Críticas Magazine

Loida García-Febo

The Battle for Latin America’s Soul
February 21, 2008

The world has discovered that Latin America matters...and it might be thanks to Michael Reid who has written Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul (Yale University Press, January 2008).

While acknowledging that Latin America has endured dictatorships and poverty, Reid also notes that the region has made great advances economically, politically, and socially. He writes in such a positive light! Reid also mentions the ongoing challenges like populism and the tendency of experimenting with economic formulas that have proven to be extremely unfortunate. Reid writes about the history of the region and offers advice for the future.

Personally, I’ve recommended the book to colleagues that are starting to develop projects in various Latin American countries. I think it is a good resource to know more about our countries, what our people have been through, the current leaders and what could be their immediate future. I hope that by now, not one is thinking like these Heads of State (excerpt from Reid’s book published in the NYTimes on 2/3/08):

President Ronald Reagan, returning from a 1982 trip to Latin America,

said:

"You´d be surprised. They´re all individual countries." Richard Nixon, tutoring Donald Rumsfeld in 1971 on foreign policy, found importance in Russia and China, but noted, "People don´t give one damn about Latin America." The myopia is not limited to Washington. In 1992, Margaret Thatcher - perhaps more familiar with the desolate Falkland Islands, which her military had reclaimed from Argentina when she was the prime minister of Britain - seemed nonplused to see skyscrapers over São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere: "Why didn´t anybody tell me about this?"

For his part, President Bush, from a border state, initially instilled great expectations. Then 9/11 happened. Like Franklin D. Roosevelt, who seemed to acknowledge Latin America´s significance until the attack on Pearl Harbor, Bush settled for the false sense of partnership that comes from proximity.

Michael Reid has been editor of the Americas section of the The Economist since 1999. Throughout the years Mr. Reid has lived in Brazil, Mexico and Peru. He has reported about the region for the BBC, the Guardian and The Economist since 1982.

Posted by Loida García-Febo on February 21, 2008 | Comments (0)