Winning Latin American hearts and minds, however, may prove to be much more difficult. Resentment of the United States is nothing new among developing countries. Within hours, in many parts of the world, the attack on America drew quite a different reaction than Cardoso’s–a quiet satisfaction that the world’s superpower had been taken down a notch. Latin Americans are no longer natural Yankee-bashers. But a lump of resentment at all things gringo can still rise, and Sept. 11 seems to have brought it to the surface. “I’m not against the American people,” says Kiko Netto, a 19-year-old psychology major at Rio’s Federal Fluminense University. “But the United States got what it deserved. You reap what you sow.”
True, many Latin Americans were devastated by Black Tuesday, which claimed the lives of dozens of compatriots. Mourners donned white and marched for peace from Santiago to San Salvador, while scores of U.S. expatriates reported how friends and neighbors reached out to them in sympathy. Even the Colombian guerrillas weighed in with condolences.
But mere days after the attack, a different set of sentiments was roiling the radio waves, the op-ed pages and the buzz at corner bars across the region. “F— the USA,” and “Two towers are not enough” were just a couple of the e-mails sizzling through cyberspace. One English professor in So Paulo state was startled to hear her students tell her they were having second thoughts about studying “the language of imperialism.” At a peace rally among Jewish, Arab and Christian merchants in downtown Rio de Janeiro, protest banners called for remembering more than the victims of the terrorist attacks. 150,000 DEAD IN HIROSHIMA. WHO DID IT? asked one banner. A MINUTE OF SILENCE FOR THE AMERICA’S DEAD. 59 MINUTES FOR THE VICTIMS OF AMERICAN POLICY, read another.
Intellectuals argued that the tragedy should, in fact, reduce U.S. swagger. Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote that the United States could look to Mexico as an ally, but “not as its subject.” Andres Hurtado, a widely read Colombian columnist, wrote an open letter to the United States in El Tiempo, a Bogota daily: “Heaven help you to learn a bit of humility.” Rosemarie Muraro, a Brazilian feminist, compared the attacks on the United States to “a slave revolt.”
Maybe not since the 1970s, when military men ruled the continent–often with Washington’s blessings–has Latin America seen such an explicit outburst of anti-gringo sentiment. But what explains the sudden gale of grievance? Apart from Argentina, which dispatched troops to aid Western allies during the gulf war, Latin America has mostly been a spectator to the clash of faiths and forces overseas. Most nations want a piece of the New World Order, captained by America, not its destruction. Nor does the cry of cultural imperialism seem to quicken pulses anymore. “Most kids today are totally in thrall to the U.S., from Tom Cruise to compact discs,” says Brazilian psychiatrist Jurandir Freire Costa.
The latest disturbances are likely the product of an age-old rancor. “There’s a lot of resentment of the U.S. as the No. 1 and only world power,” says David Fleischer, an American political scientist and a longtime resident of Brazil. “This is David and Goliath.” Others argue that by demonizing gringos, the protesters only underscore their dependency on the United States. Freire believes many Latin Americans, bitter over stunted opportunities, depressed wages and joblessness, are simply “projecting their own frustrations” on the United States. “It’s easier to blame others for your own problems,” he says.
At the same time, a quieter, more thoughtful body of opinion has also begun to emerge in the region, one that calls for reflection instead of recrimination. “Maybe this blow to the U.S. is a signal that Americans must rethink things,” says Roberto DaMatta, a Brazilian anthropologist who teaches at Notre Dame. “What does America mean to the rest of the world? What do we have to do to change things?” In that sense, protesters are helping to shape a debate that’s beginning to take place in the States as well, about the weight and wisdom of U.S. policy abroad. Their anti-Americanism could well be very American.
