Latin American perspectives; Politics of exile

Latin American perspectives a program of comment and analysis about current Latin American problems and their historical setting. A commentator for these programs is Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. Here now is Dr. Gardner. Of course you've heard the expression comes the revolution. Sometimes it's used in that completely humorous fashion. That means a spoof is in the offing. And then you heard comes the revolution with all the ominous overtones suggestive that the world is about to be overrun by international communism. And then too you've heard comes the revolution as an introduction to a tragic comedy sequence in some Latin American country. Today I would like to indicate that perhaps yet another meaning can be applied to comes the revolution. First though I would remind you that we in this country have for a long time proud

of our inheritance from Britain come to accept certain things as part of the routine of life. I refer to the inheritance of a capacity for self-government. The inheritance of respect for law the inheritance of the dignity of individual and now in one area and another of our own life and in wider areas of the British Commonwealth and in Britain itself. Most of the very fundamentals the foundation stones of what we considered our inheritance are at stake indeed in jeopardy. Think for a moment of that ideal and very populous colony in Africa that became independent. I refer to Nigeria. This area was once considered the future hope of the British way of life in Africa. And in recent years we have seen it

fall asunder. We know that in these closing weeks of 1967 Britain has dedicated herself to a fast withdrawal from a portion of Arabia that suggests that there is an evil day of reckoning to come in the not distant future. We know too that given the racism of South Africa there has never been quality before the law for many individuals. There is never been an elementary dignity of the individual. For many there has been no participation in self-government. We know in a day in time when Britain has taken a moral stand against Southern Rhodesia that that country is now coming to thrive and Britain literally is on the financial rocks. We read in the press of the difficulties those in Canada who are asked to

place a small unwanted children in foster homes as they have found it necessary to export children who are black are colored from Canada because they are not wanted in any of the homes of that entire English founded state. We know too that Australia given a fear of yellow peril in Asia and Southeast Asian quarters is still without any demonstrably identification with what becomes the announced American purpose in Vietnam. A great deal of confusion results in these British areas of the world about what the way of life is at the moment and what the prospect is for sizable segments of the population in these various states. I repeat that in that we have as time has marched on as the industrial revolution and its social political effects of

Martin come to depart further and further from the prospect of meaningful self-government respect for law a dignity of the individual. At the same time that this is happened in so many British areas of the world it is noteworthy that south of the border in more than one area. But let me for our purposes today cite only Mexico. We have south of the border come to see degrees of social amalgamation of racial assimilation of cultural unity such as betoken harmonious whole. The idea that a nation is truly a unit that it has a common denominator and a purposeful prospect that suggests that Harmony will prevail in the future. We have not exactly indulged in our country the view that

the only good Indian is a dead Indian. But we did so create and retain chasms between native cultures and that of the incoming English people that we had an automatic superior inferior relationship. We have not sought true reconciliation. Rather there has been victory for one humiliation for the other. Culturally economically and otherwise. To the south of us in Mexico there has been across the years the move to bring about the existence of a cultural common denominator. Some of this arose early in 16th century years when with the Virgin of Guadalupe there was an Indian representation of the mother of Christ. This allowed the Indians to so

identify themselves with the white man's religion that it was no longer solely a white man's religion. This I would indicate was as early as a 16th century an indication of a unifying factor that was to play a role that would insinuate itself meaningfully in the Mexican life for generations to come. In more recent times. One can point to Mexican art and see yet another of these culturally unifying factors. If you look to the campuses are the murals of a Diego Rivera or any of the other foremost Mexican arts artists you find at once. But there has been portrayed on both canvases and on those walls. A Mexican who is neither completely Indian nor completely Spanish but who has in this social amalgamation in this racial assimilation produced a measure

of cultural unity that suggests that there is no forthcoming revolution in Latin America because there is a harmonization. Now when I say Latin America I again refer to specific areas and we will say this in reference to the stability and the hope that Mexico has come to demonstrate in recent decades the. Situation here at home on the other hand is one where in the divisive has been augmented and the unifying has been denied. And so we find that despite all that we say in reference to the dignity of individual the rule of law equality of the races and mouthing such phrases as race color creed making no distinction that we

have as it were set up these words as a false statement against the reality that is an obvious contradiction. One rather hopes that in the years to come. But here in the United States there may be reason to look to the south. And I mean not to Mississippi but to Mexico and learn some of this the underlying lesson that is implicit in the respect for that which is different the according of dignity to that which has previously been deplored and in consequence achieving a sense of unity that will make for reconciliation. This becomes one of the major issues apparently in our life today whether it is reconciliation of military

and diplomatic outlook in the resolution of a problem in Vietnam or whether it is resolution of economic aspiration social desire of people of different color on the home front. There is a need for. It reconciliation but of course the truth of the matter is reconciliation becomes a difficult concept for us because it implies that there once had been a harmonious whole that somehow there has been a breakdown in the relationship and now we have to be able to find the way back to the reestablishment of it. But the truth is that historically we were never prepared by our mother country for coping with variation of culture with differences of color. We have been put strictly on our own. There is nothing in our historical heritage that suggests that we have been bequeath used anything like tolerance and understanding in reference to diversity of race

diversity of culture. This was one of the blind spots in terms of the cultural arrogance of the English. They bequeath to dust a full measure of it. And it is not for us as we try for reconciliation of race reconciliation of rural and urban issues. Reconciliation of so much that is divergent in American life. It is for us to find a way initially because we have never known it in the past. If then there be within the historical experience that we have known nothing that is helping us to this to the solution of the present problem it is well for us to consider any and every area of the world in which there may be in their historical experience something that may be helpful to us. And I do submit that in the issue of race relations the

Brazilians have lessons to teach us in the signification of the individual in the social amalgamation. The Mexicans have lessons that can be taught us. All of this then rather comes to the conclusion that the United States itself. Is the area in which the revolution is coming. It can be the continuing revolution of bloodshed of belligerent unwillingness to seek accommodation or it can be the kind of revolution that finds us realising that somehow beyond the pale of our experience is something that we need that we who have for so long then looked up to in varying ways must now in turn be willing to look to others. And if this be so where we look is important and that for which we look is

important we must have the recognition of the need. And there must be a certain humility that attends our search for solution because given a totally blank past we do have a sheet that is to be written upon. And if the present record is one that is inviting confusion it is well to suggest that there is a second side to that sheet that we can turn and do a better job and perhaps pick up some information some encouragement from areas to the south. This was Latin American perspectives with Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. Your house for our next program when Dr. Gardner will examine another aspect of life in Latin America. Latin American perspective is produced and recorded by station WFIU FM at Southern Illinois University and is distributed by the national educational

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