area of focus is military history, so it is useful to look at the guerrilla campaigns launched. The military lesson drawn by many was that 250 poorly armed but well-motivated rebels with a then-broad support base toppled a very well-armed and entrenched regime.

Please note that Che was also suicidally short-sighted and got himself shot full of holes in Bolivia.

Cuba has a long history of warfare like other Latin American nations: fighting against the Spanish, then liberals fighting conservatives, then a series of race wars as slave revolts began.

As with East Asia, Latin America's history is particularly violent, although I'd argue that us Asians never stopped and never really had a period of actual calm where we passed reforms and such.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 1st 2020 at 5:49:54 AM

It's basically And Then What? combined with Reality Ensues.

Che was a revolutionary, first and foremost. After achieving his goal, he was kinda lost.

I think with Latin america is intersting: we have a very unstable place in general and yet we barely have any conflict with our neighborhoods, sure we have grivance like pery and bolivia against chile and colombia vs venezulea but for many that barely counts.

Meanwhile for what I get east asia tend to be otherwise: very stable regimes in country that quite frankly seen to hate each other.

Latin America's biggest problem has been infighting, both driven by internal and external interests.

Honestly, I still think that it would have been better if our countries started off first as constitutional monarchies and then made the transition to democracies in time, it would have saved us a lot of energy wasted on conflicts within our borders.

Most of the caudillos were powerful generals with nominally republican leanings, yes.

To move the discussion away from a certain left-wing caudillo, to bridge the gap I accidentally caused again and since you've all showed high interest in East Asia in the past, I guess I should point out a particularly tragic case in my opinion, the Korean peninsula, and do some comparisons.

In short, the Azure Hills were always bathed in blood until recently.

When Korea was in its ancient past, it was divided between four kingdoms that waged a Forever War for centuries, funded by China and Japan respectively to advance their interests, make profits and the usual motivations of War for Fun and Profit.

It is telling that Korea's highest point was arguably the Joseon dynasty, where they enjoyed true peace and prosperity despite having to fight off Japan again. They modernized into the Korean Empire around 1897, only for Japan to colonize them in 1910.

The Japanese conservative and nationalistic historians will honestly acknowledge that they did wrong in WW2 these days, but they will maintain that the pre-Showa period was one where they were 'sane' and Japan flourished under a period of flawed but present democracy, and their colonies too.

The Koreans will tell you otherwise; the killing and racial persecution started from 1910 and never stopped, and 1945 for them is a time for celebration, because they were liberated. They were free. It was over. They could have their own government. They picked a republic and it was a happy time.

The political violence and buildup to the terrible civil war of 1950-53 changed all that, splitting the country forever.

For the North, it's self-explanatory. The last true home of Stalinism. For the South, they were put under first a completely crazed despot who made Chiang "I kill Taiwanese because I'm salty" Kai-shek look nice and was so bad that the US actually went over to persuade him to step down. Then Park Chung-hee came; for all the economic development done, he disappeared student protesters and ran detention centers.

The final nightmare came under the incompetent dictator Chun Doo-hwan, who orchestrated the horrific suppression of the Gwangju Uprising, which I looked to again and again, in fear,` during the darkest days of the Hong Kong protests. Luckily, it united the nation in sheer rage to put an end to dictatorship.

South Korea is now properly democratic, and problems definitely still remain, but they are free to live their own lives without terror and fear.

Now I compare it to Latin America at a faster pace. Mexico saw war, again and again, the South was home to some of the bloodiest conflicts in past centuries. Paraguay was practically shredded in the Triple Alliance War. Peru and Ecuador's last major conflict was all the way back in 1995. Cuba was trapped in an awful Forever War with the Spanish, only to exchange one overlord for another. The juntas are self-explanatory, as are the many, many caudillos, strongmen and corrupt oligarchies your people had to endure. Colombia never really recovered from La Violencia.

