Latin America, Europe and the United States (2023)

SINCE the war, Europe seems inclined to move closer to Latin America; but Latin America, not forgetting the ties, interests, and sympathies that unite Americans with the Viejo Mundo, is fading away, striving instead to create a new civilization that harmonizes all the different elements of New World tradition and history. Until recently, Latin America embraced Old World influence and spiritual guidance, admiring all things European with a mixture of ingenuity and passion. But at the same time, Latin America openly criticized Europe. For all their revolutions, Latin Americans believed they were destined to one day play a major role in the world.

Europe, on the other hand, had nothing but contempt for these new lands so prone to lawlessness. The South American republics did not take part in the first Hague Conference of 1897: they were considered incapable of joining a union of civilized peoples.^[EU]Any number of European authors could be cited for this. In Le Bon's monumental work on the psychology and evolution of race, no energy, willpower, or even morality is ascribed to Hispanic American peoples. How contrasted it is with the English race also transplanted to America, a race so wayward, so self-assured, so ruthless to the weak, a race of true modern Romans, preying on the poor! Character traits! In the South, Latin American decadence, left to its own devices, would "return the Latin American republics to barbarism!" To the north, Le Bon pointed to the great energetic republic, land of liberty (but not of equality and fraternity, "those two Latin chimeras") ever on the move and perhaps destined to rule the world. Spanish America copied in vain the United States Constitution: the history of a people does not depend on its legal institutions, but on its racial character! Though similar in their laws, though blessed with equally fertile soil, though possessing just as vast territory (twice the size of Europe), "these republics, without a single exception, are perpetual prey to the bloodiest anarchy" and "find One after the other". another in spoils, bankruptcy, despotism". "An experiment is being conducted in the New World, and this experiment is inexorably dooming the South American democracies!"

Pan-German writers had the same contempt for states "in which man had everything but freedom". According to Tannenberg, "It would be a boon for these backward peoples to fall into the hands of Germany" and be rescued from the tyrants who "rob them of their wealth and spend abroad, supplanting one another through perpetual revolutions, while bankruptcy always imminent." forthcoming". Houston Stewart Chamberlain's famous Fundamentals of the Nineteenth Century, read and endorsed by William II, observed that nowhere, even among the savages of Australia, could one find men less worthy of respect than the unfortunate Paraguayans, Peruvians and others who, “had it not been for the presence of foreigners among them, would have sunk into bestial barbarism.” For Reimer, the “New World mongrel” had no redeeming qualities: it was “chaos and nothing else.” The German philosopher Hugo Münsterberg from Harvard University saw in these democracies only an “absurd farce, without freedom, without reliable "principles"; and urged the German government to establish colonies in South America "which would give the United States no more cause for complaint than similar German colonies in Africa".

The best that can be said is that late 19th century Spanish America was unknown or despised in Europe. like himin the interimHe recently said: "In the absence of direct and accurate information about South America, Europeans have resigned themselves to ignorance about this very considerable portion of humanity, or have even been willing to replace that ignorance with legends or histories of inventing."

A global tragedy, then imminent, would change that situation. During the First World War, the Spanish-American continent, young, generous, romantic in its ambitions and in its faith, offered the peoples of Europe, especially France, a generous collaboration, admittedly for a time, but before that for a long time it was about Blood. South America sent a veritable elite of its children onto the European battlefields, an elite composed mostly of intellectuals who fought in the ranks of the Allied armies and helped by their heroic example to rouse their national governments to sympathy. The principles of struggle were clearly outlined. It was a question of autocracy and democracy. Robber empires tried to suppress the freedom of democratic peoples. Militarism, war cult, organized industrial feudalism, new state mysticism, natural claim of the German people to rule! There was a fundamental contrast between the dogmas of the Central Powers and the professed beliefs of the New World.

The ties that developed between Latin America and Europe during the World War were very close. They were sanctified by blood and rooted in history. Did this mean that Latin America would return to the European fold?

Peculiar circumstances, the new order of things created by the war, prevented such a result. It was reported that in order to win the favor of the United States, which seemed uneasy and fearful of doctrinal and racial clashes on American soil, the Allies had abandoned Spanish America to its fate, i.e. its morals. Isolation and therefore recognized the hegemony of the United States as the only great power among the sharply divided American republics.

