What Is the Problem with Santander?

ARTICU LOS What is the Problem with Santander? David Bushnell University of Florida For those who have made their scholarly moderate in practice) of liberal anticlericalism reputation at least in part by the study of that chiefly stirred the Conservative chieftain's Francisco de Paula Santander, the current vogue vitriol. However, just when Conservatives were of an ultra-bolivarianismo in the ranks of the toning down or discreetly setting aside their revolutionary and populist left and of many who critical views of Santander, he began losing favor would identify themselves simply as progressive in the Liberal camp, in which regard the decisive thinkers is more than a little disturbing. It is not turning-point, at least for historians, was the that an admiration for the Liberator cannot appearance of the biography of Bolivar by logically be combined with proper respect for "el Indalecio Lievano Aguirre; though first published Hombre de las Leyes": most devotees of the latter in Mexico in 1956, its widespread influence have always recognized the exceptional character derives from later Colombian editions. 2 A of the former, even if their evenhandedness has collaborator of Alfonso Lopez Michelsen in the not always been reciprocated by the Bolivarians. Movimiento Revolucionario Liberal and later But what we see today is a tendency of groups Lopez's foreign minister, Lievano was not overly that once eagerly upheld the name of Santander concerned with questions of Catholic orthodoxy and took his side in his final quarrel with Bolivar but in another monograph took Santander to task to turn their backs on him and more often than not for mismanagement of Colombia's 1824 foreign blacken his name with the same epithets loan, 3 and in his life of the Liberator he portrayed conventionally hurled at establishment politicians. Santander as leader of a narrow regional oligarchy At least that is what we see in Colombia itself, unable to appreciate either the social or the Latin where Santander had been the object of his own Americanist dimensions of Bolivar's vision. hero cult. Obviously I am not referring to A cruder expression of basically the same countries where he remains a largely unknown theses put forward by Lievano Aguirre could be figure, or to Venezuela, where Santander had found in a subsequent comic-book history entitled many friends and allies in his lifetime but has been La historia de los partidos politicos, where Santander systematically vilified almost ever since. appears as the head of a "pandilla de 'prOceres,' In Colombia, too, the vilification of 'heroes nacionales,'y demas ladrones" who Santander is nothing new, but for most of the became known as "'el Hombre de las Leyes' nation's independent history it was a favorite porque cuando iba a hacer algUn negocio sucio, se cause of hard-line Conservatives. One of the first inventaba una ley para justificarlo." 4 The specific examples that come to mind is El inito de Santander, instances it then presents generally have to do by none other than Laureano Gomez, written well with some sort of oppression of the poor by the before GOmez at the end of his career became a rich, with Bolivar naturally portrayed as defender convert to bipartisan collaboration.' G6mez of the former. Disenchantment with Santander reiterated all the principal attacks made on was a bit slower to find expression among Santander during his own life, from alleged professionally trained academic historians, of peculations to sectarian blood lust, but it was his whom in truth there were not yet many in intellectual alignment with a version (however Colombia when Lievano's work first attracted ARTiCULOS 13 attention, and in these circles it certainly has not self-evident truth the assertion contained in the carried all before it. Even so, an approach broadly question. (Diaz Piedrahita fended it off with a similar to that of Lievano informs the work, for nicely balanced reply.)8 example, of Oxford-trained Hermes Tovar The rejection of Santander by most of Pinzon. Although most of his publications deal today's Colombian left is particularly striking in either with the colonial period or more recent light of the fact that in his final conflict with history, Tovar has contributed a number of articles Bolivar he on the whole had the support of those and book chapters on the independence and Gran whom we may anachronistically term the "leftists" Colombian eras, and he does not hesitate to of his own day. Here I refer most obviously to contrast "la politica intrigante e inmoral de Admiral Jose Padilla and his followers among the Santander" with the truly "popular" bases of pardos of the Caribbean coast, but one could also Bolivar's final dictatorship.5 mention the case of Jose Maria Obando, who Lievano's interpretation is easily rallied much of the lower-class population of the discernible, too, in the writing of Gabriel Garcia