Class Notes and links for Latin America:  Yesterday and Today, Summer 2006

Notes Abridged for Review.  Full version of notes available here. 

May 30:   Introduction to Latin America powerpoint.
         We will see part of the Brazilian movie, Central Station.  There is a file of Notes on Films that will be updated.
         The New York Times story on the Nukak Indians includes audio and pictures. 

  May 31:    History of Latin America to 1915 Powerpoint. 
Wikipedia sites on the  Aztec, Maya and  Inca  civilizations
Wikipedia on the War of the Pacific. 

June 1:    Corruption, Leadership and Development in LA by Ted Goertzel. 
               Corruption Index from Transparency International  2005 Index. 
  1. Corruption is generally high in Latin America, but Chile and Uruguay are exceptions
  2. Historically rooted in the Aztec and perhaps other pre-columbian empires and certainly in the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores who unashamedly came to get rich. 
  3. Examples: 
    1. The Mexican Presidency viewed as a license to get rich for 6 years
    2. Collor de Melo presidency in Brazil
    3. Carlos Andres Perez in Venezuela removed for corruption
    4. Miguel Aleman sexenio in Mexico
    5. Salinas de Gortari's brother in Mexico
    6. Alberto Fujimori's associates in Peru
    7. Augusto Pinochet, recent revelations were surprising
    8. The Sandinista "pinata"
    9. Carlos Menem in Argentina
    10. The Workers Party government in Brazil  (see slides in the overview powerpoint), also surprising - Video of official receiving bribe -
    11. Not all LA governments are corrupt, e.g, Itamar Franco and FHC in Brazil, Ruiz Cortines in Mexico
  4. Economics of Corruption
    1. a long-term drag on the economy, transparent countries are richer
    2. "crony capitalism" can provide a short-term spur to growth because it provides an alternative source of security for investors - if you can't trust the legal system, you can at least buy a stable business environment by bribing officials
  5. The culture is relatively tolerant of corruption, corrupt leaders get re-elected.  Adhemar de Baros roba mas faz. 
  6. Leaders indicted for corruption often claim they are being picked on by their opponents - e g. Lopez Obrador who ignored a judge's order to get a construction project done
  7. When economic growth is poor, there is a great temptation to blame it on the Americans or on another scapegoat
  8. Types of Leaders:  
    1. Ideology:  Authoritarians, Populists, Democrats, Marxists
    2. Style:  Chameleons, Hedgehogs and Foxes  (opportunists, ideologues and pragmatists)
      1. Chameleons:  (opportunists): Carlos Menem, Alberto Fujimori, Hugo Banzer, Jamil Mahuad, Carlos Andres Perez
      2. Hedgehogs (ideologues):  Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Augusto Pinochet
      3. Foxes (pragmatists) :  Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula da Silva, Michelle Bachelet, Felipe Calderon.


Video on Hugo Chavez.

Scenes of Prison Revolt in Sao Paulo.  Crime in Latin America.   Missing Young Women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico


June 5.  Here are some study questions drawn from the readings in the Munck and Cardoso books. 
  1. What is the common general pattern of thuge geography of the countries along the west coast of South America?
  2. Which South American countries include part of the Amazon region within their territory?
  3. What are the two largest cities of Latin  America?  How large are they?
  4. Which Latin American countries are primarily populated by European immigrants?
  5. Which Latin American country has the most citizens of African descent?
  6. What were the major political empires in Latin American before the European conquest?  Where were they located?
  7. What was the dominant ideological force in Latin America during the period after the Second World War?
  8. By the end of the 1970s, which group was governing in most of South America?
  9. What happened in Argentina in 1976
  10. How did independence come about in Brazil?  How does this differ from the experience of the United States or of the Spanish speaking Latin American countries?
  11. Which two Brazilian states dominated the Presidency during the period of the Empire?  Why was this called the cafe com leite alliance?
  12. What does Cardoso say is the most glorified and necessary trait among Brazilian politicians?
  13. Which Brazilian President was the first to involve the working class and labor unions directly in the political system?
  14. Why did Cardoso not go to Law School?  What did he major in?
  15. What was the big social change in Brazil that brought the black and white populations into close proximity with each other?
  16. What did Cardoso find inspiring about the works of Karl Marx?
  17. Why did Janio Quadros resign?
  18. What happened in Brazil in March, 1964?  Why was this unique in  Brazilian history?
  19. When did Cardoso come to think of Brazil as part of Latin  America?  Why?
  20. What happened in France while Cardoso was there?
Basic Organizing Principles of Economies:
  1. Hunting and Gathering Bands.  Small groups of this sort still exist in the Amazon.
  2. Self-sufficient villages.  Some of these hid from the authorities, e.g, Brazilian quilombos, the most famous of which was Palmares.  By and large people had family plots, although neighbors always helped each other out.  In Mexico, a traditional Aztec form was the ejido, which was revived in the land reform under Lazaro Cardenas in the 1930s. 
  3. Pre-Columbian empires.  Azted, Maya and Inca.  These extracted tribute from villages to support a class or warriors, priests and hangers-on.  Similar to empires in other parts of the world, e.g, Egypt, China.  The forms of organization differed.  The Incas divided land into three parts, some was given to peasants to live off of, some was held by the state and some by the religious elite.  The peasants were required to work a certain amount of days on the state and church lands.  Every year the peasants were given new parcels for their own cultivation so they would not become "owners"
  4. Feudalism - a European concept where the aristocracy has a degree of independence from the king and the serfs belong to the aristocracy.  To some extent, this model was copied in the new world through devices such as the encomienda, but there is controversy as to whether it was really "feudalism" or a new form, the plantation economy.
  5. Slavery - an economy based on forced labor from enslaved persons who can, usually, be bought and sold.  Used to grow export crops.
  6. Market Economy -  In its pure form, individuals are free to engage in any economic relations they wish.  This is Alvaro Vargas Llosa's ideal, one not achieved in its pure form anywhere.  Often denounced by the left in Latin America as "neoliberalism" or "The Washington Consensus". 
  7. State Socialism -  the Soviet, Cuban, Maoist, North Korean system.  Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales talk about socialism but actually have forms of mixed economies.
  8. Mixed Economy -   also known as "social democracy" or the "Third Way"-  this is what Fernando Henrique Cardoso advocates although his critics denounce him as a "neolilberal."   There are wide variations within this category.  Almost everyone agrees that the state has a role in infrastructure (e.g., highways), security, education and health.  It also maintains a currency and a judicial system.  The extent to which the state should manage the market economy is controversial, this is referred to as "industrial policy".   These are some of the policies the government can use to control the economy
    1. issuing currency, the "money supply"
    2. setting interest rates through central banks
    3. setting exchange rates for foreign currencies -  free or fixed or floating within bands, etc.
    4. increasing or decreasing government spending levels
    5. targeted government spending
    6. tax policies
    7. government borrowing - domestic or international (world bank, IMF)\
    8. tariffs, export import controls
Arguments from speech and book by Alvaro Vargas Llosa

