North America and Neo-Colonialism: Week 9 Reading

While the term neo-colonialism is usually applied to the period after 1960, when the former metropoles of European imperialism created policies that sought to economically subvert their former colonial subjects in Africa and Asia, the situation of Latin America during the period of the United States' predations was very similar. Although the United States did not seek to establish formal colonies, their form of land dispossession mirrors the policies of the French as they gradually chewed away at states like Algeria and Lebanon to create zones of entirely French-owned arable land and mineral deposits. Areas of Spanish colonization in the Western Hemisphere were always seen as targets of invasion and subversion. Approximately one third of the territory of the modern United States was at one point under the dominion of the Spanish Empire and then independent Mexico before being seized through a combination of illegal settlement and armed conquest. The seizure of Texas and the Southwest were culminations of the pernicious, deeply violent sentiment among Americans known as "Manifest Destiny" that had been honed in their protracted campaign of genocide against the Aboriginal groups caught within their progressively expanding boundaries.

Even after the United States had achieved its transcontinental ambitions, the desire for territory was still a driving principle of its foreign policy. Under the auspice of expelling imperial influence from the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. conquered all the remaining Spanish territory in the Caribbean and the Pacific and claimed the acquired lands for themselves at the conclusion of the war. Once they had relatively uncontested dominion over Latin America, the U.S. began to protect regimes that would embrace heavily imbalanced export policies and topple those that dared to try and have domestic policies that weren't beneficial to American trade. This policy of low-frequency military intervention coupled with complete economic domination during peacetime laid the foundations for the distinct flavour of American imperialism that would shape the landscape of the post-WWII world. The United Fruit Company became a term synonymous with American hegemony for many Latin American revolutionaries and dissidents of the 20th century because of its role as a stay-behind enforcer of the American economic agenda. The mercantile forces that governed the UFCO became ever-richer off of the exploitation of Latin American land and labor, thus increasing their capacity to enforce and expand their influence. While the defining impetus of revolution in Latin America during the 19th century was overt European colonialism, the character of the 20th century struggle was clearly defined by resisting American economic domination.

Revolution and Reaction: Week 8 Reading

The 1910 revolution in Mexico was an unavoidable reaction by peasants and the urban poor to the program of agricultural displacement and growth of an industrial proletarian culture brought on by the Export Boom and the accompanying dislocation felt by most levels of society who did not enjoy the material benefits of international trade. After implementing his program of free trade and modernization so thoroughly hailed by observers in the United States, Mexico's seven-term president Porfirio Diaz lit the fuse of revolt by suggesting the possibility of open elections when for so long he had refused to recognize the validity of lower-class discontent with his vision of modernity. Even if he hadn't dangled the temptation of a new government before their eyes, the industrial process inevitably leads to the generation of class-consciousness in the fluid spaces of factory floors as former divisions of race and religion dissolve in the face of their shared productive capacity. This alone had the potential to foment revolutionary discord within major cities, which historically have been the seat of formal governance and are the ideal arena for a campaign of radical reform. While typically revolutions are urban affairs, with the countryside serving as a base for counter-revolution, Diaz's policies of land privatization had created a fierce opposition in the agricultural communities of Mexico's hinterland. This mixture of cross-sectional discontentment with the deferred promise of reform created an explosive mixture that ultimately resulted in the occupation of Mexico City and much jubilation by the victorious militants.

Unfortunately the Mexican Revolution fell prey to the classic predator of successful revolutions, the reactionary response from elements of the old regime mixed with members of the population who disagreed with the aims of said revolution. These counter-revolutionary elements tend to be the wealthiest members of society, so they are not bound by the recurring need to bring in an income to sustain themselves. This was the stumbling block of the Zapatistas and the rural element of the Villistas, who had to abandon their occupation of Mexico City and return to their villages in order to preserve their local power blocs, allowing the counter-revolutionary liberal elements of the major cities the time and space to organize against the perceived violation of their sanctified bastions of privilege and class by mixed-blood bandits and natives. And ultimately, the tools that industrialism offers to the managerial classes (railroads, telegraphs, machine guns, etc.) make dominion over large territories by small groups of urban elite all the more defensible against revolutionary discontent.