Who is said to have instigated this maneuver? Nobody knows. Perhaps England, a nation bound to the American Republic by ties of common civilization. In a story circulating at the time, it was reported that the British government used Washington as an intermediary to communicate with a South American government. This choice of circular route was considered significant. It has been said that, in London's estimation, the United States had been given a virtual mandate for South America and should be considered its natural mouthpiece. England, a major creditor power, relented and turned over the profits of the South American administration to the United States!

Of course, this Machiavellian policy never got very far. On the contrary, there was reason to consider closer cooperation, particularly between France and some South American republics. It's hard to say how official these ideas could have been. No doubt many French diplomats toyed with them. France had won the war in the name of the great principles of justice and liberty. He faced England, equally victorious and surrounded by a spawn of Dominions. France must take the lead, powerful thanks to its prestige in the League of Nations. The formation of apolitical blocof the Spanish-American peoples could guarantee France the benefits of victory while facilitating a longer and more difficult task: promoting peace not only in Europe but throughout the world, the famous work of "permanent creation" as it is called. she called then.

But whatever the French government's opinion of this policy, it was forced to move in a different direction - towards Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, which were ready to offer France another alternative.political blocmore useful from certain geographical and strategic points of view.

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Additionally, in 1919, the South American states that would participate in the Peace Congress were classified as "narrow-interest peoples". How could they expect more when Belgium itself was in this class and only the great powers held the secret of the future? The republics of the New World which provided moral and material assistance to the Allies were undoubtedly numerous; but that was all. It was said to be a "lack of measure".

Under these circumstances, the League of Nations established by the Pact seemed the only refuge for the naïve or exaggerated expectations of South Americans. Back then, they sought an immediate legal solution to American problems like the Tacna Arica dispute and Bolivia's claims against Chile, according to a standard of absolute justice that would defend the weak and humiliate the strong. And these issues caught the attention of sympathizers when presented first to the Peace Conference and then to the League. But it soon became clear that many difficult problems would not be solved with uncompromising idealism:The supreme law of the greatest injury!Wilsonism gave way to the well-tried “reason of state”. It was a great disappointment to the South Americans, who pinned all their hopes on the new order proclaimed by the new prophet.

However, once the league was established and operational, the Latin American delegates were received in Geneva with all honours. When Brazil decided to withdraw, the Council appealed to the great South American republic and begged them to return to witness, with their presence and support, the universal and ecumenical character of the organization. And currently the position of the South American republics in Geneva is honorable, not to say brilliant, having been offered the presidency on several occasions. However, Mr. de Narváez, who is well informed about League affairs, pointed out that the South Americans in Geneva represent something like the Grand Eunuch: their offices are distinguished, but their influence is small. They sit on the council but do not deal with the affairs of their own continent. You participate in discussions of European affairs with courteous discretion. You sign reports. In other words, they act like a chorus in a drama where the actors are all strangers, playing on a stage far removed from their world.

And yet the league depends on South American members; for the Confederation has a constant eye on the world scene and knows that the representatives of the New World will always uphold the equality of all peoples before the law. On occasion, the South Americans have sharply criticized the league's decisions and can pride themselves on having stayed true to the spirit of the alliance more than others. For example, in 1920 Argentina called for the democratization of the League, equal rights for all nations, and the creation of new seats on the Council. Recently, Costa Rica, through a former president of that republic, has denounced the formation of a great power oligarchy within the League, and the same country has asked the League to define the meaning and scope of the Monroe Doctrine.

It is noteworthy that Parisin the interim,Despite his usual caution, he supported Costa Rica's latest proposal. He stressed that the Monroe Doctrine was a unilateral affair and that none of the "regional agreements" referred to in Article XXI of the treaty, which aim to guarantee peace, were not inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the pact. The principle of universality, he stressed, is essential to the league and must be respected. No restrictions can be made here. None of the American republics that signed the convention has the right to invoke the Monroe Doctrine to evade certain obligations. All of these republics have rights and duties that belong to nations on other continents. The contract is a single entity and none of its articles may be departed from. Undoubtedly, the Monroe Doctrine has changed over the years in line with the growing power of the United States and that country's necessary and natural expansion. But the lesson thatin the interimasserted, cannot be regarded as an impediment to the operation of a world league, nor can it sever an area so vast as the Two Americas from the beneficial influence of the league.

