CONTINENTAL FELLOWS

In 2006, Oliver Stone directed a moving homage to the 9/11 New York heroes in the film World Trade Center. A few days ago, he was sitting at the Venetia Movie Festival by President Chavez of Venezuela, who has just signed agreements with Russia, Syria and Iran, purchasing weapons and tanks to support him in his mythical war against the United States “imperialism.” Indeed, the world has changed; and so have the Americas, but changes aren’t over yet. Those who cannot think fast and accurately on continental issues risk staying behind and with the wrong friends.

Stone presented his film South of the Border, where he interviews South American presidents. In the cast, Stone credited all those who share Chavez’s views on the continent and who are against or reluctant to an association with the United States. These presidents, as well as part of the American and Latin American intelligentsia seem to be behind facts, at a time when President Obama is adding a military diplomacy to the global trade agreements, and while he strives to keep Colombia military strong against Chavez, he also cancels the plan for an antiballistic missile system in Eastern Europe to assure the closer cooperation of Russia against Iran. The United States is now going globally global: besides financial and trade issues, military issues are exposed and require world leaders’ commitment to solve them. Some of the Latin American leaders seem aware of this fact. Others, like Argentina, are kidnapping their people’s will, without truly understanding or explaining what the global stakes are at this moment.

The 9/11 attacks modified the previous optimistic view that changes in the world, after the fall of the Soviet Union, could actually happen just through trade and soft diplomacy. We woke up from those Fukuyama dreams of the end of history and blind faith in the new world order, by the new axis of evil, terrorists of several Muslim organizations. Soon, two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq postponed the former progress in trade, and took a military slant that the world soon credited to President Bush and the United States conservative and imperialistic strategy. No one was ready to commit to a global change in rules; less to enforce it with military power, but the United States and a few more countries which shared the effort and losses.

In Latin America, those were the days also in which the dream of the Free Trade Area ended and was seen as a failure from the United States by its traditional enemies in Latin America, who soon took advantage of the situation, building their own association of Latin American countries against the United States. Pursuant to this situation, all the reforms toward modernity and global trade gained in countries like Argentina, were discredited in the public opinion and politicians and intellectual who supported a close friendship with the United States and the enforcement of global rules, were displaced from power and media.

Stone’s views on Latin America are very close to those exhibited by the anti American intelligentsia in these countries. In the same way they don’t serve well the United States’ interest, even from a Liberal point of view, they don’t serve either the best interest of Latin American countries. Instead, they seem to feel very comfortable with each other: Stone and Chavez can be seen in the pictures smiling to the cameras, wearing the same red tie of the Venezuela revolution, as the continental fellows they look glad to be. The problem is that the continental brotherhood seems limited to those sharing the ultra liberal and usually festive and irresponsible points of view of the continental left. Whereas we see many intellectuals and media, promoting delinquent terrorist behavior by the name of outdated economy and military theories and also spreading as much hatred as possible against the United States’ power, we don’t see equivalent voices in the Americas and in the United States promoting common interests in finances, trade and the military.

From the past, we keep habits that have not been conveniently revised at this time in which a strong defense partnership is required to face common threats, not only in the finances and the prospects of growth, but specifically in the military. Some countries like Venezuela, Brazil and Chile are updating their weapons and a country, Venezuela, powerful in oil dollars and by the way of weapons, is introducing Russia and Iran into the continent, as if we could soon be back to the old Cuban days of the Soviet missile deployment against the United States. Are the people in the Americas fully aware about these military movements that could involve them in a war?

The left in the United States always had a fling for Latin America, its exotism and esthetically attractive poverty, its sexy leaders like Fidel Castro and now Hugo Chavez, but the right in the United States never had too much of an interest in countries perceived as from a different culture, race, and historic background, that could even be a threat if allowed to grow. The left in Latin American countries hated its own right, as should be, but this right was never embraced as an equal partner by the United States. Since conservative governments had been very rarely incarnated in democratic elected officials and, more often than not, in military dictators, the usual relationship had been bribery and some degree of corruption to keep at least Latin American countries at bay. The right in Latin American countries has often been in the past very much pro-U.S but not always pro its own people at the same time. All these traits have left marks, wounds, and above all, patterns that need to be removed to build a renewed relationship, more in tune with current continental challenges.

War times require reliable friends and trust. A renewed continental fellowship based on the recognition of common interests in financial, commercial and safety strategies. The public opinion in the United States as well as in Latin American countries needs to learn how to see the world as a whole and the continent as a part of that whole. The world is on the mend, the continent should be, too.