At first glance the scene on our cover is unsurprising: January 2009, thousands packed into crowded streets holding signs in support of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Since taking office ten years prior, Venezuela’s firebrand president led an unprecedented political transformation that saw one country after another in Latin America elect left-wing governments of various stripes, each linked by a new focus on social spending, wealth redistribution, and state power following decades of neoliberal rule. In the process, Chávez earned the ire of venerable political and economic elites, and the admiration of long-sidelined popular sectors, who came to see Chávez as a champion for the poor and disenfranchised. But what makes this scene remarkable is that it took place not in Caracas, but half a world away in Ramallah, in the heart of the West Bank.
This is a watershed issue of the Report, for several reasons. Not only does it mark the first issue of NACLA’s 50th year of publication—an extraordinary story of struggle, resilience, solidarity, and compromiso to which we will devote our fall number. It also finds us reaching well beyond the borders of Latin America in search of the region’s wider, global, and reciprocal influences. To do so, we have partnered with MERIP (Middle East Research and Information Project) and Jadaliyya in an unprecedented cross-regional and cross-platform collaboration. Much like NACLA, MERIP’s print magazine has offered independent reporting and analysis of the Middle East for nearly 50 years, bringing together prominent academics, scholars, journalists, artists, and activists to cut through the imperial gaze the region has long been subjected to by mainstream media and U.S. policy circles. Jadaliyya, for its part, has quickly emerged as a leading online outlet for crucial and often underreported facets of Middle East politics, society, and culture since its launch in 2011. Together, we have pooled our resources, expertise, and experience to explore links both new and longstanding between parts of the world infrequently considered side by side.
And there is much to explore. Support for Chávez in Ramallah in part reflected the late President’s full throated endorsment of Palestinian statehood, expressed as early as 2006 in fiery speeches denouncing Israeli occupation, delegations of Palestinian activists, students, and politicians in Venezuela, and economic aid sent to Gaza and the West Bank. Chávez also severed diplomatic ties with Israel following a three-week military offensive in Gaza in 2009, and opened a diplomatic mission in Ramallah in 2012. “He really felt the suffering of the Palestinians,” said Hani al-Agha, a 31-year old resident of Gaza, to AFP after Chávez’s death in 2013. Nabil Shaath, an official in Ramallah, observed how Chávez “endlessly worked … for all oppressed peoples, including Palestine.” But what underlay this outreach, and what larger processes, problems, and possibilities did it reveal about ties between Latin America and the Middle East?
In fact, Chávez’s rhetorical and material solidarity toward Palestinians formed part of a much broader, often fraught relationship forged between the two regions at a time of deep flux for both. As the Pink Tide reached its crest in the mid-2000s, left-wing governments throughout Latin America increasingly made generating a “multi-polar world” a central part of a larger agenda to disrupt U.S. hegemony globally. Outreach to Arab nations in particular figured prominently in these efforts. Chávez had led the way as early as 2000, hosting Organization of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) heads of state in Caracas in 2000 in a bid to file the long-dormant organization’s teeth, meeting with longtime U.S. nemesis Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and later staging massive rallies in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere in the region where crowds, showcasing rifts and dissatisfaction with local leaders, proclaimed him “Chávez of Arabia.”
Venezuelan flags and portraits of Hugo Chávez feature prominently at a demonstration in Ramallah, Palestine, in 2009. ISSAM RIMAWI
Chávez was far from alone. Over the years, other Pink Tide countries and leaders in Latin America followed suit, developing economic, political, and cultural ties with Arab countries more broadly in a clear bid to flex newfound geopolitical muscle geopolitical muscle vis-à-vis the United States. In 2005, leaders of Arab and Latin American nations met in Brasilia for a first-of-its-kind summit, repeated in 2009 in Doha and in 2012 in Lima. In response to Israeli military operations in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank, several Latin American countries including Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and El Salvador broke diplomatic ties with Israel. Iranian Presidents Mohammad Khatami and later, U.S. antagonist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled throughout Latin America in unprecedented official state visits—the latter also attending Chávez’s funeral in Caracas in 2013. In 2010, Brazil, Turkey, and Iran brokered a deal to curb nuclear weapons acquisition. Though U.S. pressure ultimately scuttled that agreement as well as other multilateral initiatives by the two regions, these efforts nevertheless power-fully showcased a new era of autonomous cooperation between Latin America and the Middle East.
