MAKING OF THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

Throughout the last few weeks of class we have learned about the various implications of colonialism and how they affected the entire continents of Latin America and Africa.

To begin, it is valuable to compare the two areas of the world due to the similar experiences and suffering they have faced. Both Latin America and Africa were arbitrarily divided by European powers purely for the purpose of extraction and to increase the wealth and domain of the colonial powers. Additionally, both regions were ravaged by the effects of slavery. Africa suffered as the natives were kidnapped and exported and Latin America suffered as their natives were also enslaved while simultaneously dealing with the influx of Africans brought against their will and inserted into the economy.

This was further explored and explained by Professor Holt and she discussed colonial life in Latin America and presented what she called the “Legacies of Colonialism” that included the different ways negative effects took hold in the region such as through the economy, politics, and society (economic, political, and social). Additionally, she discussed transculturation which is the idea that when two cultures are forced together both experience an exchange of culture from the other. Both of what she described is evident throughout the two continents as well as in other parts of the world.

It is important to understand these experiences often forgotten about in modern historical commentary due to the power and influence colonial powers maintained over the lands they controlled.

Its honestly odd how little the general population thinks about Latin america from a historical standpoint. The United States have had their hands deep within it for a long time in an effort to shape it to their desires and before that there were the original colonizers of Spain and Portugal who set up their own Africa like imperialism throughout the continent. Latin America has seldom had the chance to progress on its own terms without outside influence.

For starters I’d like to look at the era post colonialism where the countries were left to their own devices, or so they thought,  now that WWII is over. Most of these nations had some form of government in place as a post colonial regime and many of which were indeed democratic. This is where america steps in. America according to Bayly was in ,”full swing” both from an economic standpoint and a world influence stand point and at the top of their hit list was communism. Since there wasn’t much on the home front except McCarthy’s rampant witch hunting they looked at a world view. Where did this lead them? To Vietnam and Korea for armed conflict and to Latin America where the people came first and sometimes the “threat” of socialism arose. The Pink Wave is the term for the wave of democratic reforms that spread throughout. Its also no secret that Nixon and Kissinger were heavily involved in many of these revolutions as a way of protecting their own interests but justified through containment. Bayly remarks that Chili is a rather strong example of this.

As an earlier example of how Latin America struggles to exist on its own is early civilizations being collapsed by Spanish existence on the continent. As Professor Holt stated on Monday the Civilizations in the area, namely the Aztecs and Inca were extraordinarily advanced and their cities rivaled many European cities both in structure and population. The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan was 120,000 residents strong but was whipped from the face of the earth by Smallpox. The Inca which a population of 3-12 million suffered a similar fate and this cataclysm of the Latin america population basically hit the reset button on progress and caused most of the country to become imperialism by the Spanish and Portuguese.

This week’s lectures by Professor Holt were on Latin America. The main focus was the colonial legacies of Latin America; economic, political and social factors that set the stage for the entrenched structural inequalities that characterize Latin America today. She discussed the ‘logic’ of colonialism one point being Disease after contact with Latin America. This is well elaborated in an article on Epidemics in the Americas where they describe how disease provided the avenue for easier colonization in Latin America. “Similar catastrophes unfolded across the hemisphere. The most precipitous decline is thought to have occurred in the Caribbean, where the precontact indigenous population of several millions had been all but exterminated by the 1550s.

Such diseases spread rapidly in all directions, preceding and accompanying military incursions, weakening indigenous polities, and facilitating the process of conquest and colonization in the Caribbean, Mexico, the Andes, Brazil, New England, and beyond. This process of demographic catastrophe, an unintended consequence of the European encounter with the Western Hemisphere, affected every aspect of the subsequent history of the Americas.”

Another Logic of Colonialism is the Atlantic Slave trade where she discussed how slaves were more profitable especially in areas like Southeast Brazil because of the climate; the climate was suitable enough for working and harvesting on a plantation for crops such as sugar cane which was a very crucial crop at the time due to its major use in food items.

There is also discussion on tools of colonial control. These included casta paintings which were to demonstrate racial hierarchy and the relationship between race and parentage even though the white population was relatively smaller than the Africans. There is also use of the Catholic Church to sort of tame the Africans from their ‘uncivilized’ ways and used as the key to heaven; if the Africans resorted to Christianity they could go to heaven.

