Colonialism and Culture in Argentina - Essay Example

Running Head: Colonialism and Culture in Latin America Colonialism and Culture in Latin America (Argentina) Academia Academia Research Latin America consists of people from different regions of the world, people from Europe came in view in the fifteenth century, and so as the colonialism in Latin America appeared, Colonialism in a more simpler view is the domination of one state over other in terms of economic resources as well as the physical presence. Latin America is composed of twenty independent countries, those are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua. Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Most of the Colonialism is done by Spain, Portugal and some is done by France. The Highest GDP per capita income is from Argentina, which is $ 13,153 and lowest is recorded by Haiti, which is $1,6141. In this discussion, colonialism and culture of Argentina would be discussed specifically to address the emerging questions in the Latin America about the society. Barton and L. Tedesco said in the year 2004: "Political crisis in Argentina and Venezuela, social mobilization in Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, and state failure in Colombia. This is the Latin American political landscape at the beginning of the twenty-first century. There are currently few countries in the region that can be described as increasingly stable; the cases of Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay may be the exceptions that prove the rule in this regard, although they are not without their internal divisions and conflicts. This lack of stability can be explained to a large extent by the considerable social, political and economic upheaval that took place across the region during the last quarter of the twentieth century"(p. 1). Argentina Argentina is the second largest country in the South America area vise, it is one of the Latin American republics that appeared as a result from the fall of Spanish colonial empire in the early nineteenth century, it was actually a movement that was started and led by Creole merchants and assisted by rebel irregulars in rural areas that brought the separation of Argentina from the Spanish empire, the separation appeared in two different phases, the first took place in 1810 and the second in 1816. The country had faced almost 50 years rivalry and after that in the earlier nineteenth century it had started to appear as a super power with beef exports as a principal economic activity, the country by then had started practicing every economic activity. About discussing the identity of the people of Argentina, most of them belong to three different groups, the first one were Creoles, the African slaves brought in by the Spanish empire, many of them have disappeared now, or perhaps mixed in whites, the second group consists of Italians, it is claimed that Argentina is the second homeland of Italians, the third most important group appeared in Argentina is the Jewish group, at the time of Spanish conquest so many of the Jews were also the part of immigrants in 1880s. Today more than 90 percent of the people in Argentina are professed to be Roman Catholics, there are other religions followed as well, such as Judaism, Muslims. The modernizing Argentina came in view when it started educating its people, as written in Facundo: "But the state of primary education is what gives the most complete idea of the culture of that time. No city of the Argentine Republic has distinguished itself more than San Juan in its diligence to expand education, nor has any other obtained more complete results. The government, not satisfied with the capability of the province's men to carry out such an important duty, in 1815 ordered that a person combining competent training with great morality be brought from Buenos Aires." (Ross, 2003: 89) The above-mentioned sentences can show the importance of the Buenos Aires, which is perhaps the biggest city in Argentina today, Another interesting fact is that Buenos Aires was also affected by the barbarism, from 1810 to 1840, the results were terrible as the city was affected by ignorance and poverty but because Europeans were there and they are very strong, the city sustained the pressure and grew again. There is one more interesting fact in Facundo that describes the culture in Argentina: "Although the conditions of pastoral life, as constituted by colonization and negligence, give rise to grave difficulties for any sort of political organization and many more for the triumph of European civilization, its institutions, and the wealth and liberty that come from it, it cannot be denied that this situation also has a poetic side, and aspects worthy of the novelist's pen. If the glimmer of a national literature momentarily shines in new American societies, it will come from descriptions of grand scenes of nature, and above all, from the struggle between European civilization and indigenous barbarism, between intelligence and matter."(Ross, 2003: 59) This point is perhaps reflecting the poetic people, art lovers, and wonderful writers of Argentina, they adopted such culture from the conditions that once appeared in Argentina and there from such qualities appeared in their nature. Masiello said in 1992: "From the final decades of the nineteenth century through the nationalist festivities of 1910, commemorating one hundred years of independence from Spain, Argentina saw an evolution in the representation of women, emerging from an exacerbated conflict between leaders of state and the large number of female voices decidedly struggling to be heard in public. Given the growing mass movement among anarchist and socialist workers and the demands by middle- and upper-class women for rights of suffrage and divorce, the masculine imagination identified women with subversion"(p. 7). Yes, after above mentioned period, there was a time also known as "infamous decade" which was the period of 1930's but the real foundation stone was laid in Argentina which resulted in the change of their perceptions, positive thinking towards life. So all these contributions from people of different backgrounds and culture brought the country some wealth, which