  1. The "free market" reforms of the 1990s were disapointing, but so have all the other efforts to develop Latin America.  Why?
  2. "Intangible" (social) factors - power, social norms, legal systems - are more important than "tangible" (economic) ones - investment, production, growth rates.
  3. There are two perspectives on the social factors cultural (beliefs and behavior patterns) and institutional.(social organization).  The two are intertwined, but he chooses to organize his presentation around five institutional principles
  4. Corporatism.  Laws and state actions do not relate to individuals, but to groups.  People are important only as part of social entities that have specific functions, e.g., laborers, military, priests, educators, women, peasants
  5. State Mercantilism.  The state regulates and manages the economy rather than leaving this to private enterprise.  This was done differently in different historical periods, but can be traced back to the pre-Columbian civilizations.
  6. Privilege.  The nobility under the pre-Columbian civilizations had hereditary privileges, similar rights were given to the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors.  Today, privilege is more characteristic of bureaucrats and state employees.
  7. Wealth Transfer.  The state transfers wealth from the poor to the rich, although often claiming to do the opposite.  Inflation is a mechanism for doing this, so is free tuition in elite public universities.
  8. Political Law.  The law is used to carry out political objectives, not simply as a neutral mediator of disputes.
  9. What is to be done about this (not really discussed in the film, but in the book.  Vargas Llosa is a libertarian, he favors cutting way back on the state, turning most things over to private enterprise.  He favors lower, flat taxes, primarily a sales tax.  His strongest point is the argument for cutting back on the bureaucracy needed to start a business, a point first made by Hernando de Soto in The Other Path and in The Mystery of Capital.  The big problem is where the political resources to do this would come from.
An interesting comment from a reviewer (Adam Wasserman) of The Mystern of Capital:

Attempts to explain why the 3rd world (and the 2nd world, now that communism has largely collapsed) is different from the developed world tend to fall between two poles. At one end are those who seek an Archimedean point--a single underlying cause which, once grasped, will allow us to quickly move developing countries up the socio-economic ladder. Such explanations have the virtue of being useful to people who actually work in 'development', because they convince us that we know how to produce fundamental change. But they run the risk of oversimplifying and, if taken as a guide to policy, of raising expectations only to see them dashed by the complexities and historical quirkiness of the real world.

At the other pole are holistic, multifaceted explanations, taking into account history, culture, economics, religion--the whole nine yards. Such accounts may be more intellectually satisfying, but often lead to frustration by convincing us that the problems are too complicated, too resistant to quick fixes, for practical solutions.

The Mystery of Capital falls for the most part in the first camp. It's author, Hernando de Soto, is one of the 3rd World's most dedicated and intelligent reformers. He wants desperately to do something to help the poor, and has been heroically influential--and successful--in arguing against the failed statist solutions long in vogue in Latin America. Now he wants to move beyond criticism to a positive agenda for change. De Soto's impeccably pro-capitalist credentials make his initial criticism especially convincing: actual capitalism in most of the world is restricted to a small elite, while most remain on the outside looking in.

The question is whether de Soto's solution is equally convincing. He does not believe poverty is due to the evil intentions of capitalists or capitalist countries (though he acknowledges that powerful interests in developing countries do not want to make the system more inclusive--a subject which could use more discussion). Nor is it because of culture or any inherent faults in the poor, or in poor countries. No, the real problem lies in a kind of intellectual or historical blindness, which has kept everyone from seeing what the real source of wealth is: real property, or more exactly well-defined and socially accepted property rights. Once a society has this, it has the secret of capital, since these assets can then be used to generate loans, credit, insurance, liabilities and the whole apparatus of capitalism.

