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Population Diversity in Latin America by Dr W B Vosloo*, Wollongong, August 2016

Latin America provides a fertile testing ground for theories about the accommodation of diversity in societies. How much diversity can be absorbed before the cleavages, if mobilised, tear a society apart? Such cleavages are usually based on race, ethnicity, language, religion, class, caste, region or some overlapping combination of these.

Latin America, in contrast to North America, also provides a testing ground to investigate the impact of the predominant cultural environment in which socio-economic development takes place. The USA and Canada developed initially within an Anglo-Saxon cultural environment whereas Latin American development took place in an Iberian cultural environment in which the principles of constitutional liberal democracy only took root late in the 20th century during the post-colonial period.

Latin America encompasses about 30 countries with a combined population of around 600 million. Amongst these are three main constituent anthropological components: the original Amerindian inhabitants, the descendants of the colonial conquerors (mainly Spanish, Portuguese, British and French) and the descendants of millions of slaves transported by the colonial powers. There is also a major fourth component: the mestizos or mulattos descended from the racial integration of the original components.

The characteristic pattern in Latin America is that states originated as lineal descendants of colonial administrative divisions. In the former Spanish realms, pre-existing Indian structures were significant to the extent that the two principal Vice-Royalties (Lima and Mexico City) were seated at or near the former capitals of the two major Amerindian empires, the Aztec (Mexico) and the Inca (Peru). Spanish control was at first assured simply by substituting Spaniards for Aztec or Inca and maintaining the lower ranks of the pre-existing hierarchy for an interim period. Over the three centuries of Spanish rule, with local variation, the relatively small number of Spanish settlers succeeded in imposing themselves as a quasi-feudal caste, abetted by patterns of inter-marriage into Indian lineages. The settler culture served as the unquestioned basis for the newly independent communities that gradually enlarged themselves by absorbing outsiders into the settler-elite culture.

Looking at the ten most populous states in Latin America the general population structure for the area as a whole is around 30 percent white, 50 percent mixed, 5 percent black and 15 percent Amerindian. The largest numbers of whites are in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela. The largest proportions of mixed inhabitants are in Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. The only areas where there are still significant numbers of Amerindians are in Mexico (30 percent), Peru (45 percent) and Bolivia (55 percent).

The Amerindians

The original inhabitants were several “Amerindian” tribes who left traces of their civilisations going back at least 5000 years. The Maya lived in the tropical areas of Central America where they built stone houses, temples and paved streets. They turned out fine ornaments in pottery and crafted copper into implements. They guided their life by calendars based on advanced skills in mathematics and astronomy. Scholars and priests also practised a distinctive way of writing based on some 800 signs or hieroglyphs and wrote on paper manufactured from the bark of the wild fig tree. The great era of the Maya ended by AD800 – possibly partly as a result of the scarcity of water and factional strife. 2

Further east on the highlands of what is today Mexico, were the cities of the Aztec empire. When the Europeans first arrived in the 16th century they found Montezuma’s Aztec city, Tenochtitlan, on the site of today’s Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world.

The area of the Aztec empire was almost as large as modern Italy and its population is estimated at around six to eight million. They excelled in the crafts of building, were first-rate goldsmiths and jewellers, competent in mathematics and adept at agriculture. They had a calendar based on the solar year which was followed with strict attention. They also practised the sacrificing of human lives and ceremonial killings, justified by ideology.

Far to the south the slopes of the Andes Mountains adjacent to the Pacific coast had been occupied by the Inca. They domesticated the llama and alpaca and cultivated maize and potatoes as early as 2000 BC. They built agricultural terraces, aqueducts and tunnels for the purpose of irrigation. By 900 AD they were able to manufacture bronze ornaments, instruments and tools including axes, chisels and knives. They built a network of roads which enabled them to reach the outskirts of their empire from what is Bolivia today in the north, to central Chile in the south. They used their 24,000km of roadways to establish a message system enabling a message to travel up to 240km per day. Their beast of burden was the llama. They had remarkable success in domesticating plants: the potato, the sweet potato, the tomato, various beans, the cashew and peanut, coca, peppers, squash, cassava and the pineapple. Maize originated independently both in South America and Mexico. (See Blainey, G., A Short History of the World, Penguin Books Australia, 2000, pp.305-332)

The Colonial Powers

The Spanish Conquistador, Hernan Cortes, paved the way for the colonial powers into the New World in 1518 with a small fleet of ships carrying 600 soldiers armed with crossbows and firearms in addition to several hundred Indian servants and African slaves. He also carried 16 horses, the first ever to be seen on American soil. Montezuma II invited Cortes and his men into his capital, who then took the emperor into custody and subsequently destroyed the city, killing thousands of Aztecs. Cortes took over the Aztec empire.

The Spaniards also brought diseases which quickly killed thousands amongst the native peoples in Mexico. Smallpox carried by the Spanish traders also spread into Inca territories so that in 1532, Francisco Pizarro’s tiny force easily captured the Sun God, the Inca emperor Atahualpa. The following year they captured Cuzco. After the smallpox epidemic, measles followed, as well as typhus, influenza, whooping cough, scarlet fever, chickenpox and even malaria – all new to the inhabitants and therefore all the more deadly.

Of the estimated eight million Indians in Mexico and the area south of the Great Lakes when Cortes arrived, less than one-third survived fifty years later. In the empire of the Incas, far south, the death toll also numbered millions – as many as eight out of every ten people died. Even Indians taken back to Europe as objects of display were prone to catch the new diseases. When the Frenchman Jacques Cartier returned from Canada in 1534 with 10 American Indians, nine were to die from European diseases. The effect of the European diseases on the native Amerindians was disastrous. Cultural and economic life largely disintegrated.

In the wake of the Spaniards came the Portuguese, the British and the French. The Pope issued a statement in 1493 allocating trade in the Americas to Spain and trade in Asia to Portugal, but the 3

Portuguese also acquired the area that is now Brazil in the Treaty of Tordesillas. What the British envied most was what the Spanish discovered in America: gold and silver. Englishmen dreamt of finding their own “El Dorado”. The next best thing was to exploit their skills as sailors to pirate gold from Spanish ships and settlements. The English Crown legalised the buccaneering in return for a share in the proceeds. The names of buccaneers Henry Morgan, Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh became famous as “Brethren of the Coast” in partnership with the British Crown. In the process the British acquired a string of islands in the Caribbean Sea such as Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados. The French also acquired islands in the Caribbean, such as Martinique and Guadeloupe, which are still part of France today.

