Jon Lee Anderson: "We are in an era of protest and exasperation, but not of taking up arms against power"

Journalist Jon Lee Anderson speaking at the Hay Festival last November.Paul Musso / HAY FESTIVAL

The image associated with the passage of time is usually that of a line, but events rarely have a linear structure.

They are full of nooks and crannies, detours, comings and goings.

It also happens with the recent history of Latin America.

The second decade of the century, writes Jon Lee Anderson (California, 1957), "was colored by volatility, as well as by the decline or disappearance of previous trends."

The American journalist saw in it an irregular shape that ended up inspiring the title of his latest book.

The Spiral Years

(Sixth Floor) is a review of the upheavals of the continent, which the reporter knows in depth, and its protagonists.

From Colombia to Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Peru, Brazil or Argentina, Anderson recounts a world that is changing through a selection of chronicles, profiles, reports and articles originally published by

The New Yorker

magazine

.

The journalist answers the phone first thing in the morning from Chile, where he traveled after passing through Mexico.

From north to south, Latin America is always the raw material of his work.

Question.

His texts narrate some years that, as a whole, follow a not entirely clear scheme.

Do you feel that this time is over?

Reply.

Not at all.

Although the book coincides with a new ladder, which is apparently the eclipse of Trumpism in the United States, the advent of a more sensible and

mainstream

politician

,

who is Joe Biden and promises to restore a kind of order in relations with the region, which to in turn, they will probably have a beneficial effect in some respects.

Q.

Which ones?

R.

In a lowering of tone towards certain regimes, to open dialogue with countries like Venezuela and Cuba instead of resorting only to hostility.

And it will make an effort to establish cooperation guidelines on issues such as migration and drug trafficking, which will be less characterized by bullying as during the Trump era.

In any case, in Latin America, the aftermath of the spiral years continue to some extent.

Although we have seen an upturn in the so-called left, in some countries like Bolivia or as it could happen in Ecuador, we are not talking about the left of the Chavista era.

I have never proclaimed the death of the left as such, but rather a bit of the decline of that left with a claim or revolutionary verb.

The knots that have been presented are yet to be resolved.

Perhaps the largest is that of Venezuela, which is like a black hole that sucks up everything that is around it.

There are two more holes.

One would be Bolsonarismo in Brazil because of what it means in terms of the risk of extreme populism and what it means for planet Earth.

And the third would be drug trafficking, which has made a great black hole from the south of the Rio Grande to Bogotá.

P.

In the last year and a half we have seen that the new generations, those under 30 or 25, begin to act in a different way.

We saw it in Chile, although that country has a greater tradition of protest, we have seen it in Peru, in Colombia ... The book also conveys a climate of degradation of politics.

Are there reasons to trust young people for a change?

R. I

would add the guys from the San Isidro Movement in Cuba.

We are facing a phenomenon that goes beyond the borders of one country and another.

We see it on a global scale too, in Hong Kong and in some other countries.

One perceives certain traits in common, which are disillusionment with politics, of course, and a willingness to go to the streets and protest, sometimes with nihilistic aspects, sometimes with identity claims, sometimes for a subway fare increase. .

We see that there is a satiety with conventional policies, I would say that to some extent it is post-ideological.

30 years after the end of the Cold War, epithets such as

facho

and communist, although they have been raised by right-wing populists in places like Brazil, do not really make much sense to boys in their 30s and less today.

They were born after the Cold War and they don't feel the weight of that history in the same way, what they want is to live their lives and look forward.

Corruption, above all, and the lack of a rule of law has created great cynicism and disgust.

That's right.

The era of the Cold War, of revolution and counterinsurgency, was not characterized, at least openly, by the recognition of corruption to the highest levels in each Latin American country.

In the last 25 years it is what has replaced the public perception of power and this is already claiming victims.

In Peru, in Chile, in Brazil, where they voted for Bolsonaro due to the perception of corruption.

Argentina is a comic opera in the sense of corruption.

We can go across the continent and see it.

Odebrecht left sequels everywhere.

And the only countries where not, there is a kind of pact between those involved.

Or at least a scapegoat.

In Mexico they have thrown [Emilio, former director of Pemex] Lozoya into the fire and in Colombia they have closed ranks so as not to turn anyone over.

Whether this generation can achieve a necessary purge remains to be seen.

In some places it could get out of hand.

What is interesting is that we are in an era of protest and exasperation, but not of taking up arms to dislodge those in power.

Q.

Does what is happening in Cuba with the San Isidro Movement make you think that something is changing?

A.

Maybe yes.

No country is monolithic, nor is the Communist Party in Cuba.