It is hard to argue, looking at the real experience of the undeveloped or maldeveloped world, that the lack of property rights is not a huge impediment to economic growth. De Soto and his team have done tremendous work in documenting exactly how this holds back and frustrates the poor and disenfranchised.

But it is equally hard to believe that this is the key or only reason. More accurately, it seems--from de Soto's own account of what is required--that having property rights is a sort of 'meta-cause'. It depends on such a host of other developments in the economy, in society, in the political system (where access historically often depended on property, limited to a few), in the legal system, in the informal norms and mores, that it is hardly practical to point to it as 'the solution' to 3rd world poverty. For this reason, it seems unlikely that simply pointing out that developed countries have complex systems of property rights, though useful, will be enough to allow for the development of similar systems in the developing world.

If de Soto is right, why is China developing so fast, without anything like the formal, all-encompassing property system he thinks is essential? Why did European economic development begin to outpace the rest of the world centuries before the property systems which, he points out, in most Western countries were only arrived at within the last 100 years?

As a recipe for action, The Mystery of Capital is excellent in pointing to a dimension of development that has been neglected, and for its path-breaking research on the ground, discovering what it takes to bring the newly urbanized poor into the modern economy. But as a satisfying account of what ultimately causes poverty and why some countries are rich and others are not, it falls short. For this, one should go to books like David Landes' The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, or Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel.
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But Landes focuses primarily on culture, Or to writers such as Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who take this complex, multi-faceted approach.  But their work is harder to summarize, it cannot be so usefully reduced to a few key points - if it is, they seem vague and obvious.  Their work focuses on the complexities of specific historical conjunctures - what happens in specific places and times. 

We view at least part of a video of FHC, although he is not as good a speaker as Vargas Llosa, especially when reading a text in English, and the bandwith of the host site is not so good.  The book is much better (thanks in large part to the help from Brian Winter).

------------

June 6 -  Governance.  -  Systems are characterized as "polyarchies" or multiparty democracies.  Free and competitive elections are common, and the competition is generally real.  In Mexico, the election of Fox was the first in which the PRI actually allowed an honest vote count and gave up office.  Many of the South American countries had military regimes in the 60s and 70s, but went through a return to democracy in the 80s and 90s.  They are presidentialist systems, rather than parliamentary, and the concentration of pwoer in the presidency tends to be stronger than in the US.  The party systems vary considerably.  In Brazil there is a proportional representation system which has led to many parties without much party discipline.  Argentina has two major parties, the Radicals and the Peronists or Justicialists, but new ones are growing.  Chile has the Concertacion, a coalition of the left and Crhistian Democrats, plus the conservative parties and small revolutionary leftist parties.  Electioneering is more reliant on television than in the past, similar to the US.  The Globo network made Collor de Mello president of Brazil.  In Brazil, all parties get free TV time and paid ads are prohibited. 

Democracy depends on independent civil organizations, or pressure groups, and these have been weaker in Latin America than in the US.  They have modeled their parties more on European models, but are becoming more Americanized (less ideological, coalitions, personality drives). 

Governance is more of a problem than politics, the actual carrying out of policies - Latin American government often looks good on paper but the implementation is defective.  It often seems that the government does not control the police.  Many times middle class citizens support abuses by the police which are seen as necessary to suppress violent crime.  The police emphasize social control, not law enforcement.  Tax evasion, money-laundering, child labor, slave labor and drug trafficking are often not seen as targets for law enforcement.  Torture is used by the police to gather information or just to punish criminals. 

In the 1990s, the "technocrats" became very popular, often people with PhD degrees in economics from American Universities, Domingo Cavallo, Hernan Buchi.  FHC is the only sociologist, but he won power through his role as finance minister.  There were efforts to reform the state, e.g., under Bresser Pereira in Brazil, to move from a bureaucratic form to a managerial reform - administrators are judged by results rather than by how well they follow the rules.  Whenever possible, services are distributed to non-governmental agencies.  This was calling "reinventing government" when Al Gore was responsible for it in the Clinton administration.  It is clear today that just cutting back on the state is not what is needed, what is needed is an effective state, e.g., to regulate land use. 

Nongovernmental organizations are a growing trend, NGO's.  This is supported by the World Bank and international organizations as a means of building civil society. 

Right now, the Mexican presidential elections are winding up with a close race.  The article "The Populist at the Border" focuses on Lopez Obrador, but the surprising thing is that  Felipe Calderón is closing the gap.  It is debatable how much leadership makes a difference.  As we discussed before there are different types of leaders differentiated both by ideology and by style.
  1. Types of Leaders:  
    1. Ideology:  Authoritarians, Populists, Democrats, Marxists
    2. Style:  Chameleons, Hedgehogs and Foxes  (opportunists, ideologues and pragmatists)
      1. Chameleons:  (opportunists): Carlos Menem, Alberto Fujimori, Hugo Banzer, Jamil Mahuad, Carlos Andres Perez
      2. Hedgehogs (ideologues):  Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Augusto Pinochet
      3. Foxes (pragmatists) :  Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula da Silva, Michelle Bachelet, Felipe Calderon.