Latin America’s striking and strategic outreach to the Middle East during the Pink Tide invites questions—as yet largely unasked, much less answered—about how the image and role of Latin America in the Middle East changed in the process, permitting new and more dynamic comparative research agendas between both regions.
Meanwhile in the Middle East, entrenched power regimes teetered against a wave of social and political movements broadly identified as the Arab Uprisings. Though the Arab Uprisings had precursors throughout the second half of the 20th century, they shattered a regional equilibrium and revived the role of mass movements in the region. However, authoritarian regimes, regional powers, and international intervention have imploded the early promise of the uprisings. This has brought about a revanchist suffocating authoritarianism in places like Egypt, and created social and humanitarian catastrophes in places like Yemen, Syria, and Libya.
Of course, that many of these faltering regimes had been the primary partners in Latin America’s out-reach efforts exposed uncomfortable realities about the mainly state-to-state rather than people-to-people nature of the relationship. As the Arab Uprisings deepened, widened, and turned ever more deadly, it increasingly appeared that long-simmering tensions in the underbelly of the Arab world had been obscured by solidarity limited mainly, it now seemed, to shared antagonism against U.S. foreign policy in both regions. In fact, as early as 2007, Nasrin Alavi alerted NACLA readers to these and other problems of a then-fledgling relationship between Latin America and the Middle East, masked by early excitement about a new era of South-South cooperation. We reprint Alavi’s essay here as a snapshot of the optimism of the era, to offer context for the pieces that follow, and to consider how revisiting the origins and development of that relationship ten years later helps us to rethink assumptions about what was possible then, what is possible now, and what may be possible in future Latin America–Middle East relations.
Above all, Latin America’s striking and strategic outreach to the Middle East during the Pink Tide invites questions—as yet largely unasked, much less answered—about how the image and role of Latin America in the Middle East changed in the process, permitting new and more dynamic comparative research agendas between both regions. Moreover, as the Pink Tide recedes, as Venezuela and Brazil—two major drivers of Latin American outreach to the Middle East—enter deep crisis, and as renewed conflict and authoritarianism grips the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Uprisings, the time is ripe to consider the origins, contours, and legacies of this relationship.
Concretely, our contributors ask: what informed Latin America’s turn to the Middle East during the Left turn, and how was it manifested? How did it draw on, and how did it alter, previously existing images of Latin America in the Middle East in popular culture, literature, and media? How powerfully did common cause around anti-U.S. sentiment in Latin America and the Middle East inform new solidarities, and with what consequences? How did different meanings of “Left” in each region shape understandings and misunderstandings of a new relationship? Did new state-to-state level relations between leaders in Latin America and the Middle East percolate among populations at large? How were longstanding areas of South-South cooperation—in terms of energy, trade, and diplomacy—affected? And after the Pink Tide in Latin America and the Arab Spring’s turn to deadly winter, what is left of these changes, and what is their future?
Part I: Latin America in the Middle East
These questions are at the heart of the current issue, which appears in conjunction with a special issue of MERIP—available to NACLA readers later this spring—and together organized around three thematic areas. One is Latin America in the Middle East. Due to the legacy of successive waves of migration from the Middle East to Latin America in the twentieth century, most accounts of the relationship have focused on Middle Eastern influence in Latin America. But Latin America’s influence in the Middle East, direct and indirect, is deep, longstanding, and wide-ranging.
