Week 11: Dirty War
I was really happy this week to see that we would be discussing the Cold War in Latin America. I think that the reason why by the 1980's few of the countries mentioned had democratic governments was largely due to U.S. subversion in fear of communism. Latin America during this time seems to be heavily ideological; groups are created within every subset of identity and strongly politicized. Peasants, hacendados, caciques, politicians, and elites all existed within political niches with varying levels of credibility and political capital. I found the story of Peru to be especially confusing this week. I think this is largely because from what I have read, I have always viewed socialist groups within Latin America as the sort of moral underdog; I think of Che and the sort of heroism he generated ideologically. The Shining Path, due to their embrace of gratuitous violence lost any form of heroism. The kind of violence they employed lacked any real justification and seemed largely depen...