Artikkelit Tammikuu 1/97

Nationalism and Continentalism in Latin American History

The main object of this paper is to analyze and periodize the development of Latin American political unity, understood as Continental Utopia . The paper aims at finding the historical 'idea', and through theories of nationalism, the basic elements of national/continental identity in Latin American history. I also will question the relevance of Eurocentric and imported liberal elements as the only essence of Latin American political communities. From this point of view, I will apply the general theory of nationalism to larger communities than a nation (continentalism as a specific variant of nationalism in Latin America), although the word continent itself is antagonistic to the idea of the territorially limited and ethnically identified concept of nation(-state). This short paper, thus, aims at challenging the traditional idea of a sovereign nation-state, the Latin American republic, as also too Eurocentric. Because the history of "globalization" has, up to now, been determined by hegemonic centers of power, the question of modern transnationalization is also addressed as a question of the expansion of Western values into Latin America.

Continentalist Tradition in Latin America

The concept of 'continentalism' is used here in the following way: at the beginning of the nineteenth century, shortly after the outburst of Latin American independence movements, many ideas circulated in South America to create a federal republic in the style of the United States of America. These ideas were logical because of the many concrete facts in Latin America which favoured this kind of development. Many historians have even written that the project for a federal state in Latin America was easier to imagine than in the United States. When the Spanish colonies in America won their independence, they were wealthier and had more competent administrations than the United States. Also, their supply of cheap labour was relatively greater than that of the thirteen North-American colonies.(1) The best known of these efforts to promote political unity was Simón Bolívar's continental utopia.

Bolívar developed his project by underlining the Spanish tradition and the obvious common historical background of each new republic. In the first and last attempt of founding the United States of South America (Panama Congress in 1826), Bolívar's ideas were contested by the leading regional elites, who believed that they would be able to guarantee better their economic and political interests in independent nations than in a larger but geographically split federal state. Similarly, the international policy of Great Britain opposed strongly this kind of federation; for example, Argentinian representatives never participated in Bolívar's Congress because of British political and economic pressures.

Thus, the Spanish colonies in the Americas were to split into more than twenty independent republics. However, the idea of political unity never died. The Portuguese colonial domain, Brazil, was not divided into smaller states, while, in the north, the existence of the United States strongly reminded the Latin American republics of the advantages of political unity. We can easily find in the modern history of Latin America a large number of efforts at regional cooperation or inter-state pacts. 

The strongest renaissance of the idea of continental unity took place at the beginning of this century, and now it also meant something different and more. It was different because the strengthening political and economic influence of the United States was now understood as a new imperialist danger and, also, because the nation-building processes had been started intensively by liberal and positivist elites in almost all Latin American countries at the end of the nineteenth century. In this way, there was a growing interest, especially in intellectual circles, in new definitions of the political community and national identity.

The building of continental, and not merely national, identity was first reflected in arielism which created a new definition for Latin America, to counteract the materialist values of the North. The term "Ariel" originated from the same named book of José Enrique Rodó, which was was first published in 1900. Although Ariel was not the only vehicle for carrying anti-positivist or anti-US ideas in Latin America(2), it came to be a symbol of one generation. This arielist generation was the first to start the struggle against the authoritarian modernization of the earlier positivist, 'scientific' and liberal generation.

Rodo's book was dedicated to the youth of America. It searched for a Latin American spirit, by identifying 'spirit' with a revised sense of race and with the humanistic values of Hispanic and Latin cultures. Even more than that, Rodó attacked the pragmatism and utilitarianism of North America, and even criticized the democratic mediocrity of the United States. Thus it gave the Latin American intellectuals an excellent basis for differentiating and defending 'their' America.(3) The need for that kind of 'Latin' declaration was obvious. Intellectuals all over the continent adopted Rodó's ideas to reject nordomanía (mania for the north) or the uncritical admiration of the United States which was common in the earlier liberal and positivist generation. As William Rex Crawford, a North American historian, puts it: "Even a patriotic North American becomes a little uneasy at the continued panegyrics of his country in the pages of Sarmiento, Lastarria, and Bilbao".(4) They were Latin American liberals from the nineteenth century.

