South America: why the silence?

Why does the US media care more about riots across the pond than protests happening on its doorstep?

When some 150,000 young people set fire to cars and bus stops, built barricades and clashed with police in Santiago during protests in demand
of free public education earlier this month, there was barely a ripple in the mainstream British and US press. Only the Guardian gave the story a brief mention on the homepage of its website.

It might be tempting to interpret this as an oversight; after all, the riots in England understandably dominated headlines in this country. But while this may account for the silence of the British press, it doesn’t explain the lack of interest from the US and other European media.

The relative silence of the US media is especially baffling. US identity, as well as foreign and domestic policy, has been shaped by interactions with Latin America ever since Independence. From the 1846 Mexican War, to the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup in Guatemala, to the Reagan administration’s backing of the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s, and the ever-present Cuban Question, the US has a long record of engagement with its southern neighbours. Immigration, from Latin America in general and Mexico in particular, has been a dominant theme of US domestic politics for decades, as has the Andean drug trade.

So why the absence of coverage? Many Americans consider themselves heirs to a European, and specifically British, cultural and political heritage. Though there is mixed truth in this, it is perception that matters. Although there are growing numbers of Spanish language television and radio stations, the mainstream US media and the manufacturers of culture in general are predominantly white; they look east towards their Atlantic cousins, rather than south to their Hispanic neighbours.

Another explanation could be practical. Of the ten countries with the highest rates of kidnapping in the world, five are in Latin America. The Blackberry – now almost as ubiquitous a tool for the reporter as a notebook once was – is nicknamed “the phone of death” in Venezuela due to the number of people mugged – and killed – for them. 20 journalists have been killed in Latin America so far this year. This problem is especially endemic in Mexico, where journalists reporting on the drug trade are often silenced.

But not all of Latin America is dangerous, opaque, or geographically hostile. And many other areas of the world that are – parts of Africa and the Middle East, for example – do receive substantial press attention. European nations tend to have a greater interest in former colonies, or those involved in the cold war. Spain, which did have an empire in South America, tends to be more vocal about South American affairs; El Pais even had an editorial on the Chilean student protests.

But though Britain may not have had colonies in South America, it had an informal trading empire there, and Britain almost went to war with the
newly independent United States over the latter’s territorial expansion in South America on more than one occasion.

Today, Britain still has interests in Latin America. But as Dr Ramos, an expert on Latin American history at Cambridge University, says:

“Although the UK has important investments in South America (for example, the UK is one of the major investors in Peru), this is not reflected in the coverage the region gets in the British press. Since the 19th century, Britain has seen Latin America as an area of US ‘natural’ influence.”

There are also ideological reasons for the lack of commentary on Latin American affairs in North America. US policymakers and opinion formers are perhaps reluctant to draw attention to the examples of successful social democracy that have taken root in their back yard. The democratic
re-election of Bolivian president Evo Morales, who is implementing a series of pragmatic but quasi-socialist nationalisations, reveals that his anti-imperialist approach is far more popular than the neoliberal policies of the North American-educated elites, often seen as US stooges.

Likewise, social reforms and public works programmes in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Uruguay have enjoyed relative success. And though Hugo Chavez’s regime may not be a functional social democracy, the Venezuelan President is popular amongst the working classes, which benefit from his redistributive policies. Chile, meanwhile, is the most economically successful of all Latin American countries, and its citizens are protesting en masse in the capital in demand of more equal education. It is not surprising that this message is not being loudly relayed in America, which is the most unequal country in the developed world.