Dr. Kuehnelt-Leddihn is a European scholar, linguist, world traveler, and lecturer. Of his many published works, the best known in America is his book Liberty or Equality?
The average citizen of the United States knows only too well that something is seriously wrong in Latin America. But what is it? If somebody has the measles, we notice the rash, but this is only a surface reaction on the skin pointing to a disease which actually infests the organism profoundly. The military dictator- ships in Latin America also are reactions to an unhealthy situation. Usually people will mention the glaring differences of wealth and insist that “social reforms” would do the trick. Some claim that there is no “genuine faith” in Latin America and that the Church, by “allying herself with the rich” and failing to “fight illiteracy,” has “betrayed the masses.” Others will blame the Spaniards for not having raised he educational level of the Indians, and so forth. Yet, in the prey- dent views on Latin America, untruths are pitted against half- truths, results are taken for causes, and stark ignorance is nixed with stubborn prejudices.
As with a human being in a state of general decline, it is necessary to investigate the “case history” of Latin America. What this part of the world like? What does it represent? First of ill, let us face the fact that apart from the Caribbean area Latin America consists of three major regions:
(a) the countries (from Mexico to Paraguay) with many Indians, a large mixed population and a small, sometimes exceedingly small, white top layer,
(b) predominantly white nations (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay) and
(c) Brazil, a “sub-continent” larger than the United States, which is of Portuguese, not of Spanish origin and has a strong African admixture.
In spite of great varieties these three regions have a surprising number of common problems.
Now let us say a few words about the Indians. Some (but by no means all) of the Indian tribes had a relatively high civilization prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Still, they knew neither the wheel nor genuine writing. Those who were civilized lived in highly autocratic and totalitarian societies in which hard work, as far as it existed, was carried out under the whip of overseers. State and religion had tyrannic aspects; human sacrifices were the rule. When the Spaniards moved in, efforts were made to assimilate and amalgamate the native nobilities (in Mexico they were made equals of the grandees); but, by and large, the upper crust became Spanish. Once the adventurers who had brutally subjugated the country were eliminated, harnessed, or disciplined, the Crown took over.
The Spanish administration worked miracles. In no time, a new Christian civilization was established: churches, chapels, cathedrals, palaces, city halls, printing shops, universities, monasteries, convents, and comfortable, spacious living quarters sprang up almost over night.
A Different Race
It was the Crown that tried to protect the Indians and later the Mestizos. The new aristocracy of Latin America, however — not at all social, political, or religious refugees as in North America, but largely members of Spain’s lower nobility — resented the Crown’s “protectionist” policy. “You in Madrid or Seville do not realize what we are up against!” they indignantly protested. And they were right — in a way. The Indian (unlike the African) has a most difficult personality, is racially easily assimilable but culturally quite inflexible. He has another logic, he is suspicious, has a closed mind, is not interested in private property and indifferent; to pain, humorless (by our standards), unreliable, lazy — if we take Western notions as a measuring rod. “The lucky Yanquis!” was once told in Peru, “If only we had Negroes instead of Indians!”
Yet the Crown was also right. The Indians with their different wave length were certainly difficult to handle. They proved highly uncooperative and, more than their local Spanish masters, showed a profound distaste for systematic, hard work. We must bear in mind that the work ethics we know today in the Western world developed only after the Reformation. Our medieval ancestors worked infinitely less than we do. The average city or town in Europe 500 years ago celebrated between 90 and 140 holidays a year in addition to the 52 Sundays. Before the Spanish conquest, the Indians were used to either a bucolic life on the lowest level or to forced labor under their monarchs and caciques. Without stern discipline, the colonies could not have existed. This, Madrid did not understand. Hence, the resistance of the local “whites” against the distant capital and also against the Church which preached benevolence, leniency, and tolerance.
The War of Liberation
As a result the Latin American upper crust, egged on by Britain and the United States (both eager to trade in that huge area) and imbued with the ideas of the French Revolution, rose against Spanish domination. We had the amazing spectacle of a wealthy, landowning Creole aristocracy fighting the Crown because it protected the lower classes. (The Indians, needless to say, supported the Crown which, however, was soon defeated on battlefields thousands of miles from the motherland.) The intellectual fatherhood of the French Revolution in this struggle also hurt the Church. The majority of the priests and friars, born in Spain and loyal to the king, packed up and went home.