Emphasis was also placed on three Latin American countries namely: Cuba, Chile and Venezuela. For Venezuela, a major turning point was in 1808 when Napoleon occupied the Iberian Peninsula, deposed the French Bourbon dynasty and appointed his brother Joseph Bonaparte King of Spain. Two years later they would declare independence. In Cuba and Chile, there was no exact type of ideology or government but rather a modeled form of  democracy.

In ‘Upside Down’ by Eduardo Galeano, he gives a snapshot of the modern world as we know it as he says ” A desolate, de-souled world that practices the superstitious worship of machines and idolatry of arms.” There was global hope that the World would reach an equilibrium of peace, freedom and progress but according  to Galeano it was all a facade

Professor Holt was a guest lecturer this week and focused on the development of Latin American countries leading into the 20th century. In South American countries, colonialism was a principal topic of interest for these developing countries. Colonialism was a driving force for urbanization and served as a primary pillar of economic support for almost all of these countries during the 17th century. In a larger context, colonialism was propelled into full throttle by the transatlantic slave trade that was dominating the Eurocentric powers of the world at the time. Colonialism also gave precedence to new derogatory racial slurs and stereotypes that had never been seen before in these areas, in this way, bringing these absurdities to new heights. People were now being treated as second class citizens and racial identities were taken to the extreme. Racial identities of Latin Americans branded them as hot-headed and unworthy individuals, in comparison to the rest of society. This theme is highlighted in a piece of literature that can be found from today’s reading, Upside Down by Edwardo Galeano. Particularly on page 321 of his thesis, stereotypes present of Latin Americans are analyzed and its grievances are amplified in this context. “We have spent five hundred years hating ourselves and one another and work heart and soul of our own ruin.” Through this piece of text, we can conceptualize how difficult it must be to carry such an abhorrent burden in a society that has dealt with these stereotypes throughout the generations. These ideas whcih have caused such immense heartbreak and duress for Latin Americans citizens, and is also highlighted in Galeones’ work, is a direct result of colonialism started over 500 years ago in South America.

Through Professor Holt’s lectures and the readings this week, we have been able to get a more detailed and nuanced explanation of the role of colonialism in the formation of modern Latin America. This week we went even further in an effort to understand the wide ranging effects of neocolonialist influence directly because of US interventionism against the spread of communism and how it has created the current dominant paradigm within South America.

One of the most significant conceptions about South America is it’s inherent poverty and corruption. Yet as we learned in a multitude of readings and background information, what delayed growth more than anything else was regime change, most of which were done through coups. For example in Chile with the rise of Pinochet, a general, to the leader of the country was directly due to US support against the pro socialist sitting president, Salvador Allende. This serves to highlight the complex role the United States took up in the America’s, that of a Imperial hegemon protecting it’s ‘area of influence’ against any conception of threat posed by Communist ideals.

These crusades launched by the US administration were only compounded following events such as the Cuban revolution, which they believed posed an active threat to American safety and thus the US did everything they could, even if it meant leaving the region in the hands of totalitarian dictators or chaos. To continue with the example of Cuba, the US tried having Fidel Castro, it’s leader following the Cuban revolution, assassinated a total of several hundred times because of his communist ideals and his formation of close ties with the Soviet Union. Through that we can understand how, despite the popular support of many of these socialist figures that arose across the continent, the US placed it’s foreign interests foremost, much to the loss for most other countries on the continent.

From the lectures from Monday and Wednesday, Latin American countries shared a common theme of colonialism and transculturation. It was mentioned that legacies of colonialism included economic, political and social aspects that set the stage for the entrenched structural inequalities.  There was a political image shown on Wednesday that showed like four or five little kids, portrayed as various Latin American countries, crying and climbing on their father, portrayed as the US. This showed that these structural inequalities led other countries, specifically the United States to see Latin American countries as infants and inferior to them. This also caused high income inequalities in Latin America where most of the leaders and people part of the ruling government were way better off than the rest of their citizens, who lived in poverty and unequal conditions. It was also mentioned that transculturation was the dialectic exchange of culture, mutually influencing encounters even within a highly unequal power structure to create something new and uniquely Latin American. Mutually influencing encounters like the Mexican revolution preceded and lead to other revolutions around Latin America. These revolutions were caused by the American support for dictatorships, which caused many of the problems Latin Americans faced because of their unfair rulers. The US looked down upon Latin American countries and supported dictatorship, which were negative effects and views of colonialism and caused transculturation.