There is much variation between Latin American countries in both their political institutions and their political histories, so the amount one can say about Latin American in general is limited.  We will look in more depth at Brazil and Mexico.  

Cardoso's speech on Reflections and Lessons from a Decade of Social and Economic Reform"  -  Text of Speech Online. 

  1. In the 50s and 60s, development was equated with economic growth -  Rostow's book on stages of economic development.  Follow the model of the developed countries.
  2. In the late sixties and early seventies we beagan to talk about varieties of dependency.  It was globalization, but they did not have that concept at the time.  Dependency and Development.  Not everything depends on the center.  "Associated Dependent Development" is possible, with local entrepreneurs and multinationals.
  3. Growth does not necessarily lead to equity.  High growth in the 70s did not lead to improved social indicators.  His study of Growth and Poverty in Sao Paulo showed that some things were getting worse, despite economic growth.  Infant mortality was higher than in 1960. 
  4. What Lula is doing is what has to be done, he is a former leftist who changed his views, I (FHC) was never that much of a leftist.
  5. A Stockholm conference emphasized environmental and ecological factors as part of development, sustainable development.
  6. Women's rights and racial equality have moved up as criteria of development.
  7. Brazilian human development index moved up.  Almost all municipalities improved, especially small municipalities.
  8. Life expectancy up, infant mortality down from 48 to 28. 
  9. Universal access to education plus at least one meal a day in school.
  10. Slow improvement in  gini coefficient of income distribution.
  11. 63% increase in he income of the lowest 20%
  12. We are making steady progress, 10 to 12 million people have risen out of poverty.
  13. The country was put on the right track, although we have a long way to go.
  14. Virtuous cycle between democracy and human development.
  15. The debate is not about what to do, it is about how to do it efficiently.
  16. In the 1990s we had moderate growth but improvement in social indicators.
  17. The state needs to learn to spend better, not just spend more.We have increased social spending steadily since 1994. 
  18. We were the exact opposite of a "neoliberal" government - social expenditure expanded, not contracted.
  19. We sought to make the state more effective to deal with modern needs.  Focus on social programs, not on things such as telecommunications which private firms can do.
  20. Social programs grew substantially higher than GDP, 7% a year, and concentrated on the needy.
  21. Low income families given direct access to benefits with electronic cards, without having to go through bureaucrats.  This was a mechanism for cutting clientelism.  Money given directly to the woman in the family.
  22. Success of the HIV/AIDS program.  Started in 1988.  Safe sex, not no sex.  Learn how to do condoms, even in a Catholic country.  Public opinion supported it.  Fight with the multinationals for low drug prices.  Program controlled by people with HIV/AIDS through NGO's. 
  23. The president of a country cannot control the rate of growth, there are many external factors, he can do more to improve social indicators.
  24. Even with a $30 billion IMF guarantee, the market was afraid of the Lula presidency.
  25. We need more access to markets, more loans, etc.  This talk is trying to stir up enthusiasm for helping Brazil on the part of international development professionals in the World Bank.

CEPAL
Chicago Boys
Washington Consensus
The Chaco
Transparency International
Palmares
neoliberalism
criollo
Minas Gerais
NAFTA
Carlos Andres Perez
monetarist
nationalism
Pancho Villa
Joaquim Inacio Baptista Cardoso
Cuzco
Augusto Pinochet
Punta del Este
quilombo
favela
Salinas de Gortari
mulatto
Felipe Calderon
dictablanda
Tenochtitlan
Diego Rivera
Domingo Cavallo
NGO
informal sector
Evita
Peronism
PT
toucan
PSDB 		Bernardo O'Higginis
Fernando Henrique Cardoso
The Cidade Marvilhosa
dependency theory
ejido
Order and Progress
Southern Cone
Salvador Allende
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
Porto Alegre
Evo Morales
Octavio Paz
Fidel Castro
Jose Clemente Orozco
Che Guevara
The Sandinistas
The Inca
Janio Quadros
Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path)
Frida Kahlo
The Nukak
Dorothy Stang
Carioca
Fernando Collor de Melo
Miguel  Aleman
Buenos Aires
MST
new social movements
Daniel Cohn-Bendit
jeitinho
CEBRAP
Sao Paulo:  Growth and Poverty
Itamar Franco 		structuralist
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
developmentalism
Vicente Fox
Café com Leite Alliance
Sao Paulo
Hugo Chavez
Alberto Fujimori
Getulio Vargas
"May revolution"
the Andes
saudade
The Maya
concertacion
Buenos Aires Consensus
Francisco Madero
Treaty of Torsedillas
USP
Benito Juarez
The Tenentes
Dom Pedro II
Alvaro Vargas Llosa
mestizo
Malvinas/Falklands
Luis Carlos Prestes
Simon Bolivar
Michelle Bachelet
Porfirio Diaz
Emiliano Zapata
Juan Domingo Peron
Direitas Ja
O Globo
PMDB


June 7 -   A social movement is a set of beliefs and opinions in a population leading to pressures for social change.  They have many aspects of dramas:  there are good guys and bad guys.  There is a danger of disaster, but also a chance for a happy ending.  Movements go through cycles, starting with a charismatic leader and/or a dramatic crisis or event.  When they are new and exciting they get a lot of attention.  Then they often go through a period of conflict between different factions that argue over the correct strategies to follow.   In time, people become disillusioned or just less excited about the movement and it loses vibrancy.  Movements may, however, accomplish a great deal before this happens.