This “war of liberation” left the Disunited States of Latin America laboring under insoluble problems right from the start. Never had a republican and democratic form of government been adopted by countries less qualified to make it work. (In our generation, only Africa has made the same mistake.) In 1822 the two great liberators of Latin America met in Guayaquil: the Venezuelan liberator of the North, General Simon Bolivar, and the Argentine liberator of the South, General Jose San Martin. The latter implored Bolivar to establish a monarchy in South America, to look for a European prince who might accept the crown! He was convinced that republican democracy was bound to fail in the Latin part of the Western Hemisphere. Bolivar replied that he could see San Martin’s reasons but that he had to oppose his views; he was pledged to republicanism and democracy; to advocate monarchy would be a betrayal of everything he stood for.
San Martin returned to Argentina a broken man, packed his belongings and went into voluntary exile in Europe. He died in poverty in a small French town 30 years later. Bolivar, however, came to regret his reply. He, too, died in despair. “There is no faith in Latin America,” he wrote, “neither in men nor in nations. The Constitutions are mere books, the treaties scraps of paper, the elections battles, liberty is anarchy and life a torment.” He foresaw the rise of small local dictators and a decay so general that the European powers would not even bother to reconquer a bankrupt continent. “I have plowed the sea,” was his cry of anguish.
No Common Denominator
These events of a century and a half ago clearly foreshadow the outline of our present troubles. Harold Laski said that the democratic republic will work only if two conditions are given: a two-party system and what Walter Lippmann calls “a public philosophy,” that is to say, a common outlook, common political principles uniting the entire nation. In his Farewell Address George Washington pointed out that whereas monarchies can afford the luxury of ideological diversity, republics have to shun the “party spirit” and must always seek a common denominator. Now, given Latin individualism, this uniformity is lacking — not only South of the Rio Grande but also on the Iberic Peninsula, in France, Italy and, we should add, in the rest of the non-Protestant Western world. The “team spirit” characterizes the Protestant, not the Catholic or Greek Orthodox world. Buttonhole the typical New York commuter and ask him what his political belief is. You will find, chances are, 100 per cent stand for the republic, 99 per cent for democracy. Then repeat the experiment in the subway of Madrid or Barcelona and you will discover where genuine pluralism is at home.
The political parties of Latin America suffer as a rule from radical ideological divergences. Most of the parties are of the left — left of center, moderately left, radically left, yet, at the same time they are extremely nationalistic and show marked socialistic tendencies. (This is also true of the so-called Christian Democratic Parties inspired by the Left Wing of Italy’s democristiani and not by the German, Austrian, Swiss, or Dutch Christian Democrats.) This combination of nationalism and socialism is a frightening mixture known only too well to us in Europe, and it is even more frightening if it has racist undertones as we find them in Peru’s APRA and, to a lesser degree, in Mexico’s PRI. The difference between them and the Hitlerites, however, is this: the Nazis praised the lily-white Aryans whereas the Latin American national-socialist parties worship the brown skin.
Exploitation of Envy
But why all this Leftism? It is nothing but the political exploitation of the startling, frequently even provocative, differences between rich and poor. In the past 150 years the successful exploitation of envy has been the key to political success in Europe; and now the magic formula also works in Latin America. In other words: the “social problem” is at the bottom of this political ferment and seems to work into the hands of Moscow, Peking, and Havana. In using quotes for the term “social problem,” we want to indicate that the issue is not really a social, but an economic one.
Not really “social”? No. Though in the past the Latins were not hard workers, the Indians (unless they were totally enslaved) worked far less. Foreigners with knowledge and determination have a very good chance in Latin America — not only Americans, Germans, and Britishers but also Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese who have developed material ambitions in Northern style. They become rich quickly. In Mexico the Spanish immigrants (and refugees) are called los zopilotes, “the vultures,” not only because of their sharp noses and their beady eyes (so unlike the soft, brown traits of the Indians and mestizos) but mainly on account of their commercial zeal. When they arrive, they may start by pushing vegetable carts; ten years later, however, they are likely to drive a Mercedes. (Allegedly one-third of Mexico’s wealth is in Spanish hands — data that are difficult to check.)