naturally raised the standard of living of the different classes in Argentina belonging to Europe, Spain and Portugal. In 1990s the country made their economy dollarized, the outcome was excellent, the free market growth took place that brought the currency stability to the country and also large number of trading partnerships were developed with united states which was always beneficial, so as a consequence one can find the well established middle class and good consumer buying power, such standard of living is actually maintained in the central core areas of Buenos Aires and also few other major cities. Foster, D. Lockhart, M. Lockhart said in their book in 1998, "Argentina has long looked toward Europe and now toward the United States for many aspects of its identity. One tends to associate with Argentina the most excessive effects of rapid modernization"(p. xii). The previous discussion gives some idea about the modernization and civilization in Argentina, however there is also some more discussion required for the clearance of doubts. The first step towards modernization in Argentina was taken in 1880, after which women were promoted in the society, according to masiello, "In a variety of debates, they demanded legislative reform and woman's suffrage while protesting poor labor conditions and health facilities for working women", also by now the society had much known the techniques and strategies used by the other successful nations, so one can say that knowledge brought modernization. By now science had gained a lot of popularity, perhaps medicines, technological facilities, modern instruments had come in view to help people decide what's better for them. In education department quite many new subjects were appeared including politics, which was a sign that now even people who actually see government running can now get into the government and work for the nation, more surprisingly the diversity that can also create big racism found to be very useful in modernizing the country as different cultures and different traditions were combined, it brought a real new thinking style with more stress on the development and less on the negative points. In this modern phase of world, Argentina seems to be entering in a new political and economic phase where much better opportunities would be given to each individual. President Nestor Kirchner, elected in May 2003, has claimed that "the period of neoliberalism is over" and the economic activity has recovered even faster than generally expected, all the payments are being made in the best favor of creditors such as IMF who are really worthy to be praised, although the pressure from international markets and investors to refinance and make payments on the defaulted debt is increased. "Neoliberal economists remain totally discredited, but the Kirchner regime's policy of partial payments on the debt, financed by revenues generated by severe restrictions on public spending, is applauded by a coterie of supposed "Keynesian" and "national" economists."(Argentina: Program for a Popular Economic Recovery, Izquierda, September 2004: 12) Same case is with many of the other Latin American Countries, such as Brazil, Chile and Cuba, but it may sound strange that language of Brazil is Portuguese and in Argentina and Chile, Spanish is followed, all these states have more or less similar backgrounds, however later on they have shown slight differences, Brazil had started to become modernized in terms of shifting from Agriculture to industrial manufacturing in 1940s, however one can compare Brazil and Argentina in terms of the food production and surplus, the people in Brazil also improved their education system to compete other nations. There is something about Chile written in Facundo: "In 1831, two hundred citizens, heads of household, youths, men of letters, lawyers, military officers, and so on immigrated to Chile. Copiap, Coquimbo, Valparaso, and the rest of the Chilean Republic are still filled with these noble outlaws, some capitalists, others intelligent miners, many merchants and farmers, several lawyers, doctors. As with the Babylonian dispersion, none of them saw the Promised Land again. Another group of emigrants left, never to return, in 1840!" (Ross, 2003: 87) It slightly indicates the previous misunderstandings between these two countries of Latin America. In the case of Cuba, United states always wanted to have Cuba by there side, but Cuba preferred to be a colony of Spain rather than being with United States, there has been so many incidents in the past according to which U.S. tried to actually buy Cuba from Spain but the offer was turned down, it is still dependent on Spain in many ways, so Cuba is also a country that has been facing colonialism alongside others, So eventually one can see that Colonialism is present may one way or the other almost in every part of Latin America. When it comes to Argentina One can say that the colonialism and culture go hand in hand, because Argentina comprises of so many different people of different cultures and as they live together some sort of domination over one an other can be easily seen, Europeans are their, including Italians and Spanish, these people automatically show different tastes in every way of life, like music, arts, sports, language, food etc. As a result today Argentina is influenced by the cultures of other people and is mixed in it completely, one can say that the formation of Argentina was not possible if the colonialism was not there, because of the numerous sort of people and because of such workforce diversity, Argentina gained a lot of familiarity and perhaps it is present today because of the same. References Ross K (Trans.), "Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism The First Complete English Translation (Domingo Faustino Sarmiento)", Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Foster D.W., D. Lockhart, M. Lockhart, "Culture and Customs of Argentina", Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Izquierda, "Argentina: Program for a popular economic recovery", Monthly Review: Vol 56, September 2004. Masiello F, "Between Civilization & Barbarism", Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1992. Other sources Read More