BOOK REVIEW- “Open Veins of Latin America” by Eduardo Galeano
“Open Veins of Latin America, Five centuries of the pillage of a continent”- just from the title one can determine a socialist, activist, anti-everything mentality. With Hugo Chavez, the very dead once brutal and moronic dictator of Venezuela who caused of so much suffering, giving his endorsement saying, “This book is a monument in our Latin America history” one also automatically knows that the radical agenda in this read will be completely ill-suited for the advancement of civilization and human beings in general. The forward written by Isabel Allende also strongly endorses this book, which is a war statement by Galeano against the western culture and very existence of the United States of America, the very place that Allende lives in today and enjoys the sacrificed blood of my compatriots for the Freedom she can exploit. Her gushing praise for this book should be moment of her own self examination and contemplation in living those values. If she truly believes in the values presented by Galeano then why does she stay in my country? With this said, lets start reading the book and keeping the author accountable to his gross miss-interpretations and blatant miss-understanding of reality.
Chapter one is called “Mankind’s poverty as a consequence of the wealth of the land” reads as the greatly miss-quoted Peruvian catchall phrase of their countrymen being “Peasants sitting on a throne of gold”. First off, economic reality of resources do not come without education, planning, hard work, and advancement of the host country, spanning the needs for infrastructure and training of the workers. Eduardo Galeano will attempt to take Old World reality of the Americas exploration and exploitation to the current economic conditions of the past few decades, something that clearly makes false conclusions that appeal to the illiterate in the emotion of being a victim and seeking retribution. This is the mantra of the Catholic Church, stealing the lives of people in exchange for the promise of heaven while keeping them poor and suffering. Industry uplifts countries and people whereas religion suppresses them. The first chapter reads full of negative sentiment with history of Spain and Europe constantly expressed as events of degradation, failures, and exploitation, and yet the world advanced just the same, it has become better. The “wealth” of mining in South America, particularly the incredible deposit of Potosi in Bolivia, is painted as source of suffering, of Latin America being left out of advancement during removal of the silver, and yet without the mines new roads, cities, and other infrastructure would not have been built. Mining is the source of all comforts, luxuries, necessities, and foundation of human civilization. It has had its past mistakes, but nonetheless our survival depends on mining. Eduardo Galeano would try to convince the reader that mines only benefits a select few. I strongly contest this hypothesis, and counter that if it were not for the mineral deposits and mining of them, South America would remain sparsely inhabited and a backwards place. Universities in South America began with training engineers and metallurgist to advance the mines, that subsequent numerous generations can deviate from this venture in “social sciences” and environmental studies was only made possible by mining in the first place. Teaching that mines are evil by professors and the media attest to ignorance from which all knowledge of humankind developed from.
The subsection called “The Silver Cycle: the Ruin of Potosi” shows Galeano inherent ignorance. All mines are finite, their resources end, and the city of Potosi is not a ruin, it was a great mineral deposit, and the buildings preserved there today are a wonder to behold. It is geography of the place being high and cold that places limits on development, not the mine. People in general want to live where the climate is nicer and where things grow. Using this as an example of the shortcoming of mining, capitalism, and blaming the ills on everyone is a classic logic red herring. Potosi was highly successful despite the brutal timing in history that saw its mining with primitive methods which in turn costs many lives. What matters is that people have learned from the mistakes and things have improved. Galeano contends that Potosi’s great wealth has done nothing for Bolivia, and that the way it was mined and the place abandoned is to blame for the country being the poorest in South America. Galeano doubles down by repeating his strategy using mines by discussing the history of Ouro Preto in Brazil– the very same tactic. Why be so negative about Potosi and mining except to buttress Galeano’s other bizarrely misguided concepts about reality. I would counter that it is perpetuated human customs of corruption that has kept Bolivia poor. If the United States were to govern there for a couple of generations it would become a First World country.
Galeano uses the first chapter to bombard the reader with historical value judgments disguised as “facts” that nobody has the time to check to see if he is quoting the events correctly while presenting them as cases of injustice and violation. The regrettable agonies of conquest that the Native Americans experienced is stated as an injustice of capitalism, while it rather was the result of world conditions. The practices of the day were not made in any other way than wars in Europe, or as tribes in Africa would treat one another. People were brutal in the past, it is people, not capitalism to blame. The displaced indigenous cultures were equally brutal in their own fashion with human sacrifices and macabre punishments. Many topics are covered in chapter one that reads more like propaganda than history.
So why start reading chapter 2? It is called “King sugar and other agricultural monarchs”. Many more exploitation facts are presented in series using again human industry and value creation for a mechanism to denounce capitalism. Again, the historic context is given that has little to do with 1970 reality or that of today. Galeano attempts to incite outrage in reader with highly negative framing of events, such as this line on the sugary industry “The land was devastated by this selfish plant which invaded the New World…” Yes, devastated- nobody can live there anymore, the world is crap. See how bad the system is? Only thing is today Earth is still green. His concept of devastation is miss-applied, it is miss-leading. The weaker mind may go along with these arguments instead of questioning his pronounced outcomes. Yes, things have changed, and will continue to do so. As one geology professor once said, the changes that humans make are natural because humans evolved on Earth and are part of the system, therefore what we do is part of nature. We are learning and improving. Mistakes were made. The errors are not permanent with the exception of extinctions, which we today still make poor management of, mainly because of certain communistic cultures, name it as China, provide economic incentives to destroy animals for primitive and unscientific beliefs in medical benefits.
