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Notes and testimony on neo-colonialism,
violence and liberation.
NEOCOLONIALISM AND VIOLENCE
This film was made with the collaboration of peasants, workers,
students, intellectuals and revolutionaries.
To all these we express
our deep appreciation.
Data from: the 2nd Declaration of Havana;
the U.N.; the General Confederation of Labour,
and contemporary publications.
Scenes have been taken from the following films:
Tire Die by Fernando Birri, Mayoria Absoluta by Leon Hirxmann,
El Cielo y la Tierra by Joris Ivens.
Extracts from Faena by Humberto Rios, Theatre Frankenstein.
We thank ARGER FILM of Rome for their collaboration.
This film speaks of neo-colonialism
and violence in Argentina
and in most of the countries of Latin America not yet liberated.
For this reason it does not deal with Cuba, the first free territory of the Americas.
To Che Guevara and to all those who have fallen
in the struggle for Latin American liberation.
THE GREAT COUNTRY
THE GREAT UNFINISHED NATION
my first name: VICTIM
my surname: HUMILIATED
my condition: REBEL
A common past
A common enemy
A common possibility
THE GEOGRAPHY OF HUNGER
DISPOSSESSED, SHUT OUT, DAMNED
WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT A FALSE HISTORY
FALSE HOPES OF WEALTH
A FALSE INTERNATIONAL VIEWPOINT
FALSE ECONOMIC BELIEFS
A FALSE FREEDOM
OUR FIRST ACT
OUR FIRST WORD
TO BE FREE THERE IS ONLY ONE CHOICE
PUT THE PEOPLE IN POWER
INVENT
IDEOLOGY
ORGANIZE OUR REVOLUTION
THE DUTY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY
IS TO MAKE THE REVOLUTION
NO SOCIAL ORDER COMMITS SUICIDE
A LONG WAR
A CRUEL WAR
IMPUNITY
THE PRICE OF BECOMING MEN
A PEOPLE WITHOUT HATE CANNOT TRIUMPH
COLONIZED MAN
FREES HIMSELF THROUGH VIOLENCE
THE UNCIVILIZED WILL TEACH THE CIVILIZED
POWER
RELEASE MAN
ALL OUR ACTION
IS A CRY AGAINST IMPERIALISM
AND A PLEA FOR UNITY AGAINST THE GREAT ENEMY: THE U.S.A.
"for having loved too much...."
Latin America is a continent at war:
For the ruling classes, a war of oppression
For the oppressed peoples, a war of liberation
1: HISTORY
The independence of the Latin American countries
was betrayed from birth.
It was betrayed by the exporting elite of the port cities.
In the same year as Bolivar consolidated independence in Ayacucho,
Rivadavia signed a trick-loan in Buenos Aires
with the Baring Brothers bank.
British merchants took over
the national bank that issued the country's currency
and, in the name of free trade,
their manufacturers invaded internal markets.
From that moment on, England replaced Spain
in dominating almost all of the continent.
What it had not obtained before with armies
it now obtained with its loans.
The country exported wool and imported textiles.
It exported meat and leather
and imported grand pianos.
The exporting agricultural bourgeoisie
thus became an agrarian appendage
of European industry.
For the first time in history,
here, in Latin America,
a new form of domination began to be applied:
the exploitation of colonial commerce
through the local bourgeoisie.
This was the birth of neo-colonialism.
To impose neo-colonialism
it was necessary to divide the continent.
The unity of America was destroyed.
Canning's diplomacy balkanised the South of the continent.
The Yankee empire then completed his work in the North and Centre.
The colonial ambitions of the two great empires
were satisfied with Latin American blood...
from Mexico to the River Plate.
One people was pitted against another,
one province against another.
In less than a century, 20 nations emerged
from what had been four viceroyalties.
The Monroe Doctrine and the big stick
legalised open aggression against the continent.
In less than a century the United States
carried out 41 armed interventions in Latin America.
Today the impunity of such aggressions
is guaranteed by the O.A.S. (Organization of American States).
Balkanization first, pan-Americanism today.
Both are aspects of a single policy: neo-colonialism.
2: THE COUNTRY
Argentina: Over 4 million square kilometres of surface area
and 2,800,000 of continental surface area.
A long triangle that could hold Spain, Italy, England, France,
Germany, Belgium, Poland Holland, Czechoslovakia,
Austria, Denmark, Bulgaria, Hungary.
From the Antarctic to the tropical forest, all climates.
Immense untapped natural resources.
A million square kilometres of woodland.
Four thousand kilometres of ocean coastline.
A million square kilometres of continental shelf.
La Pampa, the most famous prairies in the world.
A country that produces 8 million calories of energy per capita,
that consumes 10 million and needs many more
but exploits barely 3% of its water power
and 10% of its arable land.
