Liberation Theology: What Happened in Latin America? Part VII
By jbcobb | July 7, 2011
Nicaragua
Arguably the most powerful display of the political influence of liberation theology took place in Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s. It also represents the zenith of the movement as a force for change in Latin America, which quickly ended and signaled its immediate decline. The direct involvement of Catholic clergy in a socialist revolution, to include the appointment to high-level political offices in a revolutionary government, exemplified the dangerous blurring of the demarcation between the goal of ministering to the poor and dispossessed and the melding of church and state to achieve social justice.
In response to the Second Vatican Council, progressive clergy in Nicaragua were quick to begin organizing ecclesial base communities to take a more active role in the transformation of Church theology in the country (Wilson, 2009, p. 212). The earliest proponent of the communities was Father Ernesto Cardenal, who wished to incorporate Marxist analysis into the new theology, and was “particularly inspired by the accomplishments of Fidel Castro” (Wilson, 2009, p. 122). These community churches grew and became more active with the growing anger at the Somoza regime, which continued to pilfer any wealth created by the country’s workers (Wilson 2009, pp. 122-123). Growing dissatisfaction among the young and poor led to growing numbers of protests against the government led many in the lower-ranking members of the clergy, including Cardenal, to ultimately support the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN), or Sandinistas (Wilson 2009, p. 123).
Even though more moderate elements within the Roman Catholic Church in Nicaragua had condemned the Somoza regime, the organization stopped short of supporting the preparations for armed revolt, which were carried out through the cooperation of the base communities and the FSLN (Wilson, 2009, p. 123). Unfortunately, the official Church’s position left them open to reprisals from both the governmental assets of the Somoza regime and the revolutionary rebels being supported by the more radical clergy and laity. Ultimately, the Somoza regime was forced out of power because the vast majority of the population had grown weary of the oppression and the government had lost the support of anti-communist Western powers.
The new Sandinista government was quick to reward the radical wing of the Church, and appointed several of the most active leaders to powerful posts: Miguel d’Escoto as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ernesto Cardenal as Minister of Culture, Hernando Cardenal as Minister of Education, and Edgard Parralles as Ambassador to the Organization of American States (Lantigua, 1985). However, the majority of the Church hierarchy, reinforced with the call for additional priests by the Pope, and a large percentage of the faithful remained opposed to the Sandinista government.
In order to suppress rebellion among the devout who opposed a government of atheist philosophy, the Ortega government initiated a brutal regime of attacks on protestant churches, the only Jewish synagogue, and other non-liberation sects, especially the Miskito communities (Wilson 2009, p. 128). The master stroke of anti-religious activity was leveled against the Roman Catholic Church by helping to create an opposing congregation of liberation faithful, known as the “Popular Church”, and the closing of the Catholic radio station (Wilson 2009, p. 128). Continued oppression of freedoms by the government eventually led many former followers of the liberation ideology to return to the traditional churches and to support Pope John Paul II’s condemnation of communists, and to back the American supported Contras. The Sandinista regime lost support of the religious community, the ecclesial community churches decreased in popularity, and ultimately a more conservative coalition government was elected in 1990 (Wilson 2009, p. 130).
The liberation movement played a large role in the Sandinista revolution and government, but was unable to affect changes in the governmental structures to bring solace to the impoverished. The progressive theologians were not only unsuccessful in achieving their primary goals, but also supported an oppressive regime which killed nuns, priests, and many of the faithful. The progressives have never garnered such great influence since that time, and the scars which remain from the Sandinista experiment will probably dampen the future possibilities of liberation theology.
Conclusion
The examples of the use of liberation theology in Argentina and Nicaragua are affected in identifying the problems of a progressive political philosophy intertwined with Christian principles. Ultimately, the teachings of Christ are necessarily moderated to achieve political ends. It is difficult to understand the Christian, or even social justice, worth of politicians like Peron and Ortega. It is quite obvious that such political figures, and the revolutionary governments they seek to create, utilize persons, organizations, or beliefs, when they are useful. They are just as quickly discarded. Additionally, it is not only Christian principles which are pushed aside, but also the ideas of social justice, equality, democracy, and even Marxist socialism. Populist movements rarely are pure theoretical manifestations of any ideology, and are often prone to shift focus when expedient. Therefore, liberation theologies, and other altruistic belief systems, are doomed to failure once they become part of the sausage-making of governance, and even more so if utilized in violent revolutionary struggles.
