Building Institutions

Many years ago when he was elected Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide mad a comment that I thought was absolutely brilliant and - at the time - seemed to bode well for Haiti's future. He said that his election was not the important election, but that the election that followed his was much more important.

Despite the fact that much has gone wrong and very little has gone right in Haiti since then, Aristide's comment is no less on-target now than it was then. He was speaking clearly to the value of institutions and what the establishment of institutions could mean to Haitian society. These days, unfortunately, institutions are virtually nonexistant in Haiti and weak throughout much of Latin America.

Indeed one wonders why, with the long tradition of the cult of personality in Latin America, why someone seeking change in Latin America, would embrace so vigorously a figure who has much more in common with Latin America's past.

One would also wonder why someone who considers themself to be progressive and opposing fascism would embrace a leader who in turn embraces another leader who denies fascism's most monstrous act took place, hangs gays for being gay and jails dissenters.

Comments

[wronski]

Its depressing. In a way, Chavez is a sythesis of everything that was wrong with 20th century LA leadership.

There are three kinds of quintessential Latin American assholes I absolutely can't stand:

The 'milico' is a 'Fatherland or death!' military stuffed shirt, shining with self-awarded medals, who regards dissent as treason.

Then there is the 'engajado', a wannabe revolutionary who blames every woe on the yankees and is against 'the noliberal-IMF vampires', and believes that if everyone else would just shut up a socialist utopia can be conjured out of the quantum vacuum.

And the last is the 'salvador da patria', a leader who believes he and he alone can deliver the nation from the evil elites/yankees/communists/martians.

Chavez manages to came across as a 'milico salvador da pátria engajado'. No wonder I find him so repellent.

(I posted this elsewhere, but its appropriate here as well)