Nuestra America: How will the relationship between the United States and South America evolve?

Uno

Manhattan, corner of 38th street and Lexington Avenue.
Here, one of the last symbols of the Cold War can be seen in the middle of New York: the permanent police barrier around the sombre building of the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations. The street corner was officially renamed Esquina Hermanos al Rescate in 1996, referring to the Cuban–American group operating from Florida and assisting Cuban boat refugees, but which is also often involved in political provocation.
The relationship between Cuba and the US is of course a very complicated one and is in no way representative of the relationship between Washington and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Dos

Latino communities in the US are on the up. In clandestine immigration numbers, yes, but also on the social ladder. More and more second generation Latinos are gaining prominence within professions and are joining the ranks of the middle class. In electoral terms, this group has become very important - also for Barack Obama if he wants to get re-elected in 2012. In the US two out of three Latinos between 16 and 25 years old were born in the US.
But even the term Latino in itself is dubious. To start with, it’s a major simplification. Language and religion (mainly Catholics but also growing numbers of Evangelicals) are shared, but in fact we are dealing with a large group of very diverse subgroups, with different priorities and agendas. It is best felt in New York, where everybody and everything come together. The Mexicans and Central Americans are the most engaged in the debate about clandestinity and legality.
Puerto Ricans (Boricuas in NY slang) are hesitating between their own identity and the frustrations of being not-quite Americans. Dominicans are little politicised and just want to send home as much money as they can to their families in Santo Domingo.
To describe the complexity of the Latino community in New York and the US, a new metaphor was invented. It is no longer a melting pot, it is a salad bowl. It is no longer a blend of everything, but a salad where all the different ingredients stay recognisable in colour and taste.
The love-hate relationship that Latin America has with the US (Cuba is no exception), for the most part finds its origins in this diaspora. The US remains the main draw for a better life - through jobs at the bottom of the social ladder or through access to higher education. The jobs in return result in enormous flows of money between the US and Latin America - the so-called remesas - which are for a lot of the countries the main contributors to their balance of payments.

Tres

Apart from immigration and money flows, the relationship is defined a good deal by cocaine policy. All too often the excessively vague term ‘drugs’ is  used. But 99% of the time, the term refers to just this one product. The demand in the US is enormous. The supply follows. It’s a parallel economy that is worth more than the annual budget of an average country.
The politics are about the supply routes. The suppliers and exporters are looking for the route of least resistance. This means transit through countries or zones where control is scarce or where assistance can be bought. In the eighties – when the cocaine market in the US was booming – the Caribbean countries were in political turmoil.
Collaborators could be found in rival political militias. Traces of these times can still be found, mainly in transits through the weakest state in the region - Haiti. Recently the transit has moved away to a mainland route through Mexico, but in parallel with these are also routes via West Africa. Just like the 18th century opium trade - legally set up and run by the British - the cocaine business is now a part of the global economy.
The Latin American producers are at the start of the export routes and at the end of the repression routes. The continuous war on drugs raging in the US is a dubious concept. It is a mix of hard line domestic justice (resulting in an abnormally large prison occupation), quasi military interventions on the ground in Latin America and blurred political agendas in Washington.
Liberals have for a long time pointed out that this prohibition doesn’t work or will never work, just like the ban on alcohol failed in the twenties. Of course the interventions in Latin America are the most controversial. In interventions in internal conflicts, often ideological in origin, the US chooses sides, consciously or not, between leftist guerillas and right wing paramilitary groups, between a post-conquista, quasi white bourgeoisie and an ignored ethnic minority.
What is more, these interventions often have a devastating effect on the environment, especially the large scale toxic destruction of the coca plantations. In theory, a policy of replacing plants was often talked about, in reality this has seldom worked, mainly for economic reasons.

Cuatro

Immigration and cocaine have defined the major schisms between the US and Latin America. Europe is somewhere in the middle. Culturally there is still some affinity with the old continent. The ruling class still pride themselves on their Spanish origin and the political and judiciary systems are often based on European equivalents. But politically Europe is not active enough to maintain any of the links.
There is great solidarity between societies and Europe is a leader in Fair Trade with the continent. Nonetheless culturally Latin America is dominated by the US but it is adding its own accents and starting a reciprocal cultural relationship.
The television landscape is dominated by popular US productions, but on the other hand, the tragi-tearjerking telenovelas are proving to be a massive success in the US. Until recently Latino actresses, actors and musicians were reduced to stereotypes. But now there are cross over superstars like Shakira, who remains completely Latina in the South and is completely integrated in the North.
Spanish is rapidly becoming the second language in large parts of the US. It has been so for a while in Texas and the southwest. Now this evolution is spreading from Georgia to Chicago. In New York it is perfectly possible to live normally speaking only Spanish, even when contacting the local administration (which routinely works in 15 languages, an interesting reference for Belgian problems seen as insolvable). An old joke goes that in Miami you can still find here and there a shop where people speak English. Even in subways in Chicago, all signs are bilingual English and Spanish.

