“The Open Veins of Latin America – Five Centuries of the Pillage of a
Continent,’ by Eduardo Galeano, 1973-1979.
Galeano makes the supposedly
dry phrases of Marxist and political economy come leaping to life. Primitive accumulation, sub-imperialist,
international division of labor, agro-export and resource-export economies,
mono-cropping, sub-proletariat, debt and wage slavery, international ‘credit’
and national debt, capital imports, cultural neo-colonialism, reserve army of
the unemployed, horizontal and vertical monopolies, oligopoly, latifundia,
disequilibrium, under-development, disinvestment, internal imbalances, unequal
exchange, denationalization, profit repatriation, lack of internal markets, ‘free’
trade, national & comprador bourgeoisie, imperialism, colonialism, slavery
– all take on powerful resonances through his lyrical prose. He intended to write a history that was not
boring. He has succeeded.
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| Romantic Conquistadors meet Colorful Aztecs - 1519 |
Galeano tours Latin American
history the way a novelist might. He
concentrates on the various economic periods of Latin
America’s history, not on its emotional crises or its artistic
heritage or its magical mirrors. Starting
from the cruel consequences of Columbus’ landing in Hispaniola up to Latin
American’s role as a cheap labor and resource colony for American and European manufacturers,
the ‘open veins’ are those relished by vampiric economic systems. Looting, rape and pillage are polite words to
describe the results. Though this book mostly ends in 1973 on the eve of the
coup against Allende, basically it still results in heaps of bodies and economic
blood-letting, as colonialism and imperialism have distorted Latin
America to this day.
Galeano makes clear that the
‘national bourgeoisies’ of Latin America did not even fulfill the role of
consolidating an independent ‘national’ economy in their various countries, let
alone uniting in a real common market or country as happened in most of North
America and Europe. The seaports to
elsewhere are the centers of these countries, not the roads to each other. Unity was the dream of Bolivar and his
followers and the many revolutions against outside control, most of which
failed. History will see if the present
state of Latin America, which is attempting to
move away from the dictatorships of local thugs and imperial capital will
actually create independent countries or a united hemisphere. Cuba was the only one that completely
broke with the imperial system, and that was because it took a working-class
path. It would seem that only the
working-class can even accomplish national tasks. Given recent events in the BRICS and their South
American subsidiaries like Venezuela,
Brazil and Argentina, the
outcome is not at all clear. The age of market
& finance imperialism mitigates against real independence.
Galeano describes the
relations of production between the ‘horseman and the horse.’ The initial extraction of silver and gold over
the bodies of indigenous slaves in places like Potosi’s Cerro Rico (8 million
lives!) and Ouro Prieto, exported through Spain to the bankers in England, the
Netherlands, France & Italy. This
made European industrialization possible.
The creation of agro-export
economies producing sugar, indigo, cotton, rubber, tobacco, coffee, cacao, meat
– leaving less food in the stomachs of the campesinos than in the stomachs of
the Europeans and later, the Americans. This
agricultural economy spurred African slavery in the islands, in Brazil and other parts of Latin
America. Then the removal
of resources - first guano, then nitrates, oil, natural gas, copper, iron ore,
tin, bauxite, nickel, manganese, saltpeter, diamonds on a mass scale. These processes destroyed the soil and left
wastelands of poverty when the rushes were over. As time went on, the weak and
parasitic comprador bourgeoisies were bribed to sacrifice local ‘light’ industrial
development to imports. Later heavy
industry invaded owned by foreign corporations using local cheap labor and
resources, their profits expatriated to build skyscrapers in New York.
Import prices rose while raw materials’ prices went down like a broken
teeter-totter. Lastly, debt through
colonial and imperial banks and later entities like the World Bank become the
biggest national import while crippling interest one of the largest exports. Will the paralytics even be provided a wheelchair?
asks Galeano.
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| White Devil God of Potosi, Bolivia |
In the process, the Latin
American ‘rebellions of the hanged,’ as the Old Gringo B. Traven might put it,
are enumerated. The crushing of
Montezuma. The war led by Tupac Amaru in
Peru that got rid of slavery
and forced labor, and who was later tortured to death in the central plaza of Cuzco.
The longest black slave rebellion in history, in Palmares in northeast Bahia
Brazil,
which eliminated money and created a free republic. It was portrayed in the book “The War at
the End of the World” by Mario Vargas Lhosa. The bloody dismemberment of Paraguay in the
“War of the Triple Alliance” by ‘neighbors’ at the behest of British
money. This event was denounced by left
populist Huey Long as a war benefitting the criminals at Standard Oil of New
Jersey. Capital yawned.
The repeated efforts of
nationalist, anti-imperial leaders to break from outside control – Zapata and
Cardenas in Mexico, Sandino and his later followers in Nicaragua, Varela &
Rosas in Argentina, Arbenz in Guatemala, Gaitan in Columbia, Lechin in Bolivia,
Artigas in Uruguay, Alvardo in Peru, Jagan in Guyana, Vargas and Goulart in
Brazil, Francia and Lopez in Paraguay and Balmaceda & Allende in Chile. The Cuban revolution which overthrew the
slavish Batista kleptocracy was the only long-running but isolated break. And now that too is under threat.
The titles of chapters alone
are indicative: “The Dimensions of
Industrial Infanticide;” “Development is a Voyage with more Shipwrecks than
Navigators.” “Cheap Hands for Coffee,” “…the
Importance of Not Being Born Important,” “Technocrats are Better Hold-Up
Artists than Marines” “The Contemporary Structure of Plunder,” “The Goddess
Technology Doesn’t Speak Spanish,” and so on.
Clearly U.S. attempts to undermine Latin
America independence and wealth continue to this day. The undercover support for the coup and
dictators in Honduras (with Clinton leading the pack)
is only the latest example. The TPP is
still on track and the IMF and World Bank still salivate over their loans. The backing of the corrupt president and
ruling stratum in Mexico,
the U.S.’ nearest neighbor,
is another example that impacts the U.S. every day. The U.S. is also backing middle & upper-class demonstrations in Brazil and Venezuela.
Galeano ends thus:
“The task lies in the hands of the humiliated, the dispossessed, the
accursed. The Latin American cause is
above all a social cause: the rebirth of
Latin America must start with the overthrow of
its masters, country by country.”
Related reviews below: “An Anthology of the Writings of J.C. Maritequi,”
“The Daminficados,” “The Diary of Che Guevara,” “Secret History of the American Empire,”
“The Shock Doctrine,”
And I bought it at Mayday
Books!
Red Frog
March 18, 2016
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