In the course of the 16th century around 250,000 Spaniards, mostly men, settled in the New World. Many took wives from among the native populations and so gave rise to mixed race offspring called the mestizos. When African slaves began to be imported to South America in large numbers since the early 1500s, female slaves were also taken as concubines by the ruling Spaniards and Portuguese. Children of Afro-Hispanic parentage were known as mulattos. In the absence of an established aristocracy, colonial Spanish society came to be organised according to a careful and legally sanctioned grading of skin colour. “Pureblood” Spaniards were at the top of the social pyramid, native Amerindians and black-skinned Africans were at the bottom and all the varieties and shades of mestizos and mulattos occupied the middle levels. (See Blainey, G., op.cit., pp.305-332)

The Slaves

Over the course of 400 years, from the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 19th century, around 11 million Africans were forcibly removed from their homelands and shipped to North and South America and to the islands of the Caribbean to live out their lives as slaves. Known as the Atlantic slave trade, this transport of humans constituted the largest forced migration in history.

The traffic of Africans involved all the main European trading nations: Spain, Portugal, Britain, France and the Netherlands. It also relied heavily on African tribal leaders and kings, who brought a ready supply of slaves from the continent’s interior to the ports of West Africa from where the European traders operated. For the victims of the slave trade, the experience was traumatic and cruel. It is estimated that on average 15 percent of enslaved Africans died in transit, either from disease or maltreatment. Another one-third died within three or four years after arrival. An incalculable number died en route from the African interior to the coastal ports.

The Spanish and the Portuguese were the pioneers of the slave trade from as early as 1518. The Spanish used the slaves (some were enslaved Amerindians) in their gold mines. The Portuguese used slave labour on their sugar plantations. By 1550 Brazil was the world’s largest exporter of sugar and a major importer of slaves.

In Barbados and Jamaica, both British possessions, the sugar industry also depended on slave labour. Initially tobacco was the main cash crop, which largely used indentured immigrants from Britain itself. But sugarcane proved to be more profitable so that plantation owners switched to sugar and slave labour. Dutch merchants also brought in slave labour and transported the sugar harvested in the Americas to market in Europe. Trade with the Caribbean dwarfed trade with the rest of the Americas.

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Europeans found the mortality in the tropical islands and coasts fearful during the summer “sickly season” so that after 1700 European emigration to the Caribbean slumped as people opted for more temperate climes. This shift in focus of European emigrants only served to expand the demand for slave labour on the tropical plantations.

The “Atlantic Triangle” described the flow of goods along the slave trade routes. From Europe to West Africa the traders carried guns, gun powder, Indian cloth, copper or iron bars to be traded for slaves. The slaves were then carried to the Americas along the infamous “middle passage”, the second side of the triangle. To complete the triangle, American produce including sugar, rum, molasses, coffee and cotton were then ferried back to Europe. Between 1662 and 1807 nearly 3.5 million Africans came to the New World as slaves transported in British ships. That was over three times the number of white migrants in the same period. It was also more than a third of all Africans who crossed the Atlantic as slaves. At first the British had pretended to be above slavery but in time, after 1662, the New Royal African Company supplied thousands of slaves to the West Indies from Nigeria and Benin. By 1740, Liverpool was sending 33 ships a year on the triangular trip.

The African slave markets were spread all along the concave coast of West Africa from the Senegal River to Luanda in the south. European traders picked up the slaves at coastal ports. The slaves were often prisoners-of-war enslaved by their tribe’s enemies. Trade flourished whenever tribal conflict broke out. Slaves were usually branded with a hot iron on the breast or shoulder and kept in forts until the slave ships arrived. Pairs of slaves were chained together at the ankle and herded below decks by sailors with whips. Life on the “middle passage” was an ordeal at the best of times. Spaces below decks were seldom more than 1.5 metres high. Beds were narrow shelves on which they were made to lie down “spoon ways” to maximise the number of people that could be squeezed in. Unsanitary conditions led to dysentery. Smallpox and malaria were also prevalent. Harsh discipline was maintained during the voyage and floggings and beatings were common. Women were in constant danger of being abused or raped by the ship’s crew. In the 16th century as much as 40 percent of slaves died en route, but by the 19th century this figure was down to 10 percent. At least 133 rebellions are recorded and 140 slave ships simply disappeared.

The hardest labour and worst regimes for slaves were found on the sugar plantations of Brazil and Cuba. Because so many slaves died after a few weeks, these sugar states continued to import slaves – even long after the trade was banned by the British and Americans in 1807. Although the hardships endured by slaves in America were also great, a slave’s life was generally better than in the Caribbean or Brazil. Tobacco estates were smaller and slaves were allowed to develop settled communities with families and children. Slavery was finally abolished in the Americas in the late 19th century. (See King, R., Origins – An Atlas of Human Migration, ABC Books, 2007, pp.82-93 and Ferguson, N., Empire – How Britain Made the Modern World, Penguin Books, 2004, pp.72-84)

Indigenismo

“Indigenismo” is described as the mystique of the Indian heritage. In Latin America as a whole there were several primary Indian clusters: the Meso-American complex of what is today Mexico and areas to the north up to the Great Lakes; the Maya of Central America, particularly Guatemala; the Quechna of the Andes republics of Peru, Bolivia and Colombia and Chile; and the special case of the Guarani of Paraguay.

A peculiar aspect of the Spanish influence in Latin America is the scope and depth of the colonial experience. In 1492 a permanent Spanish settlement was established in what is now the Dominican 5

Republic. When independence was achieved in the 19th century, Spanish rule was already three centuries old. Intensive Indian-Hispanic culture contact has far deeper historic roots than acculturation in most of Asia and Africa. There were instances of primary resistance movements by indigenous groups, but not comparable to resistance in the name of nationalism based on indigenous historic identity.

Through peonage, conscription and other means, the entire Indian population in many areas was reduced to forced labour in the mines and textile plants. Thus when Tupac Amarú II seized and executed a Spanish district official and proclaimed himself Inca, many flocked to his side. For a time he enjoyed success and Spanish authority crumbled in the highlands. The tide soon turned and the rebellion was crushed before Tupac Amarú II could consolidate his position. The Spanish took severe repressive measures to stamp out resurgent Inca-hood. The Inca royal house was hunted down and killed. The shock waves reverberated throughout the Andes, but the revolt was totally extinguished by the Spanish.

Today the descendants of the Inca, the Quechua-speaking Amerindians, still form about 46 percent of the Peruvian population. But 37 percent are mestizo and 15 percent white. The majority of Amerindians in the Andes region (sierra) – which covers Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia – speak Quechua. Unlike Guarani, Quechua is not taught in the schools, although the majority of Quechua speakers know no Spanish.