An immense country, practically deserted.
23 million inhabitants, of which 70% are crowded in the cities.
45% in only one of its 23 provinces, Buenos Aires,
where 60% of industry is concentrated
and the proletariat.
In the federal capital, the population exceeds
24 thousand inhabitants per square kilometre.
While in Patagonia, the ratio, is less than 2 per square kilometre.
In it's socio economic structure, Argentina is the country
that least resembles the rest of Latin America. It is proportionally the most industrialised.
Its rural population is the smallest. The percentage of middle class citizens
and the living standards are among the highest.
Its working class is unionised.
Its intellectuals are many and brilliant
but perhaps the least Latin American on the continent.
This country often called
"Ranch" country, "Cannery" country, "Breadbasket of the World",
is for the oligarchy the product of three factors: English gold,
Italian hands, French culture.
3: DAILY VIOLENCE
THE VIOLENCE VISITED ON THE LATIN AMERICAN PEOPLES
IS A CONSTANT, PLANNED, SYSTEMATIC VIOLENCE
I am a worker, one of the sacrificed. I have always worked, even on Sunday.
Now there isn't any work...
Many factories are closing...
The government told the police to surround the building...
When they found out I had been a union delegate...
A DAILY VIOLENCE
TO DOMINATE MAN, *** AND POISON GAS ARE NOT YET NECESSARY
THERE IS AN INFINITY OF ECONOMIC, POLITICAL AND CULTURAL MEANS
JUST AS EFFECTIVE AS ARMIES
Sure, I'm afraid of losing my job.
Think of your family, like me.
The police killed three of our friends...
They fired me because when Peron fell...
..they changed the whole personnel.
They were shooting at us, not in the air!
The police kept the doors under guard.
Persecution in the factory.
NEO-COLONIAL VIOLENCE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PUT INTO PRACTICE
IT IS ENOUGH FOR IT TO EXIST POTENTIALLY
OUR WAR IS THE PEACE, THE ORDER, THE NORMALITY OF THE SYSTEM
75% of Argentine workers cannot satisfy their basic needs with what they earn.
The buying power of wages
has fallen by 40% in recent years.
Working hours for wage-earners
have risen to 11 hours a day.
Our country has one million farm workers
but only half have a permanent job.
Latin America, out of a surface area of 20 million square kilometres,
has only 6% of arable land under cultivation.
The latifundio: 50% of the land
is in the hands of 1.5% of the landowners,
while 80% of the population has no land at all.
90% of the rural population lives in shacks and hovels
no different from pre-Colombian times.
Electricity, drinking water are lacking, and so is common sanitation.
This is the breeding ground of malnutrition, disease, and hunger.
In Argentina, there are 900 thousand abandoned children.
In the rural zones, of every 100 babies, 70 are illegitimate.
Of every 10 babies born alive, 4 die.
In Brazil: 43% of the infant population dies of hunger,
300 thousand a year.
More children die of malnutrition every year than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
40% of the urban population
lives in absolute promiscuity.
In Buenos Aires and surrounding areas,
800 thousand people live in sub-standard housing.
45 million Latin Americans lives resigned to poverty,
in slums and shanty towns, "corventillos, villas miserias" favelas, ranchardas, cantegriles.
In Argentina: one million cases of syphilis,
one and a half million cases of tuberculosis,
two million cases of "mal de chagas".
In Latin America, the average worker's income
is 20 times less than that of the upper classes.
For 110 million people (half the population)
income does not reach 120 dollars a year.
Ten dollars a month. Thirty cents a day.
If the present rate of development continues, the Argentines...
will have to wait 70 years
to reach the yearly income of today's Frenchman...
and 200 years to reach that of today's American.
"High in the Heavens"
"a warrior eagle"
"wings boldly upward"
"in triumphant flight."
"Blue one wing"
"the colour of the sea,"
"the other blue wing"
"the colour of the sky."
"Hovering high above"
"radiant dawn"
"arrow's point."
"It imitates the golden face"
"and forms a wake in the purple sky."
"The wing is the patio."
"The eagle is the flag."
"It is the flag"
"of my country"
"born of the sun"
"which God gave me."
4: THE PORT CITY
Buenos Aires nerve centre of neo colonial politics.
White city in a half-breed America.
City built at the expense of the whole country.
7 million inhabitants, 1 million foreigners.
The biggest city in Latin America.
The fifth in the world.
Buenos Aires: appendage of the great metropolises.
Here a "gaucho" is as exotic as in Paris, London, or New York.
City of executives and professional people,
of the caretakers of neo-colonial interests,
overseers of the settlers.
Cradle of the vast middle class which once used
and protected by the oligarchy,
now thrashes about more defenceless than ever before.