The wane of liberation theology from its zenith in the 1970s has been largely a result of its shortcomings in praxis. Ultimately, the popularity of a social movement based on claims to have solutions for poverty and political oppression depends on its success to that end. The failure to deliver social justice has limited its appeal. The additional factors of Latin American acceptance of globalization and free markets, the collapse of communism, and the rejection of centralized governmental economic planning as a development strategy, has added to the marginalization of a once powerful force in Central and South American society.
References
Berryman, P. E. (1973). Latin American liberation theology. On the Marquette University Theological Studies website. Retrieved from http://www.ts.mu.edu/content/34/34.3/34.3.1.pdf.
Biography of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI (n.d.). On the official Vatican website. Retrieved from http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/biography/documents/hf_ben-xvi_bio_20050419_short-biography_en.html.
Cleary, E. L. (1985). Crisis and change: the Church in Latin America today. New York: Orbis Books. Retrieved from http://www.domcentral.org/library/cleary_books/crisis/crisis01.htm.
Czajkoski, C. J. (2003). The roots of liberation theology in El Salvador. Article is located on the Wheeling Jesuit University website. Retrieved from http://www.wju.edu/faculty/cardinalperspectives/czajkoski03_04.pdf.
Dulles, A. (2003). Vatican II: the myth and reality. America magazine: the national Catholic weekly. Retrieved from http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=2810.
Gutierrez, G. (2010). A theology of liberation: history, politics, and salvation: revised edition with a new introduction. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.
Hillar, M. (1993). Liberation theology: religious response to social problems. a survey. On the Center for Socinian Studies website. Retrieved from http://www.socinian.org/liberty.html.
Lakeland, P. (1986). Process and revolution: Hegel, Whitehead, and liberation theology. Process Studies, pp. 265-274, Vol. 15, Number 4, Winter, 1986.
Lantigua, J. (1985). Nicaraguan begins protest fast. On Chicago Tribune website. Retrieved from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-07-09/news/8502140326_1_sandinista-policy-of-state-terrorism-culture-minister- ernesto-cardenal.
Medellin documents (1968). On the Loyola University College of Law website. Retrieved from http://law.loyno.edu/~quigley/Class/classjusticepeace.pdf.
Pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world (1965). On the Vatican online site. Retrieved from http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html.
Skidmore, T. E., Smith, P. H., & Green, J. N. (2010). Modern Latin America, Seventh Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Smith, C. (1991). The emergence of liberation theology: radical religion and social movement theory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Soares, J. (2009). A future for liberation theology? Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 20, 480–486.
Wilson, J. P. (2009). Church, state, and society during the Nicaraguan revolution. Dialogos Latinoamericanos, 16, 115-135.
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American Foreign Policy: Time for a Change? Part VII
By jbcobb | June 30, 2011
Nation Building and Spreading Democracy
One of the most effective and oft used arguments for American intervention abroad is that the United States, or any other democratic state, can enable autocratic or failed regimes to change and adopt democratic institutions. The long run effect of such involvement, so the argument goes, is a more stable and peaceful government which allows greater involvement of all sectors of the nation’s society, and thus creates a more stable and peaceful global state of affairs. This has been a staple of presidential aspiration in America since Theodore Roosevelt’s administration at the turn of the 20th century.
It seems plausible that such an argument can only be accepted at face value if American interventions of the past have successfully provided the intended results. Christopher Coyne, an Assistant Professor of Economics at Hampden Sydney College, and Steve Davies, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of History and Economics at Manchester Metropolitan University, (2007) conducted a survey of twenty-six countries which the United States has occupied in the 20th and 21st centuries, beginning with the occupation of Cuba from 1898-1902, and ending with the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1996-2002 (pp. 33-37). The results are less than favorable for the support of American occupation as a method of spreading democracy.
