|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Vargas and Peron: Two Tyrants
| Article
# : |
19784 |
|
|
Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
|
| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1991 |
7,785 Words |
| Author
: |
Jose O. de Meira Penna
Jose O. de Meira Penna is a former Brazilian ambassador, a
writer and journalist, and professor of political science at
the University of Brasilia. |
Conventional wisdom in the United States concerning Latin American affairs has tended to reduce political conflicts in this continent to contests between a right-wing military, which supports the interests of a conservative landholding class, and democratic forces, which strive for progress, liberty, and the defense of the popular masses. This is a simplistic outlook. At least as far as Brazil and Argentina are concern, such a point of view is far from corresponding to complex historical reality. The paradigm of political and social unrest in Brazil and Argentina should rather follow the classical model, proposed by Plato and Aristotle more than two thousand years ago: In opposition to the wishes of long-established rural and urban "aristocracies" with varying degrees of commitment to constitutional forms of government, changes are introduced or provoked by populist leaders, whom the Greek philosophers used to call "tyrants."
Brazil's Getulio Vargas and Argentina's Juan Peron were typical tyrants in this classical sense. Personal ambition, mere competition between groups and clienteles for the sake of the spoils of power, the intervention of the armed forces and ideologies of the Left and Right are complicating factors but not the heart of the problem. Actually, the Roman Republic can be taken as a basic model of what generally happens in Latin upheavals: At the end of the republic, the old constitution, which gave preeminence to patrician families with seats in the Senate, was being jeopardized by the emergence of leaders of tribunes of the plebs (Marius, Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, Octavian), often fighting against representatives of the patrician classes (Sulla, Pompey, Cicero, Brutus). Thus was the republic overthrown.
In Latin America, the process of modernization can be directed either by the Right or the Left--and liberal-constitutional government can similarly be defended either by conservatives or so-called progressive elements. The fact that Vargas was a civilian and Peron a general is of secondary importance: The main significance of their historical role is the populist impact exerted by their charismatic personalities at the onset of the Industrial Revolution in their respective countries. Ideological polarities seem to have less import than the fact that both men subverted legitimately organized, liberal-constitutional schemes of ideological plurality.
As an introductory scheme for my discussion, I propose a triangular formula, whereby the dichotomy between the Jacobin revolutionary urge and Bonapartist authoritarianism is superseded by a third factor, representing the educated liberal-constitutional
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
