MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The Latin American Dream

Britain’s Foreign Office Minister, Chris Bryant, attended an event at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and delivered a speech on “Latin America – realising the dream”. The event and speech focused on Latin America's role in the world and how the EU and Latin America need to work together on global issues such as climate change and the international financial crisis.

Some of you may know that I spent some time in Latin America in 1986. I certainly can’t claim to be an expert. After all, I was there for less than a year.

But it was a fascinating time. Alan Garcia had just been elected in Peru, at 34 one of the world’s youngest leaders and the same age as Felipe Gonzalez in Spain. Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru were still very active and there was a curfew in Lima where I was spent three months with the Columban Fathers in the pueblo joven of Comas, where most people’s homes consisted of estera matting walls, dirt floors and stolen electricity.

In Buenos Aires things were different – especially in Belgrano where I helped in a local guarderia for poorer children. Alfonsin was in power, the austral was the currency. The scars of the recent dictatorship were everywhere though. Many of my fellow students at ISEDET had been imprisoned – a couple had been tortured. One vast blacked out building on my daily bus route had the words ‘aqui se fusilo’ sprayed over it – ‘here people were shot’.

The movie hit – in a country that loves its cinema – was La Historia Oficial, about a woman who slowly realises that the child she and her husband had adopted during the dictatorship had been the child of trade unionists who were ‘disappeared’.

And then a brief visit to Chile. Pinochet was still very much in power and I attended the funeral of a young Chilean who lived in the US but had had petrol poured over him and had been set fire to by the police. The army turned up with tear gas and water cannons – and all the tear gas canisters bore the words ‘made in Britain’ on them.

At that funeral the crowd – a vast crowd – sang ‘Gracias a la Vida’, a song I heard time and again across the continent. Thank you to life – which has given me so much. It’s a classic. Like so much of Latin American culture it swerves dramatically. At one point it’s a love song. Then it’s a protest song. And then it’s a tribute to passion and the human endeavour again.

I mention the song because in the end, like so much of Latin American culture, it seems to me it is about dreams, personal private dreams and grand political dreams. And in the end the whole of the political endeavour is about making personal dreams possible.

The importance of dreams

The more cynical amongst us might say that dreamers nearly always end up as failed politicians. And all too often the demagogues around the world, when they have lost their own belief in their dreams, have abused their positions. Of course, we must always keep politicians’ feet firmly on the ground.

But politicians without dreams are worthless – and I would suggest that international relations that are not based on or do not recognise the dreams, the hopes and the aspirations of ordinary people will always fail.

There has always been talk of the ‘American Dream’. But the ‘Latin American Dream’ has always been just as potent. At its heart, the dream of independence, never better articulated than in the 1970s book by Eduardo Galeano, Las Venas Abiertas de Latino America. That dream is about the aspiration to determine one’s own future.

But equally, it is about the dream of prosperity. Or, at the very least, the hope of escaping from grinding poverty – a consummation, as Shakespeare would put it, devoutly to be wished. One in three Latin Americans still live in poverty, and one in ten in extreme poverty; for these people, the so-called “golden years” of growth have passed them by.

Latin America has seen a lot of progress here. Millions have been raised out of poverty, and now able to dream of more than just the next rent payment or putting food on their plates. Growth has been strong for most years since 2002. And even in the current downturn, many countries have retained sensible levels of financial regulation, foreign reserves, and sovereign wealth. If anyone can avoid a deep recession and asset bubbles, Latin America can. And British investors know that.

The Latin American Dream is also a dream of peace, safety and security. In 1971 Don Heldar Camara, the then-bishop of Recife, pointed to what he called a ‘spiral of violence’ afflicting the continent. As an analysis of his time, he was largely right. Violence was caused by the continued wide gap between rich and poor in many parts of the continent. Pockets of crime were always found where the differences between the haves and the have-nots were at their greatest.

A number of countries have since embarked on ambitious justice and police reforms. We support such work across Latin America. Not just in spirit, but also through our funds and know-how – directly and through international agencies. Much more remains to be done: in some countries, weak justice systems, corrupt and inefficient police, and illegal drugs all contribute to the problem.

The fourth and final dream I would add is the dream of self-determination. Not self-determination to create your own country, but individual self-determination: the ability to decide for yourself how you live your life. Brecht was right that you have to sort out the basic food position first. But the right to have a say about the things that most affect you, your family, your local community is an essential part of human existence. And Latin America’s many vibrant democracies are a testament to this.