Coyne and Davies used the Polity Index IV as a determination of the levels of democratization. The scale ranges from fully democratic (10) to fully autocratic (-10), and the researches required a score of only +4, one point higher than Iran received in 2003, to be considered a success (Coyne & Davies, 2007, pp. 24-35). Even with this low benchmark for success, Coyne and Davies (2007) concluded:
There is no clear indication of what a “good” success rate might be, but the United States has achieved a 28 percent success rate for reconstructions that ended at least ten year (SIC) ago, a 39 percent success rate for reconstructions that ended at least fifteen years ago, and a 36 percent success rate for those that ended at least twenty years ago. The presumptive failures outnumber the successes, suggesting that “global public goods” in the form of stable political institutions cannot reliably be exported via military occupation”. (p. 37)
The statistics don’t favor the continued intervention in foreign lands, even for altruistic purposes. These economists hearken back to Adam Smith, stating that the result of military intervention “is a failure on its own terms and which imposes costs upon groups outside the magic circle greater than any putative benefits (Coyne & Davies, 2007, p. 38).
In a related study on the effectiveness of nationality by Great Britain and the United States since the middle of the 19th century, James L. Payne (2006) examined the success or failure of democracies in colonies and foreign countries in which the explicit goal of the occupying state was nation building and the creation of democracy. Once again, as was the case for the study of military interventions, Payne (2006) does not require levels of democracy comparable to Great Britain or the United States, but simply that the occupied countries held democratic elections, and did not descend into violence or civil war, and avoided massive corruption in election cycles after the departure of the occupying force (pp. 602-605).
The results of the analysis from Payne were no more favorable for the success of nation building than they were in the analysis of Coyne and Davies, even given occupying forces’ explicit intent to nurture democracy. Payne (2006) described the results of his study, which included American involvement from the Philippines and Cuba in 1898 to Haiti in 1996, as well as British missions during the same period, 51 in total, thusly:
Overall, the results indicate that the military intervention left behind a democracy in fourteen cases, or 27 percent of the time. Our first conclusion, then, is that nation building by force is generally unsuccessful. A president who went around the world invading countries in order to make them democratic would probably fail most of the time. (p. 605)
Therefore, given the conclusions of these three researchers, further American occupation, intervention, and nation building exercises are generally doomed to failure, and represent a tremendous expenditure of life and money for little measurable reward.
Military intervention for humanitarian reasons is a more difficult proposition upon which to reach a logical conclusion, in the positive or negative, as most research has been inconclusive, primarily due to moral and legal ambiguities. While nobody can argue against the prevention of wholesale slaughter, there can be arguments made that military intervention may ultimately prove to be even more lethal. There simply has been no effective and widely accepted method for making the correct determination in all cases.
But, it should be easily accepted that military intervention is not always the answer to crises. Thomas McShane (2002) argues that NATO intervention in Kosovo was less than successful (p. 69). He suggests that “the air war may have helped to create the very refugee flow it was designed to prevent. Most sources reporting on conditions in Kosovo after the entry of NATO and Russian forces indicate that the reports of death and destruction which triggered the intervention in the first place had been exaggerated” (McShane, 2002, p. 69). Carola Weil (2001) identified another problem with this type of intervention, claiming that “slippery slope” problem is when humanitarian interventions turn into invasions or blur the lines between relief and political-military objectives, as in Kosovo” (p. 100). Compelling arguments can be made on both sides of the Kosovo intervention, as in many others. However, McShane (2002) comes to a foolproof conclusion: “every outbreak does not cry out for international intervention. Some problems will resolve themselves; other problems may be resolved by regional powers or regional organizations. Unless international stability is seriously threatened, mobilizing the international community and its resources might be counterproductive” (p. 69). This seems like sage advice in a complicated world, but it is counter-intuitive to a great many American foreign policy wonks.