Cinco

In September 2009 during the General Assembly of the United Nations, I heard two consecutive speeches. The first one was given by President Lula (as tradition demands, Brazil opens the debate), followed by president Obama’s speech (as host the US gets the second place).
Both were completely different.
Obama spoke, with his usual skill, about ideals; Lula was more concrete and spoke about achievements. In the eighties, when I was travelling through Brazil, the Brazilians mocked themselves by describing their land as the eternal future that never seemed to start. Now it seemed that it was the US that was at a standstill.
Between Obama and Lula, I suddenly felt that Latin America was waking up. The role of Washington remains important, and ideological differences are still present, often quite vociferous. But there seems to be hope for a middle way between the old slogans of left and right; between dictatorship, popularism and genuine democracy. In particular: the debate is becoming the Latinos’ business and the continent is finding its own dynamic. The dollar and Hollywood will remain popular, but an authentic emancipation is taking place.
When I exited the UN building, I passed Evo Morales, who was leisurely crossing 1st Avenue between a couple of bodyguards, on his way to a lecture. Paparazzi were following him along the police cordon. Morales was dressed elegantly in a black tunic, embroidered at the edges. He had an ironical spark in his eye and was visibly enjoying his presence in the lion’s den.
The indigenista policy of Morales is a historical revanche. It is relevant for a lot of other countries in the region - Peru, Mexico, Ecuador and Guatemala, to name the most obvious. But is this a step towards the future or is it ultimately reactionary? A collapse into stereotypes that are now being claimed instead of imposed? Frankly, I’m not sure.

Seis

Travelling through Guatemala in the nineties, I came to the conclusion that the Latino elite - for a long time blindly supported by Washington because of … banana politics - was largely responsible for the discrimination against the Maya majority. But for that majority there was only one way forward: through education and emancipation unhampered by folklore or tradition, no matter how colourful.
A lot of local communities in Latin America still haven’t digested the Conquista of the 16th century. Their marginality was and is maintained by elites. The end of ideological conflicts does not necessarily lead to pacification but more likely to the transformation of former guerillas into common criminals. The role of the US has also left scars in this regard.
But the irony of history is that the Central American gangs that this resulted in, have now become a danger in the US itself. It will take decades before these knots of bad history will be untangled.
A lot clearer is the debate between Lula on one side – whom I, like many, see as the first intellectual socialist that the continent has produced in a long time - and the “Cubanising” tendency of someone like Hugo Chávez. But I would also like to nuance this.
Because of her specific history with the US, Cuba has many reasons to defend an identity that was built on confrontation with Washington. But does Venezuela, much richer and a lot further from the US, have anything to gain from such a confrontation? Where is the importance of the society?

Siete

On the road in Nicaragua in 1989, just before the Sandinista electoral defeat, I understood that the population had supported the revolution, but this support wasn’t very monolithic anymore and that a big part of the population was tired of slogans. A majority, it seemed. The US had supported the Contras, but that wasn’t relevant anymore.
Their own dynamic had evolved. The Sandinistas had played their role and either had to evolve or disappear. Populism will always work up to a certain point, but it is then followed by the unmasking and the settling of historical scores. Latin America is the main example of it: Argentina, Brazil, Chile…
Political machismo still plays a big role in Latin America, but it is not a given anymore. A return to unconditional gringo support for military dictatorships seems unthinkable today. But then anti-imperialism in itself does not seem to be a sufficient justification anymore. The complicated but also fascinating challenge for the region is to distil all these ingredients into a recipe for their own general well being, one that allows variations and finds international respect. Undoubtedly this interaction between the home-front and the Latino diaspora in the US will play an important role.
Like many of my generation I grew up with a romantic vision of Latin America. Pablo Neruda’s poems in Canto General still give me goose bumps. And my long and profound relationship with Cuba has always kept my anti-imperialistic sentiments alive.
But it is also an irreversible fact that many more intimate relationships have been created between North and South America. In the poetic vision, Central America was la cintura de nuestra America. Now it has become an umbilical cord, less poetic but more vital.