Did Chavez give ‘Open Veins’ to the wrong president?
April 20th, 2009
So, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez surprised Barack Obama with a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s 1971 book Open Veins of Latin America at the presidents’ meeting in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. The book is a left-wing polemic about the exploitation and suppression of Latin America by foreign powers over the last 500 years. The “gift” is part political stunt – the copy given to Obama is in a language he neither reads nor speaks – to make things a bit uncomfortable for the high-flying Obama and remind him of his country’s role in “Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.”
The gift is good timing for me, though. I finished Open Veins a few weeks ago and was planning to post some thoughts on it anyhow. As I read the book, I didn’t often think of Obama and the US as much as I thought of China, which stands to be the next country to seriously impact Latin America with its hunger for natural resources. China may have played zero role in the last 500 years of pillage in Latin America, but it may well be the leader in the next 500.
Written in the early 70s, Open Veins is Galeano’s account of how the Spanish, then English and finally Americans arrived in Latin America, stole the regions’ resources, exported its wealth, and drove its people to poverty and backwardness through their greed. Since Columbus’s arrival, Latin America’s natural resources have been a continual curse, a major reason for its stunted growth.
Galaeno doesn’t much distinguish between the Spanish conquistadors who once outright stole and enslaved from 20th-century US companies in Latin America that exploited the land and exported profits back home under the guise of free trade. The pillage has taken new forms, to be sure, but the pillage is still going on.
The US comes out looking terrible in Open Veins – a paternalistic superpower openly exploiting Latin American countries and meddling in their political affairs. Corporations like US Steel and Standard Fruit Company “invested” millions in smelting plants and banana plantations, which polluted the earth, condemned locals to dangerous and low-wage jobs, and exported a lion’s share of profits north of the Rio Grande. Development banks like the IMF and IADB are mostly US pawns used to force Latin American countries to re-structure their economies for greater US manipulation. America’s only interest in a growing middle class in Latin America is that it provides a market for US exports.
Galeano is a great writer, which comes through even in translation. There are memorable anecdotes and powerful passages, but, on the whole, I found the book dogmatic and shrill as he forced his agenda into the pages. This is not objective journalism (nor does it claim to be), but rather a kind of blood-boiling invective that tears down straw-men counter-arguments. Still, there is plenty to get incensed about; it’s a moving book. I can see why Hugo Chavez likes it so much.
But I also think he gave Open Veins to the wrong president; the book should have been in his suitcase for his trip to Beijing earlier this month. There were no awkward book exchanges on Chavez’s trip to Beijing, of course, only zesty Xinhua headlines, multi-billion dollar oil investment deals and smiling photos.
For one thing, Open Veins would simply be a great read for any stalwart Communist cadre, at least in theory. There’s anti-imperialism rhetoric, scathing criticisms of the US’s political meddling, a dash of revolutionary fervor and pleas for better labor conditions. But more importantly, if any foreign country needs a cautionary tale about the fine line between “pillage” and “commodities investment” of Latin America in the 21st century, it is China. You never know how long your welcome will last.
Times are good now because China’s buying helps shore up the region’s battered economies, and its investments come without preconditions. China also provides another major trading alternative to doing business with the US. But, everything’s not perfect. Latin America’s trade deficit with China is growing, new free trade agreements have yet to reveal how much (or little) they will benefit Latin economies, and some Chinese mining companies are already getting bad reputations for their labor and environmental policies.
While none of this yet put the country in the same league with the villians in Open Veins, Spain, England and the US’s legacy in Latin America are clearly ones that China must keep in the back of its mind. If China turns out to be as greedy and exploitative as its foreign predecessors, you can be sure it will become the subject of a similarly themed book in the coming years.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
It is clear that China is a new power on the world stage. For developing world governments China is a welcome alternative to meddling western powers demanding human rights and democracy on their soil. This approach allow governments like Sudan to plunder their natural resources for the benefit of those in power, leaving the less fortunate in a terrible plight. China is exporting misery and would do well to heed the advice of Galeano.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Wow, so the United States is responsible for most if not all of the problems of South America? Come on, you are much smarter than the author of this book, right? Do you really believe that China offers an alternative to the U.S. when it comes to future trade agreements? If you do than you are a very naive individual. China will “use” South America for its own economic gain and could not care less about raising the economic prosperity of the average worker “south of the border.”
Answer this question; is the world a better place because the United States exists, or would the world be better off without the U.S.?
The U.S. is harldy perfect, but the notion that it is a force for world wide economic ruin or worse economic and social evil is an absurd argument on it’s face.
What say you?
April 20th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
HoosierFan: As argued in the post, I agree that China should heed Galeano’s message because I do think it is going to face some kind of populist backlash in the future. As for “exporting misery,” you may have a point in places like Sudan, Burma or N. Korea, but I’d stop short of saying Chinese investment in Latin America is having the same effect. In most of these countries, Chinese investment is welcomed and of mutual benefit.
Dan: You seem to miss my point. I’m not arguing alongside Galeano that the US is a force of evil – I read Open Veins with a handful of salt. And as the title suggests, the book is not only about the US, but about the influence of all kinds of foreign countries in region.
As for your “question,” even if one thought “yes, the world is a better place because of the US,” would that make the stories and reporting in books like Open Veins un-true? Aren’t there a million ways to judge something as vast and vague as “the United States” anyway? Isn’t the reality, like all good/bad questions, somewhere between the extremes? Who cares?
As for China, there’s no question that its own economic development is Priority #1 in LA. As you say, China probably cares little or nothing about the plight of workers here, etc. And not doing so is exactly the kind of thing that gets people like Galeano incensed. As I wrote, there are lessons for China in this book.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:10 am
Thanks to all this comment and we would like to ask to you guy who read the book do you think that in that book they could be message or Chavez is looking out for new ennemies or wish to provoke a new delima as the 100Mus$ worth of petroleum that he offered to the Malian goverment?
As far as we know and following what we have read on the net about that book we can imagine that there’s nothink that someone like Obama did not know in what’s going on American soil from north pole to the south pole but nobody ever predict that thinks tend to shift since Chavez is involcve in somethink look at the paris dakar is now happening in South america the Pirates are in the Indian ocean not on the atlantics or the pacifique ocean all this brings us more question than answer.
Spaniards read it for us and tell???? we can find what he ’s looking for???? As we say around here “siyo ngombe!!!!”
June 16th, 2009 at 8:36 am
THE UNITED STATES IS AT FAULT IN LATIN AMERICA
THE U.S. IS EVIL AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE IN PURSUIT OF MONEY
MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL
July 9th, 2009 at 9:06 am
[...] a nice conceit. I should know, I used it for my April 20th post: Did Chavez give ‘Open Veins’ to the wrong president? In fact, at the risk of a lowly blogger sounding unduly self-important, am I the only one that [...]