This currently seems to be France's official position on the possibility of a confrontation between Pan-Americanism and the League of Nations. However, a former French Ambassador to Washington, M. Jules Cambon, considered "The State of the Monroe Doctrine in 1928" in an article in theDiary of the Two Worlds.On the same possibility he comments: “A certain number of South American countries are members of the Pan-American Union and at the same time have seats in the League of Nations. Such powers have a very important role to play. between the two worlds.” Their task is to prevent the maturing of differences between the two great instruments of world unity, which, under certain conditions, could become antagonisms.

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Lospolitical blocwhich France refrained from attempting to form in Geneva, however, seems to have piqued the interest of Spain. Spain lamented the observed contrast between the burgeoning nationalism of the various South American nations and the spirit and practice of Hispano-Americanism. She sees this opposition as a threat to the close and enduring ties that exist between the "mother state" and the South American republics. "The Spanish-American feeling", writes E. Gomez de Baquero, "is by no means stronger than the national feeling of these peoples."^[ii]Consequently, when Spain and Brazil presented their candidatures for permanent seats on the Council, they did not find very warm support among the Hispanic American nations. And this estrangement, as the same distinguished writer admits, was not due to lack of sympathy, but to the influence of an opposing political principle. The South American nations refuse to be represented by anyone else. They recognize no hegemony. Jealous of their independence, they assert their national pride against any attempt at federation. At best, such feelings are strong enough to determine the course of diplomacy. The hope of creating broad political systems in the Spanish world, creating a Hispanic societypolitical blocas opposed to Anglo-Saxonpolitical bloc,The Spanish United States of America versus the English United States of America must be viewed as illusory at this time.

Hispanism is a transnational sentiment. Different nationalities have emerged within a large country. They became independent states, but without forgetting their origins and maintaining a sense of mutual kinship that derives from the use of a single language. The language is the fundamental link between the different parts of the Spanish world. Spain's economic relations with South America may be of secondary importance compared to its interests in other European countries. But the Spanish language is always present. De Baquero believes Hispanic-Americanism is still in its nebulous state, an affair mostly of after-dinner toasts and poems about racial brotherhood and hope. But it was only after 1898, when Spain lost the last of its American provinces, that it really began to turn to a serious policy of rapprochement inspired by practical goals.

At the time of signing the Kellogg contract, theErasde Madrid has made some notable statements on this subject. “Spain – he explained – is the spiritual homeland of the peoples of Latin America. Our relations with South America are becoming ever closer, and that must be the guiding principle of our entire policy, we must not deviate from it for a moment.” . Well, the most direct opposition to Hispano-Americanism comes from Monroism, and if there are reservations in the text of the [Kellogg] compact, even marginal, in favor of the Monroe Doctrine, isn't that a mandatory duty for Spain to voice its own reservations?ErasSeeing things is organizing an Iberoamerican meetingpolitical blocto include Spain, Portugal and all American republics. Spain has a place in the European arena and is proud of it. But "solidarity" with Latin American countries is more important. To get closer to them, to gain their trust, Spain would have to be willing to loosen its ties with European powers.

Among the measures recently taken by the Spanish Board of Directors, following the opinions of theErasNotable is the creation of Banco Español de Comercio Exterior, which will devote special attention to South America and will have branches in all major cities of the New World.

Some prominent Spanish writers, sympathetic to the same policies, argue that Spain should aspire to an important role in the League of Nations. Given that Geneva is currently at the center of certain ambitions of the larger society of Spanish-speaking peoples, Spain must be present and take a leadership position there. The Hispanic American groups were thus able to exert great influence and collaborate in building policies with inter-American and European reach. Thus, a counterpoint to the Monroe Doctrine would be found in Hispano-Americanism.