For the analysis of Latin American identity, the basic problem of Rodó's book was its obvious Eurocentrism, its 'Latinism'. Rodó's, and other arielists' 'inheritance of race' referred only to the Hispanic past, to the Greco-Roman and Christian civilizations and not to indigenous American(5) culture. The book did not include indigenous or black culture, nor did it even mention any Latin American thinker, although its pages are full of names of philosophers of Europe, especially of ancient Greece.

Nevertheless, arielism changed the content of continentalism. If the Latin American liberal intellectuals of the nineteenth century were looking for the models of unity from the North, the arielist intellectuals returned back to Europe, forgetting and forgiving the sad memories of Iberian colonialism. The next step was to look inside, into Latin America, and to develop a more "authentic" continental identity.

Thus, in spite of its Eurocentrism, the basic influence of arielism was the invention of a new continental identity. This was very different from the nationalist way of thinking about unity, that is to look for an alliance of independent states, which was, in fact, the only existing "continentalism" after Bolívar: a federalist or unionist utopia of the liberals of the nineteenth century. After arielism, however, it is possible to start to refer to some kind of autochthonous Latin American continentalism.(6) During the first decades of twentieth century, arielism changed little by little into a more politically oriented anti-imperialism and Indo-Americanism. The best-known proponents of continentalism were leftist anti-imperialist, but not communist(7) intellectuals of the 1920s.

The lack of national identities in Latin America was strongly emphasized by these intellectuals. Perhaps the most continentalist definitions came from those intellectuals who identified themself as indigenistas or indo-americanists, or from those who spoke on behalf of mestizaje (racial mixture). They also presented a fervent anti-European thinking, with many of them emphasizing cyclic or organic historical theories in a Spenglerian way.

Within the limits of this paper, it is only possible to mention some representatives of continentalism. Perhaps the most famous 'Spenglerian' was the Mexican philosopher and post-revolution minister of education, José Vasconcelos. He invented the concept of 'cosmic race', which simply meant the historical mixture of all Latin American ethnical and cultural elements(8). According to Vasconcelos, this kind of racial mestizaje would lead automatically to a superior world-culture and also to the formation of a continental political community, precisely because the best elements of previous world traditions had met in Latin America. Thus, in Vasconcelos' utopian scenario, some kind of Latin American continental state would be the largest and, completely in accordance with arielism, the most ethical world-superpower of the future.

Following after Rodó and Vasconcelos, the Peruvian Manuel Seoane wrote about negative and positive nationalism. For Seoane, negative nationalism was a chauvinist and belligerent factor in global history, which has led the world to catastrophies such as the First World War. Positive nationalism, however, meant continental nationalism, which was not intrinsically hostile to the most ethical values of nationalism. For Seoane, these noble values were those which would make Peruvians, for example, moral continental and anti-imperialist citizens. Seoane also attacked internationalism and Pan-Americanism (in detail, see p. 8), because they lack the 'real sentimental basis', which is needed for the construction of identity and political community.(9)

Antenor Orrego, a Peruvian philosopher, went back to the indigenous past. He argued, this time against arielism, that European traditions in Latin America have been even more destructive for the well-being of the continent than US-imperialism. Orrego rejected 'intellectual Eurocentrism' by emphasizing that European decadence and vices have to be replaced by 'authentic americanism', which is not only indigenismo (10), but also a synthesis of different continental (non-European) cultural and intellectual elements(11). 

Orrego is perhaps the 'most continentalist' of the continentalists because he rejected all Latin American 'national cultures' as artificial or colonial. Thus, for him, continentalism is something more than just a mixture of different nationalities: It is the synonym of Latin American nationalism, "lo nacional es lo americano"(12) (nation-ness is American-ness). To take an example of his thinking in the area of arts:

"Los pueblos americanos están llamados a formar un vasto bloque racial, con una cultura y un pensamiento de conjunto y nunca con artes exclusivos y nacionales. Pretender un peruanismo, un argentinismo o un chilenismo en el arte es sencillamente necio".(13)