In order for the United States to effectively conduct the war on terror, or to prepare for overseas contingencies, there must be reliable military bases from which to operate. In the areas which concern America at the moment, those conducive to or actively witnessing the growth of terrorist organizations, there are few openly democratic countries from which to choose. Therefore, the United States military has found it necessary to build new bases in states with autocratic regimes and populaces which are sometimes hostile to American troops. The result of such cooperation can prove costly, in both the lives of American troops and in an increased expenditure for the security of these bases.
Alexander Cooley, of Columbia University, (2005) suggests that recent examples of problems in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, autocratic and oppressive regimes, will be representative of future problems, and that, “the governments of these countries will label both extreme and democratic opposition groups as regional security threats and embroil the United States in domestic political disputes and low-intensity clashes in which it has no compelling interest” (pp. 79-84). The fact that America spends millions of dollars constructing bases which are politically destabilizing elements to regimes which are already in possibly precarious situations in order to carry out operations in other states which are either failed or autocratic states, and which have little chance of democratic transformation, is a convincing argument that serious analysis should be focused on military spending in many regions of the world. Michael Boyle (2008) offers alternatives to that spending, arguing that “Preserving access to the “global commons” and maintaining the technological capability to project power over distances is sufficient for preserving US freedom of action” (p. 208).
Conclusion
The United States of America is more than $14 trillion in debt. There is little hope of witnessing a balanced budget in the next five to ten years. Part of that problem is a bloated military budget which is required to support overseas bases in scores of countries, hundreds of ships in every sea, and the waging of wars in Afghanistan and Libya, and any leftover violence in Iraq. All of this spent money is in addition to a myriad of operations to defeat terrorism in dozens of locales around the globe. The money seems less than well spent, when you consider that Iraq and Afghanistan will more than likely be teetering on the edge of collapse for the foreseeable future, Libya is a stalemate, our overseas excursions are continuing to incur the wrath of zealots and murderers, and the country continues to tread water economically while the debt ceilings continue to be shattered.
Even if intervention in all four corners of the globe were proven to be a net plus, it is difficult to imagine that the current level of operations, or anything close to it, can continue, unless money falls out of the American sky. It seems very likely that either foreign policy will be changed by reasonable people with rational ideas, or those operations will be shut down out of necessity at some not so distant point in the future. But, the American economy has proven resilient in the past, and maybe it will again. However, should that recovery continue to support an overseas effort which should be shouldered by others? No.
References
Belasco, A. (2011). The cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Global War on Terror operations since 9/11. Congressional Research Service. Retrieved from http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf
bin Laden, O. (2002, November 24). Full text: bin Laden’s ‘letter to America. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
Boyle, M. J. (2008). The war on terror in American grand strategy. International Affairs, 84(2), 191-209.
Carr, M. (2010). Slouching towards dystopia: the new military futurism. Race & Class, 51(3), 13-32.
Chemerinsky, E. (2005). Civil liberties and the war on terrorism. Washburn Law Journal, 45(1), 1-19.
Cooley, A. (2005). Base politics: redeploying U.S. troops. Foreign Affairs, 84(6), 79-92.
Coyne, C. J., & Davies, S. (2007). Empire: public goods and bads. Econ Journal Watch, 4(1), 3- 45.
Dellapenna, J. W. (2008). Presidential authority and the war on terror. Villanova School of Law Working Paper Series. Retrieved from http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1108&context=villanovalwps
Desch, M. C. (2008). America’s liberal illiberalism: the ideological origins of overreaction in U.S. foreign policy. International Security, 32(3), 7-43.
Dunn, D. H. (2005). Isolationism revisited: seven persistent myths in the contemporary American foreign policy debate. Review of International Studies, 31, 237-263.
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Gold, D. (2007). Evaluating the costs and benefits of the US war on terror. Retrieved from http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6932/1/MPRA_paper_6932.pdf
Johnson, C. (2000). Blowback: The costs and consequences of American empire. New York: Holt Paperbacks.
Johnson, C. (2004). The sorrows of empire: Militarism, secrecy, and the end of the republic. New York: Holt Paperbacks.