Exports and Exploitation: Week 7 Reading

The export industry has been the driving force of Latin American "prosperity" since the middle of the 19th century, prosperity here meaning the international sale of natural resources such that those elites involved in trade reap a windfall profit. Modern-day conflicts between different groups that previously lived in separate spheres are driven by the expanding frontiers of industry and state power. The drive to impose order on the less controllable hinterland communities was meant to bolster state power for the sake of effective centralized rule, but also to demonstrate a change from the chaotic, violent days of the revolutions, when the international community ignored Latin America as a trade destination. Eventually, this imposition of order created the kind of tariff income that allowed the state to build up its infrastructure immensely. However, even these public works projects become a tool of the industrial nation-state's disruption of communities that reject the state, as evidenced by the clashes between Amazonian tribes in the state of Para in Brazil and state worker crews over the potential construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.

The innovation of photography also lent itself to the nation-state project, as it purports to show reality while in fact it distorts reality to reflect the intention of the photographer or whoever might publish the prints. This was especially prevalent when the early styles of photography were meant to be images that documented "types" of people according to essentialist principles of race and class. Photographing scenes of slavery and describing it as a diminishing phenomenon and capturing the images of indigenous people dressed in European style both serve to advance the idea of ever-advancing progress as a result of industrialization and nation-state expansion. This is reminiscent of Foucalt's "knowledge is power" theory, which states that any knowledge, however idealistically sought, that helps advance the material dispossession of colonized spaces, is a tool that ultimately aids the colonizer.

I find myself frustrated with Dawson's refusal to engage with some of the valid critiques of this period's imbalanced trade policies and how the material gains from these export trades cemented the inequities they created through spectacle and intimidation. He rejects criticism surrounding Milton Friedman without even bothering to elaborate upon how Friedman's theories would be forcibly incorporated into the economic policies of Argentina, Chile and other nations via U.S.-backed military coups in the late 20th century, which I consider a valuable insight into ways that external pressures affect Latin America's sustained dependence on exports.

Citizens and Chattel: Week 6 Reading

I appreciate that Dawson doesn't expend any intellectual energy pretending that principles enshrined in the first drafts of the Atlantic colonial nations' various bills of rights bore any resemblance to modern multicultural humanism. Rights were ascribed to a select portion of males belonging to the dominant Spanish culture group and those rights included dominion over those people within society whose utter subjugation was deemed necessary for the prosperity of the nation as a whole. The concept of citizenship in the early 19th century and prior doesn't have the universal aspect we think of today. Being born within the political boundaries of these nations did not entitle you to the privileges and freedoms of citizenship enumerated in these charters automatically, but was seen by the authors as a responsibility of the "civilized" castes and a reward bestowed upon members of the underclass for loyalty and cultural conversion. These initial declarations of rights and freedoms are not the proud moments for human advancement that they pretend to be, but they represent a symbolically important initial step along the long road to embracing egalitarian social values on paper, reducing the coercive measures to control Latin America's native cultures and abolishing the institution of chattel slavery by the end of the 19th century. However, even when the foundational documents and legal codes were slowly altered to include the lower castes, these statements of principle were utterly incapable of curtailing the informal social institutions of hierarchy and the advent of scientific racism to casually justify such practices that persisted through the 20th century.

Many of the racial biases held by the European descendants towards African slaves were blind prejudices based on self-serving metrics of "civilization" and propriety. The paternalistic attitude towards Africans led to many hateful biases, such as the assertion by Raymundo Rodrigues that they are physiologically incapable of understanding monotheism. Views such as Rodrigues' would lead to the logical mentality among Africans that "if I culturally convert to more European values and beliefs I may be made a full citizen", but as illustrated by the horrific proxy hate crime of South America's various "desert conquests" even when those forces within the government seemed to be offering a route for marginalized groups (African slaves, specifically) to gain access to the benefits of citizenship through military service, it turned out to be a twisted scheme to eliminate two groups deemed enemies of the prevailing criollo order at once. Racial identities are always meant to be external labels that, in Latin American and most other contexts, serve as comparative assessments of white supremacy to other groups. If race is engaged on its own terms, even if it is a well-intentioned appeal to the humanity of a certain group, is still participating in a pseudo-scientific value system that places monotheism, industry and murderous cunning as ideals that truly modern humans must embody.