The mestizos are generally bilingual. Traditional customs and distinctive Indian costumes have also disappeared and it is predicted that the Amerindian culture would gradually be assimilated into the dominant Hispanic culture with the Indian past relegated to the national museums. (See Anderson, C.W., et al., Issues of Political Development, Prentice-Hall, 1967, pp.45-55)

Of all the nations in Latin America, Mexico has been most self-consciously preoccupied with indigenismo. It was a central theme in the Mexican Revolution and is still today securely embedded in the Mexican national identity, although the country’s first Indian president, Benito Juarez is remembered in Mexican history for his efforts to “liberate” the country from its traditional past and to move Mexico towards constitutionalism and economic liberalism. The advocates of indigenismo in 20th century Mexico were largely members of the dominant Hispanicized community – many of mestizo racial background. The national elites used indigenismo as a symbol of being Mexican – as the symbolic roots of national identity. It was not a case of romanticising Mexico’s Indian heritage. What was at stake was an effort to blend Indian with Western themes into a unique Mexicanness. (See Anderson, et al., op.cit., pp.35-56)

Paraguay presents the most intriguing case of interpenetration of Indian and Hispanic cultural identity. Asuncion is the only Latin American capital where an Indian language is widely spoken – not only by the peasantry, but proudly by all strata of society. Paraguayan national identity is partly founded upon the mystique of Guarani Indian heritage. The first to insist on their Guarani origins are Paraguayan intellectuals.

The Guarani were a series of segmentary, semi-nomadic communities, occupying fertile forest and grassland which extended in a 120-mile arc radiating from Asuncion, where 95 percent of the present Paraguayan population lives. Spanish settlement began in 1534, when a military force arrived in search of precious metals. Silver ornaments worn by local Indians seemed to prove the presence of silver in the 6 area. Later it was discovered that the silver came from areas in the Andes already controlled by Pizarro. The 350 Spaniards had to turn to agriculture to survive.

On the La Plata, the hostility of local Indian groups was such that no small settlement could be secure. What is now Argentina was not settled until several decades later. But the Guarani were not initially opposed to the small Spanish force. It was necessary though, to establish good relations with the more numerous Indians.

The small band of Spanish soldier-agriculturalists took Indian wives – particularly marrying into senior lineages. By the middle of the 16th century, Spaniard and Guarani regarded each other as kinsmen. The Spanish added to the local community such elements of statehood as overall political, military, economic and religious institutions. In time, lower-class Hispanic culture represented by the soldier-settlers had all but supplemented the previous Indian patterns. At the same time the Spaniards learned Guarani. The mestizo offspring emulated the cultural norms of their fathers and learned to speak in the idiom of their mothers. Thus a peculiar cultural fusion took place, Hispanic in most elements, but Indian in language.

This pattern survived over the years because of the isolation of Paraguay as a backwater of the Spanish empire. Once Madrid learned that Paraguay was no El Dorado, very few European immigrants followed the first pioneers. Later immigrants to Latin America also chose the more inviting prospects of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Cuba.

When independent Paraguay began its search for a national identity, the Guarani myth was ready at hand. Unlike other Latin American countries, Paraguay teaches its Indian tongue in the schools. The young learn that they are Guarani and that they are superior to other Indians. Guarani-hood is what makes Paraguay distinctive. Spanish is not questioned as the language of official administration, but Guarani is accorded loving nurture as a vehicle of cultural identity. Because the Guarani identity is coterminous with territorial Paraguay, state and ethnicity coincide. The Hispanic-Indian duality of the Paraguayan past is transcended in the unifying mystique of Guarani-hood. (See Anderson, et al., op.cit., pp.49-51)

Regionalism

Regionalism is a significant type of sub-territorial solidarity. In Latin America it became deeply embedded in the larger polities during the 19th century era of caudillos, poor communications and central administration whose orbit seldom extended far beyond the seat of government. This pattern has been especially pronounced in Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Brazil and Argentina. The trans-Andean Amazonia region of Peru could only be conveniently approached up the Amazon River through Brazil. Regional loyalty was strongly reinforced by the limited horizons of the hacienda system which characterised much of rural Latin America.

Regionalism also manifests itself in a sense of cultural and economic distinctiveness. The Brazilian of the gaucho heritage of Rio Grande do Sul finds the life of the carioca of Rio de Janeiro distinctively foreign. The people of the highlands of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela have much more in common with each other than each has with his coastal compatriots. Regionalism played an important part in the political development of Venezuela. The military barracks of the Andean state of Tachira furnished all the presidents of Venezuela.

Regionalism also manifests itself in cultural and economic ways. For many years there was considerable cultural rivalry between the aristocratic families of Caracas and those of Cumana. A 7 similar rivalry persists between Caracas and the Andean city of Merida which considers itself intellectually and culturally superior, being the seat of a great university and home of many distinguished families. There are few common interests between the proud families of the Andes and the rough Llaneros of the great plains. (See Anderson, et al., op.cit., pp.24-25)

Ideological Trends

The ideological movements that originated in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries also made their appearance in Latin America. Concepts such as Liberalism, Positivism, Anarchism, Syndicalism, Socialism, Communism, Nationalism and Fascism – each trend of thought has been absorbed into the stream of Latin American political thought and political contests.

The first socialist party was established in Argentina in 1896. By 1940 several such parties had been established in eight Latin American nations – all remaining as relatively minor factions. The closest affinity to the European tradition of socialist thought was the welfare state format established in Uruguay in 1903 which was preserved and extended by subsequent governments. Several parties could be described as part of the “democratic left”: APRA in Peru, Costa Rica’s Liberacion Nacional, Venezuela’s Accion Democratica and at least half a dozen other movements.

These parties could not be described as affiliates of Continental or Marxist socialism. Their ideologies and policies represented a complex amalgam of local aspirations and welfare state models. Many were closely aligned with the Democratic Party of the USA. Programmes tended to be flexible and pragmatic, preferring regulation and taxation rather than nationalisation as a means of controlling foreign enterprise and directing its activities toward the needs of national development. Emphasis was placed on education, public health, transport and social welfare services. Agrarian reform did not imply “communalization”, but usually the extension of private property by way of family-sized parcels.

In several Latin American countries, Christian Democratic movements took a place of prominence: Chile, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and El Salvador. Some describe themselves as Christian Socialists and their policy orientations generally resemble those of the Democratic Left. The main difference lies in the way in which this policy orientation is ideologically justified.

Doctrinal socialism played a more prominent role in the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the Bolivian Revolution of 1952. The actual presence of widespread peasant revolt in both nations served to give greater support to agrarian reform. Nationalisation in both countries has been directed at specific enterprises, for quite specific reasons. It has not been a central focus of electoral campaign politics.

The most militant, radical, revolutionary left-wing experiment has been the “Castroite Socialism” introduced by the Cuban Revolution. However, enthusiasm for the Cuban experiment is not all of the same kind. Some who supported Castro identified with the opposition to the tyranny and corruption of the previous regime. Others were attracted by the rapid and sweeping reforms of the first few years following the revolution. Still others were attracted by Castro’s affirmation of Marxism-Leninism. (See Anderson, et al., op.cit., pp.145-148)

Democrats versus Authoritarian Populists

The emergence of democracy in Latin America has been a slow and convoluted process. Currently the few fledgling democracies are fighting an uphill battle against a new wave of authoritarianism in the 8 form of populist dictatorships. A new battle is being waged for Latin America’s soul: it is waged within Latin America over its future. Latin America’s efforts to make democracy work and to use its instruments to make unequal societies fairer and more prosperous have implications across the developing world.