Power is in the hands of a sixty-year-old son of the party, a somewhat gray man backed by the military and the party, but he is not imbued with the leadership and charisma of the previous era.

That makes them more bureaucratic and it shows that in this case they have opted for a series of responses.

On the one hand, negative propaganda, which actually has so little credibility, like Trump when he says he won the election.

Who is affected?

At its base.

How big is the Communist Party's base of fervent believers now?

I can't say, but I think most of them are in their sixties and up and some of those maybe not so convinced.

In any case, I believe that we are facing a generational change in Cuba.

There was a visit from Obama four years ago.

And Cubans are more globalized in their knowledge.

We are at an

impasse

where we have not yet seen the end of the road.

The fact that they have opted for propaganda and detente is interesting.

Perhaps it is an acknowledgment that your society is increasingly composed of young people who, due to their own stories, require a different response.

And this in turn could be a recognition that the party is not monolithic and that there has to be a kind of broadening of voices and concerns in the near future.

It would be healthier for Cuba.

Q.

What trace does Trump leave in Latin America?

R.

The first thing that comes to mind is a greatly diminished image of the United States.

Those who had an image of the United States as an impregnable democracy no longer have it.

It is a country with many internal problems, a sometimes corrupt justice system, the possibility of the corrupt reaching the pulpits of power, nepotism.

Trump behaved like the archetypal ugly American, bully, racist, homophobic and transactional, in the sense that he only cared about the cost-benefit ratio.

He only felt comfortable with the most authoritarian in the region and empowered them.

With Joe Biden, Latin Americans will know where to position themselves with respect to US policies, whether they are positive or criticized, but at least within a recognized convention or orthodoxy.

We all feel shaken, harassed, damaged and somewhat traumatized by Trump's passage.

I think Latin Americans must feel something similar.

Q.

Trump's strategy did not achieve results in Venezuela.

What way out do you see the crisis in that country?

R.

For a long time what has to happen is a dialogue that leads to an opening and a broadening of political options for citizens.

It is obvious that the Maduro government does not have the acceptance of a large part of the population and any leader in a democracy would have to recognize it.

It is time for them to stop using a language of revolutionary claim, because no one believes that what is there now is a revolution, as if that were an act in itself or a definition in itself virtuous.

There is little virtue in seeing Venezuelans succumb to collective hardship, unleashed violence, and over time to a repressive and military order, in addition to seeing their environment handed over to opaque actors for the exploitation of gold and minerals.

On the other hand, the option proclaimed by Trump to operate through actors such as paramilitaries, conspiracies, military uprisings, even apparently winking at mercenaries to overthrow the regime in Venezuela, has been childish, foolish and irresponsible.

It has not helped Venezuela, much less the Venezuelans.

I think that Biden has to think very well about how he is going to conduct his policy towards Venezuela, one must ask himself if the sanctions that have paralyzed the income of his oil industry are the most sensible way to help Venezuelans, regardless of whether it helps the regimen or not.

What I would hope is that they manage to establish a dialogue, a political and social transition.

And I believe that the recognition of a parallel government, the option of Juan Guaidó, is already quite obsolete, because it is that continuing with something that has not worked borders on the surreal.

We are facing the end of Chavismo for a long time and it must be formalized.

If they are sensible they should agree to compete at the polls as they do in Holland, Sweden, Norway.

P.

In 2016 many Colombians lived a moment of illusion.

There is no longer a war, but the government wants to stop the peace accords.

Is there room for hope in Colombia?

R.

These years have hurt me.

I cannot not mention the illusion that the effort made by the Colombians in ending their war and shaking hands with their adversaries made me.

It happened at a time when ISIS, the nefarious terrorist group, was spreading across the Middle East.

Peace in Colombia occurred when other conflicts did not seem to end.

In other words, Colombia, a country characterized by being the most violent in the world for decades, achieved peace.

Having covered the wars in the Middle East for years I had an almost physiological need to see peace, progress in the world.

I was filled with happiness.

It is a country that is in my DNA, I lived there with my family for four years, and it hurts a lot to see how some politicians due to their own commitments, a bit opaque, and sometimes without much honesty, have reversed the possibilities of that peace.

My fear is that Colombians have the conflict entrenched and some politicians feel that it is through violence that things are resolved.

Even his notion of peace is the peace of the victors.

I watched the protests of the young people with expectations and optimism.

They were not from the guerrillas, nor were they fronts for the guerrillas, as they used to vilify them in previous times.

But this time the police came out to shoot and killed many.

It is gruesome and inexcusable.

Colombia is approaching a dark future if it does not look in the mirror and does not take steps to try to change the chip.

A new Colombian pact is very necessary so that the country can regain that promising air that existed a few years ago.