I say all this 199 years after Simon Bolivar arrived in Britain seeking support for his liberation/independence movement. He got help then – and Britain still stands ready to support the legitimate political aspirations of a continent that wants to be free to write is own history.

I’ve talked about Latin American dreams and aspirations – but the same is true for Europe. It is easy to forget but Europe has seen dictatorships of Left and Right in my lifetime. Spain and Greece and Poland, Hungary all had political prisons. We have hopefully now all closed that chapter of our history.

Global connections, Global challenges, Global solutions

Looking ahead, there are ever-present challenges and opportunities which unite us. It is perhaps a cliché to say that today’s world is increasingly global – but like most clichés, it has a kernel of truth.

Latin America and Britain are connected in ever-increasing ways. Every time someone migrates in one direction or the other; or visits as a tourist; or sets up a business, a new connection is made. These connections may be small or big; local or global.

I should like to pick out three of those global connections, and explore these further.

The first is our joint work to tackle the global economic downturn. This has affected every country, regardless of its economic policies. And it will take global, coordinated action to bring us out of recession. I am pleased that the G20, three of whose members are from the continent, agreed ambitious measures in April to do so. And I hope the Prime Minister can count on your support for further agreements in the forthcoming G20 Summit.

Free trade has made the single biggest contribution to rising standards of living across the globe in the past few decades. It’s worth qualifying this: we increasingly recognise that free trade must also be fair trade. There is no long-term future in trading when one side wins and the other looses.

The second ‘global connection’ is our cooperation to ensure global security. A globalized world creates globalized threats. The same capital that can zoom around the world to enable a major takeover can also be used to finance drugs or terrorism. When terrorists and criminal gangs are able to cross borders and coordinate their activities over the internet – no one country can successfully face this threat alone.

And this week, the fourth anniversary of the 7/7 terrorist attack on London, brings this fact sharply into focus.

I believe that, at root, this is an economic problem. Few would deny that poverty and inequality are potential seed beds for discontent and crime. This is true wherever you are in the world – and it’s something all governments need to work to address.

And the third, and perhaps greatest, connection between the UK and Latin America is our work to address global climate change. It’s an issue that touches so many others, and multiplies other threats. Dangerous climate change is not just an environmental issue. It makes achieving prosperity harder: it could shrink our economies by as much as a fifth. It makes achieving security harder: scarcity of water could result in mass movements of populations, causing resentment and – at worst – civil unrest. And it makes achieving equity harder: it is always the poor, often living in low-lying areas, who suffer most from dangerous climate change.

Latin American countries cover the spectrum of climate change issues. From melting glaciers in the Andes, which threaten the water supply of 40 million people; to increased desertification that will render now fertile land useless and prompt mass migration and social upheaval.

All eyes are on Copenhagen. This is our best and last chance to limit the impact of global climate change. We must see a breakthrough deal agreed in December if we are to see global warming peak at 2 degrees in the next decade. It will take Latin American countries to reach this deal. You have links that we don’t – into the G77 and others. Please use them.

Dealing with all these global issues will bring us ever closer together. Neither individual countries, nor regions can deal with the problems of today – so the roads we are on are gradually, but very definitely, converging. And therefore, we need to work together more effectively. That means greater cooperation in the UN and other international bodies, where we can make a big difference on these issues.

Some key challenges

In concluding, I want to offer some key challenges:

1) To Britain and Europe – I say take the opportunity to look at Latin America not through the haze of historic associations or stereotypes, but with eyes wide open to the possibilities the continent affords.

2) In particular, to British business – look at the vast potential of the people in Latin America. This is a continent of over half a billion people, brimming with talent and opportunities for British companies.

3) And to Latin America in general, three pleas:

a) Work with us to get the most out of the international political institutions. Because we are all bound in a common endeavour that can only be fully realised when we work together;

b) Step up to the mark on Climate Change this autumn. You can shape policy, and help deliver a deal in Copenhagen, that will steer the world away from catastrophic climate change;

c) In some countries, regard personal security and political stability as a complement to (and inseparable from) political freedom. Human rights are not an optional add-on or a luxury item. Peace without justice and justice without peace are just chimeras.

Finally, there is another song from the 80s – Solo la Pido a Dios by Leon Greco, which was much sung by Mercedes Sosa. It is a prayer, an aspiration, a hope, a commitment, that we won’t be indifferent to pain, to injustice, to war – and, most significantly, to the future. Britain and Latin America have a shared history, shared values, and – I hope – a shared determination not to be indifferent to the future.