Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Eduardo Galeano published his classic book The Open Veins of Latin America in 1971. The text was immediately taken as a sacred reference for the Latin American left. It is a rebuke of foreign powers’ constant plundering of the region’s natural resources. Years later, Galeano confessed that he would never reread his own book because of how heavy and ideologized the text was. “I did not have enough knowledge of economics or politics when I wrote it”, he said in 2014, a year before his death. At that time, ECLAC had advanced proposals on dependency theories and their feasible and possible responses for the region.
The book was written during the Cold War and amid the debate between capitalism and socialism as two alternative proposals for global civilization. At that time, Cuba, with a massive daily Soviet economic subsidy, seemed to be a credible socialist alternative for many Latin Americans.
When Soviet socialism collapsed, and its subsidy ended, the dream of Cuban viability ended. Cuba became poor, like its people, but the rhetoric of “new socialism” advanced in Latin America, albeit with different vigor. The Bolivarian Alliance, made up of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Cuba, seemed to offer a new form of socialism, which in reality was state-monopoly capitalism.
Galeano’s dream unraveled when the leaders of countries inspired by his book seized power, became dictators, and, more importantly, were unable to build vibrant and robust economies to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth for their people. They have impoverished their countries economically and destroyed their existing democratic institutions without exception.
When Galeano saw how his supposed pupils governed, he was horrified. That is why he said what he said at the end of his life.
And he did not see what was going to happen to our beloved Mexico. What is the balance of the government of López Obrador, also a follower of Galeano, as he enters the fourth year of his administration? First of all, AMLO governs by accusing previous governments of their mistakes. He assumes no responsibility for anything. And he violently confronts broad social sectors, such as journalists, women, students, middle classes, academics and intellectuals, and professionals.
He does not consider himself responsible for the -3.5% drop in GDP so far during his administration, the 16.6% inflation, and the millionaire deficits of PEMEX and CFE. Nor for the open corruption of his family and associates.
Nor does he consider himself responsible that 35 million Mexicans lost their access to health services. Not to mention the approximately 2,000 children who died of cancer due to a lack of timely medicines.
Much less for the 55 million poor, 10 million more than when he took office, nor the more than 2.5 million medium and small businesses that disappeared during his administration.
There are 2% fewer students enrolled in public schools in education, while full-time schools have disappeared, affecting half a million students. Public investment in education has fallen.
The 115 thousand intentional homicides would not be his responsibility either, but of others, nor the more than 3 thousand femicides, nor the 6 thousand reported rapes and much less the 55 murdered journalists. His hate speech is not his responsibility either.
After seeing these data, which reveal the open veins of Mexico, Galeano’s final horror can be understood. He saw what we also see with horror.
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