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2. To Confront Rising Neofascism, the Latin American Left Must Rediscover Itself
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 08-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- This dossier presents a broad overview of the Latin American far right’s political, economic, and cultural programmes and how the absence of a real left political project that secures better living conditions has thrown different fractions of the working class into the grip of neofascism.
- Topic:
- Far Right, Leftist Politics, Progressivism, Neofascism, and Antifascism
- Political Geography:
- Latin America
3. Dependency and Super-exploitation: The Relationship between Foreign Capital and Social Struggles in Latin America
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 08-2023
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- This dossier analyses the role of Marxist dependency theory today as an important scientific tool to understand the current anti-democratic and fascist trends and emancipation processes in the Global South.
- Topic:
- Capital, Exploitation, Dependency, and Marxism
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Global South
4. The Coup Against the Third World: Chile, 1973
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 09-2023
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- Dossier no. 68 presents an analysis of the 1973 coup against Chile and its effects on the Third World and non-aligned countries.
- Topic:
- Economics, Sovereignty, Third World, Coup, and International Order
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Chile
5. What Can We Expect from the New Progressive Wave in Latin America?
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 11-2023
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- What are the challenges, limits, and contradictions facing Latin America’s new wave of progressive governments? How does this differ from the earlier wave that began with the election of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez twenty-five years ago?
- Topic:
- Progressivism, Hugo Chavez, and Regional Politics
- Political Geography:
- Latin America
6. Nela Martínez Espinosa (1912–2004) Women of Struggle, Women in Struggle
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- The second half of the twentieth century was marked by national liberation struggles in the colonised countries of Africa and Asia. In Latin America, neo-colonial structures had subordinated the republics founded as independent countries at the beginning of the nineteenth century, cementing their subaltern position in the international division of labour. During decades of global crisis (1914–1948), Latin America saw battles between an oligarchy that violently sought to make the working class pay the price of the economic meltdown and a left-wing tendency boosted by two processes: the growing peasant and trade union organisations on the one hand, and a radicalised middle class on the other. Observing the new forms of material dispossession that made the promises of republican democracy impossible, peasant and worker organisations advanced a discourse highlighting class conflict and patriarchal and neo-colonial domination. They also voiced new visions of the nation state and the perspectives for democratic and socialist internationalism against the unfolding fascism, inspired by the mobilisations and transformations of public power achieved by the Mexican Revolution and the Russian Revolution. The fight for equality and liberation under the leadership of working people is ongoing in the anti-imperialist struggles of our time. In a myriad of ways, women powerfully shaped and continue to shape this struggle against oligopolistic, patriarchal, racist, and neo-colonial capitalism. In the Women of Struggle, Women in Struggle series of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, we present the stories of women in struggle who contributed not only to the wider arena of politics, but who also pioneered the establishment of women’s organisations, opening up paths of feminist resistance and struggle throughout the twentieth century. Praxis, as a knowledge of theory and of organisational methods of struggle as they change and respond to history, gives sustenance to ongoing struggles to face oppression. As militants, we study the diverse organisational methods of these women not only to better understand their political contributions, but also to inspire us as we build the organisations necessary for our fight against oppression and exploitation today. In this third study, we discuss the life and legacy of Nela Martínez Espinosa, an Ecuadorian fighter for the people. Nela was a writer and communist activist[i] from an early age with extensive internationalist experience. As the first woman elected to Ecuador’s parliament, she created one of the country’s first mass women’s political organisations in 1938 and, as the first woman minister of the interior, she was effectively in charge of the country in the chaotic three days that followed the insurrection known as La Gloriosa, or the Glorious May Revolution, in May 1944. Nela’s rich life-long activism teaches us about the history of women in local, national, and international struggles that linked women’s rights with anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-imperialist struggles throughout the twentieth century. In a speech at Ecuador’s National Congress in 2003 (a year before her death), Nela spoke about becoming the first woman legislator in 1945: I came [to the parliament] for the first time in a trance of my love for this homeland, which is still struggling with itself, but by then had been rescued from a dictatorship that intensified its oppression. Those of us who experienced the dangers of demanding a revolution which was subsequently denied to us were simply moved. A woman in Congress among those who spoke and not simply among those who listened? Those who ruled inherited the colonial way of thinking and acting […] which during the colony destroyed the culture […] of indigenous peoples to the point of becoming part of the norm, the way of life for those who later became the leaders of the republic. The practice that we are speaking of persisted in social norms and especially behaviour. That is why my presence was strange in the National Congress and, on welcoming it, political leaders for the first time also recognised women citizens in the upper echelons of power.
- Topic:
- Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Colonialism, Feminism, and Biography
- Political Geography:
- South America, Latin America, and Ecuador
7. A Map of Latin America’s Present: An Interview with Héctor Béjar
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 02-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- After nearly three decades, Brazil’s military has re-emerged into the country’s political life with the arrival of Jair Bolsonaro as president. This dossier analyses the composition of Brazil’s armed forces, their relationship to US imperialism, and the militarisation of the public sector. Brazil’s military is characterised by a conservative and liberal ideology, a state that regulates the demands of private interests, and a strong anti-communist vision, aspects allow us to better understand its behaviour and its drive to openly dispute the direction of Brazilian society.
