Why Latin America is moving to the left by Ivan Martinez

Latin America was built by the colonial empires under the ideology of white supremacy. This ideology of power, control and privileges for the Europeans (whites) also created a kind of society that resembles a caste system where the whites and those socially co-opted as white by the ruling class should permanently be at the top of the social, political and economic pyramid.

Those pervasively at the top were called elite. This elite kept on themargins all those who were not considered whites: the Amerindians, Africans, zambos (mixed Amerindian and African), the mulattoes (mixed white and black), the mestizos(mixed white and Amerindian) not socially co-opted as whites and all those different mixed people far from the phenotype and culture of the elite.

For centuries the elites have enjoyed a political system based on their own privileges, and openly and covertly used various ideological forms with the intention of demonstrating that their social status was natural or divine because of their ethno-cultural ascendancy. For centuries these privileged groups imposed on the so-called "Other" (those marginalised by their ruling) all kinds of deprivation, destitution, racial discrimination and social exclusion.

Because of this historical policy, today Latin America is the region of the world where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is most pronounced. This region has seen all kinds of elitistgovernments, all of them designed to coerce and impede the access on equal footing of the "Other" to the political mainstream and the economic marketplace of their respective nations.

There are some recent studies conducted by the United Nations Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) that show how underdevelopment in this region is largely a consequence of not having involved in the national market the huge percentage that represent their own citizens that have been marginalised by the issue of race and ethnicity. This study demonstrates that the "others" are living as if they were pariahs on their own lands and they have been denied their rightful share of the resources of their nations.

In recent times, things have been changing under the democratic wave that is running throughout the sub-continent. The people (especially the "Other") are exercising the power of the vote to put in the administration of their countries the social democratic left that is taking over Latin American governments one by one through free and fair elections.

The political capital that free elections give to a true democracy is now in place in most Latin American countries and those at the margin of the society are showing their power by voting for those parties and leaders that have promised them a new hope, a better future and also the possibility to create nations with equality of opportunities (in politics, economics, culture and social life) and get rid of the former domination of the elite.

Examples are Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia. All these countries have been a living testimony of this new leftist social democratic wave whose support is entrenched in the old aspirations of the "Other" to become part of their own nations and living with full recognition as human beings.

In Chile recently, once again a socialist president was elected. This time the first woman in that position in the history of Chile, Dr Michelle Bachelet. She has promised to continue the path of her socialist predecessor Ricardo Lagos, and to tackle the most divisive areas within Chilean society.

Michelle Bachelet, a doctor like the first socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, will have the honour and responsibility to show once again the value of women and their views about politics, especially because women form part of those sectors of the Latin American societies that have been normally excluded and discriminated against simply for being female!

In Bolivia, a country where 65 per cent of the population define themselves as Amerindians but never had an indigenous president, history was created when the people elected in the first round the Amerindian leader Evo Morales, the first of his ethnic background to reach such a position in that nation. Morales, a 46-year-old Aymara (one of the Amerindian ethnic groups of

Bolivia) has said he will end centuries of foreign exploitation and empower long-suffering indigenous groups. He has also said that he will be the president of those despised and most hated and discriminated against in Bolivian history and hopes that will help to end xenophobia and discrimination.

There are many observers who believe that this Latin American democratic wave to the left and re-vindication of the historically marginalised will continue in future elections in Peru and Mexico.

Much more can be said and analysed about these transcendental changes in the region. In future articles different variants of the same theme will be dealt with in order to follow up this trend of democracy that is taking place in Latin America.