A Powerpoint. gives an overview of social movements in Latin America.  Here are links to videos and web sites to be visited in class.  Video on the World Social Forum.  WSF in Search of Itself.   Caracas Social Forum Jan 2006.  Landless Workers Movement.    Landless Workers Movement Video.    Wikipedia on the Zapatistas.  Spanish language video on Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion. 



A new phenomenon in Latin American social movements is the "pueblazo" a mass uprising to destroy a government.   Three Ecuadorian presidents have been removed in this way in recent years:  Abdala Buvcaram (1997), Jamil Mahuad (2000) and Lucio Gutierrez (2005).  President Fernando de la Rua of Argentina was removed in 2001.  Several presidents have also been removed in Bolivia (see the powerpoint).  This is related to the phenomen of piqueteiros, people who sit down in the street and block traffic until their demands are met.  This was very widespread in the 2001 Argentine crisis.  These methods reflect the fact that the courts and the legislatures have been delegitimized, causing people to feel that simply removing the President is the only solution to their frustrations.  This is related to the phenomenon of leaders changing their policies after being elected, the chameleons.  In some cases these are led by indignous peoples, in others by workers who have been dismissed from factories.  Often students are participants. 

June 8 - 

Contrary to what is often heard, by the usual measurements such as longevity and education level, people’s lives are improving.   By UN measures, Latin America is the most unequal region in the world.  That does not mean, however, that Latin American societies are sharply divided between the wealthy and the very poor.
Broadly speaking, the top 10% receives 35-40% of income, and the bottom 40% receives 10-15% of income.  And of course the top 1% receives a disproportionate share of the top 10%.  However, the portion of the population between the 40th and the 90th percentile receives close to 50% of income, i.e., as a group half the population receives half the income, although unequally (e.g. between the 89th and 41st percent).  (from Phil Berryman, graphs in powerpoint format to be shown in class)


  Four Days in September is a movie about the guerilla movements in Brazil in the 1960s.

Mexican election debate.  Conservative tears into leftist. 

More study questions:
  1. What is Alvaro Vargas Llosa's prescription for developing Latin America?
  2. How does Fernando Henrique Cardoso's prescription differ from Vargas Llosa's?
  3. What are the important difference between Lopez Obrador and Felipe Calderon?  What are the similarities?
  4. How does "neoliberalism" differ from "social democracy" or the "Third Way"?
  5. What is Fernando Henrique Cardoso's opinion of the kind of movement portrayed in Four Days in September?
  6. How did the military respond to the guerilla movements, and how successful was it?
  7. What is Cardoso's critique of the "Brazilian Miracle" in the 1970s?
  8. What were the most important skills Cardoso learned when he went into politics?
  9. What does Cardoso say was Lula's greatest political skill?
  10. What did Cardoso conclude from his visit to Poland?  Who did he hear speak there?
  11. What is the central belief that unites the various groups active in the World Social Forum?
  12. What is the ideology of the Landless Workers' Movement?  Why has the movement ran into so much trouble?
  13. How does the Brazilian electoral system differ from the one in the United States?
  14. How has party politics evolve in Chile since 1988?  In Mexico since 2000?

Monday, June 12.  After a short midterm we will discuss race relations.  There are some statistics on Mexico and Peru and on Brazil in the History powerpoint.  Latin America has never had the "one drop of blood" cultural tradition where a person must be either "black" or "white" with no in-between.  Most people in many countries consider themselves to be of mixed race.  This does not necessarily mean that there is less racial inequality, in fact many Latin Americans believe that the American system is better because it acknowledges racial differences and provides for remedial measures through affirmative action.   The Africans came from different groups in Africa, speaking different languages and having different cultures, and more of that has survived than in the United States, especially in religious life, dance, music.  The Amerindians still have large populations that speak native languages and the degree of integration into European culture varies widely.  The idea that Brazil is a "racial democracy" is now viewed as a myth, going back to research done in the 1970s (in which FHC contributed as a graduate student).  There is now a "black consciousness" movement in Brazil. 

Social class and gender are often treated together, as in chapter 5 of your text.  Skin color is strongly correlated with social class, and often racism is more prevalent in the elite than in the masses.  Machismo is a cultural trait that pervades all social classes, but patterns are different in some Amerindan groups, e.g., in Tehuantepec (Diego Rivera painting).  (Modesto Bernardo painting)  (Frida Khalo's self-portrait as a Tehuana).  Matriarchies challenge neo-liberal globalization, i.e., Walmart comes to Tehuantepec.

June 13

Magical Realism. 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize Lecture. 

Pablo Neruda.  Nobel Prize Lecture. 

Octavio Paz.  Nobel Prize Lecture. 

Jorge Amado. 