In Caracas I overheard a conversation between two Venezuelans one of whom remarked: “And I tell you, my friend, Yanquis, Germans, Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians, Syrians — they’re all Jews, they’re all Jews,” by which he meant that they work hard, save money, reinvest it shrewdly, and generally forge ahead. Yet this “automatic” financial rise is also achieved by the ambitious minority among the natives, whatever their color. In a generally lethargic society where people, by and large, are not very competitive the few ambiciosos (what a dirty word!) will swiftly rise to the top. And how they are hated: the Gringos and the local rich!
The Social Pyramid
As a result of this odd distribution of energies (which, incidentally, is not climatically conditioned) the social pyramid has a very broad base and then narrows abruptly, ending in a very fine “needle.” Such a “needle” is conspicuous indeed. In North European countries the social pyramid looks more like a triangle and its top is relatively broad. Still, we know that in Austria a total confiscation of monthly incomes of $1,000 and over would, if equally distributed among all citizens, provide them with another cent and a quarter daily. If one were to expropriate all peso millionaires in Mexico, that means people owning more than 80,000 U.S. dollars, each Mexican would receive once and for all the sum of $18.00. The statistics would look even less favorable in countries like Colombia, Peru, or Bolivia.
In other words: the most radical social reforms would hardly make a dent in the living standards of the masses. Not the expropriation of the rich will alleviate the situation, but only a substantial general increase in production. Rich countries are not rich on account of “natural wealth” (a totally exploded fallacy) but on account of a high work ethos, of industriousness, saving, and investment. Radical discrepancies between the living standards of the social layers exist only in basically poor countries — and they are poor because the majorities are not enthusiastic about hard and systematic work.
Investments, too, present a ticklish if not insoluble problem. A revealing passage in Populorum Progressio speaks of wealthy people who, instead of investing their profits in their own country, transfer them abroad. It is true that wealthy Latin Americans, except, perhaps, Mexicans, have the tendency to invest in the United States, in Switzerland, even in Spain and Japan. They do this in spite of the fact that the profits derived thereby are well below what they would be at home. But it is safety these investors are worried about. Since most of the big popular parties are Leftist in their tendencies, since CONFISCATION is written in large letters on their party banners —confiscation of factories, large estates, church property, foreign companies — no wealthy Latin American can trust his own country.
A Formula for Failure
Almost all big parties, indeed, talk about “soaking the rich” and so do the Christian Democratic Parties who want to take the wind out of the sails of the Marxist and “national socialist” groups. Appealing to the envy of the many seems the only way to get votes. A young Peruvian Christian Democrat informed me that 78 per cent of his country was in the hands of large landowners. I inquired how much remained for the average agrarian family. Taking the size and the thin population of Peru into consideration, there seemed to be land enough for all.
“What about the Japanese immigrants?” I asked, “They all do extremely well on tiny plots.”
“You are right, but our people would never work as hard as these Japs do; thus we have to carve up the large estates, just as we have to nationalize the American oil companies.”
“Confiscate their property?”
“Not really. We shall give them 2.5 per cent government obligations. They got their treaty by bribing our deputies.”
“But didn’t you tell me before that you want foreign investments, foreign loans? How do you expect to get them after expropriating American companies?”
“Well, they have to shell it out or we’ll become communists. If they won’t do it, we’ll ask the Germans.”
“My dear friend, economy is based on credit and the term credit implies trust. The Germans won’t give you a cent!”
The young man was enormously surprised.
Military Stopgap Measures
Discussions like this prove the existence of a genuine vicious circle: no general disposition for hard work (as it is known, actually, only in parts of Western civilization and in East Asia), the tremendous gap between rich and poor, the demagoguery of the Leftist parties (led predominantly by “university men” and morally stranded scions of old families), all this creates the necessity for unconstitutional “take-overs” by the military. American public opinion as well as the State Department heartily disapprove of undemocratic military rule, but, normally, the armies step in only when the country is menaced by a Leftist, anti-American, proastroite faction as a result of free elections or revolts.
