Obama’s words are promising, but Latin America is no longer looking for promises. However, Obama is proposing pragmatism as opposed to ideology, and he deserves to be heard.

(Madrid) AT THE FIFTH SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS, which was recently held in Trinidad and Tobago, Barack Obama faced up to one of the challenges of his presidency: Latin America. For Americans, Latin Americans are strangers, and they resort to stereotypes to describe them: unpredictable people, demagogic and corrupt politicians, shoddy democracies, dictators, hot-headed soldiers, widespread misery, opulent elites and belfry nationalisms. And all of this can be summed up in one word: underdevelopment.

For Latin Americans, the United States of America has not only usurped the word that belongs to all of them – America -, but has also conquered the future, making the downright failure of the Latin Americans more obvious. In essence, it is impossible to hide the impression that they still haven’t overcome the problems that arose at the beginning of their history, which is akin to saying that they are still living in an interminable nineteenth century.

The two worlds -Anglo-Saxon and Spanish-speaking- could go from conflict to cooperation.

BETWEEN THE PROBLEM AND THE SOLUTION

Besides, Latin Americans understand that the United States carries out its imperialism in an unmerciful manner, with invasions, blockades, meddling in the political affairs of the Latin American states, support of dictatorships and economic protectionism, while simultaneously preaching the gospel of democracy – which its international policy is in charge of betraying – and the glad tidings of free trade, while its protectionist policy concerning American steel is not touched, a policy that primarily affects Brazil.

From the nineteenth and twentieth centuries up until the present day, for some Latin Americans the United States represents the example that must be followed. Sarmiento returned from Washington dazzled, no less than many Latin Americans of our time. For others, the United States represents absolute evil, the enemy that must be fought or, at the very least, that must be denounced. And a safe distance must be kept from it.

Rubén Darío and Rodó remind us of when the threat posed by the United States was just beginning to unsettle Latin Americans. Fidel Castro and Allende – from the other ideology – are the offspring of that lineage, as are the distinct guerrillas that formed in the region. And they are a part of the problem, not the solution.

A LATIN AMERICA THAT HAS FAILED

Leftists and rightists, and progressives and conservatives respond to these Latin American issues concerning the United States of America. All of them are mistaken. But some are more mistaken than others.

Ideological discussions aside, what is certain is that Latin Americans are entering their second century of political emancipation with an indisputable sense of failure. And Americans are getting ready to celebrate the next anniversary of their independence on July 4: their 233rd, and they will celebrate it with a track record that would make any nation envious.

With an important economic crisis that the country itself has caused with inconceivably irresponsible behavior, but also with the resources to face up to and defeat it, creating institutional antidotes to discourage such behavior in the future, the United States is the inevitable negotiator for a Latin America entering its second century with an unavoidable sensation of historical failure.

THE UNITED STATES, FROM 1776 TO 2009

On July 4, 1776, the Americans wrote, in the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Not having any experience with abuses and usurpations, and with the people not having been subjected to absolute despotism, there was also no need to overthrow any government, even though the shadow cast by an assassinated president should make the first black president in the history of the United States feel a bit uneasy.

LATIN AMERICA, EXPECTANT

Eleven years later, on September 17, 1787, the Founding Fathers of the United States drafted a constitution, which was passed by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And they haven’t needed to a draft another one since.

South of the Rio Grande, the spectacular failure of the Latin Americans can, in a certain sense, be measured by the number of constitutions that they have drafted, due to their lack of compatibility with reality – the case of the Mexican Constitution of 1857 is a clear example that illustrates this – their inapplicability, their violation and their derogation.

“The United States is the inevitable negotiator for a Latin America entering its second century with an unavoidable sensation of historical failure”

Let that long preamble serve as a means to describe the current situation.

The Latin America that Barack Obama, the president who made history before he even took office for being the first black citizen to occupy the White House, becomes acquainted with.

Obama’s words are promising, but Latin America is no longer looking for promises. It will no longer allow anyone to sell them a new Alliance for Progress, or disembark in its territory and proclaim a new frontier or announce an attractive discourse, hiding – as always – the following underlying concept: an asymmetrical relationship, profoundly unbalanced, reminiscent of an empire dealing with its disobedient, incompetent and disillusioned colonies.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S WORDS

But some of Obama’s words might indeed be worth taking seriously. They are these: “We have been too easily distracted by other priorities, and have failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas”.

“Some of Obama’s words might indeed be worth taking seriously”

And Obama is not trying to trick anyone with these words; he is acting for the sake of the United States’ national interests: “We will renew and sustain a broader partnership between the United States and the hemisphere on behalf of our common prosperity and our common security”.

PRAGMATISM AS OPPOSED TO IDEOLOGY

President Obama is modifying the United States’ relationship with Cuba, banking on Chile, Brazil and Mexico, and proposing something that is not at all banal: “The promotion of prosperity, security and liberty of the American people depends on updating the societies of the twentieth-century, without adopting the inflexible positions of the past”.

“Obama is not at all reminiscent of his immediate predecessor in the White House – a sad memory -, and he deserves to be heard”

Barack Obama is proposing pragmatism as opposed to ideology, and the Latin American elite cannot afford to not pay attention to his proposal, for two reasons: the man proposing it is not the president of Panama or Uruguay, and his listeners do not appear to have better ideas or any credible alternatives. In short, Obama is not at all reminiscent of his immediate predecessor in the White House – a sad memory -, and he deserves to be heard.