The story of agriculture in the Americas also is intermingled with another great human mistake of slavery- this injustice too is employed by Galeano to support his arguments against capitalism, which means that he too seeks to benefit from and exploit the concept and history of slavery to convince people in his equivocal philosophy. Sugar, rubber, cotton, it is all presented as being evil, as exploitation, and yet, people want this stuff. I am sure Galeano used both sugar and cotton during his life, and it came from the labor of others. It is part of the socialist/communist merry-go-round of attempting to equalize wealth, and thereby share in the work of others, to take something from somebody else. In today’s world of the extreme one percent wealth the concepts in “Open Veins of Latin America” may appear universal, that we are all slaves and exploited by Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, and yet everyone chooses to participate. Plenty of people in Latin America happily using WhatsApp. One may be sure that Galeano would append his book with tech and make the same arguments as he does with mining and agriculture. Trouble is, life has become easier, information nearly free and instant, and the innovation that rewards those entrepreneurs and catapults them to being super wealthy then is resented, attempted to be redistributed, but nobody wants to give up the advancements they have to use now. Just like people still wanted their sugar in the past, or metals from mines to make plow-blades and hardware for constructing houses. What is the same between mining, agriculture, and tech is those that organize the industry do benefit more than the users who are idle and simply consume the products. Not everybody has the same capability or motivation, people are different and therefore the compensation is scaled differently. The trick is halting any unfair practices, to keep the corrupt nature of Latin America behavior out of capitalism and society in general. It is when people cheat that things are unfair, the example from today is immigrants entering the United States of America, illegally, climbing the wall, running across the border, they are cheating and taking advantage of those that are following the legal framework to apply for a VISA.
Chapter two’s early historic human enterprises is laden with negative connotations- the land raped, devastated, decayed, ruined, it is amazing that given such cataclysmic destruction by capitalism that Eduardo Galeano was ever born into the daylight instead of the perpetual hell he depicts from his very own ancestors. He actually used the term “resplendent corpse” to describe Trinidad. He equivocally extols the advancement of Cuban socialism which in truth is just another Banana Republic dictatorship that is doomed to fail. While discussing the glorious advances of the Cuban Revolution, Galeano does not mention Russian intervention, or the name of Kennedy, giving us an unparalleled example of history censorship.
And so it goes, throughout the rest of the book Galeano charges the USA accumulation of wealth as being from the exploitation of Latin America- not giving any credit to the very fact the USA wealth comes largely through domestic enterprises and skillful use of our own resources. The entire work of Galeano is a long list of painted injustices, failed peasant revolutions, sadistic Latino on Latino violence, and blaming the rich and other nations for all failures. The amount of negativity, the constant portrayal of doom makes reading this book a real downer.
Several times Galeano discusses the terrible working conditions of miners in the Andes, how they are abused, suffering, etc., but not once does he draw a comparison to what other employment venues pay and their working conditions. The fact is mining typical pays several times more than all other employment types, that is why people engage the hard work. Even more ridiculous is how Galeano on one hand presents mine workers as abused and in the other hand berates big mining companies for mechanization that cuts the number of jobs- he cannot not have it both ways, but that is a typical socialist disconnect in logic. He covers the major mining nationalization events, and fully admits that the Comibol Bolivian state miner has equally made poor conditions for the workers (this continues to this very day, whereas if the mines were held by international companies they would met the safety and environmental standards that has defined mining as a responsible endeavor over these last thirty years). He also describes in a section about Bolivia tin creating great wealth and injustices of the mining sector operated by the owner Simón Iturri Patiño. Later we will be doing a full book review about the mining history of Patiño, a book we bought in Bolivia, published in Bolivia, in Spanish, and a work that would appear to take more pride in the country’s mining history than Galeano can give credit for. Finally, for all the negative slamming of mining, Galeano’s very book could never be published without mining.
Even though this book is nearly 50 years old it is still worth putting the work into its proper place- incorrect. Eduardo Galeano slams my nationality, country, and culture, claiming that capitalism has exploited all those involved. The opposite is true for life in the United States, we respect each other, we follow the laws, and because of this the United States of America is the world’s most desired place to live. Unlike South American countries, I trust the police in the U.S.A., and in the U.S.A., people help one another. In South America people treat strangers with apathy. It is time for Latin America to own up to the fact that their own behaviors and treatment of people is the cause of their own problems and no longer point the finger of blame elsewhere. It is the near constant corruption and attempts at taking advantage of one another in South America that keeps it in the Third World. If the United States of America governed South America the entire place would be a First World country. How opposite the reality is from what “Open Veins of Latin America” paints. This book has retarded the development of Latin America by not challenging people to become accountable for their own actions and efforts. The “disadvantages” are not external, South America has incredible geography, many rich aspects of culture and history, its advancement is a question of not playing the role of the victim and seeking a welfare type handout, which is strongly embedded in many Latin America countries. It means disposing dictators, it means rejecting corruption, it means supporting education, and demanding the rule of law. The bent towards socialism does nothing towards any of these important pillars of decent civilization. Latin America has made its own mess and the place is overdue to grow up, pick up their own trash, and stop looking for slights and handouts. But we all know that Latin America will choose the lazy path by continuing with stealing, bribery, and cheating.
Everything in Galeano’s view is less, is doomed, is unjust. He can find no decency nor good in the world. “Open Veins of Latin America” is perhaps the most depressing and negative monologue in history. Being as such, I cannot recommend reading it to anyone. A better option must surely be out there to influence positive changes.
James M. Wise- March, 2019
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South America seems to refuse to show its inexhaustible creative force.
