The Andean Republics [antikvár]

Introduction Latin America is embarked on a great undertaking: to achieve its modernization, not at the cost of freedom, but through a vast expansion of freedom. The popular faith in this purpose is so profound and so pervasive that the late President John F. Kennedy by affirming it as an underlying premise of the Alliance for Progress won a place in the Latin American temple of fame reserved for the continent's most cherished heroes—Bolívar, Marti and San Martin. There are those who contend that this grand aspiration contains a fatal flaw: that rapid economic development is incompatible with social improvement. Yet, whatever the impact of rapid economic advance will be, the overwhelming fact of contemporary Latin American history is that a fossilized social structure is crumbling before what a Latin American statesman has characterized as a "final assault in the age-old battle for the equality of all men." Nowhere in Latin America is the ferment for social progress more evident than in the Andean countries covered in this book. Chile's Christian Democratic Party, which came to power in 1964 on the promise of "revolution with freedom," has since won an absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies. It has an unprecedented opportunity to extend the benefits of democracy, which have heretofore been reserved for the privileged, to all the people of the nation. Bolivia, whose revolution of 1952 forever separated it from a feudal past, may have suffered a setback in 1964 through a military coup. But, as the writer of this book observes, "the forces for change set in motion by the revolution will almost certainly continue to move inexorably toward the ultimate goal—rehabilitation of the long-repressed Indian population and development of the nation's economy." Peru's Government, led by the Acción Popular party, is committed to a "revolutionary reform of national structures." It inherited this purpose from an older party, the APRA, which is still a powerful force in the country. It seems inevitable, with these parties on the scene, that the large Indian population is destined to be given genuine citizenship and to be incorporated at last into Peruvian society. In Ecuador the pressures for change are still diffused. That they exist with great force, however, is unquestionable; organization and articulation are bound to emerge and channel these pressures into a powerful social and political force. It is the particular merit of this excellent and readable book that it captures the accents of the changes sweeping the Andean countries. The men, the movements and the aspirations that are transforming these countries are presented with exceptional skill. And, as is perhaps always the case, when change is understood the past is seen in fresh perspective, and culture and even geography become alive. The readers of this book will discover the vitality of a newly emerging civilization. The Spanish conquest produced a tricolored spectrum of humanity in the Andes—white, mestizo and Indian—and a confrontation of indigenous and Western cultures that if often fruitful was also productive of injustice. The Spaniards used the color spectrum to impose a rigid social scale and employed the differences of culture as an instrument of subordination. But where conquest and empire divided, freedom has increasingly served to unite. First came independence; then a growing belief in ideals of social justice. Now the business at hand is to create modern, democratic nations. All these movements have served to break down the old Spanish racial and cultural stratifications. In the end, if freedom is preserved, neither the white man nor the mestizo nor the Indian will triumph—rather, it will be a triumph for humanity. Ben S. Stephansky former U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia