Bolivar
While reading Bolivar's angostura address, I was amazed by how much the patterns of thinking laid out by the famous revolutionary were in sync with Laitn America's history of coup's, juntas, and the political elite's fear of the political participation of the masses. Bolivar calls for a hereditary senate, a near dictatorial executive, and a sharp curtailment of the political particpation of the populace through the legislature. He fears thast the people, not government, will usher in tyranny if not checked. He claims that colonailsim has made the public incanpable of governing itself. He believes in curnign the right of the judiciary. And he is more concerned with protecting the autonomy of the exective than either of the other two branches of governmnet as well as the people themsleves.
In this document can be found the basis for the Latin American political elite's fear of democracy. You get the direct impression that Bolivar's fight for independence had as much to do with securing the rights of an indigenous elite as much as the well being of the people. The arguments he uses asem almost identical to that of evbery military junta to take power in Latin America in the last 100 years (though obviously communism also became an oft cited justification). This reading was so dissalusiong for me because Bolivar had always been descirbed to me as this great liberator that fought on behalf of the people - yet he clearly fears the power of the people while dismissing their ability to govern themselves. It was a little bit like reading that Jefferson was a slave owner or that Jebediah Springfield was actually a cowardly pirate. Am i being to naive or idealistic?
last301
In this document can be found the basis for the Latin American political elite's fear of democracy. You get the direct impression that Bolivar's fight for independence had as much to do with securing the rights of an indigenous elite as much as the well being of the people. The arguments he uses asem almost identical to that of evbery military junta to take power in Latin America in the last 100 years (though obviously communism also became an oft cited justification). This reading was so dissalusiong for me because Bolivar had always been descirbed to me as this great liberator that fought on behalf of the people - yet he clearly fears the power of the people while dismissing their ability to govern themselves. It was a little bit like reading that Jefferson was a slave owner or that Jebediah Springfield was actually a cowardly pirate. Am i being to naive or idealistic?
last301
posted by Bob Neubauer at 10:05 PM
2 Comments:
Hi Bob,
You and I sort of discussed this on monday, remember? And yes, what you say is right. But what about if this call for and "hereditary" senate was what Bolivar thought to be in the best interest of the people at that time, regardless of the consequences that this ideas have had until this day? I understand that concentrating power in an elite is a bad idea and I will not dipute that fact. History has shown that this elitism just concentrates power in a handfull of people, creating a highly stratified social system with a lot of inequalities. But what if Bolivar's thought was the following: since the majority of the population has not been educated by the time he was constituing the "Gran Colombia", he thought best for a bunch of "letrados" (literate people) to rule over the "iletrados"... I can understand that rethoric, given the fact that in order for a true democracy to work, the entire population MUST be prepared to engage in political discourse. So I think what Bolivar was maybe trying to acomplish was just to create a competent government system given the circumstances of the time where the regular peasant was not prepared to govern himself, and then build upon that and start educating people, and hence allow for a gradual shift towards democratization... Although that final result is yet to be shown in practice... The elites still rule in Latin America.
Crystal writes: (http://cmgraber@livejournal.com)
I like ruizsko's comment above. While it is easy to read Bolivar today and wave a finger at his ideas of a hereditary state, I also attempted to put myself into his shoes and consider what alternative options were available. None were equally appeasing. I'd take ruizsko's last comments a bit further, and state that elite's still rule...well, almost everywhere. Look at Canadian history- I lost track of how many of our PM's have been millionares!!
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