The Latin World
Latin America’s Oedipus complex and the magical realism of its prejudices
From Atlas of Prejudice: The Complete Stereotype Map Collection
The word Latin originally referred to people from the region of Lazio in Italy. Nowadays, especially outside of scientific context, it’s usually associated with a vast group of countries located on the other side of the globe.
Latin America is a world of paradoxes. A large part of its identity is inherited from the indigenous civilizations that inhabited the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans. But the systematic extermination of the native cultures by the colonizers turned that heritage into a petrified afterthought. Few native languages survive. Most indigenous religions were so completely obliterated by Roman Catholicism that today, almost like the term Latin, the invasive cult is often associated with the new continent, instead of its place of origin. There’s an Argentinian pontiff reigning in the Vatican, a privilege that was once reserved exclusively for Europeans. Pope Francis is as close to a pop culture phenomenon as a religious figure can be, with the Dalai Lama as his only significant rival. He had the balls to declare that according to him Europe was a “grandmother, no longer fertile and vibrant” in a speech addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
This may be way too much bravado from the head of an institution that by definition is firmly stuck in the past, but it’s perfectly in line with political thinking across the ocean. Many Americans, from US president Woodrow Wilson to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, have relished in describing the Old Continent as stagnant and backward. The insult is the karmic answer to the arrogant superiority with which Europeans treat the inhabitants of the New World.
The name-calling from both sides can occasionally spiral out of control, especially in the hands of political amateurs like Donald Trump or Evo Morales, whose flair for the ridiculous is notorious. More mainstream politicians use it sparsely because in measured amounts it serves as a handy modifier of public opinion. Europeans (and their white descendants in the prosperous USA) often point to immigration from their poorer neighbors as the root of all economic stagnation. Respectively, whenever Latin American leaders want to deflect attention from their own incompetence, their political narrative turns towards outside imperialist forces, whose supposed goal is to reestablish colonial influence in Latin America. Who cares about insignificant things like corruption when the sheep on the Falkland Islands are still under blatant British oppression? Who would hold you responsible for starving your own people with outdated economic policies if you tell them that it’s the fault of the United States? The tricks work like magic because they automatically turn a switch into the collective psyche that is conditioned to disregard the inconsistencies of any argument, as long as the specter of the external threat looms in the background.
Most countries in Latin America managed to overthrow foreign rule more than two centuries ago, earlier than many modern European states, especially those in the eastern part of the Old Continent. But their actual emancipation will remain unaccomplished until the historical memory of the European atrocities is cynically used as a tool for scaremongering.
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