By virtue of being the most diverse and hybrid area on the planet, Latin America is a kind of potpourri that is difficult to understand due to the number of ingredients it contains. Are we the poor suburbs of the west, as some see it, or are we by now, after two centuries of independence, something new and different?
The old white elite, with something of an inferiority complex, used to aspire to be Spanish, English, French or, at worst, the United States: they went to bullfights, played golf, drank French wine and did their shopping in Miami. What we really are is a complex jumble of things, not a homogenous continent that can be summed up in sensationalist slogans that make little sense such as "Homeland or death" or "Ever onward until victory."
The Latin American left has itself many different ingredients. All of these lefts (and a few centres and rights) were at Hugo Chávez's funeral, some with genuine tears in their eyes, some concerned with making gestures for their domestic gallery, or to ensure the free oil keeps on coming, or perhaps with the secret satisfaction of seeing the corpse of an old enemy go by.
Let's start with the main oil widow: Cuba. The island is the last American bastion of the old Soviet Union and the cold war. As in North Korea, in Cuba they have opted for a family succession that will end only when the Castro brothers die. Chávez used to call Fidel "father"; it was to his father that he turned when he fell ill; and now we are witnessing the trauma of a father having to bury his own son, despite the so-called miracles of Cuban medicine.
Cuba is a dogmatic extreme for which, after 10 years of penury due to the fall of the Soviet bloc, Chávez's arrival in power in 1999 meant manna from heaven. Cuba receives so much free oil from Venezuela that it can resell some to other Caribbean islands.
Let's just say that Chávez's influence was in Cuba's interest. Venezuela is, without doubt, freer than Cuba. In Venezuela they have the internet, they have newspapers and an opposition TV channel. Twitter is unrestricted, and there are parties other than the PSUV (the United Socialist party of Venezuela), Chávez's party. While it continues under the single-party regime, with zero press freedom, Cuba has opened up a little, influenced by the fact that Chávez was clearly able to remain in power without restricting a few fundamental liberties.
In this mixture across the continent there is one bad ingredient: the hideous left of Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua. Ortega the man went to Chávez's funeral on international women's day. Will anyone have reminded him of his stepdaughter's allegations – 15 years on – that he repeatedly raped her over 20 years? Or that he bought the support of the Catholic church by banning abortion? Or that he has co-opted all branches of power? There is perhaps no one more of a disgrace to the Latin American left than he.
Oddly enough, the freshest ingredient in the Latin American left is the oldest. Of the faces of the left, perhaps the most likeable is that of the Uruguayan president and anti-consumerist hippy José "Pepe" Mujica, an ex-member of the leftwing Uruguayan guerrilla group known as the Tupamaros. What's more, he does not oppose any fundamental liberty. Uruguay is a free, just and sad country. Sad and dull: young Uruguayans grow bored and choose to go and live elsewhere. A president who gives away his salary, cooks his own lunch and turns up to the presidential palace in a clapped-out car inspires sympathy – even more when he attempts to legalise marijuana; he is a melancholic old man, practically the reflection of a country where there are more cows than people.
Let us turn now to the pro-indigenous left, with its clear racial overtones, of Evo Morales in Bolivia. As Bolivia was for centuries ruled by an abusive white minority that oppressed and belittled the indigenous majority, it is natural to feel a sense of satisfaction when we see an Indian achieve power, at last. An Indian so proud of his race he even firmly believes that they never go bald because they don't eat fast food or genetically modified vegetables. He has nationalised many European and North American companies, as now the country can live off the gas it exports.
Is Brazil socialist? Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his successor Dilma Vana Rousseff come from socialist movements, but they are first and foremost pragmatic presidents of a country as vast as a continent and the second case in the Americas of an ex-colony being more powerful and dynamic than the mother country.
Brazil is the opposite to Uruguay: Brazil is joy. The black Africans freed from slavery blessed them with a powerful, erotic and wonderful literature and music. The Brazilian left of Lula and Rousseff does not suffer racial resentment; nor does it see businessmen as enemies. As a skilled and astute trade unionist, Lula learned how to deal with them: to get as much out of them possible, without going so far as to tip them into bankruptcy or send them into exile.