Kull, S. (2010, June 7). Muslims and America: internalizing the clash of civilizations. World Public Opinion. Retrieved from http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/663.php
Lobel, J. (2005). Civil liberties and the war on terrorism. In T. E. Baker & J. F. Stack, Jr. (Eds.), At war with civil rights and civil liberties (25-48). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. Retrieved from http://chapters.rowmanlittlefield.com/07/425/0742535983ch2.pdf
McShane, T. W. (2002). Blame it on the Romans: Pax Americana and the rule of law. Parameters, Summer 2002, 57-72.
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Pape, R. A. (2009). First draft of history: empire falls. The National Interest, January/February 2009, 21-34.
Payne, J. L. (2006). Does nation building work? The Independent Review, 10(4), 599-610.
Payne, J. L. (2009). Making the world safe for muddle: the meaning of democracy in American foreign policy. The Independent Review, 13(4), 601-610.
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Liberation Theology: What Happened in Latin America? Part VI
By jbcobb | June 23, 2011
Argentina
The intellectual and theological base had been laid in Rome and Medellin, and the messages were being relayed to the intended audience, but the real test of the theories had yet to be applied in the real world. The founding fathers of the Latin American liberation movement in the Church emphasized the importance of praxis, the actions, deeds, and involvement by progressive priests and clergy in the secular world. Liberation does not take place in academic arguments or in sermons at Saturday night mass. The populist movement of Juan Peron in Argentina initially proved very appealing to many members of the Catholic Church. The populist message of the Peron movement used many of the same arguments which were raised in the Columbian conference: Latin American dependence on Western industrial elites, the exploitation of the poor by the capitalist bourgeoisie, and the marginalization of indigenous peoples.
The Peron forces had garnered the support of many within the Third World Priest Movement, an Argentinean liberation group which focused on the “domination of the urban working class (the proletariat), the inhabitants of villas miserias (a lumpen proletariat?), and the campesino, including landless rural labor and tenant or share-cropping farmers” by the bourgeoisie, which included “the owners and directors of the capitalist enterprises” (Dodson, 1979, p. 215). While the Movement of Third World Priests incorporated Marxist thought regarding the exploitation of a large underclass by a smaller and more affluent group through the machinery of capitalism, the priests did not agree that the proletariat would eventually achieve victory, but that an eternal struggle would take place for a utopian society which was ultimately unobtainable in the temporal world (Dodson, 1979, pp. 215-216).
However, many supporters within the liberation movement sought to reconcile much in the Marxist theoretical framework with their Christian philosophy and democratic ideals. One of those, Rolando Concatti, tried to “synthesize Marxist and democratic interpretations of Peron’s rule by arguing that Peron gave concrete expression to the historical class struggle, while simultaneously making ‘the democratic movement’ a reality” (Dodson, 1979, p. 218). But, the reality of Peron’s Argentina would soon bring disillusionment to the Christian liberation movement. Peron quickly proved to be no more than most other Latin American politicians of that era, in that he simply sought to use the concepts of social and economic justice to solidify his support among large sectors of the poor population through a divisive campaign of class warfare.
This artificially-inflamed tension between socio-economic classes was by no means carried out for the benefit of the totality of the impoverished populace, but was strategically targeted for the benefit of certain groups which were already more politically activated and influential. Following the return from exile, and the eventual national popular election to president of Juan Peron, a sizeable majority within the Third World Priests’ Movement felt that, “For them, Peronism had become a ‘bourgeois phenomenon’ whose real strength lay in the organized working class which they saw as a labor elite” (Dodson, 1979, p. 218).
The liberation theology movement, and particularly the Movement of Third World Priests, suffered a devastating blow, and one which would effectively end the active vocal involvement of progressive Catholic clergy in Argentinean politics, in May 1974, when Father Carlos Mugica, an avid supporter of the Peron movement, was assassinated (Dodson 1979, p. 219). A shocking lesson was learned by those in the Church: direct political involvement in unstable regions involving ruthless and violent political groups is a deadly endeavor. The possible consequences of such activities proved too much for an essentially pacifist organization and, “symbolized the extent to which the priests had become embroiled in bitter political controversies and entangled in the embrace of a powerful political force whose behavior was beyond their control” (Dodson, 1979, pp. 219-220).
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