Continentalist ideas of anti-imperialist intellectuals did not normally have many direct results or effects on the concrete political level. During the 1920s the most promising effort of political organization was APRA movement, the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana or American Popular Revolutionary Alliance. It was founded in Mexico City in 1924, by the exiled Peruvian Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, as a continental political movement against political and economic imperialism. During the period 1924-1930, the apristas tried to organize a concrete continental political movement for Latin America. APRA´s maximum (continental) program of 1924 was synthesized into five points which demanded Latin American political unity; opposition to "yankee-imperialism"; nationalization of land and industries; internationalization of the Panama Canal and solidarity of all the oppressed people. The aim was to organize a separate national party/branch in each Latin American country applying the aprista doctrine in local circumstances. During the 1920s, the movement had branches in most Latin American countries, and even in Paris and London.

In 1927 Haya de la Torre separated the movement clearly from the international communist movement because he was convinced, after his visits to Europe and Soviet Russia, that marxism was a too Eurocentric theory to be applied in Latin American circumstances. APRA´s ideology became middle-class oriented and the new Partido Aprista Peruano (Peruvian Aprista Party, PAP), founded in 1930, was searching for the united front of manual and intellectual workers. After this period, APRA´s concrete political action became clearly Peruvian (national).(14)

In this context, it is also important to mention that arielist, anti-imperialist, indoamericanist and "continentalist" ideas of unity presented here, all are antagonistic to the Pan-Americanist project. This project covers all the "double-continent" of America, and was clearly invented and imposed by the United States, firstly through the all-American opposition to the Holy Alliance in the form of Monroe Doctrine(15). Later Pan-Americanism signified US dollar diplomacy, Theodore Roosevelt´s "Big Stick" foreign policy and US military interventions in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.(16) Pan-Americanism was also a conservative reaction against the politically radical, continental anti-imperialism. Briefly, Pan-Americanism is not a Latin American idea, although there has always been Latin American support for it from the political right or US puppet dictators. Even more importantly from a historical point of view, there was not a clear aspect of "identity" in the Pan-American project, although some might argue that US-americanism is today part of the Latin American identity, or vice versa.(17)

What happened then to these continental utopias? Before trying to answer this question, it is necessary to compare the continental idea to the general idea of nation by going back to the theories of nationalism.

Nation, Nationalism and State as Historical Problems in Latin America

Determining the character of nation and nationalism has proven to be an extremely difficult theoretical task. Steven Palmer, a Canadian historian, gives us an historiographical example: 

In 1926 Carlton Hayes declared of the nation that "there is no agreement as to precisely what it is". In 1977, after fifty years of rather extensive studies of the phenomenon from various perspectives, Hugh Seton-Watson would conclude that "no scientific definition of the nation can be devised". At approximately the same time, Tom Nairn prefaced his attempt to formulate a more compelling marxist analysis of the nation by declaring that the inability of marxism to develop a theory of nationalism was its greatest historical failure. Despite this rather unusual level of theoretical confusion concerning a problem of such universal importance, there is broad agreement on the centrality of certain elements common to nationalism and the historical constitution of nations.(18)

Most thinkers have located the emergence of nationalism in the amalgamation of Enlightenment notions of popular sovereignty, the Kantian idea of rational individual self-determination, as applied to the political community, and the Romantic (first especially Herderian, later Hegelian) idea that a political community evolves organically and expresses a singular essence through that evolution Ñ that each "national culture" has its own form. Historiographically, it is possible to find a German nationalist tradition, which emphasizes cultural and ethnic aspects (Volk), and West European tradition, which originates from the French Revolution´s concept of the territorial nation-state and underlines the importance of historical nation-building processes(19). And often forgotten by the theorists of nationalism, there is also original American 'national' tradition, which originates in the independence of the United States (federalism) and continues in Latin American creole republicanism.

