Johanna Rabindran
A Book Review of Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano
In Open Veins of Latin America, Eduardo Galeano delivers a sarcastic take on Latin American history, from the earliest conquistadores to modern foreign corporations. History repeats itself – the silver veins from five centuries ago are not unlike the oil deposits of today. The book is a saga, and also a lament for the ‘losers’ of history.
He begins his argument by asserting that the wealth of the land brings poverty to the people. This is the logic behind the name of the book – gold, tropical crops or oil are appropriated by foreign interests. Over the first few chapters, he lays out the patterns of discovery, exploitation, temporary affluence, and eventually, when the resource is exhausted, abandoned towns and inevitable poverty (the metaphorical empty veins). Profit and poverty depend on the whims of the West – once artificial nitrate was created, for example, the entire nitrate industry in Latin America collapsed overnight.
In the first part of this history, foreign interests focussed on export of food and resources and the brutal suppression of industries. The abundance of resources to export was what excited the conquerors and foretold the future of the region. Although they had breath-taking architecture and densely populated cities, the natives of Latin America were not equally matched with the invaders. They did not know gunpowder for muskets or cannons. Pizarro, for instance, carried out successful campaigns with only 180 soldiers and 37 horses. Over several waves of conquest, the Indians were decimated, by epidemics, by cavalry, by harsh work in the mines, or fear-motivated suicide.
Galeano also draws attention to the Pope and the theologians, who were complicit in this violence. For them, America was ‘the kingdom of the devil’, and they condemned slavery and the Indian peoples in the same breath. The fabled splendour of the New World was exciting. The Pope gifted America to Queen Isabella of Castile, and after the Treaty of Tordesillas, in part, to Portugal.
Europeans saw possibilities for trade in spices and pearls and precious metals. Gold and silver, particularly, were catalysts for the development of capitalist mercantilism. The surplus was exported to Spain and Portugal, although they squandered it in luxury and fulfilling debts. Most of the capital eventually passed into other hands and the British, the French, the Dutch began to invest in earnest.
The climate and fertility of the coastal areas prompted the creation of huge latifundia and plantations, financed by foreign firms, where sugar, rubber, cacao, cotton or coffee were grown for export to industries abroad. The US, in particular, relied on the exports of these nations, especially sugar and coffee. As he is fond of repeating, the taxes collected on the goods were higher than the prices received by the sellers.
As far as possible, each region was entrusted with the responsibility to produce a single good – diversification of the economy was actively discouraged, probably, as Galeano shows later, to create a dependence on imports. Thousands of slaves were imported to work in the plantations, and the conditions of work did not change even when slavery was abolished. Labour has always been expendable in Latin America. The rich soils that attracted investment soon gave way to impoverished lands, and with the passing of traditional agriculture, these regions became a hub for hunger.
While the United States developed its productive prowess through several years of protectionism, nascent industries in South America were throttled by adoption of free trade policies. Even after decolonisation, the ostensibly independent states continued to prioritise the export of raw materials over the development of indigenous industries. Foreign interests, particularly the need for markets for Europe’s manufactured goods, continued to dominate the economic policies. Latin America meekly exported minerals, nitrate, copper, iron and petroleum and hardly developed its processing capabilities. National leaders rolled out the red carpet for foreign capital. Resources were given away for pennies.
Eventually industrialisation was allowed, but only in the direction that was approved by the US. The industries established in Latin America were firmly enmeshed in the global economy. Galeano shows how the presence of foreign capital exacerbated the economic conditions in these nations. Otherwise valuable raw materials were sold as cheaply as possible. Workers in Latin America were paid peanuts so that the workers abroad could be paid a living wage.
Latin America is the bastard son of Free Trade – Made of it, but not in any way its heir. Those who tried to protest the unfair measures – Trade unionists, students, political leaders, Indians – were massacred. In Guatemala, Jorge Ubico permitted plantation owners to kill (“Plantation proprietors will be exempt from criminal responsibility”). Any nation that tried to maintain its interests, say by making protectionist policies, inevitably fell to a coup, a revolution, a war. US would intervene to protect its investments. Democracy was sold by the kilo, and foreign firms have deep pockets. In an extreme example, the independent and stubborn state of Paraguay was attacked; the invading forces were financed from abroad.
From 1811 to 1820, José Artigas led the masses in the south. He taxed foreign imports that competed with domestic goods and ordered Latin America’s first land reform – free land, free men. A panicky oligarchy and outraged foreign intervention changed the tides. In 1944, when a revolution put Arévalo in power, foreign monopolies were broken, trade unions were encouraged, but the media screamed communism and the US supported a military invasion of the regime. In each case there was a different localised reason, different people at the heads of government, but there was uniform foreign indignation when industries were nationalised or workers were freed.