Writing in NACLA, Fernando Camacho-Padilla draws on his long experience teaching courses on Latin America at Iranian universities to offer a rich account of how elite and popular perceptions of Latin America inform present-day views about the region. Houzan Mahmoud and Ismail Hamalaw, Kurdish writers and activists, reveal longstanding fascination with Latin American revolutionary leaders and especially literature, among Iraqi Kurds in their quest for autonomy and independence from Baghdad. Lena Meari also traces the study of Latin American revolutionary tracts and testimonio literature among Palestinian prisoners, an influence that finds new relevance today among new generations of Palestinian youth. Meanwhile in MERIP, Iraqi novelist and literary critic Sinan Antoon considers how Latin American writers of the Boom era generated intense followings among youth and intellectuals in Iraq and across the Middle East who read deep resonances in the worlds and words of Borges and Márquez.
Part II: Comparative Regionalism
Comparative Regionalism is our second organizing theme. It features contributions that focus on how democracy, neoliberalism, post-neoliberal development, political parties, and social movements manifest themselves in both regions. In MERIP, Hiba Bou Akar and Roosbelinda Cárdenas describe, based on their experience co-teaching courses that compare ethnographic texts on Latin America and the Middle East, how “violence” appears in the mainstream as the primary tool to tie the two regions together, to the detriment of comparative reflection. Kaveh Ehsani examines the impact of shifting oil politics on the social and political histories of oil-producing countries in both regions through the late 20th and early 21st century. Kevan Harris uses the lens of inequality to examine differential contours of democratization and forms of integration into the global economy, finding similarities in the ways that violence, unequal relations with the global North, and conglomerate forms of capitalism have affected both regions. And while Latin American texts made their way to Israeli prisons during and after the intifada, Sara Awartani traces how Palestinian struggles for national liberation influenced Puerto Rican activists seeking independence from the United States.
Palestinians in Ramallah hold posters during a 2014 rally in support of Latin American leaders. ZUMA PRESS, INC./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Nadim Bawalsa, writing in NACLA, digs even further. Drawing on newspapers published by Palestinian migrants in early 20th century Chile, he uncovers a fascinating story of how a community that self-identified in pan-Arabic terms came to see itself as explicitly Palestinian, powerfully shaping what is by far the largest and most tightly organized community of Palestinian descendants in the Americas. Omar Tesdell, too, reads deep into the 20th century to uncover how Mexican and Palestinian agronomists sought to turn dry-farming techniques into a political tool for land tenancy, development, and eventually, national identity formation. Mexico also features in Marwan Kraidy’s essay, which examines the meanings of modernity in both regions through the lens of two prominent intellectuals who have shaped discourse and policy in the Americas and in Saudi Arabia, in particular, with wider impact across the Middle East. Egypt is a key site for comparison for Paul Amar, whose explosive piece considers how the military in both countries have increasingly encroached into the realm of capitalist development projects, with striking, and troubling trajectories in each region. Photographer K. Flo Razowsky also explores the theme of militarization and securitization in a photo essay that provides a comparative look at the walls dividing Mexico and the United States, Israel and Palestine, and Spain and Morocco.
Part III: Recent History
Our third thematic area examines Recent History in earnest. Here, contributors consider social movements, political, economic, and cultural exchanges, and transnational solidarity and diaspora politics in light of the Arab Uprsings, and against the backdrop of nearly two decades of left-wing governance in Latin America. Writing in NACLA, Tariq Dana appraises factionalism within the Palestinian liberation movement, providing a crucial corrective to the surface-level solidarity that has long informed Latin American views not only of Palestine, but of political movements in the Middle East more broadly, obscuring its fraught internal dynamics. In MERIP, Cecilia Baeza and Paulo Pinto shed light on the mobilization of Syrian diaspora populations through an examination of pro-Asad regime mobilization within the Syrian-Lebanese community in Argentina. And Paulo Farah examines the rise and fall of the Arab-Latin American Summit (ASPA) to shed light on the possibilities of state led South-South solidarity. Peruvian-Syrian poet Farid Matuk explores an aspect of this solidarity in his poem inspired by the 2003 death of Rachel Corrie, a U.S.-born activist who was run over by an Israeli Defense Forces tank when she acted as a human shield in defense of a Palestinian home. What is the meaning of white, western solidarity with causes like Palestine? How can its privileges be leveraged, and what are its limitations? Such questions reverberate in Latin America. Meanwhile, a photograph by Alan Pogue exemplifying Jewish solidarity with the Palestinian cause further complicates perspectives of identity and solidarity within this struggle across borders.