Video:  Student reading "Tonight I can Read the Saddest Lines"  Barbie reading.  Elmo.  With Music and Voiceover.  Trip to Neruda's Home.    Text:


 Tonight I can write the saddest lines
 
  Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Pablo Neruda




June 14
It is not possible to review the whole history of Latin American art in this course, it seems more useful to do some of the outstanding works in more depth.  We will begin with a focus on Mexican Muralism: and on the work of Frida Kahlo, then look at a presentation on Brazilian Art -    Powerpoint of Mexican Modernist Art -

Here is an overview on Mexican Muralism from the Tate gallery:
Term describing the revival of large scale mural painting in Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s. The three principal artists were José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Rivera is usually considered the chief figure. All three were committed to left-wing ideas in the politically turbulent Mexico of the period and their painting reflects this. Siqueiros in particular pursued an active career in politics, suffering several periods of imprisonment for his activities. Their use of large-scale mural painting in or on public buildings was intended to convey social and political messages to the public. In order to make their work as accessible as possible they all worked in basically realist styles but with distinctively personal differences - Orozco has elements of Surrealism, Siqueiros is vehemently expressionist, for example. The movement can be said to begin with the murals by Rivera for the Mexican National Preparatory School and the Ministry of Education, executed between 1923 and 1928. Orozco and Siqueiros worked with him on the first of these. The Mexican Muralists carried out a number of major works in the USA which helped bring them to wide attention and had some influence on the Abstract Expressionists. Notable among these are Rivera's 1932-3 murals in the Detroit Institute of Arts depicting the Ford automobile plant (extant), and at the Rockefeller Center, New York (destroyed on Rockefeller's orders after a press scandal when a portrait of Lenin was noticed in the mural); Orozco's The Epic of American Civilisation at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire and his Prometheus at Pomona College California (both extant); and Siqueiros's 1932 Tropical America in Los Angeles. This attack on American imperialism in Mexico was painted over some time after it was made, but is now undergoing restoration.

Tourism Links: 
Mexico Travel  Video  47 mins.    1:50  various cultures.    Review of The Naked Tourist. 
Steadman Pre-Columbian Exhibit.  at Kentucky.  Daytona Beach.  Santa Cruz. 
Global Exchange Reality Tours.    Unesco World Heritage Maps. 
Jaime Lerner WEB site.  Landing in Sao Paulo.  Central Market Sao Paulo. 

Video of girl from Ipanema. 

Huaquechula:  relief on the Monastery.  Convent.    Altars.    Street of the Dead. 

CULTURAL TOURISM, THE STATE,
AND DAY OF THE DEAD
Lucero Morales Cano
Instituto Nacional de Antropologı´a e Historia, Me´xico
Avis Mysyk
University College of Cape Breton, Canada
Abstract: Using Day of the Dead in the rural Mexican community of Huaquechula as an
example, this paper analyzes how various levels of the state, in its roles as planner, marketer
of cultural meanings, and arbiter of such practices, mediate between cultural tourism and
local identity in a global context. It shows that the results have been met with opposition
from some community groups. Although such opposition has caused the state to rethink its
strategy, it remains intent on using its new program of cultural tourism as an alternative
form of development in rural Mexico.

Pre-Columbian Art:  Virtual Reality Tour. 
Rivera:  Web Museum of Rivera's Works.  -   Video on Frescoes of Diego Rivera.  (34:18)  direct link.  Painting with Marxism.
Orozco:   Overview.  Orozco at Dartmouth. 
Siquieros:    Overview.   Images from the Mexican Revolution.  The artist as activist.   
Kahlo:   Frida Kahlo WEB site.  Videos by high school students including one on Frida.  -  Paintings -

June 15 -   WEB site on Latin American music. 

 Brazilian Music from Lonely Planet.  Powerpont on Brazilian Music.  Powerpoint on Brazilian Art is in WEBCT. 
Carmen Miranda WEB site.

FHC radio interview on music (he likes classical music, especially Villa Lobos).

Gilberto Gil video. 

June 19:  We will have a quiz on The Accidental President, then discuss some of the issues raised in the book.  To review see the Study Questions on The Accidental President.  

Essay Question:  "Describe three turning points in Brazilian history.  What key decisions did the leaders make that shaped the outcome?"

A particularly important question is #6 in the Study Questions:  the role of leaders in history.  What personalities did he discuss?  What difference did they make in history?  Also, how about leaders in other countries?  What differences did they make?  Fidel?  Pinochet?  Zapata?  Diaz?  Hugo Chavez?  Menem?   Simón Bolívar?   Perhaps more critical, what about the leaders of today.  What difference does it make who won the Peruvian election?  Or who will win the Mexican election.

Another issue raised in the book is Brazilian culture, which we can contrast to US culture:
This includes topics such as the rule of law:  the "jeitinho"  vs. American attitudes.  What does FHC say about this?
How does it relate to inflation?  To policy changes?  To corruption?  What is the root of these differences?  What did Octavio Paz say about this?  How about attitudes toward sexuality?  Racial differences?

Another topic is political life vs. academic life or ways of thinking.  Why do people insist in believing that Cardoso abandoned his principles, etc.  What traits does one need to be a successful politician?  Why does FHC call himself an "Accidental President"?  How does he differ from Brazil's current president? 

Why did FHC's anti-inflation plan work?  Why didn't the others?  Why didn't Argentina's?

What is "neoliberalism"?  How do different people use the term?  What does FHC say about it?

At the end of the hour we viewed:  The History of Soccer:  The Beautiful Game  We say the "Brazilian Soccer" volumel, one of seven in the set.  Some other online material on soccer:  Franklin Foer on Picking World Cup Winners.  World Cup Web Site. Brazilian Soccer Players.    Eight minute soccer video.  Brazilian team in airport.  Nike commercial. 

