So What’s In Open Veins of Latin America?
19 April 2009, 3:05 PM. By Cindy Casares
Hugo Chavez handed Barack Obama a copy of Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, in the middle of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, so what does it say? Obama’s flacks have already excused the president from reading the book by saying the copy is in the original Spanish version. Kind of embarrassing. We think the leader of the free world should speak about seven languages, but that’s just us. Anyhoo, for those who care to broaden their horizons, this is an overview.
The book was written by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano and first published in 1971. Since then, it was banned in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay for presenting right-wing points of view. According to various sources, however, what the book represents is the other side of the story of the economic and political progression of the Americas. Galeano’s thesis is that Latin America has provided the fundamental tools–through cash crops and natural resources–for the nations of North America and Europe to grow richer, at the expense of the poorest of the poor of Latin America. He begins with this line:
The division of labor among nations is [...] that some specialize in winning and others in losing.
It’s a line fraught with understandable anger. And it’s just that anger that infuses every bit of the raw data Galeano uses to tell his story. His conclusion? That Cuba–and communism–have the answer. Ignoring, of course, the fact that Cubans are just as oppressed and poverty stricken as the rest of Latin America.
In the end, Galeano doesn’t blame the United States solely for the devastating corruption in Latin America, but he does note that Latin America has been invaded over 200 times by the United States, always in support of a corrupt dictator. No one would deny this. Well, we wouldn’t. But the question remains whether Chavez, despite his opposition to the US, isn’t a corrupt dictator himself. (Not to mention Fidel Castro who Galeano lauds as a shining example of what Latin America needs.) Chavez’s decision to present Obama with this book in such a public forum is a case in point. The media spectacle of it only served to garner attention for himself rather than gain prosperity for the people of Venezuela and Latin America.
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chavez is an ass hole
sorry but he is
The behavior of the Iranian, and even the N Korean governments, towards the new US administration, seems driven by political calculus and the desire to attain goals that they regard as worthwhile. Chavez does what he does because (just as you say) he’s an ASSHOLE !
As a South American, I find crazy the idea of choosing between two bad options. I am referring the choice between a dictator from the left (Fidel Castro) or a dictator from the right (Pinochet, Strossner, Videla, Somoza, etc.)
What the extreme right does not understand is that most South Americans, want to exploit their natural resources themselves. Nothing personal, but they just want a share of their own pie.
USA does not understand South America. Most “Latin American advisers” are either of Puerto Rican, Mexican or Cuban ancestry and they do not quite understand South American culture themselves.
Most South Americans are neither communist nor hard line capitalists. They are believers in a third option: Mixed economy or a hybrid of socialism, mild controlled capitalism and cooperatives. They dislike pure capitalism as well as communism.
South America differs from the “Latino stereotype” of the USA. In southern South America people eat more potatoes, pasta and salads, than beans. In South America, in addition to blacks, Indians, and Spanish, there are Germans, Irish, Italians, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Arabs and others. I would like to clarify that Germans did not start arriving to South America after the second world as Hollywood portraits in their movies. Germans, Irish, Italians and others started emigrated to South America during the 18 and 19 century.
As a matter of fact, Galeano real last name is Hughes. He uses Galeano, his mother maiden name. He is a mixture of Irish, German, Italian and Spanish blood. That is very common in South America. Indians and blacks were prosecuted by rich foreign corporations and South American high society. However, among common people, Indians, Blacks and the children of European emigrants have the best of the relations. The problem is not race, but class.
Most South Americans hated in the past to align either with USA or with the Soviet block.
They distrusts a world dominated by corporations as well as a world dominated by a Marxist state.