But unlike us East Asians, you at least have some unity to take pride in. You are not Spanish, you are peninsulares and proud of it. You speak a common language and while you have many regional grudges, you never press them, you always end up being diplomatic despite the strong, deep-burning grudges. You try very hard to have an alive, functioning and beautiful intelligensia that can pressure and stand up to the strongmen as best as they can, and not for nothing have some of the finest writers in the world come out of Latin America. You modeled yourself off Europe until you found your own feet and your own identities. Between all the wars, you enjoyed great peace, great development, great progress, healing. All that is to be proud of, Third World or not.

For us, it is hard. We like strongmen too much because that's really all we've known. We've had great experience with warlords and large armies and using them liberally. We have great intellectuals but they are stifled by either political domination or dictatorship. Rarely was there ever a chance to get a taste of stable, peaceful democracy until very recently, and that can be easily torn down.

Yet I feel we both have a surprising amount in common as two peoples.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 1st 2020 at 9:24:04 AM

It feels weird, to be honest, to be spoken so highly from someone outside our region.

To a degree I feel that ever since we turned away from Spain, our region has been but pawns in the greater chessboard of the great powers, to ultimately become the unwilling subjects of the "democracy" of the north. And sometimes I fear all that truly unites us is the usonian gun pointed at us, and without it we would turn against each other with wanton abandon.

I should be glad that, though it was done by blood, we Latin Americans got the chance to have an actual transition from Antiquity to Middle Ages and Modernity as Europe had, and enjoy a sense of kinship that probably has not been seen since the times of the Late Roman Empire. And yet, there's still that weight of chains, of powerlessness at the world stage that still clouds our vision. I'm not the only one who will tell you how our view tends to stand on the cynical side of the scale of idealism and cynicism, Gaon mentioned how even in Brazil idealism is shot down with extreme prejudice.

Still, I truly hope one day our region is united, as it was during the rule of the House of Austria, but with friendship, faith and family at the core of the union rather than force and deception. And I hope that when we rise, we don't take to stomp on those that wronged us.

Because I was fortunate to learn of the region's rich history and was impressed. Although I'm the type of person who finds every nation's history interesting to learn about.

Additionally, it's the same all over - everyone will hold some other nation in high esteem, even nationalists will idolize other governments that align with theirs.

I would make a joke about the rampant Europhilia throughout 19th-century Latin America, I guess. Usually France or Germany.

And to be honest, who isn't a cynical, bitter grump nowadays, regardless of nation, considering the world we've entered? Even as a generally optimistic person, I'm got that cynical, snarky streak regardless.

Oh, and I noticed that I left out Brazil. Brazil is very cool, but it is really largely its own region with its own unique set of affairs. For starters, they're apparently the other nation that founded itself on a set of ideals rather than a unified national identity.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 1st 2020 at 10:26:05 AM

Brazil, to me at least, is like a cousin that is close enough to be considered a sibling, and technically we were part of the same region during the time of the Iberian Union.

I was wondering, where does the House of Austria tie into Peru? Habsburgs?

Yes.

One of the things not mentioned often of the viceroyalties is that technically both New Spain and Peru -and the other viceroyalties later on- were kingdoms, not colonies.

This did not change even after the House of Habsburg was replaced by the House of Bourbon, in fact, the Kings of Spain considered their reign as continuing the line of the previous rulers here as this mural can show.◊

This is why I keep saying that we were better off with kings first and democracies later, we were kingdoms who were suddenly thrusted into the republican system without the experience nor build up to manage it well.

Edited by raziel365 on Apr 1st 2020 at 11:49:18 AM

I have thought on that as well, especially in how Vizcarra's borderline authoritarian measures are actually fairly unpolemical here. Everyone cheers when some dude breaking the quarentine ends up being dragged to the nearest police station.

Maybe we really are "made" for semi-authoritarian rule.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Apr 1st 2020 at 12:53:36 PM

Well, if Uribe can remain fairly popular amidst all his usual measures...

TBF, you can't really blame him in the early days, it was a truly nasty period.

Also, in El Salvador, the police are going around shaming anyone who's explicitly breaking quarantine by yelling at them.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 1st 2020 at 11:01:54 AM

Yeah being praise from the outside is something you dont see everyday unless they are crazy tankies.

