Pink is the New Black
Post-World
War II was a troubling and unstable time for most, if not all, of Latin
America. Industrialization slowed down, Nationalist goals of economic
independence were far out of reach, and population skyrocket as improvements in
health and sanitation lowered the death rate. While the economy itself enjoyed
some growth in this post war era, it wasn’t nearly enough to deal with the
needs of the increasing population, evidence of this being how shantytowns
began popping up everywhere; entire neighborhoods made from trashed wood and
metal whose inhabitants struggled for the most basic of necessities. With
things in such bad shape, the idea of revolution was incredibly appealing, with
ideas of Populism and Marxism joining with already established ideals of
nationalism, a dangerous combination considering that the United States had
begun sticking its imperialist noses were it didn’t belong.
After
World War II the United States gave almost no aid to their Latin American
allies, instead their focus was placed on Russia and Western Europe, as well as
Asia soon after, due to their growing fear of Communism. This conflict, known
as the Cold War, caused the U.S. to go crazy with Communist hysteria, so much
so that they saw any sort of opposition as the hand of Communism at work, and
with Latin America’s growing Nationalism and resentment of their imperialist
neighbors, they were a prime target for this hysteria. The U.S. often placed
their support behind Latin American dictators, such as Rafael Trujillo of the
Dominican Republic or Marco Perez Jimenez of Venezuela, purely because they
were anticommunist, disregarding how their leadership effected their countries.
They even went as far as actually overthrowing democratically elected officials
that were “too pink” for their taste and replacing them with anticommunist
dictators, all in the name of containment. However, the greatest clash between
the United States and Latin America came in the form of Fidel Castro and the
Cuban Revolution.
After
the 1950s, Latin American became more and more interested in the Marxist way of
thinking, seeing a Marxist Revolution as the solution to all of the social and
economical injustice that they had suffered through for centuries, they also
saw it as another way for them to rebel against the United States, who by then
was clearly anticommunist. However, it wasn’t until two revolutionaries, Che
Guevara and Fidel Castro, met in Mexico that a true revolution began brewing. The
two, along with Fidel’s brother Raul, mounted a small invasion on Cuba and
successfully overthrew the U.S. backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, establishing
a communist dictatorship with Castro as President for Life. This was the United
State’s worst fears come to life and they desperately tried to rectify the
situation, enacting an embargo on Cuban goods in the 1960s and sending in a
proxy force in what would come to be called the Bay of Pigs invasion, which
failed horribly. Both actions practically drove Cuba into the Soviet Unions
arms, culminating in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the U.S. had to
promise not to invade Cuba in exchange for Russia removing their missiles from
the island nation. To this day the U.S.’s relations with Cuba had been rocky at
best, but there is hope for cooperation in the future as talk of lifting the
embargo has been floating around congress recently, hoping that it would
encourage Cubans to push for reform in the corrupt Castro Dictatorship, and
loosen the brother’s hold on the country. (
Image from: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2014/12/18/abc-offers-little-criticism-obamas-cuba-move-it-helped-thaw-cold-war
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