However, Spanish intellectuals are very busy strengthening and multiplying ties with their "brothers" in America. Its speakers frequently visit Spanish-American capitals, where they are received as pilgrims and crusaders. Rough spots are occasionally exposed on these contacts. Why do South Americans go to Paris when settling in Europe? France has even been accused of dictating such decisions through its own subtle propaganda. On the other hand, it is difficult for a great people that has created a colonial empire to treat its former colonists on a level of strict equality. In addition, the Spaniard, who emigrated to South America and returns home with his wealth, is often the subject of jokes in Spanish theaters. On the other hand, immigrants from Spain in the New World are despised and treated as inferior by the people who benefit from their work. Hence the arguments and misunderstandings on both sides, although they unmistakably tend towards rapprochement. Although the Spanish court was less receptive to such feelings of fraternity, Spanish universities began to pay more attention to Spanish American history and affairs. A new note appears in America, particularly in historical writings dealing with the Revolutionary Wars. These conflicts are already described as family quarrels between provinces of a Spanish nation, real civil wars between brothers who share the same defects and the same qualities. Spanish critics generously acknowledge American influences on their culture. De Baquero openly states that "the whole development of recent poetry in Spain is indebted to a Nicaraguan, Rubén Darío". Some writers of the Spanish Modernist school have recently claimed that the South American intellectual followed the example of Madrid and could be considered a minister of the Spanish intellectual world. This last concession, however, provoked violent reactions in Argentina, where the avant-garde rejected any intellectual dependence on Madrid or any other European capital.

There is a school of higher level thinkers who seek a spiritual federation of the Spanish world quite outside and rather than any political relationship. In 1896, Ángel Ganivet, who with Unamuno was one of the great forces in Spanish intellectual and spiritual life, declared: "I am against any present or future political federation among the Ibero-American peoples." On the other hand, he believed that there was a true brotherhood between the Spaniards of Europe and the Spaniards of America, which the Spanish genius left an indelible mark on all the countries he touched. The internal revolutions of the Spanish-American democracies were seen as expressions of youth, signs of a robust and rich life that had not yet found fixed channels. The well-known writings of Luis Araquistain also argue that "what is needed is an Ibero-American intellectual organization that carefully avoids all political or legal ties". The Spanish empire of the past must be brought back to life without any trace of its former characteristics of violence and oppression. The democratic emperor of this new and free federation must be Cervantes! Not even the English Commonwealth type can be imitated. Any notion of political hegemony must be discarded, as must anything remotely suggestive of a colonial past.

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London is no longer the only financial center for South American loans. New York has become a real rival. However, England's prestige seems stronger than ever, particularly in Argentina and Chile. English capital everywhere helped to develop the resources of the southern continent, and everywhere British influence proved useful and beneficial. South Americans have always admired and loved certain English qualities: English reliability in business, English honesty, English "masculinity". In Latin America, the code of honor for men is English, just as the standard for women's fashion is French. But in spite of England's close ties to South American independence - "The liberty of the New World," Canning said, "was necessary to the stability of the old" - and in spite of the great achievements of English enterprise, English engineering and British capital in Latin America, England is less interested in things there than France or Germany. Undoubtedly in recent years the Londontime planshas published a supplement devoted to South American affairs, but the general press seems too engrossed in the Dominions to pay much attention to the Latin republics. English influence was surpassed by that of Germany and surpassed by that of the United States. He was content with the ground he had already occupied.

In fact, as early as 1895 England abandoned the policy of resisting the rising tide of the United States in Latin America. Olney, the US Secretary of State, told Lord Salisbury that American interests in the southern continent were paramount. The statement actually contained a threat. England had no choice but to submit without yielding to bitterness, gaining every possible advantage in open competition but otherwise abandoning any notion of English hegemony. Lord Salisbury defended a position already condemned by history. The Monroe Doctrine, he claimed, had no value in international law. "This is an international impertinence!" Bismarck had already called out. Vain words, vain regrets!

For its part, Germany seems to have forgotten that it was not so long ago under the influence of Western civilization. Feel ready to reclaim lost terrain in South America. Pre-war pressure from German imperialists for German influence in the Latin South managed to create a real "threat" in Brazil and Chile: German immigrants in the two states of Santa Catalina and Rio Grande do Sul were estimated at 400,000 and the native Children of German immigrants rose to high positions in the civil service. This German population, however, did not pose any problems for the national unity of Brazil when that country declared war on Germany, further proof that the United States attracts the European immigrant to southern Spain as easily as it does to the north. Saxon. In any case, Germany quickly resumed relations with the overseas republics after the war. He began to pay particular attention to the few South American writers and politicians who had championed his cause. If the Prince of Wales went to Argentina, the former German Chancellor Luther, to name but one, traveled the entire South American continent. A rich German literature is dedicated to the Latin republics, while the Empire tries to reach the younger generations at South American universities through the translations of German philosophers and historians made in Spain.