Now some stuff: being propud of being penisulares....kinda sorta? latin america have always problem of identity because we get rock by colonization hard, like super really hard, for what I get east asia was more ocupied and explotied meaning that retain a culturall identity.

Meanwhile we get fuck, I think the only place as fuck as us were africa but I dont know much about it but point is latin america is to put it nicely, a child of rape if you want it, you east asia have a identity(sort of) before western arrive but we latin america cant imagine one before it except mexico,peru, maybe bolivia who have empire and did stuff, for the rest were just native and we dont feel conected to them that much, stuff like brazil prove it well.

You said strongman is all you know but that is the same here, chavez is probably the biggest defender of anti imperalist strongman EVER, he praise Mao(I can almost here the "fucking bullshit" from M84) was cuddy with Castro and other dictators, and considering how deep is influce feel during a time.

Despite the HK protests kicking me from a social liberal to a social democrat, kicking me left, I want to try and remain sane and rational.

So it's good to always ask the experts first, or the locals, before moving on to outsiders.

I can affirm the other side of my stance now, I guess.

It seems to me that regarding Chavez, the nation was put under a coup, then a bizarre social experiment under a new caudillo who thought he could run the country better, then naturally defaulted to Control Freak tendencies and repression when it quickly fell apart.

Without the people's consent the entire time. Essentially the nation got violated.

And the successor Maduro is akin to Victoriano Huerta of Mexico, a brute with little to no charisma.

Anyway, Guaido has my great appreciation. Good luck to him. I hope he carries out his promises, and doesn't fall into any of the same traps.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 2nd 2020 at 3:01:50 AM

Kinda, in the 80 the economic start to tank with the oil preices going down which eventually let to the black friday(not that black friday) were the bolivar(our coin) drop FAST and eventually let to the caracazo, a series of protest that last 9 days and let a least 232 death confirm(meaning it could be more).

Here is when chavez come around and do operation zamora which is a atempted coup that fail because to many things were out of control, but them he take responsability and said "we failed our objectives...for now" that "for now" become famous because for many the atempted were less a militar want to take democracy for himself and more a signal of how fuck up thing were in venezuela and how it needed a changes, this is start to sound familiar congratoulation is not a coincidence.

But chavez itself wants to polarize, hell he said himself in 1994 "we come here to polarize(...) we are not here to respect the political process but to save it from the corruption it have fall to, this place have gangred to death", for the start he was a polirizing figure and he used to is advantange, allowing to become the most sucessfull politician in venezuelan history.

Maduro...maduro is a problem when you based a movement on himself, chavez was sucessfull because he was crazy charismatic, like he is the kind of guy with +5 in all his charisma rolls, if trump have the political saviness of chavez, he would have fuck the democratcs five ways to sunday without taking a break, maduro in contrast is....well the oposite and in fact is easier to compare him to trump: he dosent know how to speak(case in hand, he once try to said "multiplicar los panes" citing the biblie but instead of saying "panes"(bread in plural) he said penes(penis) or when he caught a massive freudian slip saying "porque ellos roban como nosotros"(because they steal like us).

Maduro is what happen when you based your politics in confrontation but you dont have the cleaverness and malice to back it off, for that Maduro come as wannabe bully.

Generally caudillos acted on a convenient platform of 'we are nonpartisan and seek to unite the entire nation' and portrayed the civilian politicians as muckracking partisans who did nothing but personally attack each other, receive bribes and advance the interests of the 'elite'.

The possible exception is the Argentine junta that ostensibly came to power to stop a civil war between the Peronists. Well, that's what Videla and friends said first.

Despite being an explicit leftist, Chavez kinda falls into that same practice using the rhetoric that you mentioned.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 2nd 2020 at 3:36:38 AM

Beside no, because off, communism or old school give caudillos a intelecual reason and ideology to move behind in order to mass power and is not surprising considering the left stand more often that not for change into structural power and even sociaty by seen previous one as corrupt or dephase.

if anything one of the reason communism become so problematic is because it was use by military, absorving this need for violences as only solution and is anti intelectual vein.