Capoeira Brasil.  So far Brazil has won two games in the World Cup, but its play has been unexciting according to the Folha.

May 20:  Turning Points in Mexican history.  For an overview see the entry on Mexico in Wikipedia.

The rise and fall of the pre-Columbian civilizations are turning points, although they took place over a long period of time.  The oldest is the Olmec dating back to 2300 BC.  After they faded the power vacuum was filled by the Teotihuacan civilization which became a true city by 150 AD.  The Maya civilizaiton was about the same time, but in Yucatan, peaking from 250 to 650 AD.  The reasons for the collapse are unknown.  The Toltecs rose to power in 700 AD, speaking Nahuatl.  The Maya leaders claimed descent from the Toltecs.  The Mexica or Azted civilization were late, following a revolt in 1428. 

Note:  here we have a cycle, the rise and fall of empires, as described elsewhere in the world with pre-industrial civilizations (see Toynbee).   This tends to continue.  The Spanish empire was not so different.  Even under independence, the same pattern follows.  Some quotes from Enrique Krauze's Mexico:   The Biography of Power:

The Mexican political system in its developed form differs from the ordinary dictatorships of Latin America.  it is an institutional regime and thereby more modern.  The system centers on the investiture of the presidency (in the Presidential Chair), not on the person of a tyrant...respect, not total but broad for civil liberties.  Widespread terror, intolerance, and forms of massive repression based on the ideological hegemony of a race, creed or doctrine do not form part of the Mexican mentality...the key to the Porfirian social contract was in the personal linkages of each social group with Don Porfirio (friendification or amificacion)...there exists in Mexico "a dynamic market in buying and selling obedience and goodwill   the essence of this social contract is state money...politics does not consist of winning public elections but of rising within the system."   Octavio Paz describes this as 'the transmission of the Azted archetype of political power'.  The Aztecs had developed a complex procedure for choosing their tlatoani, and through a highly mysterious process of transmission the pattern has appeared almost intact in twentieth-century Mexico.  This is the method of tapadismo, or secret deliberation, a conclave of nobles and military chieftains, meeting in complete privacy, would discuss the selection of a heir to the thront [the PRI nominee].  The true heart of the system rests on the traditiona, premodern political culture of the majority of Mexicans, for whom politicians are the legitimate owners not only of power but of the nation.

The next big turning point is the arrival of the Spanish in 1519 with only 600 soldiers they captured Tenochtitlan in 1521.   They brought smallpox which killed hundreds of thousands.  It took a couple of centures to completely conquor Mexico.

1810 -  War of Independence.  Nueva España included the territory from the American Southwest to Costa Rica. 
When Napoleon I invaded Spain, it was an opportunity for the criollos in Mexico to declare independence.  The liberales wanted a republic, the conservadores thought Napoleon was too liberal, but they agreed on independence.  Taking advantage of the fact that Spain was severely handicapped under the occupation of Napoleon's army, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest of Spanish descent and progressive ideas, declared Mexico's independence from Spain in the small town of Dolores on September 16, 1810.  The conservadores ended up with power under Augustin de Iturbide, a general who had at first fought for the Spanish. 

From Krauze:  Biography of Power:
All across Latin America in the early nineteenth century, the crumbling of the Spanish political order led to the rise of the caudillos.  They were the strongmen, the new condottieri, the chieftains, the masters of "lives and haciendas,"  the inheritors of the Spanish and Moorish archetype of the warriors who raised their shining swords.  The Mexican caudillos, like their counterparts farther south, fought for independence from Spain, but unlike thos eothers, they were priests.  Miguyel Hidalgo and Jose Maria Morelos (and the hundreds of priests who fought as their lieutenants) had a quality that went beyond mere charisma:  a religious aura...   almost all the Mexican heroes of the nineteenth century died as martyrs."

Texan independence 1836,  Mexican American war, 1846-48.  Mexico lost nearly 2,000,000 km² after the war and received $15 million for the lands from the U.S.

French intervention in the 1860s setting up an Austrian, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, as Emperor of Mexico.  Supported by conservatives, clergy and some indigenous communities.  The Second Mexican Empire was then overthrown by President Benito Juárez, with diplomatic and logistical support from the United States and the military expertise of General Porfirio Díaz. General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated the largely unsupported French Army in Mexico at the city of Puebla on May 5, 1862, celebrated as Cinco de Mayo ever since.  Benito Juarez was the only indigenous president of Mexico, but was succeeded by Porfirio Diaz who rules for 30 years, a period of economic growth and prosperity.  It was elitist and undemocratic leading to

The Mexican Revolution of 1910 a violent social and cultural movement, colored by socialist, nationalist, and anarchist tendencies.

1929 Establishment of the PRI.
Order established after the revolution, set up a -system that became more dictatorial and pro-business, in some ways replicating the Porfiriato but with a veneer of leftism.

1938  Land reform and confiscation of oil by Lazaro Cardenas. 

1994  Joined NAFTA,  EZLN formed. 

2000  First non-PRI president elected, Vicente Fox of the PAN.  Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas had actually probably won the vote in 1988, but the government shut the computers down and recalculated..  The system of tapadismo had broken down, lost its legitimacy?

