Donald Duck and American Hegemony

By far the most interesting reading/film this week is Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, “From the Noble Savage to the Third World”. Disney movies have long been on my radar for American hegemonic agendas. Disney has reached all corners of the world. Whenever I visit my relatives in Argentina, they ask me if life in America is like in the Disney movies. These movies send messages around the world of what it looks like to live the American Dream and perpetuates the American mission to bring freedom and democracy to uncivilized, undeveloped nations around the world. It also instills ideas of the "undeveloped" world in the American population. Themes of the exotic, the foreign, the stupid, and the uncivilized are consistently characteristics of the people living in the settings taking place abroad. Donald Duck is one of the most extreme examples. Donald is a racist capitalist, exhibiting characteristics of greed and imperial attitudes.

Dorfman and Mattelart quote the Polynesian natives who imitate Donald, “You save our lives. . . We be your servants for ever.” to which Donald responds, “They are natives too. But a little more civilized” (159). This quote makes the direct connection between servitude and civilization. To be civilized means to be obedient, docile subjects of the foreign power. The natives are seen as being stupid, malleable people that could not understand the complexities of a modern civilization and are thus in eternal debt and dependent on foreign intervention. Their most convincing argument is on page 159. They  describe the time Donald went to "Outer Congolia" to save Scrouge's business because his stock was falling. This example eerily resembles how neoliberalism has been functioning for the past, say 50 years. Scrouge's business represents corporate interest in foreign countries for resources and labor to optimize profits. Donald represents military intervention to coerce the government to structurally change economically and politically. Donald gets rid of the king of "Outer Congolia", makes himself king, and rules until: "The king has learned that he must ally himself with foreigners if he wishes to stay in power, and that he cannot even impose taxes on the people, because this wealth must pass wholly out of the country to Duckburg through the agent of McDuck.". Donald's purpose was to assure the alliance of the foreign country of many riches in a unilateral relationship with the states that favors corporate interests. The relationship continues in a dependent trap in which the foreign nation gives monetary aid or resource, in this case, food. In return for their obedience. Disney may seem like innocent child entertainment taking place in imaginary locales. However, It perpetuates American interests and exacerbates the narratives used to colonize and degrade foreign nations.

Decolonization and the Fear of Re-colonization

Many of these articles try to formulate a tactic for unraveling colonialism. Rubén Darío in "To Roosevelt" denounces the Americans for their imperialist motives over Latin America. He makes it a point that Americans use violence to dominate and to dictate the path in which progress must take in Latin America. Rubén fights this imperialism by enumerating the greats of Latin America, suggesting that progress can come from places other than the United States. He also mentions that Latin America has yet to have finished decolonizing after independence from Spain when already they have the states breathing down their necks. He writes, "You are the United States, / future invader of our naive land / with its Indian blood, an America / that still prays to Christ and still speaks Spanish". José Vasconcelos tackles the race problem very differently. For Vasconcelos, rising above the imperial impact of colonization means rising above the race problem. His solution is to create the fifth race, the cosmic race (a mixed, interracial race in which the best qualities of every race create a superior being) by following three laws. He suggests that Latin America can be great, no, they can be the new imperial power if those who have abandoned their lower appetites (of material, physicality), elevated their interests to that of the higher appetites of intellect and politics (of the mind), then those fit will indulge naturally in procreation dictated by taste. Those who are to low and ugly will naturally be weeded out of the process since this framework is one based on aesthetic and not race. Vasconcelos attempts to rid Latin America of the race problem by creating an equally problematic issue based on aesthetics! He still uses the science he distastes in its use for race, condones eugenics, and believes in the manufacturing of a superior race.

Emiliano Zapata "The Plan of Ayala" and José Carlos Mariátegui in "The Problem of the Indian" take a different approach to decolonization. Their focus is driven by internal conflicts of colonization instead of the fear of an imperial Other. Zapata is angry in his piece because the promises of the 1910 revolution have not been met. He accuses Madero of manipulation of the rural class to gain popularity and rise to power and breaking his promises and turning his back on the principles of the revolution. Zapata finds his actions unacceptable because they enslave the campesina population and reduce them to a state of poverty and displacement a the hands of modernity. Their support of Madero was given that he could overturn the damages of Díaz in his three decade reign over Mexico. His regime lead to the colonization of campesina land through privatization pushing the people out and into more impoverished areas. Mariátegui in many ways follows along this discussion by calling out every scholar and politician that has attempted to construct the Indian problem as purely a social and political problem. He makes clear that the Indian problem is an economic one that is deeply embedded in land tenure. The displacement of the people and the laws of the leadership have made Indian life impossible. It excludes them from legal and political participation and constructs their social disadvantages. All in all, these articles are in their own way a call for decolonization in order to better the state of Latin America. 