During the period 1998-2002, the Latin American region suffered severe financial turmoil and economic stagnation. Voters blamed the slowdown on free-market reforms known as the “Washington consensus”. As a consequence, they started to vote for leftist parties and supported leftist causes. But the differences between the leftist causes are as important as their similarities.

One camp is made up of moderate social democrats, of the sort in power in Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Brazil. Broadly speaking, they stand for prudent macro-economic policies and the retention of liberalising reforms of the 1990s, but combined with better social policies to alleviate poverty. The other camp is the radical populists, led by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who gained a disciple in Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president. The populists shouted louder and claimed that they were helping the poor through state control of oil and gas. Both had mestizo connections and marketed themselves as opponents of the “white” elites and as protectors and champions of the downtrodden. They were actively supported by Cuba’s Castro brothers, by the Kirchners of Argentina, by Garcia of Peru and by Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s left-leaning president.

Democracy has systematically succeeded over several decades to improve the lot of the poor and unemployed. Democrats have mobilised the electoral support of the masses to introduce effective social policies to make searingly unequal societies fairer and more prosperous. Democrats – of both left and right wings – are now waging a battle against a new wave of authoritarian populists.

Hugo Chavez, after gaining power in a coup, was twice re-elected. In 2008 he secured abolition of all term limits and ended the independence of both the judiciary and the electoral commission. Having dismantled all checks, balances and independent institutions, his regime rested on his personal control of the state oil company, the armed forces and clandestine armed militias.

Although “populism” is an elusive concept, it generally describes a politician who seeks popularity through appealing to the baser instincts of voters. In Latin America populism has had an enduring influence. It began as an attempt to ameliorate the social dislocations caused by capitalism. Its heyday was from the 1920s to the 1960s during the era of industrialisation and the growth of cities. It was the means by which the urban masses – the middle and working classes – were brought into the political system.

In Europe this role was performed by social-democratic parties, but in Latin America, where trade unions are weaker, it was accomplished by the classic populist leaders. They included Getulio Vargas in Brazil (1930-1945 and 1950-1954), Juan Peron in Argentina (and his second wife Eva Duarte) and Victor Paz Estenssoro, the leader of Bolivia’s national revolution of 1952. They differ from socialists or conservatives in forging multi-class alliances.

Populist leaders are typically charismatic. They are great orators (or demagogues if given a platform in front of a mass audience). A prime example was Mario Velasco, Ecuador’s most prominent populist who was five times elected president and four times overthrown by the army. In the past, populists had to rely on mass gatherings and parades. Today they use the modern media. Hugo Chavez exercised 9 his skills as a communicator every Sunday in a four-hour television programme, glorifying his “Bolivarian revolution” with the exultation of a televangelist.

Blurring the distinction between leader, party, government and state, populist leaders usually lead a personal movement rather than a formal, well-organised political party. Chavez liked to get his followers into the streets to demonstrate their support for his cause and to show indignation at the deeds of the “enemies”.

Many populists started their careers as military officers. That goes for Vargas, Peron and Lazoro Cardenas of Mexico who nationalised foreign oil companies and handed land over to peasants. Chavez was a lieutenant-colonel and a large part of his appeal was that of the military candillo, or strongman, who promises to deliver justice for the “people” by firm measures against “exploiters”. Populists also like to appeal to the nationalist sentiments and hardships of their followers. They rage against a variety of rhetorical enemies, “capitalists”, “oligarchs”, “imperialists” and “Yanqui-exploiters”. These were all part of the Hugo Chavez arsenal.

Across the board, populists are supportive of a bigger role for the state in the economy and the increase of social benefits (more handouts) to the poor. They often paid for this by printing money. Though populists were not alone in favouring inflationary finance, they have been identified with it in numerous instances. In their survey called The Macroeconomics of Populism, Rudiger Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards characterise “economic populism” as involving a dash for growth and income distribution while ignoring inflation, deficit finance and other risks.

Such policies were pursued by Garcia, Peru’s president (1985-1990), Kirchner, Argentina’s president (2001-2006), Salvador Allende, Chile’s socialist president (1970-73) and Nicaragua’s Sandinistas. But there is nothing inherently “leftist” about populism. Juan Peron lived comfortably in Franco’s Spain for 18 years. Some populists favoured corporatism – the organisation of society by functional groups, rather than the individual rights and pluralism of democracy.

It seems that populism is more a technique of leadership than it is a clear-cut ideology. Peru’s Alberto Fujimori and Argentina’s Carlos Menem were free-market conservatives who sidestepped interest groups by making direct appeal to the masses. Populism is full of contradictions. It is, above all, anti- elitist, but it creates new elites. It claims to favour ordinary people against oligarchs. But as Dornbusch and Edwards pointed out, “at the end of every populist experiment real wages are lower than they were at the beginning”. Populists often crusade against corruption, but often engender more.

In the 1960s, populism seemed to fade away in Latin America, pushed out by Marxism, Christian democracy and military dictatorships. Its recent revival shows it is deeply rooted in the region’s political culture. One obvious reason for populism’s persistence is the extreme inequality in the region. That reduces the appeal of incremental reform and increases the lure of messianic leaders who promise a new world. Yet populism has done little to reduce income inequality.

A further driver has been Latin America’s wealth of natural resources. Many Latin Americans believe that their countries are rich, whereas in reality they are poor. Populists blame poverty on greedy oligarchs or on multinational oil or mining companies. That often plays well at the ballot box. But it is a misleading diagnosis. Countries advance through a mixture of good policies, sound institutions and wise leadership. Populists usually lead people down blind alleys. (See The Economist, April 15th, 2006, pp.43-44) 10

Economic Trends (Since the Global Financial Crisis)

Since the middle of 2008, Latin American economies have slumped along with the rest of the world, showing double-digit falls in industrial output. Workers have been laid off in Mexican car factories, Brazilian aircraft plants and on Peruvian building sites. Although Latin Americans have seen downturns in income per head on five separate occasions since 1980, this time they have not fared worse than the rest of the world.

But the downturn has been bad nevertheless. Latin American economies have been hit by four different recessionary forces: collapse of manufacturing levels, a plunge in trade volumes, a decline in the flow of capital as foreign banks trimmed credit lines and a contraction in remittances of migrant workers and tourist spending. Financial statistics show a contraction in GDP of 1.9 percent for 2009 and a modest growth of 1.6 percent in 2010. With a population growth of 1.3 percent, it means a shrinking income per person.

The downturn brought an end to five years of steady growth which averaged 5.5 percent amid relatively low inflation. This period of prosperity saw a decline in poverty from 44 percent in 2002 to 33 percent in 2008. This growth enabled tens of millions of Latin Americans to join the emerging lower-middle class.