What else? The oil-dealing left of Rafael Correa in Ecuador, which simultaneously shuts down local radio stations, threatens the press and offers asylum to Julian Assange ... Then there is Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the double heiress: to the old caudillo Perón and to her husband. Her regime combines short-term public welfare solutions with endemic corruption. As the heiress to Perón and Evita she is a model for Venezuela: the Chávez movement aims to be a kind of new Peronism, without excluding its military, fascistic facet.
And so we come to Chávez, to his secret illness in Cuba, or to the "cancer caused by the empire", as former vice-president Nicolás Maduro said, in a fit of paranoid fantasy. Chávez dies with all the rites of a pope, and there are still doubts as to whether to bury him next to Simón Bolívar the liberator, in the National Pantheon, or instead to build a glass pyramid for him. Millions weep for him, in red mourning garb, in a kind of collective hysteria.
During his long mandate of 14 years, Chávez gradually converted to the Taliban-like fundamentalism of the Castro brothers: class hatred, sometimes even racial hatred (he tried to have old portraits of Bolívar restored to make him look less white and more Afro), intimidation and threats to the opposition, verbal violence, the invitation to the middle classes to emigrate. Chávez polarised Venezuela and encouraged a deepening of the hatred between classes. Nine million people voted for him and six million for the opposition; but to the Chavists this opposition was made up of "scum, wannabe Yankees, weaklings".
It's possible that the old, white, shamefully corrupt elite deserved a lesson from a traditionally marginalised sector. But does it make sense to expel the productive and corporate apparatus from the country? Nationalising industry, farms, taking land away from productive landowners, scaring off all those who are, indiscriminately and without nuances, called "the rich" (when they are people who have simply built up capital by dint of hard work and good ideas) – is this advisable for a country? Perhaps Marxist theory says yes, but as time goes by, does this work? Are the poor necessarily more good, more ethical, more deserving of all favours, and should the rich, the merchants, be expelled from the temple of the nation?
It is very appealing – and in Europe this is celebrated – not to be ruled by the crass incompetence of the yuppies from the World Bank, ridiculous in their cynical call for austericide. But nor is the Chávez economic recipe very successful. Let's see: the official exchange rate is six bolivars to the dollar, but on the street a dollar costs 18. Eighty per cent of goods are imported, including food, and it's far easier to find whisky or caviar than eggs and milk. Oil production went from 3.5m barrels a year, with 32,000 workers, to 2.4m, with 105,000 state workers. After an unprecedented oil bonanza, revenue from oil rose – despite the decrease in production – from $14bn to $60bn a year.
But despite these astronomical sums, Venezuela's external debt is 10 times bigger today than 10 years ago and the fiscal deficit exceeds 20%. During his years in government Chávez received, from oil alone, more than $500bn: this was enough for him to carry out projects in his country, and to finance like-minded candidates and movements abroad. To some, this was internationalist generosity; to others, populist squandering. Of course, he also reduced extreme poverty, inequality, child mortality and unemployment. The figures corroborate this. But it's one thing to reduce poverty by offering work and education, and another to do so by giving things away.
Today Chávez is being deified by his supporters at home and abroad as a liberator of the Americas. In reality, there is a far grimmer side to his figure, and after the euphoric paradox of the mourning will come the backlash of reality. There will be new elections, which Maduro will probably win. But the model of an oil caudillo cannot be exported to the rest of Latin America. It's not possible; and if it were, it would not be advisable.
Héctor Abad is a Colombian novelist and journalist. His award-winning 2006 book Oblivion: A Memoir recounts his father's fight for social justice and his subsequent death at the hands of paramilitaries in Medellín in 1987.
FORTY YEARS OF STRUGGLE FOR LATIN AMERICA'S LEFT
Death of Allende (1973)
Salvador Allende, president of Chile, died in the presidential palace on 11 September 1973 during a coup led by army chief Augusto Pinochet. Allende won the presidency in 1970 and became Latin America's first democratically elected leftwing leader. The CIA, which played an active part in Chilean politics in the 70s, sought Allende's overthrow before he took office in 1970, but the US disputes that it was involved in the military coup.
Operation Condor (1970s-1980s)
A campaign of political repression carried out by US-backed Latin American dictatorships in the 70s and 80s that was designed to eliminate tens of thousands of leftwing activists. It was the idea of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who enlisted Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil in a continent-wide campaign. Last week, in Buenos Aires, 25 people with links to Operation Condor went on trial on charges of torture, kidnapping and criminal association.