As reformist regimes fell, the new dictators usually inaugurated their reign by generously giving away nationalised industries. In Brazil, Law 56,570 was passed on July 6, 1965, reserving the petrochemical industry for the state. On the same day, Law 56,571 was passed – it annulled the previous law and opened up petrochemicals to private investment. While the timing is hilarious, the consequences of dictatorships are serious. Dictators gave away resources and ignored indigenous industries. This, of course, was welcomed by foreign firms.
Worse still, dictatorships beget terror and repression. Books were banned, disappearances were commonplace – this is the cost of free trade. Through Galeano’s pages, one begins to notice the irony of the world’s leading exporter of democracy (that is, the US) intervening to install repressive, but capitalist, regimes. It is further astonishing that the US had the audacity to admit to such hypocrisy.
The age of free trade is like the cook (from one of Galeano’s parables) who asks the assembled animals, ‘which sauce would you like to be eaten with?’ and is genuinely confused when the animals say that they would rather not be eaten at all. Violent and virulent anger is directed against leaders who try to not be somebody’s dinner. The socialist regimes in Latin America were villainised for preventing the rich from robbing the poor. The only good socialist, I suppose, is a dead socialist. These revolutionary socialists were not irritants, like flies in the summer, but a powerful subversive force, a threat to civilisation. The US could not live and let live, because simply by existing, a successful socialist state would rock the foundations of the capitalist world.
Galeano once told the story of Myrna Mack, who said, ‘In my country, if you publish, you perish.’ Galeano himself was exiled twice for his political stances, first from Uruguay and then from Argentina. He opposed military dictatorships with every word he wrote.
While Galleano can be subject to the standard critique of dependency theorists (that they take the categories of developed and underdeveloped for granted), he cannot be dismissed on these grounds. His approach to development is more nuanced. He bemoans the pitiful state of the indigenous industries and would probably be very pleased if South Americans controlled their resources and technological development (earning the ire of theorists like Wolfgang Sachs and Gustavo Esteva). While decrying the underdevelopment of Latin America, however, his solution is not to copy the West. He sees the adoption of the Western model and the West’s technology as part of the problem – Latin America should not blindly import capital intensive machinery, for instance, when it really needs labour intensive ones. He illustrates just how ruthlessly and efficiently the current global economic order punishes deviant economic models.
Like others who criticise development, Galeano recognises that the modern-day imperialism pretends to be a blessing to the underdeveloped, but really expands the reach of poverty and exploitation. Underdevelopment of South America is a consequence of the process of development in the West – whatever happens in Latin America feeds external development. He fought for the chance for Latin America to be truly independent, to do what it wants with its natural resources. That his book is banned by dictators is enough to show how his themes can create a consciousness among exploited people, inciting outrage, rebellion. He does not tell people that they are oppressed, but rather lays out the faults one by one – he brings to light the truth of poverty and raises an indignant finger against those who laid waste to his continent.
Galeano writes about both the big picture and the details. His is a human-eye view – he talks of people, not events. In Children of the Days, Galeano begins one story like this – ‘In 1492, the natives discovered that they were Indians’. This is Galeano’s distinctive style, a turn of phrase that turns the tables. Written in three months in an ‘emotional fever’, this book is not so much an academic critique of colonialism and neo-colonialism as it is a mournful and angry song of the Latin American people.
Galeano was not theoretical. He was, I suspect, deliberately not so, leaving only a few sentences worth of theory in his conclusions. Instead, his book is decidedly real. This is not a dry, clinical interest in the misfortunes of the underdeveloped. By his own admission, he deliberately writes in simple prose rather than code.
I don’t know if Galeano intended for his book to be so cheerless, but it’s hard to be optimistic when reading about underdevelopment. This book makes me doubt the possibility of a happy (non-capitalist) future. In the foreword, Isabelle Allende writes that, in retrospect, they should have known that Allende’s regime was doomed from the start. If capitalism was violent and jealous in the 1970s, it certainly is a much more vicious system today. We won’t ever have genuine democracy or less inequality, I think, because revolutionaries of the past have failed and capitalism seems to only grow stronger. Anger (mine, not Galeano’s) fizzles into despair. Emotions fade into numbness, not apathy. We shall never be happy, never – so said Simón Bolívar, a defeated revolutionary, and I am inclined to agree with him.
SOURCES
Open Veins of Latin America – Eduardo Galeano
Children of the Days – Eduardo Galeano
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