What drives this history?  Culture?  Social Structure?  Biography?  Clearly all three, but it is interesting to see how these forces play out in the lives of leaders.  A very interesting book is Mexico:  Biography of Power by Enrique Kraqze. 

  Some quotes from a review by Paul Berman. 
Krauze's Mexico: Biography of Power is an enormous history of his country, and one of its themes is the mysterious dual nature of Mexico's national character--half modern and forward-thinking, half ancient and autocratic. He tells us that the old Aztec political culture focused on a figure called the tlatoani, "He-Who-Speaks," the all-powerful, who later blended with the Spanish vice regency. And the resulting heritage of Azteco-Spanish authoritarianism has proved sturdy in the extreme--even during periods when Mexico has set out to create a modern and democratic republic.Krauze strings together biographical narratives of men in power during the last two centuries--from Father Hidalgo, who led the original insurgency against imperial Spain in 1810 (with the stirring cry, "Take! My children! For everything is yours!"), through Benito Juarez and Porfirio Díaz in the 19th century, onward through Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa and the other revolutionaries, all the way to President Ernesto Zedillo and Subcomandante Marcos in our own time. And in every one of these portraits, with only a few exceptions, he shows us someone who strove heroically for a more modern Mexico, only to end up resurrecting or reinforcing bits and pieces of the ancient authoritarian past.

There is the example of Porfirio Díaz, who brought to his presidency a fine set of liberal principles drawn from the Jacobins of the French Revolution, and dutifully set about building railroads, yet succeeded finally in erecting a grotesque dictatorship. Then Díaz was overthrown and all hell broke loose, and when order was re-established, it fell into the hands of, among others, President Plutarco Elías Calles, a schoolteacher, who in the 1920s and 1930s endowed Mexico with a forward-thinking commitment to rationalism, anti-clericalism, education, and stability. Only Calles, too, evolved into a strongman, el Jefe Máximo, and ended as a fascist sympathizer, communing with the dead at spiritualist séances. And so on through the years.


And his description of Mexicans in Labryinth of Solitude:

How does this apply to Subcommandante Marcos (box on pp 168-9 in Munck)Wikipedia on the Zapatistas.

But the Zapatistas seem to be marginalized in this election season. 

Today, Mexico is focused on the struggle between two personalities, each of which represents political parties and social forces.  There is a tight electoral struggle between Lopez Obrador and Felipe Calderon.  This illustrates the conflict between  "populists" and "pragmatists," although AMLO denies that he is a populist.  Enrique Krauze has an interesting article in the June 16 issue of The New Republic called "The Tropical Messiah" -  in which he says:  "What is disturbing about López Obrador is not his social or economic program:  Liberal opinion in Mexico can understand how a leftist democratic regime that is both responsible and modern could come to power.  It is true that AMLO's program turns its back on the realities of the globalized world and includes extravagant plans and unattainable goals, but it also contains innovative ideas that are socially necessary.  No, what is worrisome about López Obrador is López Obrador himself.  He does not represent a modern left;  he represents an anti-modern left - the kind that is now stirring in many places in Latin America:  radical and populist, and with a disturbing element of political messianism.  "Here Andrés Manuel is like a belief.  We ask for things for him when we are in church," said one woman from a Pentecostal community during his tour through Tabasco.  MEXICO NEEDS A MESSIAG AND LÓPEZ OBRADOR HAS ARRIVED, read one placard in Guelatao, Oaxada.   Lópen Obrador has encourages such expectations of himself, in the certainty that he can fulfill them."


Video of Lopez Obrador speaking.  Criticism of seizure of oil wells in Tabasco.  Strikers who blocked oil wells.  The author says "inconsistency, authoritarianism and provocation are among the qualities of AMLO."
Video about the dirty war the government of Vicente Fox against AMLO..

Mexican literature: 

Let's review what Octavio Paz.  said about this history in his  Nobel Prize Lecture.
A magical realist  Firing Squad Video.    Or how about this one?  Mexico Music Video Ad. 
Review of Like Water for Chocolate.     We can view clips from the DVD of this movie. 
PLOT DESCRIPTION
Based on the best-selling novel by Laura Esquival, this internationally popular romantic fable from Mexico centers on a young woman who discovers that her cooking has magical effects. The tale's heroine, Tita, is the youngest of three daughters in a traditional Mexican family. Bound by tradition to remain unmarried while caring for her aging mother, Tita nevertheless falls in love with a handsome young man named Pedro. Pedro returns her affection, but he cannot overcome her family's disapproval, and he instead marries Tita's elder sister. The lovestruck young woman is brutally disappointed, and her sadness has such force that it infects her cooking: all who eat it her feel her heartbreak with the same intensity. This newly discovered power continues to manifest itself after the wedding, as Tita and Pedro, overcome by their denied love, embark on a secret affair. Director Alfonso Arau, Esquival's husband at the time, presents the acts of love and cooking with the same glossy, sensual sheen. Indeed, despite occasional digressions into a magical realist tone, the film often takes on the gloss of Hollywood romance. This combination of traditional melodrama and exotic fairy tale proved extremely popular with audiences, particularly in the United States, where it became one of the highest grossing foreign language films at the time. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide


June 21:   The Environment, the Future. 

Charcoal people. 
Sao Paulo from Banespa - smoggy