Mexico and most of Central America is expected to be worse off than the regional average. Brazil, with more diversified exports spanning different markets and products, is hit less badly. Peru exports much gold which should enable its economy to buck the downward trend.

The normal sources of weakness in Latin America: financial systems, currencies and public finances, have not been the usual drag. The banking system held up well and thus did not act as a magnifier of the recession. Most Latin American economies followed more responsible fiscal policies, accumulated surpluses and reduced public debt. Their currencies declined (30 percent) as a result of the flight of foreign capital, but the de facto devaluation helped their exports.

Several of the larger economies announced fiscal measures to stimulate demand (+ 1 percent of GDP) and Chile and Peru decided to raise public spending by around 10 percent, but most of it on infrastructure such as roads and housing. Central banks have assisted with interest rate cuts.

The Case of Brazil

With a total area of 8.5 million square kilometres, Brazil has the fifth largest area in the world. Its population is estimated at around 200 million with an ethnic composition of 53 percent white, 39 percent mixed white and black, 6 percent black and 2 percent other. Portuguese is the official language. The Republic of Brazil was declared in 1889 after 300 years of Portuguese rule. Brazil’s political history is a reflection of its uphill struggle to establish a constitutional democracy on its highly fractured socio-cultural foundations. The country has traditionally been dominated by its feudal oligarchs.

The Brazilian economy relies heavily on iron ore exports and agriculture. It produces the world’s cheapest sugar, ethanol and orange juice. Its long growing season allows two harvests per year and its endless savannahs are ideal for growing soya, its biggest agricultural export commodity. It is also the world’s largest exporter of beef and coffee. Illegal logging is a major drawcard in its frontier areas. In 11

2007 its vast Tupi field of offshore oil deposits was discovered and its extraction has become a major source of corruption further bloating a state whose revenue is already 36 percent of GDP. Brazil’s social structure has been dominated for generations by the culture of cordialidade – a unique kind of interaction of personal bonds with formal rules: a vibrant private sector coexisting with a sclerotic state.

Most families receive the Bolsa Familia, a monthly benefit which requires parents to keep their children in school and take them to clinics for health check-ups. Poverty and inequality are deeply rooted in Brazil’s history. It is punctuated by its history of slavery and the obliteration of its indigenous peoples. Today the challenge is to narrow the wide gap between the Brazil of gated luxurious condominiums and the other Brazil of the favelas and untreated sewerage. Brazilians argue over the question whether racial inequality is a cause or a consequence of economic inequality. But narrowing inequalities is the major challenge of Brazilian society.

Political parties are weak and disjointed – largely as a result of its peculiar proportional representative electoral system. Party-hopping is part of the political culture. The electoral system weakens the links between voters and deputies. It is common for deputies to switch parties – some, several times. The overbearing, meddlesome, inefficient and corrupt state is Brazil’s biggest drawback. The plethora of government institutions, regulations, procedural requirements, levies and fees tend to serve the state apparatus more reliably than it does ordinary Brazilians. The cost of public servants’ pensions is about half that of the private sector, but benefits a group of people only one-eighth the size. On average public servants earn more than twice as much as workers in the private sector and have an easier life. The constitution protects them from dismissal and some 20,000 federal jobs are filled by political appointees.

The average business takes 2,600 hours per annum to process its taxes. Opening a business requires 17 procedures and 152 days. Workplace rules are an invitation to conflict. It is clear that Brazil is divided between those who depend on the government and those who pay the bills. A cynical comment has it that “Brazil is the country of the future and always will be”.

The Case of Mexico

Mexico is the largest country in Central America, covering an area of 1,958,201 square kilometres. Its population of around 110 million includes 60 percent mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish), 30 percent Amerindian, 9 percent white and 1 percent other. Around 90 percent of its population is Roman Catholic. The post-colonial history of Mexico was characterised by several major forces. The first was the pervasive Latin-American caudillo leadership principle (leader with personal military backing). The second was the “Mexican Revolution”, the use of revolutionary symbols by a dominant political party to legitimise its policies. The third force was the sporadic rebellious violence engendered by Amerindian tribal groups in the western redoubts of the country. The fourth was the periodic violence perpetrated by drug cartels using guerrilla-style tactics such as the kidnapping and intimidation of leaders, attacking police stations by heavily armed battalions and the assassination of police officers, government officials and journalists. In recent years a fledgling market-based democracy has arisen.

For centuries Mexico has seen long periods of authoritarian rule, punctuated by three civil wars. The National Revolutionary Party (PNR) was formed in 1929, renamed the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1946 and held power for 71 years. It encouraged land reform, co-operative farming and expelled and expropriated US and British oil companies. In 1989 the PRI was defeated by the centre- 12 right National Action Party (PAN) which introduced free-market reforms and joined NAFTA. More than 1,000 state enterprises were privatised. Major problem areas remained. The rebellious activities in traditional tribal areas and the continued participation of political leaders and army generals in drug trafficking and money laundering.

The concept of “revolution” was not only used to refer to an historic period of violence and rebellion, but to identify an established political order based upon the consecration of a single political party which presented itself as the realisation in public policy of the aspirations of the people. The concept of “institutionalised revolution” allowed the PRI to dominate political life by constantly invoking the legacy of the “Revolution” in political oratory and political symbolism. The “Revolution” was the predominant point of reference with agrarian reform, social and welfare legislation, the nationalisation of the oil industry and the railroads and also the secularisation of the church. The continuity of the symbol of “revolution” was used to legitimise every political campaign. It became a propaganda tool, cynically manipulated by political elites. The PRI granted monopolies to private- sector supporters, paid off labour leaders and doled out thousands of public-sector jobs. It provided plum positions and national recognition for loyal intellectuals, artists and journalists. The PRI used its great patronage machine (backed by a strong repressive capacity) to subdue dissident voices and created a “perfect dictatorship” to control Mexico for decades. The legacy of the PRI is a country drowning in corruption. The judiciary was not a check or balance on executive power, it was just another arm of the party used to reward supporters and intimidate opponents. Law enforcement was used to control, rather than to protect the population.

When the PAN came to power in 2000, the PRI’s political monopoly was disrupted. Security forces confronted the drug cartels, requiring the mobilisation of 45,000 troops. Disputes between rival criminal gangs led to open battles with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in major city streets. Extortion rings preyed on business owners and law enforcement officials. Fear of kidnapping plagued the upper, middle and working classes alike.

The main magnet of the drug trade is the lucrative US market for heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine products. The main source countries are Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and other Caribbean countries where the cartels have worked their way into the countries’ economic, social and political fabric. Mexican drug cartels conduct operations in most US cities. Billions of illicit profits flow across the US border each year and threaten Mexico’s fledgling democracy.