The Sandinista Revolution (1979)
The Sandinista National Liberation Front overthrew Anastasio Somoza's dictatorship in July 1979 and established a socialist coalition government. The Somoza family had ruled Nicaragua from 1936 to 1979. Somoza allegedly embezzled funds sent to help rebuild the capital, Managua, after an earthquake in 1972. Shortly thereafter the Catholic church became a vocal critic of Somoza.
The Contras (1979-90)
Rightwing rebel groups formed in opposition to the Sandinistas, the Contras received aid from the US government – for arms and training – until aid was outlawed by Congress. The administration of Ronald Reagan, left – which had come to power in 1981 committed to supporting rightwing regimes in Latin America – attempted to fund the groups covertly. The Contras-Sandinista conflict was seen by many as a proxy for the cold war that reached renewed heights during the Reagan administration.
The killing of Archbishop Romero/El Salvador civil war (1980-92)
The archbishop of San Salvador, Óscar Romero had been an outspoken critic of the junta attempting to quell a popular insurrection whose leaders were advocating social and economic reforms. Romero alleged that the junta was guilty of massacres and torture. The archbishop was assassinated on 24 March 1980. Rallies in support of Romero turned bloody when police opened fire on the crowds. This was the spark for the 12-year El Salvador civil war. The military, supported by the US, targeted union officials, clergy, academics and others; thousands died. A peace agreement was reached between the two groups in 1992.
Guatemalan civil war (1960-96)
The Central American state endured a long and bloody conflict between government and leftwing rebels. Its roots date back to the mid-40s when the US helped overthrow the October Revolutionaries – leftwing students and professionals advancing radical social and economic reforms. The CIA-backed coup in 1954 put an end to this reforming zeal. In the 80s, the junta aimed to systematically eliminate leftwing activists throughout civil society – the universities, politics, law, peasants, etc. More than 200,000 died and many more disappeared. In December 1996, ex-rebel leader Rolando Morán and the president, Álvaro Arzú, signed peace accords.
Fidel Castro (Cuban leader, 1959-2008)
From 1976 until 2008, Castro was an inspiration for a generation of Latin Americans who warmed to his anti-imperialist, socialist agenda. By the mid 2000s, the continent had seen the rise of what became known as the "pink tide" (ie, something less than red-blooded socialism). Castro formed alliances and friendships with many leaders – Chávez in Venezuela, Lula in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia and Correa in Ecuador. A BBC report in 2005 estimated that, of 350 million Latin Americans, three out of four lived under leftwing administrations – a dramatic break with the era when the continent was governed by leaders sympathetic to, and supported by, the US.
THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRATIC LEFT 1999-
Hugo Chávez was among the first of the late 20th-century Latin American leaders who came to power with a leftwing agenda. Chávez looked to Simón Bolívar – godfather of South American independence – for inspiration for his Latin socialism. He was elected president of Venezuela in 1999 and served until his death last week.
Elected president of Brazil in 2002 and re-elected in 2006, the former union leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva promised major social reforms and oversaw the emergence of Brazil as an economic powerhouse, which did much to raise millions of people in the country out of poverty.
Tabaré Vázquez, an oncologist, was elected president of Uruguay in October 2004. A member of the Socialist party, he became the country's first president from a leftwing party. One of his first actions was to announce a $100m-a-year project to alleviate extreme poverty.
Michelle Bachelet's election as president of Chile in 2006 was significant for a number of reasons. She was the first woman president, she was a social democrat, and her father, General Alberto Bachelet, who served under Allende, had been tortured by, and died during, the Pinochet dictatorship.
Evo Morales, elected president of Bolivia in 2006, is a champion of indigenous rights and a vocal critic of US foreign policy. He has committed himself to widespread land reforms that would help the poorest peasant farmers and to ensuring that the wealth from the country's gas reserves is distributed more equally.
Rafael Correa, elected in 2006 as president of Ecuador and re-elected last month for a second term. He is an economist who came to power on the back of his opposition to the International Monetary Fund's plans for remedying his country's economic ills. Instead, he rolled back the IMF plans and put an end to privatisation of national resources such as water, oil and gas.
In Ecuador – as in Venezuela – many groups assert that the president is developing an authoritarian streak that endangers human rights and the freedom of the media.