- Topic:
- Imperialism, Regional Cooperation, Hegemony, Democracy, and Oligarchy
- Political Geography:
- Latin America, Caribbean, North America, and United States of America
8. Ten Theses on Marxism and Decolonisation
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and Abel Prieto
- Publication Date:
- 09-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- The Cuban Revolution came about in a country subordinated to the US from all points of view. Although we had the façade of a republic, we were a perfect colony, exemplary in economic, commercial, diplomatic, and political terms, and almost in cultural terms. Our bourgeoisie was constantly looking towards the North: from there, they imported dreams, hopes, fetishes, models of life. They sent their children to study in the North, hoping that they would assimilate the admirable competitive spirit of the Yankee ‘winners’, their style, their unique and superior way of settling in this world and subjugating the ‘losers’. This ‘vice-bourgeoisie’, as Roberto Fernández Retamar baptised them, were not limited to avidly consuming whatever product of the US cultural industry fell into their hands. Not only that – at the same time, they collaborated in disseminating the ‘American way of life’ in the Ibero-American sphere and kept part of the profits for themselves. Cuba was an effective cultural laboratory at the service of the Empire, conceived to multiply the exaltation of the Chosen Nation and its world domination. Cuban actresses and actors dubbed the most popular American television series into Spanish, which would later flood the continent. In fact, we were among the first countries in the region to have television in 1950. It seemed like a leap forward, towards so-called ‘progress’, but it turned out to be poisoned. Very commercial Cuban television programming functioned as a replica of the ‘made in the USA’ pseudo-culture, with soap operas, Major League and National League baseball games, competition and participation programmes copied from American reality shows, and constant advertising. In 1940, the magazine Selections of the Reader’s Digest, published by a company of the same name, began to appear in Spanish in Havana with all of its poison. This symbol of the idealisation of the Yankee model and the demonisation of the USSR and of any idea close to emancipation was translated and printed on the island and distributed from here to all of Latin America and Spain. The very image of Cuba that was spread internationally was reduced to a tropical ‘paradise’ manufactured by the Yankee mafia and its Cuban accomplices. Drugs, gambling, and prostitution were all put at the service of VIP tourism from the North. Remember that the Las Vegas project had been designed for our country and failed because of the revolution.
- Topic:
- Decolonization, Marxism, and Cultural Policy
- Political Geography:
- Cuba and Latin America
9. Religious Fundamentalism and Imperialism in Latin America: Action and Resistance
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- It is impossible to disconnect religion from the political projects of domination and liberation in Latin America. Since the era of colonisation, some movements have used religion to oppress, abuse, and enslave people, while others have used religion to organise and liberate them. Today, the advance of religion and religious rhetoric in institutional politics in Latin America has become a significant trend. An ever-greater number of believers, be they progressives or reactionaries, have worked to spread their beliefs, demands, and projects in daily religious life and in the public sphere. The overwhelming majority of Latin Americans are Christian, including over 80% of the population across the region (Catholic and evangelical combined) and over 90% of the population in countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru. All countries in the region have a population that is at least 50% Christian (with the exception of Uruguay, where the figure is 44%), and in many countries there is a shift from Catholicism to forms of Protestantism. Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras have currently narrowed the gap between the number of Catholics and evangelicals; meanwhile, El Salvador, Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Bolivia all have populations that are at least 20% evangelical. This percentage is even higher in working-class areas.2 Habits and practices of faith are crucial to the everyday life of Latin America’s working class. Churches, temples, terreiros3 (yards), and prayer houses are part of the people’s culture; here, they find reception, a sense of community, and the possibility of collectively living out their spirituality. On a continent marked by the legacy of colonialism, social forms of all kinds – including religion – have provided refuge and the basis for resistance. Religion is not only intrinsic to people’s daily lives, but also to their struggles and revolutions. However, since neoliberalism began to advance in Latin America, the right wing has grown in both political and social spheres. This process is reflected not only in the withdrawal of rights from the working class, but also in discourses that seek to weaken democratic institutions. Religious fundamentalism is an instrument used to maintain this neoliberal project by fixating on the idea that there is only a single, immutable, and unquestionable truth. In other words, it is anti-dialogical and anti-pluralistic and strongly idealises a past that never existed. This absolute and dogmatic ideology extends well beyond religion: it also shapes political, economic, and social life. This dossier synthesises the research of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research (Brazil) working group on evangelism, politics, and grassroots organising. Examining the history of Christianity and growth of religious fundamentalism in Latin America, with Brazil as a primary case study, the text traces the development of religious fundamentalism from its origins up to its contemporary form and its insertion into regional politics, where it seeks to further misogynist, anti-communist, and anti-democratic agendas as well as imperialist projects on the continent. On the other hand, we also recover the voices and resistance, from the past and the present, that have confronted religious fundamentalism in Latin America. Inspired by the revolutionary practices of Latin America’s many martyrs and influenced by the teachings of the Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals Borda and Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, this dossier is based on interviews with working-class educators and with members of popular movements’ evangelical base.
- Topic:
- Imperialism, Religion, Working Class, and Fundamentalism
- Political Geography:
- Latin America
10. New Clothes, Old Threads: The Dangerous Right-Wing Offensive in Latin America
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 12-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- In Latin America, the adoption of the neo-reactionary and alternative right projects of the Global North appears to be a launching pad from which to modify the cognitive maps of the people and to shift political and discursive positions and public agendas to the right. This dossier analyses the right-wing developments in Latin America, identifying how they operate and with what discourses, what social base they mobilise, and their continuities of and ruptures with the history of the right wing in the continent.
- Topic:
- Politics, Far Right, and Mobilization
- Political Geography:
- South America, Latin America, and North America