Because Vargas Llosa’s thought on the crisis in Peru disappoints
Surprisingly what Mario Vargas Llosa wrote about the crisis in Peru. The article by Livio Zanotti, author of Ildiavolononmuoremai
For two months, Peru has been suffering from a bloody political emergency , which spilled over into a popular protest which, despite the repressions – 58 dead and countless wounded – reached Lima, remaining camped there in turmoil: the “field of Mars” of yet another agony of the mythical Andean country .
CASTILLO’S MOVE
It follows the failed act of force by the head of state, the rural master Pedro Castillo, elected a year and a half ago with a slim advantage over Keiko Fujimori, who also claims responsibility for the infamous crimes for which she is standing by her father, the former dictator Alberto prison.
Castillo accuses her of manipulating Congress to prevent him from governing and to disarm it has recklessly attempted to dissolve it. But the majority of the 17 parties into which he is fragmented reacted by having him arrested. Since then his political base – minority but far from inconsistent (small farmers and artisans, Indians, minimal administrative bourgeoisie of the interior and students of the cities) – has demanded the resignation of his former deputy, Dina Boluarte, passed with the adversaries to replace him in the presidency, and prompt elections.
WHITE ELITE, BOURGEOISIE AND INDIGENOUS MASSES
Castillo’s rashness once again tore apart the frayed institutional order that barely contained the country’s historical social fracture: the wealthy, educated white elite on one side, the indigenous and destitute masses on the other, with the various strata urban bourgeoisie in the middle, in periodic oscillation between the two opposites. It is the morphology that characterizes societies of incomplete development, the imbalance that causes the institutional system to collapse with periodically bloody consequences. The historical drama of what was Eldorado for the Spain of the royal family of Castilla and Aragon. And to this day it is a land rich in natural resources, in a strategic position for trade with Asia. So much so that in the unscrupulous and fatal adventurism of his presidencies, Fujimori senior also tried to make him a business partner of Japan. Alarming beyond measure the United States, which only then decided they could no longer tolerate his hostilities. It is astonishing that so much painful complexity is summarized simplistically by a man of historical culture such as Mario Vargas Llosa.
PERU HAS A CORRUPTION PROBLEM
Six Peruvian heads of state have been tried and convicted of corruption in the last twenty years. One, Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), an Indian of precocious talent who became a brilliant economist in the United States, I accompanied him on some electoral trips. Sitting next to him on the plane, I repeatedly listened to his solemn pledge to the honesty with which he would fight the corrupt legacy of his predecessor and enemy, Alberto Fujimori. For years he has been a refugee in the United States on bail.
I spoke more than once with Alan Garcia, certainly the last prestigious leader of Peruvian progressive populism (APRA). He shot himself in April 2019 to escape the dishonor of being arrested. Courts across the Republic found them both guilty of receiving tens of millions of dollars in lucrative government contracts. Like Ollanta Humala, Kuczynski, Vizcarra, heads of administrations ruinous from every point of view for Peru, whose economy holds up also thanks to the remittances of millions of poor emigrants, whom no one ever remembers (nor – much less – thanks).
THE SURPRISING THOUGHT OF VARGAS LLOSA
Surprisingly, in this endless drama of his country, Vargas Llosa sees only “the small conspiracy of the elected presidents of Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras and Colombia to provoke a coup d’état that would have wanted to put an end to Peruvian democracy” ( El Pais , 05.02.23).
I really don’t feel the slightest polemical intention towards one of the greatest living novelists (to whom I consider myself personally indebted for some of the most instructive and enjoyable reading of my life); I just express amazement. As if it weren’t he who had ruthlessly scrutinized the soul and belly of Peru for himself and for others, starting with the primary institution of every society, the family ( Conversaciòn en la Catedral , La Ciudad y los perros ). His secret vices, unmentionable and with these, those of every more or less cruelly despotic power ( La Fiesta del chivo ). Thus denouncing a process of abjection with which entire populations have had to measure themselves for decades. As well as the lies and deceptions indirectly favored in the decades of the Cold War , therefore among the prices that we have all paid for them.
Surprise and amazement do not protect against the risk of decontextualizing Vargas Llosa’s arguments. His article, however, is highly retrievable, anyone can read and verify it. After all, it is always El Pais (mainstream information in the rest of Europe does not pay much attention to Latin American events and even less to Peruvian current events) which punctually publishes reports and comments on the ballet undertaken by the current government and by the Congress of Lima around the date to let voters return to the polls. While the street protest continues as well as the police repression.
Nonetheless the Peruvian “truth” to Vargas Llosa appears “very simple”: Castillo is an inconclusive man who attempted a coup , and so far certain facts (not all) agree; much less evident is the alleged counter-evidence, which the writer instead deems irrefutable in the proclaimed intention of former president Castillo to privilege the defense of the Peruvian environment over the immediate economic advantages of mining. It is the “green” line that clearly prevails today among the top Latin American (and not only) executives; and which in Vargas Llosa’s opinion gives an idea of their “intellectual qualities”. He prefers bullfights and skewered bulls in the arena.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/peru-crisi-vargas-llosa/ on Sat, 11 Feb 2023 06:12:48 +0000.