The Mexican economy is closely linked to the USA: some 80 percent of its exports, some 15 million American vacationers each year and the estimated 12 million Mexicans living in the USA. After Canada, Mexico is the most important destination for American exports. Nearly one million people and $1 billion in trade cross the border each day. Oil accounts for more than a third of the Mexican government’s revenue. Total tax revenues amounted to less than 15 percent of GDP in 2010. Several of Detroit’s troubled carmakers closed factories in the USA and relocated in Mexico – as were Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen. Mexico still lacks a competitive economic culture. Carlos Slim, the world’s third richest person, is said to be Mexico’s most powerful individual with his business tentacles extending across large swatches of the economy: telecoms, television and other industrial and retailing businesses. One Mexican in two still lives in poverty and in much of the south that figure rises to three in four. The mine states of the south and south-east account for almost a quarter of Mexico’s total land area and population. They are more Indian and poorer than the rest.

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Opportunidades is a means-tested anti-poverty programme. It pays mothers a monthly allowance provided they keep their children in school and take them for regular health checks. Around 25 percent of families are supported by the Opportunidades scheme. The Mexican Institute for Social Security (IMSS) administers the state pension scheme and is the largest provider of healthcare in North America. Both employees and employers are obliged to contribute a certain percentage of wages.

A major source of income for millions of Mexicans is the remittances of migrant workers going north to work in the USA. They return richer and send back billions to families at home.

The Case of Colombia

Colombia is situated in the extreme north-west of South America with a Caribbean and a Pacific coastline and a number of island territories in both. Its total area is 1.1 million square kilometres divided into 32 regions. The Colombian Andes run north-south, separating densely forested and sparsely populated Llanos and Amazonian lowlands to the east from the Pacific and dry Caribbean coastal plain in the west and north-west. The climate is predominantly tropical.

The total population numbers 45 million of whom 90 percent inhabit the temperate Andean valleys and Eastern Cordillera plateau. The ethnic composition includes 58 percent mestizo, 20 percent white, 14 percent mulatto, 4 percent black, 3 percent Black-Indian and 1 percent Indian. Several indigenous groups are involved in ongoing territorial disputes over expropriation of traditional Indian “resguardos”. The capital city Santa Fe de Bogotá has a population of around 7 million people. Around 90 percent of the population are Roman Catholic.

In 2007 the GDP stood at $1.6 billion, $3,600 per capita. Industry contributes 50 percent of the GDP (19 percent of the workforce), agriculture 12 percent of GDP (23 percent of the workforce), and services 38 percent of GDP (58 percent of the workforce). More than 50 percent of the country is forested. Its exports, worth $29 billion, include petroleum, coffee, coal, apparel, bananas and cut flowers. The USA is its main export destination.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Colombia was generally considered a politically mature country: a progressive nation where democracy was firmly established. It was thought that it had overcome its 19th century legacy of chronic civil strife and achieved stable, responsible government. The military had not intervened in politics since 1906 and a high calibre civilian statesmanship seemed to be the rule: Alfonso Lopez, Eduardo Santos and Alberti Camargo. Civil liberties were generally respected. Peaceful alternation in office of well-developed political parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, were setting a new, unusual pattern for Latin America. The urbane, sophisticated middle class controlled the balance of power between the parties. From 1903 to 1930 the Conservative Party was dominant. Then until the late 1940s the Liberal Party was in control.

In 1946, Colombia’s democratic reputation was shattered. For more than a decade the country was immersed in a state of chronic civil strife, causing over 200,000 casualties among a population of some 14 million. It was a period of civic breakdown, savagery, bloodshed and guerrilla warfare that the Spanish called la violencia. The civic disorder only started to ameliorate in 1958 with the establishment of the civilian National Front government. Thereafter sporadic outbreaks of violence continued as an undercurrent of Colombian history throughout the twentieth century.

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Many factors contributed to the eruption of civic disorder: 1. Mass uprising against the rigidities of an oppressive and unjust social order where social and political advantage were monopolised by a small “oligarchy”, while the great bulk of the population subsisted in dire poverty. 2. In the countryside, party identification tended to reinforce other social cleavages – of community, family and region – cleavages that had a component of conflict about them as part of the legacy of the civil wars of the 19th century. Rural communities were almost completely composed of adherents to one party or the other. In many cases, politics was inherited with the honour of the family. 3. In the 20th century, the Colombian parties grew larger and aggregative. They became coalitions of quite diverse ideologies. The classic Liberalism of the Liberal Party was espoused by land owners and the newer industrial and commercial interests came into conflict with the doctrines of social reform preached by a new generation of political leaders. The new leaders, influenced by disparate aspirations such as Marxism, socialism, Peruvian Aprismo, or the New Deal, led to party fragmentation. 4. The potential for violence was increased when the heritage of partisan identification at the local level was no longer held in check by the “gentlemen’s agreement” at the national level. National leaders started to mobilise mass support for a contest no longer bound by the historic rules. (See McDonald, A.F., Latin American Politics and Government, New York: Thomas Crowell, 1949, pp.377-390)

The National Front (1958-1974) divided power between the Liberals and the Conservatives, with the President alternating between the two parties. Constitutional reform in 1968 allowed new parties but maintained the detente between Liberals and Conservatives.

In the late 1970s, left-wing guerrilla groups emerged, most prominently the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the April 19 Movement (M19). Guerrilla actions caused major disruptions and left many dead. In response, para-military death squads emerged targeting the enemies of the drug cartels. In 1989 new measures were put in place including the extradition of drug traffickers and murderers to the USA. The drug cartels continued to kill hundreds of people in campaigns of assassination and terror.

In 1990 the Liberal Party candidate, Cesar Trujillo, was elected president. He offered the chance of “plea bargain” with reduced sentences to drug traffickers. Pablo Escobar, head of Medellin, and several of his lieutenants, surrendered. They escaped again in 1992 and drug-trafficking continued unabated.

In 1993 peace agreements between the government and guerrilla groups FARC and ELN broke down. Renewed attacks on the electricity grid and the petroleum infrastructure caused an energy crisis. After the death of Escobar, the government turned its attention to the Cali cartel but violence and assassinations continued.

In 1994 the USA initiated a new aid programme aimed at assisting the Colombian government in its efforts to stamp out drug cartels. In 1995 many Cali cartel leaders were arrested, but a new Antioquia drug cartel arose from the old Escobar group. Many smaller organisations also emerged and the area under coca cultivation increased fourfold.

The cartels were acting as major financial contributors to political campaigns of the Liberal Party. The Conservative Party leader Alvaro Hurtado was assassinated and Liberal Party leader, Samper, became 15 president. He was subsequently accused of illegal enrichment, electoral fraud, conspiring and falsification of documents. In the October 1997 election the Liberal Party increased its majority and the accusations were quashed.

The three-way conflict pattern continued: the government alternating in the hands of the Liberal and Conservative Parties, the two major liberation groups (FARC and ELN) each dominating in their own geographical areas and the para-military forces mobilised by the drug cartels to target officials and politicians considered to be enemies or obstacles for the narcotics trade.

