South America’s great liberator from Spanish imperialism, Simon Bolivar, remarked almost two centuries ago that the United States seemed destined to inflict misery on the subcontinent in the name of liberty. How long will it be before the US “liberates” one of the growing tide of South American states to have elected left-wing leaders?
This week Chile joined Venezuala, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Bolivia in electing professed socialist and agnostic, Michelle Bachelet, as its president. In her victory speech Bachelet promised a government for all Chileans, which would close the country’s economic class divide by improving welfare and education. Her election was historic not just because she is left-leaning and, in a political culture notorious for its machismo, the first South American woman to rise to the presidency without clinging to her husband’s coat-tails. A medical doctor, Bachelet was detained and tortured by the regime of Augusto Pinochet, who seized power with the active connivance of then-US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and the CIA. What more graphic symbol could there be of America’s waning grip on its southern neighbour?
In essence, there have been three drivers of US policy in South America: chauvinist arrogance; anti-communist paranoia; and the desire to protect the interests of American corporations. Indeed, the only real criterion for deciding whether a government is “democratic” appears to be its willingness to allow US businesses to operate unhindered. While the State Department accuses Venezuala’s elected socialist president, Hugo Chavez, of “systematically undermining democratic institutions”, it raised not a breath of protest during nearly 20 years of brutal human rights abuse under Pinochet’s tyranny.
Because they have been elected — Chavez by two-thirds of Venezualans — and have not outlawed opposition, the new leaders are a more elusive target than the revolutionaries of Fidel Castro’s generation. But there are already warning signs. The call by right-wing evangelist Pat Robertson for Chavez to be “taken out” would be taken, in any normal country, as evidence that one can be deeply religious and a vicious putz at one and the same time. But the Christian right is the soul of the Bush administration, and Robertson’s call is a straw in the wind. Leaked Pentagon documents have identified Venezuala as a “post-Iraq” threat, while The Washington Post has reported on CIA plans to assassinate Chavez. The State Department’s scene-setting propaganda efforts include a claim that Venezuala is playing host to Basque terrorists — an allegation rejected by the Spanish government.
Democracy is supposed to be about the exercise of individual choice. When will Americans grasp the simple truth that people beyond its borders have a right to choose their own leaders and systems of rule?
A conditional B+
It is too early to start handing out report cards glittering with distinctions, but initial accounts of this year’s back-to-school experiences across the country suggest a remarkable turnaround has occurred.
The reopening of schools every January has in the past been plagued by scenes of varying degrees of chaos, invariably affecting poorer schools and communities more than others.
We have become used to the usual parade of problems — illegal exclusions, overcrowding, toyi-toying outside schools that had locked their gates because they were full, non-arrival of teachers (and so no teaching on the first day), pupils left stranded because state-subsidised transport had failed to arrive, the absence of stationery and textbooks … The dismal list has been very long.
Last week (in the inland provinces) and this week (in the coastal provinces), all these problems recurred — a few reports of schools illegally withholding report cards because of non-payment of fees, a few reports of overcrowding, and so on. But in each case, the key word is “few”. Teacher unions and other organisations monitoring the situation on the ground all agree that the scale of such problems has been vastly reduced.
For this, government pressure from the top must take great credit. Minister of Education Naledi Pandor’s predecessor, Kader Asmal, after surveying the chaos he had inherited, started the practice of first-day ministerial visits to schools. The symbolism of this was — and is — important: the entire system, down through provincial departments to districts and finally schools themselves, felt itself under intense scrutiny. And the results are at last showing, giving the start of the school year a healthy momentum we have not seen before.
Some extremely significant indicators are still to come, though — for example, how many pupils have not yet been placed in schools, precisely where and to what extent overcrowded classrooms are hindering teaching and learning, where are transport problems occurring and how many pupils are affected. And quite what is going on in the Eastern Cape needs urgent clarification. So a final assessment of exactly how well the reopening has proceeded must wait.
Now enormous challenges lie ahead. One involves the much-vaunted no-fee schools: when, if and how many will be implemented this year remain open questions. And another centres on the introduction of the new curriculum in grade 10 this year — there are already complaints from teachers about inadequate training and non-arrival of textbooks.
For now, congratulations are in order. And we hope the momentum already ignited will surge through the whole school year.