Latin America is not a fairy tale, but Vladimir Propp and his “Morphology of the Tale” can help us to understand why a certain type of flat report is imposing itself among informants, specialists and analysts to explain what is happening in the region.
It is a circular narrative that resorts to topics united by very thick lines that prevent us from seeing the diversity and complexity of the causes of regional problems and that, above all, discard all information that contradicts the very personal preferences of the authors, camouflaged in a kind of sense of “ought to be”. So much so that even those who declare themselves objective from “data journalism” do not fail to fall into the temptation of omitting information that generates cognitive dissonance or simply use the appropriate framework so that their “numbers” fit their vision. of the world.
Without getting to the 31 functions that Propp found in Russian narratives, in many of the informative or opinion reports about Latin America I identify at least three elements that I explain below and that can go together or separately: utopia, caudillo and/or disappointment.
Being a territory of utopias seems appropriate since we were the New World that inspired Thomas More himself. In the 20th century, utopia took the form of Revolution, with Cuba –an island just like More’s– proof that another world was possible and that all that was needed was Fideles and Ches to reach it. Chiapas was the swan song of Latin American revolutionary utopias, a rich process whose epilogue was the Kafkaesque transformation of Subcomandante Marcos into Durito.
The “turns to the left” are the utopias of the 21st century. Therefore, in each new election they look for the left-wing candidate who will lead the process that will solve the deep national injustices, hoping, moreover, that he –who is supposed to be successful– will extend to the entire region, marking the way to overcome global neoliberalism.
For some, it is not enough for leaders and organizations to participate in elections seeking to implement transformations that reduce poverty or break down inequality structures: they will always look for signs that show that “this time it will be the definitive solution”. The problem is not that an ideal marks the direction of change, but that these aspirations often respond more to the dreams of certain elites than to social demands.
The caudillo is the facilitator of utopia and carries the desires of the people, embodying the mystique, the epic and the lyrical of a plebeian mass closer to Galeano’s characters than to authentic citizens. For this, informants, specialists and analysts grant the caudillo –whether he has it or not– natural or supernatural virtues and gifts that enable him to transform the course and destiny of everyone, ranging from intellectual capacity to heroism, and which, on the other hand, , make him worthy of devotion. However, these accounts always forget that the caudillo is limited by institutions and that societies are plural, so when a country “turns to the left”, people on the right do not magically dissolve, but resist.
The coverage of the last Colombian elections is a good example of these constructions. The hegemonic account was centered on showing that Petro would finally make possible the utopia of the turn to the left in the country, ignoring both the stagnation of his candidacy in the polls and the cries of a polarized and disenchanted society that reached the point of voting against the peace process.
Because the region’s problems are so large and complex, and expectations of an immediate solution are so high, the cycle almost always ends in disappointment: neither caudillos have superpowers, nor utopia triumphs over stubborn reality. It happened to Castillo in Peru and its conservative and moralistic laws, as if he had ever hidden his worldview; what is happening with Boric in Chile, which lacks the support of a very conservative parliament or AMLO in Mexico with the 4Q, which has not been able to change the conditions of labor exploitation or significantly increase the tax payment of the richest, the lowest, in one of the most unequal countries on the planet.
When criticism arrives, self-criticism is lacking, analysts should be aware of their responsibility for generating disappointments by inflating expectations about the magnitude and speed of change processes; because, after all, fairies don’t exist.