The Fascist regime in Italy welcomes all signs of closer rapprochement with the New World nations. like himpeople from ItalyOf late, Italy has had to exploit racial affinities for the purpose of commercial expansion. Italian immigrants contributed a lot to the development of some South American countries. Of the 36 million inhabitants of Brazil, two and a half million are of Italian origin. The proportion is even more pronounced in Argentina, where at least forty percent of the population is of Italian descent. So instead of neglecting these remote American markets, Italy must go ahead and conquer them! In particular, it must support the nascent South American campaign against US commercial penetration. In the meantime, he must apply to his emigrant children the famous Delbrück law, which Germany followed without visible success: he must look after the emigrant and prevent him from losing his citizenship in favor of the country in which he settles.

But this Italian effort is on the verge of failure, as were the German efforts before the war. Italians living in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay never think of going back to their homeland. You love Italy but are buying property in South America. Along with the native Argentines themselves, Italian families are the largest landowners in Argentina according to 1924 data.die Nationfrom Buenos Aires, has often glorified himself in the sentimental transformation that Argentine patriotism effortlessly evokes in the immigrant. South America is not afraid of its newcomers.

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But while Europe as a whole has sought a counterbalance to US dominance in the New World, it has conceded decline at home. This spirit is widespread in Europe. That explains the success of books like Spengler's "The Fall of the West". Incidentally, some authors, especially the Germans, have preached a rapprochement with Asia, a departure from a Western civilization that was too heavily characterized by materialism, wealth and machinery. The Italian historian Ferrero made an appeal - to the "deaf" - for a kind of modern asceticism that avoids the dangers of that lust for power and success that haunts many modern people. In England, Dean Inge has prophesied an imminent decline of the British Empire and lamented the decline of the English people under the influence of socialism, a decline he seems to have come to terms with.

The Latin Americans have taken this discourse to heart and, instead of continuing to orientate themselves on the old world, are beginning to think about spiritual independence. They think it's time South America created its own primitive civilization, something more just and humane than old Europe. In this climate of wandering curiosity and love of novelty - instinctive traits of most Hispanic Americans - the southern republics have moved from Paris to Moscow in search of light in the new era that is now dawning. Since 1917, all of South America has been under the spell of Slavic messianism, seeking principles of renewal in a revolution not to be imitated but to be admired. Undoubtedly the first emotion has passed. Even the leaders of the Mexican Revolution, who openly followed Russian lines, declared that they now only care about the needs of the Mexican people and develop their agrarian policies within the framework of a democratic state. For the Andean republics on the Pacific Rim and for Mexico, where there is a strong indigenous element in the population, the pull of the Russian Revolution was what might be called "the pull of the East." Some ambitious dreamers even envisioned that Mexico's role in history could be that of a melting pot, fusing three civilizations into one: Asian, European, and American. Mexico is already the “Bastion of the Race”, the “necessary frontier” of the North. As Mexico studies its past, it feels closer to Asia.

However vague these theories may be, however confused these feelings may be, they are no less powerful. Under his influence, the oppressed and dispossessed classes of the New World are awakening to self-confidence. In fact, a peaceful social revolution is taking place in all of these Latin American republics, a revolution more or less resembling what Rathenau called the “revolution of revenge” in 1919. A new oligarchy is emerging, accusing the old oligarchies of a lack of patriotism and excessive subservience to European ideals. The mestizos, pure-blooded Indians, are numerous; but they are still a long way from conquering freedom. Rather, it is a new kind of leadership, a new social class preparing to seize power on the platform of greater ties to American soil, purer American origins, and stronger national sentiments. Nobody can predict whether this internal civil war will escalate. What can be said with certainty is that "Indianism" as it is understood today tends to accentuate this struggle by adding elements of aRakeRaces long subjected to the heirs of their conquerors and oppressors. These naturally less instinctively ordered classes like to contrast their rough and rudimentary "masculinity" with the "degeneration" of the old colonial families of European culture. They claim that a more homogeneous South American society will emerge after "European" tinged groups are removed from power.