We anticipate that this collaboration will be a springboard for ongoing and deeper cross-regional understandings and solidarities.
This issue of the NACLA Report only scratches the surface of a rich and complex topic. We fully anticipate that this collaboration will be a springboard for ongoing and deeper cross-regional understandings and solidarities. Equipped with such knowledge, we can strengthen our own worldviews and toolboxes to promote positive changes to oppressive structures of power in Latin America and the Middle East, whatever their guise. The magazine you are holding is only the beginning.
The Latin East: An International Conference
On April 27 and 28, 2018, contributors to both magazines will assemble in New York City for a major conference both to present their work, and to launch a platform for future projects. In addition to our authors, the conference will also feature Rania Jawad, Amal Eqeiq, Eman Morsi, Ali Mirsepassi, and Arang Keshavarzian, scholars of Middle East and Latin American politics and culture, who will offer commentary that will appear at Jadaliyya.com. The event will be free and open to the public, and will also feature an exhibit of NACLA’s 50 years of work on Latin America. If you are unable to attend in person, don’t worry! The conference will be broadcast online. Either way, please do join us in what promises to be not the culmination but the launch of a game-changing initiative to kick off NACLA’s second half century of publishing as we have our first: by bringing you cutting edge coverage and analysis of burning issues facing Latin America—and the wider world—that you won’t find anywhere else.
Beyond the Report
Beyond our special issue of the Report, as in every issue here we also bring you our Around the Region and Review sections. We look at ongoing struggles in Venezuela, Guatemala, and Puerto Rico. Ociel López writes from Venezuela, analyzing the wave of looting that occurred in the beginning of 2018. Could such events lead to a more general uprising among popular sectors? As elections approach, in Venezuela, with massive opposition sectors boycotting, the actions of Organization of American States (OAS) General Secretary Luis Almagro, as Aldo Marchesi writes, have only deepened polarization, damaging prospects for reconciliation. Meanwhile, a new law strengthening coordination and surveillance capabilities of Guatemala’s military police will also increase discord and violence across the country, particularly for Indigenous communities struggling in defense of their land. And then there is the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico following Hurricane María. As Brenda Torres’ article warns, with the next hurricane season just three months away, the situation in Puerto Rico remains dire as civil society groups like the San Juan Bay Estuary Program work to incorporate environmental impact into plans for the island’s future.
Finally, we review several works reflecting themes of transnationalism. First, Marcelo Borges’ review of Global Latin(o) Americanos: Transoceanic Diasporas and Regional Migrations, edited by Mark Overmyer-Velázquez and Enrique Sepúlveda III, dives into migratory and diasporic developments within and across regions—from Latin America to the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East—uncovering surprising analyses about adaptation and cultural expression. Next, Elizabeth Mirabal reviews German-born Ana Veltfort’s one-of-a-kind graphic novel, Adiós mi Habana, about the ten years Veltfort lived in Cuba in the 1960s and 1970s as a teenager—featuring excerpts from the work itself. Finally, Alexander Dunlap provides an analysis of Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico by Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, which explores the way that Los Zetas have used a violent transnational business model to encroach ever-more deeply into Mexico’s natural resources and energy utilities.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Alejandro Velasco
Alejandro Velasco is Associate Professor of Modern Latin America at New York University and Executive Editor of NACLA.
Omar Dahi
Omar Dahi is Associate Professor of Economics at Hampshire College and editor at MERIP.
Sinan Antoon
Sinan Antoon is Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at New York University and culture editor at Jadaliyya.
Laura Weiss
Laura Weiss is Managing Editor of the NACLA Report.