The USA poured billions into efforts to contain the narcotics trade: $1.6 billion in 2000 to strengthen the military and $7.5 billion under Plan Colombia to reduce cultivation and trafficking of narcotics. Efforts to obtain the support of FARC and ELN were unsuccessful. Instead FARC and ELN imposed a “peace tax” on all companies with assets more than $1 million, enforced through kidnapping of managers or owners who failed to comply.

The EU and the Inter-American Development Bank announced a $300 million aid package aimed at promoting coca replacement crops. The USA classified the United Self-Defence Force (AUC), a para- military group, as a terrorist organisation, leaving the group’s US assets subject to seizure.

In May 2002 Alvaro Uribe Velez, a member of the right-wing Colombian First Party, was elected President. Following a series of attacks by FARC guerrillas on Bogota, he declared a state of emergency. After a new financial and military aid agreement with the USA, the government launched a major offensive against FARC and ELN as well as the narcotics cartels. US Special Forces troops arrived in Colombo to train local forces in counter-insurgency techniques and to assist in the defence of a pipeline owned by US-based Occidental Petroleum.

President Uribe launched major social and infrastructure projects designed to improve living standards and social welfare. The para-military UAC was demobilised. In 2005 the ELN leftist guerrillas announced their agreement to a ceasefire. The Colombian armed forces continued their campaign against FARC.

President Uribe was re-elected to a second term in 2006. It became clear that the FARC forces were supported by Chavez of Venezuela and by Ecuador. Colombian officials revealed in July 2009 that three anti-tank rocket launchers (sold by Sweden to Venezuela in 1988) had been found in a camp belonging to FARC guerrillas. The leaders of Chile and Brazil showed no outrage. They rather expressed unease over a pending deal that would give the United States use of several Colombian air and naval bases. Colombia had offered the Americans facilities at Palanquero, its main air-force base to replace an American base at Manta in Ecuador, whose lease was not renewed by Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s left- wing president. Manta was used by the American AWACS for surveillance of drug trafficking in the eastern Pacific. But the agreement also formalised facilities used by American trainers and surveillance planes that help Colombian forces in anti-drug actions under Plan Colombia.

Although violence continued in remote rural areas, President Uribe succeeded during his two terms of office to save Colombia from decades of guerrilla and para-military violence. Even the economy has held up surprisingly well. In view of his popularity, his supporters started a campaign to call a referendum to change the constitution to allow Mr. Uribe to run for a third consecutive term of office.

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The Case of Cuba

Lying 217km south of Florida in the Caribbean Sea, Cuba comprises two main islands and dozens of small islets covering a total area of 115, 704 square kilometres. Its climate is sub-tropical with warm temperatures and high humidity. Cuba is exposed to frequent hurricanes. Its total population was estimated at 11,423,000 in 2008. Its ethnic composition was 51 percent mulatto, 37 percent white, 11 percent black and 1 percent Chinese. Roman Catholics totalled 85 percent, 3.3 percent were Protestants and 1.6 percent Afro-American Spiritualist.

In 2007 the GDP was estimated at $51 billion, with per capita income at $4,500. Industry accounted for 26 percent of GDP (14 percent of the workforce), agriculture for 6 percent (21 percent of the workforce) and services for 68 percent (65 percent of the workforce). Cuba is the world’s third largest producer of sugar which represents, by value, about 50 percent of the country’s exports. A total of 28 percent of the country is arable, 6.5 percent under permanent cultivation and a further 27 percent is used for meadows and pasture. With 25 percent of the country forested, Cuba has extensive and valuable forest resources and, with an annual catch of around 60,000 tonnes, fishing is a major export industry. The state provides around 75 percent of all employment.

Cuba was subject to authoritarian Spanish colonial rule until the USA declared war on Spain in April 1898. After a brief campaign, Cuba was captured and placed under US military control until an independent government could take over. The USA forces left the island in 1902, after Cuba’s acceptance of an American military base in Cuba.

The corrupt dictatorship of Gerardo Machado led to a revolution in 1933. Army sergeant Fulgencio Batista led a mutiny against senior officers and forced the government to resign, installing his own puppet president. Chronic corruption gave Batista the pretext to seize power again in a coup in 1952. Increased repression engendered growing support for the guerrilla campaign waged by Fidel Castro since 1954. At the end of 1958, the regime disintegrated and Batista and his family fled the country. On 1 January 1959 Castro’s army captured Havana.

Castro became Prime Minister using the Communist Party as his vehicle of government and suspended the constitution. He instituted wide-ranging reform programmes, including the nationalisation of foreign-owned land and enterprises. Many of those who opposed his policies went into exile in the USA. The US severed diplomatic relations early in 1961 and a US-sponsored invasion by Anti-Castro exiles was defeated at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. The external threat allowed Castro to strengthen his position internally and in December 1961 he declared Cuba a Communist state in close alignment with the USSR.

Castro vowed to bring revolution to neighbouring countries in Latin America. Castro’s operations led to the discovery in 1962 of Soviet missile bases in Cuba. A US blockade of the island followed and produced the most serious super-power confrontation of the decade. The USSR withdrew its missiles and became Cuba’s principal trading partner. In 1965, Castro renamed his party the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and banned all other parties. In October 1967, Castro’s revolutionary associate, Che Guevara, was killed in action while involved in guerrilla operations in Bolivia.

The PCC’s first congress was held in December 1975 and a new constitution was approved by referendum in 1976. His party was institutionalised along Soviet lines with Castro as President of the Council of State. Cuban troops became involved in Angola in 1976 and in Ethiopia in 1977 in support of Castro’s internationalist aims. In 1980 a mass exodus to the US took place when an estimated 125,000 17

Cuban refugees fled to the USA. The third congress of the PCC in 1986 strengthened the influence of Genl. Castro, brother and deputy of Fidel Castro. The decline of the influence of the USSR in the 1980s and Castro’s opposition to the glasnost and perestroika policies of Mikhael Gorbachev, led to Cuba’s growing isolation and impoverishment.

The USA gradually tightened trade restrictions on Cuba in an effort to weaken Castro’s hold on power. In 1992 the PCC approved reforms to the 1926 constitution which updated social and economic legislation but preserved the island’s one-party Communist system. A number of reforms were introduced in 1994, including the legalisation of self-employment, free markets for farm produce and autonomous agricultural co-operatives. Offshore petroleum discoveries by foreign companies also lifted the prospects of reducing the chronic fuel shortages and accelerated economic growth. Cuba joined Caricom, the commercial Association of Caribbean States. Cuba also initiated the Juragua nuclear power project and renewed efforts to convert petroleum to bagasse (made from sugarcane).

Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in January 1998 in an effort to strengthen the Catholic Church in its struggle to survive in a Communist state. In 2001 Castro signed a trade agreement with Communist China under which Cuba received $374 million in “government credits”. In 2006 Castro ceded power to his brother Raúl Castro after serious stomach surgery. In 2008 Raúl was formally installed as President.