Among most theorists of nationalism, there is also a general agreement that nationalism does not appear on the stage of global history until the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and that its initial justification in popular sovereignty has close links to Enlightenment thought. From the nineteenth century onwards, nationalism became an indispensable cultural and political framework in which the rise of the secular state and a transition to capitalism, in political units, was promoted the world over.(20)

The nationalist process arose in the context of the breakdown of institutions which, in agrarian societies, channelled senses of belonging in a more intimate or personalist manner. The emergence of capitalism and the secular state is considered to be a central element in the erosion of such institutions and beliefs. When these "traditional" systems were changing, nationalism was discovered as a kind of 'civic religion'(21) by secular, mostly liberal and positivist, elites.

In the Latin American case we have to study how these new 'modern' values were introduced into non-Western cultures by secular intelligentsias. Modernization theorists have interpreted the spread of nationalism in terms of a lineal diffusion outward from the centers of modernity in Western Europe; first into Central and Eastern Europe and then into the rest of world. Outside Europe nationalism is thus mostly imitated and transplanted, and its success depends often on the degree to which political units (countries, states, regions) can match the levels of modernity and industrialization achieved in the West.(22)

Also in the Latin American independent republics, which followed after the American and French revolutions, nationalism was almost invariably adapted and introduced by groups of secular intellectuals. They were first fighting for political independence and then interested in promoting what they understood to be "progressive" or "modern".

On the other hand, this process is more complicated for Latin America in that, at least, the process has to be revised chronologically. An equally well justified claim could be that Latin American creole intellectuals participated intensively in the birth of modernization. This is logical. Counterrevolutionary Europe, as in the spirit of the Holy Alliance, was not the only centre of modernization. One only needs to compare the degree of 'modern values' in the constitutions of European monarchies with the constitutions of Latin American republics during the first half of nineteenth century. 

And even more, it is possible to go more far and put all "upside down". Perhaps Latin America is also the first "post-modern" continent, the continent, which never experienced a completed "modern" project, but is now the only really "postmodern" geographical space through its fragmented elements as mestizaje.(23) It has been repeatedly shown that the state preceded the nation in Latin America(24). When most countries of the area achieved political independence from Spain and Portugal in the early nineteenth century, the ideas of nationalism and and the formation of nation-states were just beginning to emerge as new central forces of political community. Under the influence of the Enlightenment and the American and French revolutions, leaders of independence movements in Latin America were clearly more inspired by concepts of economic liberty and political sovereignty than by the ideal of creating a 'cultural nation-state' that had inspired the imaginations and struggles of the romantic European nationalists in later decades. Therefore, the relation between the state and nation in Latin America differs somehow from that of other continents. The process of independence in Latin America created states without any defined national identity. The frontiers of these new-born states were not based on racial or linguistic homogeneity but on an administrative system of viceroyalties formed by imperial Iberian bureaucracy. In Europe, and later also in many parts of Asia and Africa, this process happened the other way round. The central aspiration of national movements was the formation of a sovereign state. In synthesis, the historical object of Latin American state was the invention of nation. In almost all cases this invention of national tradition was made by official state-oriented nationalism after the 1850s.

Most Africanists or Asianists might argue against this interpretation. Also in Europe, there are many examples of similiar nation-building processes inside the existing state (France, Britain). Compared to Africa or to Asia, the Latin American case is, however, different. To mention only one difference: political independence came earlier into America than into other colonial continents. Undoubtedly, local elites had more possibilities for the political action inside 'their own' independent state. If they the used this opportunity badly or well is already another debate.

For the continental Latin American utopias, it seems that nationalism was much stronger than continentalism. The idea of political community in the formula of a nation-state was quite well constructed in most countries of the continent by the end of nineteenth century. Politics of social control, armies and new national institutions were developed. This model was obvious in the case official nationalisms, which were presented not only by the cultural, political and economic elites, but also by many sectors of the growing middle class. When new social groups entered into the political life of their countries at the beginning of the twentieth century, they changed the political institution of the official liberal state. Also these groups started their social struggles with the aim of participating in the construction of the imagined political community which, now, was more clearly the modern nation. Anti-imperialist continentalist thinking, including leftist political movements, played an important role in this struggle, when they strengthened the national consciousness by declaring the idea of 'we', the Latin Americans, against the 'others', the imperialists. 