Cauca in his vendetta against the aristocracy of Marquez, who does not mention him in the Popayan to which he was himself related through "Gratitudes" with which he closes El general en so an illegitimate line. To what extent these figures laberinto 6 but elsewhere has frankly acknowledged may have had a concrete radical agenda to his indebtedness. He does so, for example, in a promote is far from clear, but they themselves lengthy interview that appeared in the weekly constituted a social agenda in that they challenged Semana about the time of publication of the novel the dominance of long-entrenched regional elites. and in which he enigmatically describes Santander In the slightly more recent past, it is striking to as "un hombre admirable," yet one who note that such representatives of the country's old ...representaba exactamente el left as Ignacio Torres Giraldo, among the founders pensamiento conservador de Espana. Fue of the Colombian Communist Party, el creador de unas instituciones perfectas retrospectively took the very same position in en el papel, pero con una vision muy favor of Santander in his quarrel with the limitada. Bolivar, en cambio, era un Liberator as did Padilla, Obando, et al. 9 So did liberal desatado....7 that quintessential radical of the early 20 th century, Jose Maria Vargas Vila." To what, then, can this The Nobel laureate's underlying curious reversal be attributed? assumption in this reversal of the association One advantage that Bolivar has always made by traditional Colombian historiography of held over Santander is his obvious personal Santander with liberalism and Bolivar with charisma. None other than Pedro Bonaparte, conservatism would seem to be that Santander's nephew of the sibling whom Napoleon sought to institution-building served to enclose the establish on the throne of Spain, commented on Colombian people in a straightjacket unsuited to Santander's impressive "don de mando"; 11 yet the reality of their time and place, whereas Bolivar supposedly it was Santander himself, at the was open to anything at all that needed to be done Convention of Ocaria, who pleaded against an to help his people. Not all Santander's detractors invitation to Bolivar to address the gathering on would put the matter in exactly those terms, but the ground that the Liberator was so persuasive in the extent to which his public image has declined face-to-face encounters that he could cause almost is suggested by an interview with the head of the anyone to abandon previous strongly-held Academia Colombiana de Historia, Santiago Diaz opinions. 12 The same Bolivarian charisma still Piedrahita, that also appeared in Semana. One of resonates the questions posed was, "A propOsi to de historia, in historical memory, written or otherwise, thanks z Bolivar si era el bueno y Santander el malo?" The to the accounts of his political-military style of the interviewer was in this case achievements and personal gestures that have intentionally provocative, yet the clear implication come down to the present, and thanks also to the is that most people nowadays would accept as grace and wit so evident in the preserved body of 14 WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH SANTANDER? own writings. The latter qualities are sadly lacking se encuentra el mal, el mal sera"--contained in his in the somewhat stolid literary output of address on first assuming the vice-presidency in Santander--letters, diary, official messages--where 1821 16 and likewise often reproduced with slight most of the efforts to insert a lighter touch are too variations--to most present-day Colombians it heavy-handed to be convincing. would appear the height of irresponsibility at the Santander's inferiority to Bolivar as a very least, and not merely because the proudly writer is clearly not, however, the reason for his launched Constitution of 1991 has so quickly fall from favor. At most, if he had possessed a defrauded the expectations placed upon it. more engaging style, people might pay closer The specific policies that Santander attention to all he wrote in his own defense, which pursued while in office generally arouse today as at present they do not do; and that is just as well, little enthusiasm as his overall insistence on for by their monotonously self-justificatory tone constitutional legality. A conventional liberal of and general lack of subtlety these writings really his own time, he sincerely believed in the do him more harm than good. A more advantages of free-enterprise capitalism. He fundamental problem is that the very things accordingly espoused neither government- Santander so proudly stood for and for which he imposed agrarian reform nor ambitious codes of was at one time reverentially praised by workers' rights and benefits nor nationalization of Colombian Liberals--as well as some basic industries and resources.

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