Beautiful Horizons

So Much For Infallability

Pope Benedict has backpedaled on his foolish remarks concerning the treatment of the indigenous peoples in the Americas. There is no better source for information on the treatment of the natives by the Christian colonizers than Saint Bartolome de Las Casas. Las Casas provided first hand accounts to the Spanish Court as to what the conquistadors did. Here are some selected quotes:

• And never have the Indians in all the Indies committed any act against the Spanish Christians, until those Christians have first and many times committed countless cruel aggressions against them or against neighboring nations.

• Yet into this sheepfold, into this land of meek outcasts there came some Spaniards who immediately behaved like ravening wild beasts, wolves, tigers, or lions that had been starved for many days.

• More than thirty other islands in the vicinity of San Juan are for the most part and for the same reason depopulated, and the land laid waste.

• We can estimate very surely and truthfully that in the forty years that have passed, with the infernal actions of the Christians, there have been unjustly slain more than twelve million men, women, and children. In truth, I believe without trying to deceive myself that the number of the slain is more like fifteen million.

• After the wars and the killings had ended, when usually there survived only some boys, some women, and children, these survivors were distributed among the Christians to be slaves.
• With my own eyes I saw Spaniards cut off the nose and ears of Indians, male and female, without provocation, merely because it pleased them to do it. ...Likewise, I saw how they summoned the caciques and the chief rulers to come, assuring them safety, and when they peacefully came, they were taken captive and burned.

• They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his head or spill out his entrails with a single stroke of the pike.

• They took infants from their mothers' breasts, snatching them by the legs and pitching them headfirst against the crags or snatched them by the arms and threw them into the rivers, roaring with laughter and saying as the babies fell into the water, "Boil there, you offspring of the devil!

• They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house.

• They made some low wide gallows on which the hanged victim's feet almost touched the ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer and His twelve Apostles, then set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them alive.

• With still others, all those they wanted to capture alive, they cut off their hands and hung them round the victim's neck, saying, "Go now, carry the message," meaning, Take the news to the Indians who have fled to the mountains.

• ...they made a grid of rods which they placed on forked sticks, then lashed the victims to the grid and lighted a smoldering fire underneath, so that little by little, as those captives screamed in despair and torment, their souls would leave them.

Jesus surely wept to know of this being done in his name.

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.

Ex-military Members Seeking Office in Latin America

I have not commented yet about tomorrow's election in Peru largely because I'm completely unimpressed with the three major candidates, but also because it brings yet another example of a disturbing trend in recent Latin American elections: the candidacy of former military officers in presidential elections.

Latin America's history has presented us with far too many examples of the military committing coups against civilian governments. The military mindset in Latin America has far too often exhibited an authoritarian tendency and has mistaken power and armed might for legitimacy. Despite the fact that recent history has given credence that democracy is on the rise in Latin America, military coups remain a distinct possibility.

I find it disturbing that former coup leaders have been allowed to run for office in countries like Guatemala, Venezuela* and Ecuador and have served as president in Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia in recent years.

One of Latin America's gravest problems has been the ongoing disparity in class. Much of this disparity is tied to race and economics. It is cruel, it is degrading to the poor and the ethnically oppressed (I cannot use minority as in some cases - Guatemala being an excellent example - the ethnic majority is being oppressed).

The answer to this, however, is not the rise to power of those hurling invective back at the former ruling class, but someone to put the past in its proper perspective and seek to unite the nation. There is no better example of this than Nelson Mandela.

This was a man who was imprisoned for nearly thirty years for treason in a nation that refused to allow him to vote because of the color of his skin, that required those who shared his race to live in certain areas, restricted all of their freedoms and tortured and murdered even the peaceful dissidents like Steven Biko.

Yet Mandela, without bitterness and without vindictiveness, found a way to account for the suffering of the past and set South Africa on a strong course for the future. More should follow his path.

*Yes I know that Hugo Chávez himself was the victim of a coup attempt, something which I strongly and unequivocally condemn. He also lead a coup in 1992, something which I strongly and unequivocally condemn. There's a solution to bad and corrupt governments: elections.

Revisiting the "Liberators"

There's an interesting article in today's Miami Herald today about new books on the bestseller lists revisiting the historical figures in Latin American history like Simón Bolivar and José de San Martín.

Read the article and the accompanying interview with one of the writers. Introspection is a great exercise towards gaining self-awareness. Maybe we can do this someday.