Silencing the Indigenous in Creelman's Document

James Creelman in the excerpts from “Porfirio Díaz, Hero of the Americas” speaks optimistically about the Díaz regime, his efforts and their results. Creelman mentions that Díaz is a hero that stabilized a once "divided and unprepared" country (132). There is constant references to the republic and the indigenous as ignorant. Creelman says with pride, "the nation is emerging from ignorance and revolutionary passion, and that it can choose and change presidents without weakness or war" (130). The idea of ignorance before modernization is tied to the idea of enlightenment. In order to be progressive and enlightened, to be with the times, etc. one had to modernize and move out of the backwards ways of the past and gain knowledge that will aid their future. However, this narrative in the context of Mexico exists because of the enormous silencing of history. Creelman mentions that Díaz sold a million acres of land. He says this as if it were the greatest indicator of progress and stability. However, he clearly neglects to ask where all of this land came from and what used to occupy this space. These lands were not uninhabited and they were not up for grabs. The indigenous had a complex agricultural system in which there were public lands used as the commons. Díaz followed the manual of modernization and broke up the commons, divided them into parcels, and sold them to Mexicans, but mostly foreigners. The indigenous were displaced and were forced to privatize or be marginalized. Another indicator that Díaz himself mentions to be a success was the drawing back of religion. He views this as an accomplishment, saying that it was a part of his plan in ensuring that the government would not be oppressive nor ruled by one entity (ironically he ruled for three decades). The church was the institution of government for campesinos. The modern state threatened their authority and, thusly, threatened their faith. A third example of the silencing occurring in this document is based on economic indicators. Creelman purely views success their economic terms and national ones at that. He enumerates the revenue the new government has conjured for the nation. However, he neglects to delve into how this revenue is spent and who benefits and how those recipients feel about their impacts. Namely, education. The education system clearly is a national project, a modernization project that aims to change the ways of the indigenous to fit the modern state. It is evident that this document is geared towards foreigners and the elite of Mexico. It focuses solely on the national level where the particularities and on the ground impacts of policies are obscured. It is easy to paint a heroic figure through this light.

The Female/Male Dualism

"Soft", "pure", "nature", "guardanship", "slave", "home", "family", "weak'", "emotional", "body" are words that are associated with the female body. Judith (Josephina Pelliza de Sagasta) uses all of these nouns and adjectives when referring to women's place and role in society in her piece "Women: Dedicated to Miss Maria Eugenia Echenique". The female is constructed and othered by its counterpart, the male in what is called a dualism. Judith uses this dualism to reinforce women's place in society and glorify our oppression. What makes me uneasy is her use of religion to justify women's role as emotional, soft bodies that are only good for gawking and for being daughters (owned by her father), wives (owned by her husband), and mother (slave to her children) (99). She denies women the right to be independent and self-defining by her own agency. Instead she characterizes her as only through her relationships with her male counterparts. In her own words, "She is a slave! you emancipated women will exclaim - and I in turn will reply to you: not a slave but a companion, man's other half, slave perhaps to her children, but how seductive and poetic is her beautiful sacrifice"(99-100). This notion of women as docile, body and emotion is still highly visible in Latin American culture today. I've witnessed my cousins and aunts disciplining their daughters when they act unladylike, threatening them with the idea that they will never be loved by a man if they behave assertively, play "like boys do", get dirty, or wear pants instead of dresses. The dualistic nature of gender is harmful to women because it forces them into a position of second-class citizen and denies them agency. 

Maria Eugenia Echenique briefly rants about the necessity for emancipation by the power of the pen in her piece "Brushstrokes". She is enraged by the denied access to a good and full education, and the dependence women are forced into due to the social institutions that impede her emancipation. She blames the centralized ambitions for gold and "prosaic shine of possessions". How can women progress along with men when they have been excluded from this progression? When they are possessed and cannot possess themselves needless to say objects? I believe that her approach to change in writing is a well intended one and throughout history has proven to make many changes societal changes. However, despite the number of feminist theories, papers, and speeches, this dualism that oppresses women and raises men to the status of superior master and owner of the objects of knowledge is still very much with us today. There is a missing link between what is written and what is done/thought. The key for full women emancipation is in finding out what that missing link is.