In July 2009 Cuba celebrated the 50th anniversary of its revolution with a mass rally with a huge banner of Fidel and Raúl Castro thrusting their arms skyward under the words “Vigorous and Victorious Revolution Keeps Marching Forward”.

The hubris of the celebrations could not obscure the many obvious signs of degeneration and hardship in Cuba: poor infrastructure, a huge trade deficit, food rationing, declining education and health spending and chronic power cuts. In 2008, Cuba imported 80 percent of its food from the USA. Inefficient state farms occupied three-quarters of the best land, but left most of it idle. Raúl Castro offered land to private farmers, but the scheme has been slow to get started.

On taking power, Raúl Castro spoke about “change of structure and concept” in the economy, raising hopes that Cuba would imitate China and Vietnam in moving to a capitalist economy under communist political control. Those hopes have not yet been met. Raúl Castro told his party congress: “I was elected to defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism, not to destroy it”.

Other Continental Central and South American States

Apart from the larger Iberian ex-colonies outlined above, there are several other Iberian societies along the coasts of Central and South America. In order of GDP per capita these countries include Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Bolivia. All of them are former colonies of Spain or Portugal and all of them are bonded together by their linguistic homogeneity. Urbanisation is uneven with large segments of the population engaged in agriculture with a modest rural social structure. The military is a major instrument of internal government in many of these societies. The transfer of political power is on the whole weakly institutionalised. Loyalty to a commanding leader rather than to specific policies is the dominant form of political integration.

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Caribbean Societies

This group of societies includes most of the islands in the Caribbean Sea plus coastal states, Guyana, British Honduras, Surinam and French Guiana. The islands include Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Jamaica, Santo Domingo, Barbados and Haiti. All territories have a background of colonial conquest and some development based on a plantation economy with imported slaves and indentured workers whose descendants now occupy the lower economic and status positions. The majority of the islands have a cash crop economy of agriculture controlled by European managers and labourers drawn from former slave or indentured populations. Nearly all of the territories have multiracial populations with a great diversity of ethnic elements with the bulk being formed by African Creole groups. Some areas are still controlled by metropolitan powers such as the Virgin Islands by the US and the UK, Granada, Dominica and St. Vincent by the UK, Curacao, Aruba, Bonaire and St. Maarten by the Netherlands. Puerto Rico’s “commonwealth” status enjoys substantial independence and has special political and economic ties with the US. Limited economic opportunities have led to considerable emigration to the UK and the US.

Concluding Remarks

Census data indicates that six states in Latin America are predominantly of an ethnically, racially mixed population with the Indian component predominant in the mixture (El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile and Paraguay). Five states in Latin America have 30 percent or more of their population classified as Indian (Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia).

Since the 16th century many of the Spanish and Portuguese men who settled in the New World were single men. Many took wives from among the indigenous population and so gave rise to mixed-race offspring called mestizos or mulattos. When African slaves began to be imported to South America in large numbers since the early 1500s, female slaves were also taken as concubines and wives by the ruling Spaniards and Portuguese. Colonial society came to be organised according to a generally accepted grading of skin colour. “Pureblood” Spaniards or Portuguese were at the top of the social pyramid with native Amerindian and black-skinned Africans at the bottom and all shades of mestizzos and mulattos occupying the middle levels. In contrast, most of the original settlers in the USA and Canada came as part of family units. As a result, their racial or ethnic identity tended to be transplanted to their offspring.

Compared to their neighbours to the north, the USA and Canada, Latin American countries have been culturally dominated by the Iberian culture of the original Spanish and the Portuguese settlers and their culturally assimilated mestizo and mulatto offspring. By the time of independence, indigenous Indian communities had already been overwhelmed, dispersed or destroyed. The assimilationist predisposition of Spanish and Portuguese colonial philosophy led to strong inducements being offered for intermarriage and mestization. The historical interaction between these population groups seems to have produced continuous cultural integration between the various ethnic-linguistic groups.

Although the indigenismo mystique of the Indian heritage is salient in the national ideology of Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay, the apostles of indigenismo have been mostly white or mixed race intellectuals and not the Indians themselves. Today Spanish and Portuguese have almost completely supplanted indigenous languages.

The universal spread of Catholicism prevented the rise of separate religious institutions. The socio- cultural values are largely based on Biblical precepts and norms. The history of slavery and indentured labour left an important impact on prevailing social structures in many of the Caribbean societies. The 19 percentage “illegitimate” for all live births is much higher in Caribbean societies than in Brazil or Mexico. The widespread presence of unstable families with high “illegitimacy” rates seems to be a result of social forces that produce a disproportion of lower status groups. These groups are unconcerned with the prestige attached to lineage. Slavery and its consequences are among such forces.

Brazil stands out as the major recipient of slaves. During the period 1500-1870 more than 12 million Africans were taken across the Atlantic. Around 5 million slaves arrived in Brazil, dwarfing the 700,000 settlers having arrived from Portugal. Most Portuguese settlers came without wives so that consorting with African women produced a large number of mulatto offspring. Today the preto (black) and pardo (mixed-race) Brazilians together make up over half of the country’s 208 million people. Mixing led to a kaleidoscope of racial categories and many terms are used by Brazilians to describe themselves – mostly by skin colour. Both black and white Brazilians have long looked upon “whiteness” as something desirable. The self-described pardos today stand at around 43 percent of the population, and pretos at around 8 percent of the total population. Admissions preferences based on race and class were introduced in the early 2000s at public universities and technical schools and several other public institutions began to reserve some openings for non-whites. These cotistas have lower grades on entry but graduate with degrees similar to those of their classmates. Since 2016 no less than 50 percent of places in Brazil’s public universities are reserved for black and mixed-race Brazilians. Half of these quota places are reserved for applicants from low-income families. It is said that employers continue to favour lighter-skinned job applicants. Less than 25 percent of officials elected in federal and state contests in 2014 were preto or pardo. However, a growing proportion of Brazilian blacks appear to be accepting to be Black.

Although Latin America’s economies have improved during the past two generations, they have lagged behind the pace of the developed world and have been completely outperformed by most East Asian economies. They have been left behind in terms of all the key determinants of productivity growth: capital, labour, technology and entrepreneurship. A large part of the Latin American businesses are small and inefficient enterprises operating in the informal sector. Their infrastructure services are clogged and inefficiently managed, their labour forces are not properly trained, their public services remain inefficient and corrupt, their regulatory structures are inordinately complex and convoluted. The Latin American region will remain left behind unless corrupt governments, inefficient bureaucracies and organised crime are significantly brought under control. Without a civilised order, productivity growth, the driving force of development, remains an elusive ideal.

______* Dr W B Vosloo, PhD, Cornell 1965, is a retired former professor of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa (1966-1981) and was Chief Executive of the South African Small Business Development Corporation, Johannesburg (1981-1995). He is now retired and has been living in Wollongong, NSW, since 1998.

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