In the past, most protégés of the United States have turned out to be leaning to the Left, toward Moscow, if not Peking, once they took over with American moral or financial support. This was the case with Fidel Castro whose ascent to power was enthusiastically greeted by the American press, of “Papa Doc” Duvalier in Haiti, of Juan Bosch. When the military junta in Santo Domingo ousted Bosch, when the Peruvian army prevented Rani Haya de la Torre from gaining control, when General Onganía took the reins in Argentina, Washington was none too happy. (The American acclamation of Marshal Castelo Branco in Brazil was something utterly new.)
Yet, one must admit that military dictatorships are only stopgap measures. The problem posed by San Martin to Bolivar is as timely today as it was a century and a half ago. Still no monarchist party, no monarchist sentiment exists today in Latin America — except for Brazil which was fortunate enough to have a monarchy until 1889. Constitutions pose an insoluble problem everywhere, with the exception of Mexico which has a one-party system, being run by the PRI which, in turn, is firmly in the hands of an oligarchy. An ideal situation? By no means. But, at least, thanks to strictly rigged elections, there is a permanence on which an expanding economy can be based. The PRI (Revolutionary Institutionalist Party), once violently hostile to religion, has settled down, has become “bourgeois,” has made its peace with the totally impoverished Church.
The Role of the Church
And what about the Church in all that Latin American turmoil?
Perfectly silly charges are leveled against her: that she always sided with the rich, that she owns great wealth which she does not share with the poor, that she did nothing to alleviate illiteracy because she has a better hold on ignorant people, and so forth and so on. The fact is that the Church is desperately poor, that priests are living in abysmal misery, sleeping sometimes like dogs on the ground as I have seen with my own eyes, that she has been totally expropriated in many countries, that she has made and is still making heroic efforts to educate all layers although secular education is not one of her primary tasks. (Actually, in most, though not in all, Latin American countries the Catholic schools and universities are undoubtedly far superior to their secular counterparts.) That there are certain ecclesiastic problems which, for the moment, are beyond solution nobody will deny — for instance, the crucial problem of vocations.
What I am worried about, because a solution can and must be found, is the Church’s stand in the aforementioned “vicious circle.” Christianity being only 400 years old in many parts of Latin America (where it is not European Christianity transplanted, but superimposed!), it has affected only the blood and the hearts of the people, not the bones and the minds. This corresponds to the situation in Germany in the eleventh century, a fact one tends to forget in drawing comparisons. The Church has, in the past, concentrated too much on devotion (especially on Marian devotion) and not sufficiently on ethics, as Professor Fredrick B. Pike of Notre Dame pointed out in a brilliant paper. She did not preach energetically enough the natural virtues: respect for personal property, thrift, truthfulness, frugality, responsibility for the family, chastity, cleanliness. (In certain Latin American nations 85 per cent of all children are illegitimate and get their entire moral education from benign grandmothers.) Piety is impressive in Latin America, but the Mestizo who prays in mystical ecstasy, tears streaming down his face, may vote communist tomorrow or slit his neighbor’s throat from ear to ear. Our early medieval ancestors acted in exactly the same way.
Today, having made great efforts in spirituality, the Church suddenly seems to have discovered “social justice” and engages heavily in politics. Although she rarely openly advocates the Christian Democratic parties, she fosters them secretly and, without sufficient studying and preparation, teaches specific economic doctrines. One shudders at the thought of what the reaction will be when the Christian Democratic parties fail economically in the countries where they now hold sway.
We in Europe know by experience that Christian parties come and go whereas the Church remains — to face the music. In the past the Church has suffered atrociously for having supported specific political orders. The tragedy will not be lessened if, out of an ill advised idealism, the Church allows herself to be identified with specific economic systems, above all those of a socialist pattern which are notoriously inefficient.
These reflections do not offer a solution for Latin America’s tragic vicious circle. There, as elsewhere, religious, economic, social, and political problems form an organic whole. In all likelihood, the Archimedean point for curing these ills lies in a reform of the Latin American’s soul, mind, and spirit. If this could be achieved, the economic, social’, and political shortcomings would largely disappear or, at least, be lessened. To cure the evils at their roots, and not by underwriting utopian blueprints, would thus be eminently the task of the Church.
This article first appeared as “Big Wars from Little Errors Grow” in the January, 1964, FREEMAN. But recent events indicate that someone must have missed the point.