When such ideas are stripped of their unjust and violent exaggerations, one can see that there is something real behind them. Even in the most educated circles in Spanish America there will always be a certain intellectual and moral unrest, a certain sense of expatriation. Joachim Nabuco, a Brazilian writer who has already represented his country in Washington, subtly analyzed the very peculiar state of mind of a man who has two countries at the same time: Europe, which is the home of his civilization, America, which is the country of its birthplace, the country they love and are proud of. “In America,” he writes, “there is a lack of tradition, the landscape, the architecture, the life. In Europe, on the other hand, we miss really being at home, we feel disconnected from the mold each of us has been cast into. Birth. On one side of the ocean absence of the past, on the other side absence of home. Our feelings are Brazilian, our thoughts European.”

The oldest colonial classes, who suffer most from this sentimental paradox, are doomed to exile. The new opposition invents the strangest names to mock their affection for the spirit and tradition of Spain. Nice and the Côte d'Azur become a kind of South American Koblentz, a hotbed of South American counter-revolution.

"Eurasia" is the name some Russians use to symbolize the historic mission they themselves ascribe: the unification of Asia and Europe by a chosen people of Moscow, a third Rome. Ricardo Rojas, an Argentinian writer of great renown - he is rector of the University of Buenos Aires - has now coined the word "Eurindia". Eurindia is a doctrine. It is also a gospel that preaches a mixture of European and American civilization, of cosmopolitanism and Native Americanism. “The Latin genius,” Rojas writes, “is drowning in a strange environment because, historically speaking, that genius came from Europe. The European spirit transported to America also drowns. in an environment that is geographically American.” The remedy is to combine both elements. “Our cities are often European, but our counties are still American, aLoci Geniusprotect them, the mongrels control them. In a word, the Spaniards are Spanishizing the Indians and the Indians and the New World are Indianizing the Spaniards. Now the culture of the New World was to be different from that of Europe. At the moment it is still in its infancy. He mimics, unsure of himself. In the end he will go his own way, a new one."

Moving away from the Old World, subjecting Old World influences to a relentless scrutiny, the Hispanic somehow draws closer to the United States, despite the many crises this instinctive friendship goes through. Something profound - youth perhaps, confidence in renewed vigor, renewed enthusiasm, immense wealth in contrast to a battered and impoverished Old World, the open prospect of a future unhindered by tradition - all these seem to tie the North together. and the South, Anglo-Saxon and Spanish-Latin together.

This melting pot of nationalities, this melting pot of races is seething in all areas of the New World. A Mexican statesman, José Vasconcelos, hailed throughout Latin America as one of its master thinkers, believes that a new race will emerge in America, the unified "cosmic" race. In an effort to construct a philosophy of history in which the myth of Atlantis is linked to more accurate dates, Vasconcelos examines biological theories that condemn miscegenation and hybridity. In his opinion, the role of the United States is not to eradicate indigenous peoples, but to amalgamate them into a "fifth race," the best known race in history, a race that possesses all of the heritage of the past. What was the ambition of the United States? Destroy the redskins so the white man can rule the Americas as he ruled northern Europe, that is, a repetition of what all victorious nations have done throughout history. Quite another is the "divine" mission of the so-called Latin Americans, who must create the synthetic man, a being adequately expressing the "total ambition of the world." A "wonderful" race, the Nordics. But he sinned unforgivably by exterminating the Indians instead of assimilating them as the Spanish conquerors had done. At best, America will build the "last white empire." In the South, the blood and genius of all races blend in a rich symphony. A broader view of the world is growing. The sense of human brotherhood is deeper and more real. It is up to Latin America, the new Atlantis, to create a land of freedom without hatred or contempt for yellows, reds and Europeans.

This simple belief in South America's future is reminiscent of the prevailing Americanism in certain regions of the US Midwest. Its manifestations can be seen in Argentina and Brazil, throughout Whitman's "Long, Long America". It is a dream of victory and pride, the bounty of a health that knows no doubt, knows no bounds, and erupts in a grand affirmation of power and freedom.

^[EU]Although at the second Hague Conference in 1907 men like Ruy Barbosa, Drago and Pérez Tirana played prominent roles in defending the principle of compulsory arbitration.

^[ii]"Nationalism and Hispanism", Madrid, 1928.

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