The pope and Hugo Chavez contrasted
ON LATIN AMERICA
Updated 5:39 pm, Sunday, March 17, 2013
With the selection of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the new leader of the Catholic Church, Latin America has gained a powerful new actor on the world stage, just as the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sent another global player ascending into the pantheon of leftist heroes. The contrast between these two leaders could not be more stark.
When the cardinals elected the Jesuit Argentine cardinal to be the new pope, they chose a man with ties to his country's dark authoritarian past - not unlike his predecessor's ties to the Nazis. Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, was a church leader opposed to liberation theology, which encouraged the church to stand up for the poor by directly confronting the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina for much of the latter part of the 20th century.
Since then, Bergoglio has ascended to the heights of the Catholic hierarchy, while ably deflecting the Catholic Church's own complicity in the abuses and co-opting the Jesuit social justice brand. He has done this by adopting a facade of liberation theology wrapped in the trappings of humility, charity and compassion for the poor, but without its commitment to transforming the causes of poverty and inequality.
Is it too cynical to wonder whether the cardinals perhaps were looking for a more skillful public relations man than Benedict?
By contrast, Chavez was an unabashed advocate for the poor. He, too, invoked the name of Jesus Christ, but he did so in order to transform the unequal social relations that produce and reproduce power imbalances disadvantaging the poor.
Often iconoclastic - remember his 2006 appearance before the United Nations when he referred to President George W. Bush as the devil? - Chavez nevertheless embodied a very different trend coursing through Latin America today. He represents defiant demands for social justice coming from Latin America's underprivileged majority.
If policymakers thought Chavez was dangerous while alive, they should recognize he is far more dangerous now. People were drawn to Chavez because he embodied an idea - a hope, a desire - long repressed by the Bergoglios of the world. Chavez embodied the radical notion that the governments of Latin America must govern for the benefit of the poor majorities of the continent.
For Chavez, that meant enacting social policies that more democratically redistribute wealth and power. His example proved to Latin America that social transformation could come through the ballot box, and he supported Leftist movements' efforts to overcome uneven electoral playing-fields to win their countries' presidencies from El Salvador and Nicaragua, to Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia. In all of these countries, the governments significantly have increased spending on education, health care, social services and support for small businesses and local agriculture.
Emblematic of the social programs Chavez's allies have pursued is the Salvadoran Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front's literacy campaign, a mostly volunteer-based effort to reduce adult illiteracy in El Salvador. The program has already declared success in 15 of the country's poorest cities.
Chavez's willingness to confront powerful enemies, as much as his message, was important because he rose to international prominence at the height of free market orthodoxy.
It resonated with the disempowered, who saw in free-market capitalism not the answer to their underdevelopment but its cause. He inspired the poor to believe that their plight wasn't all they were destined for, that their children weren't preordained to live in squalor, that they had a right to demand more from their governments. He inspired them to believe that they, through their own organized action, could achieve that better future.
Chavez and Bergoglio: Two men who reflect opposing traditions that are vying for the very soul of Latin America. The future of the region's U.S. and global relations, as well as the future distribution of Latin America's rich resources, is held in the balance. It's time for us to reconsider which side best represents our ideals and the U.S. national interest.
Hector Perla is an assistant professor of Latin American and Latino studies at UC Santa Cruz.