Uruguay - Las venas abiertas de América Latina et. al.

Country: Uruguay
Books: Las venas abiertas de América Latina/Vagamundo y otros relatos/ El fútbol a sol y sombra
Author: Eduardo Galeano
Publication Year: 1970/1987/1995
Genre: Politics/History/Sport/Short Story

Eduardo Galeano was one of the most important political voices to come out of Latin America during the 20^th century. A journalist, essayist, novelist, poet and football aficionado, Galeano’s socialist beliefs informed everything he wrote.

One of Galeano’s earliest works, 1970’s, Las venas abiertas de América Latina (The Open Veins of Latin America) gained a new lease of life in the 21^st century when Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, gave a copy to US President, Barak Obama in 2009. The book, which was out of print in English at the time, was soon issued in a new edition with a forward by Noam Chomsky.

Galeano had long since disowned the book, admitting he wrote it at far too young an age (he was 30 at the time), when he knew too little about business and economics. Despite that, the book holds up reasonably well. Any academic or non-fiction book soon ages, due to changing attitudes and new evidence becoming available, either by digging it out of the ground or rooting it out of the archives. While some of the facts and figures might be inaccurate, the historical details remain the same.

Those details relate to how first Western Europe and then the United States of America exploited Latin America’s natural resources from the time Columbus first landed in Hispaniola in 1492: Since Cortez conquered the Aztec Empire and relieved it of all its gold: Since Spain established its silver mines, most prominently the Polosi mine in Bolivia that enriched the Spanish Empire for more than a century, working thousands of indigenous people to death and bringing in the first Africans as slaves to replace them.

Las venas abiertas de América Latina gives a history from the Spanish Conquistadors up until General Pinochet's military coup in Chile in 1973, which took place 3 years after the book's original publication, but which is touched upon in a new afterword written in 1978. In between, we have all of the usual subjects when dealing with exploitation of the south’s resources by the north. Shell and Standard Oil. The United Fruit Company. Rio Tinto and the International Monetary Fund.

Not to mention the various military coups supported or directly assisted by the United States in Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay in the 1960s and 70s. Galeano was forced into exile in Spain when the book was quickly banned by the dictatorship ruling his native Uruguay. He wouldn’t return until 1985, when the dictatorship was overthrown. 

By that time, Galeano was already working on a new history of Latin America, the three volume Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire), the first part of which was released in 1982, 3 years before his return from exile. I haven’t read the trilogy, but it is on my reading list. It will be interesting to see how the two works compare, but it is safe to assume the later work is the superior.

Despite the flaws admitted by its author, Las venas abiertas de América Latina was a staple of classrooms and American colleges, north and south. for many years. When writer, Isabel Allende, was forced to flee Chile after her uncle, President Salvador Allende, was assassinated by General Pinochet’s forces, one of the few possessions she took with her was a copy of Galeano’s book. Books hold a currency far in excess of the price printed on their cover.

That Galeano brought his politics into everything is demonstrated by El fútbol a sol y sombra (Football in Sun and Shadow). Published in the mid 90s, it is nominally a history of South American football and the World Cup since the inaugural competition was contested in Uruguay in 1930. Uruaguay beat Argentina 4-2 in the final to lift the trophy.

Galeano weaves into the history of South American football the passions and politics of South American football.  Out of 22 tournaments contested since 1930, South American teams, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina, have won 10 of them. Brazil have won more World Cups (5) than any outer country: Italy and Germany having won 4 each.

It is a testament to the continent’s commitment and talent for turning out world class footballers from Pele to Messi that a relatively impoverished continent like South America has managed to compete with the richer nations of Western Europe for so long. Other than South America and Western Europe (England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain), no other region of the world has come close to winning the trophy, let alone dominating it. Even the Netherlands have never won the competition, despite the number of finals in which they have played (1974, 1978 and 2010).

The idea that football is matter of life and death for South Americans is perfectly demonstrated by the 1950 final contested between Uruguay and Brazil in Ro de Janeiro. It was the only year in which the final round took the form of a round robin rather than a knockout, with the four best placed teams playing each other with the winner being the one with the greatest points tally at the end. As the final match between Uruguay and Brazil kicked off, Brazil only needed a draw to lift the trophy.

Brazil took an early lead in the first half, but Uruguay equalised in the 68^th minute. In the 79^th minute, Brazilian goalkeeper, Moacir Barbosa, allowed Alcides Ghiggia to score the winning goal for Uruguay when he came out of his box, expecting a cross. Ghiggia instead dribbled past him.

1950 World Cup final

Barbosa became a pariah in Brazilian footballing circles for the rest of his life. Even in 1993,43 years later, and then in his 70s, the Brazilian Football Confederation would not let him commentate on Brazil’s international matches. Barbosa famously said, "The maximum punishment in Brazil is 30 years' imprisonment, but I have been paying for something I am not even responsible for, by now, for 50 years.” He died in 2000.

You can admire the passion, but you also have to wonder whether a psychiatrist doesn’t need to sit Brazil down as a nation and tell them it’s probably time to let it go. Because Barbosa was right. There are few crimes for which half a century castigation is a fit punishment and none of them involve sport. If he’d been English, he would have been doing self-depreciating adverts for Pizza Hut and all would have been forgotten (hell, they'd probably have made him manageer at some point). In English football there is always a fresh humiliation just around the corner.

El fútbol a sol y sombra is perhaps the best place to start when reading Galeano. It is a perfect encapsulation of all his interweaving talents and interests, incorporating journalism, politics and Latin American life and leisure. It’s not his most serious book to be sure, but it is at least an appetizer before one tackles Memoria del fuego or any of Galeano’s novels, into which I have yet to dive.

That said, finally we turn to Vagamundo y otros relatos, which doesn’t seem to have an English translation. I guess it translates as Wandering and Other Stories. All of these books I read in Spanish, taking my first foray into Spanish language literature for this project. My Spanish is still middling and this book in particular seems to contain a lot of Uruguayan slang, which the dictionary on the palm reader on which I read it could not always translate. Still, I think I understood most of it.

The stories contained in this volume are for the most part quite short and at times more like sketches of Galeano’s early life than they are out and out short stories. Perhaps I have too much of the Joycean in me, but the scenes feel as much like the childhood stories at the beginning of Joyce’s Dubliners, which are certainly heavily autobiographical. They are enjoyable for the most part.

Despite dealing with Vagamundo y otros relatos at the end of this piece, I in fact read it first of the three books under consideration. It very much prepared me for Las venas abiertas de América Latina. Certainly if you are learning Spanish and want quick two or three page pieces with which to practice comprehension, Vagamundo y otros relatos is a good bet.

I have been meaning to read Galeano’s books for years and this is an excellent triptych with which to start. It is also an excellent place to begin reading Latin American writers in Spanish, before moving on to Jorge Luis Borges, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gioconda Belli and the many other Spanish speaking writers of Central and South America. Onwards and downwards into the Southern Hemisphere. 

Eduardo Galeano