Many historians have also emphasized the role of growing mass-media in the definition of the images of the emerging political community, the nation(25). The 'world around' was Latin America but the collective and communal security was found in the nation-state because continentalism was, nevertheless, a too remote abstraction. And not to be too idealistic, there were also many economic reasons for the nationalist form of the political community. For example, the monocultural export-economies in most Latin American countries did not favour any kind of regional integration. Furthermore, the Latin American republics were making many bloody wars against each other on their frontiers, when building the nations.

Thus, it is obvious that the national idea of political community was in practice much stronger than continentalist utopias of a special Latin American identity. Also it seems that this identity, today even more than previously, is stronger among the Latin Americans outside their own/original countries(26) and not exactly in Latin America.

The Death of Latin American Continentalism: Paradoxes of Modernization

Although the idea of nation-state was made a central force of polical organization also in Latin America, it is possible to establish some autonomous regional traditions of integration. The 300 years of Iberian colonialism had created in Latin America a kind of continental idea of unity. It was not accidental that the most famous American freedom fighter, Simón Bolívar, fought all his life to form the "United States of South America". This Bolivarian utopia survived in all independent countries of the continent. It never became reality but it is still present, even if rhetorically, in the official speeches of the meetings of Latin American political leaders. In this way, Latin American republics chose the European way of nation-building which was different from the model of United States, which never was a real nation-state but a melting pot or crossroad(27) of nationalities and cultures and an integrated federal state. Some might even argue that the continentalist idea is perfectly presented in the nationalism of the United States.

During the last decades, especially the idea of 'imagined communities' by Benedict Anderson has given useful tools to the study of nationalism. From the other perspective, the same kind of theory has been used by Eric J. Hobsbawm and Ernest Gellner.(28) They all share the common starting point that nationalism always precedes the idea of political community called 'nation' and that nation-building is a conscious political and cultural project, started first by intelectual elites. In applying these methodological ideas to Latin America, historical continentalism can be analyzed as an ideological mechanism of a regional 'imagined political community'. This community is larger than a nation-state, but it carries similar 'national Latin American' elements to this larger project of continent-building as it did to the traditional effort of nation-building. During this century this phenomenon has not only been Latin American, as is shown by the European Union or Soviet Union or Pan-African and Pan-Arabian(29) movements, but in the history of Latin America it is possible to find a unique and long continuum of regional integration. In the subcontinent, this process goes back to the days of the conquest and colonialism.

To periodize at a more general level, Latin American continentalism, after arielism and the anti-imperialism of the 1920s, consist of three main periods: (1) The emergence of Latin American personalist "populism", which was not always clearly continentally oriented, but included many populists, such as Juan Perón in Argentina, who were looking for continental support in almost anti-imperialist tones. (2) Different attempts at economic, and sometimes political, integration such as the Andean Pact, the Central American Common Market, ECLAC/CEPAL. These were normally pacts, agreements or institutions supported by independent states but they all carried strong continental/regional aspects. (3) The collapse of the ideas of regionalism presented by structural developmentalism and the dependency approach, and later, the effects of neo-liberal or "post-modern" globalization, such as the new-kind of market-oriented economic integration, MERCOSUR, NAFTA, AFTA.

During the 1990s, Latin American economic integration is moving into a new kind of continental bolivarism. At the same time, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is especially breaking up the traditional, often controversial and antagonistic, inter-dependent relations between the United States and Latin American national economies. Mexico's entry into the NAFTA has totally changed the old order in these relations. How is it possible that previously the most pro-continentalist country of Latin America is now having an intimate economic relation with the old 'imperialist enemy' of the North? Today, almost all countries of the Latin America are eagerly looking for the possibilities to have an autonomous position in the new economic integration of both Americas. At least, this kind of 'continentalism' is all-American. 

Perhaps the global 'market regionalism' leads us to the future of a world of continentalisms. We do not yet know if this will be a post-modern negation of modern project or just a next phase of the evolutionary 'modern'. All we can say is that in the global context the history of mestizaje, the basic 'identity aspect' of Latin American continentalism, still remains as an unwritten chapter of world history.

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Originally published by the Institute of Development Studies University of Helsinki, Working Papers (14/96) ISSN1238-898X