The petty bourgeoisie snivels over an upset world.
For it, the country is intolerable, but unchangeable.
Change is necessary, but impossible.
Deeply attached to its own status and prestige,
but quick to follow the latest European fashions,
Satisfied by edifying speeches, by psychologists,
and moralizing TV programs.
Buenos Aires: city that turns its back on the country.
In the huge Rio de la Plata.
Here the statues inspire more distrust than awe.
Seat of government of the curia,
of the press, of Army headquarters,
and 80% of the country's gangsters.
Here the interest in life of the nation is concentrated.
Here monuments have been raised to the man who said:
"These provinces want to belong to England,
"to obey its laws, be subject to its government,
"live under its powerful influence." CARLOS MARIA DE ALVEAR
5: THE OLIGARCHY
2 million 500 thousand, 2 million 500 thousand...
Prize champion two-year-old.
Excellent quality, wonderful expression...
very male, powerful, well-***...
A bull of the San Juan type, with all the qualities.
A bull that belongs to the modern line.
On sale here, Pereira's prize champion two year old.
We have an offer of 2 million pesos.
Agrarian Argentine society,
the traditional centre of our oligarchy.
Here they are, the 50 families of Buenos Aires
who have taken over ten million acres of land.
One family, the Braum Menendez Behetys, owns 15 million acres. Here they are.
2% of the cattlemen own 40% of the livestock.
Barely 5% of the active population,
which every year makes off with 42% of national income.
The owners of the country!
Yesterday clinging to the one-crop system and English capital,
today associated with the industrial bourgeoisie
and American financial capital.
87 million acres
in the hands of foreign corporations.
Our ancestors built the country's greatness.
Furthermore, you see, our aristocracy. in many ways resembles the European.
I remember once in London, a guest of Lord Grifford.
Speaking of our aristocracy
he himself compared it to the Polish nobility.
As in the case of one of the Carcano girls
who married Lord Astor.
And then the other girl, Juanita Diaz,
the foundling they adopted, who married the Duke of Luin.
We don't really have much money.
Today we're as worthless
as a businessman who sells cloth.
And yet we have lived drinking mate
with "espinillo" or "tala" wood.
Because at one time we had soldiers, who were great civilians.
I want you to know that General Mitre translated Dante,
wrote poetry and was a well-known journalist
who began the paper "La Nacion".
General Rocca was also a highly educated man.
And General Augustin P Justo, who few remember,
had the best library of Argentine history in the country.
What do these modern folks know?
Up to a year ago you could go to Punta del Est. But now?
Last year it was already unbearable. There wasn't a corner not full of upstarts!
I'd like to live in the United States.
There, if you want to go out somewhere, you find thousands of places to go, things to see.
For example, you walk around Paris, and Paris really...
If the French built it, it's already a demonstration.
Get to know Klee, and at least 3 of Miller's works,
and Saint-John Perse and Antonin Artaud
and abstract and concrete art, Pop and Op.
Really it's unbelievable.
She takes these country girls into the house to work
and last time she gave them a mattress of my sister's.
Within two days she burned it. Now she gets her sleep on the floor.
Present, the government
really intend to straighten things out.
That's what the people need.
During all these years, the General Confederation of Labour
promised things and gathered in the money.
This General Confederation of Labour is a huge enterprise.
It's actually a very powerful bank.
But what does it do with all that money. Nothing!
The Union delegates go around in cars and silk suits
and if you meet one on the street dressed like that, well they're just like hicks.
You can't compare them
with a boy from a good family
raised in a prep school, Saint George's for example,
who associates with human circles,
ethical circles, that’s the right word ethical!
He grows with a Christian conception
of the family and society.
You can’t compare him with one of those sorts.
They're completely uncultured individuals. Downright illiterate..
Generally, they either learn to write
or get someone else to write their speeches.
They feel themselves foreigners in their own country.
They're recalling their golden years. La Belle Époque!
Here they are. Yesterday they boasted of their Spanish descent
today, of their ties with Europe and the United States.
Here they are. In the name of liberalism,
they have exterminated the native population.
They have turned the country into a blood bath many times.
Here they are. Guilty of the violence daily visited on the people,
much to the frustration of many generations of Argentines.
This is their cemetery.
To crystallise history.
To stop time.
To take the past as a future.
This is the dream of the oligarchy.
6: THE SYSTEM
The Vietnamese has only to raise his head
to find the enemy.
For us, it is infinitely more difficult.
Neo-Colonialism speaks our language,
has our same skin colour, our nationality,
our religion.
It is not easy to recognise the enemy.
Working in Argentina, he operates with
the greatest ability to manoeuvre.
There would be no neo-colonialism if internal power factors
did not make it possible.
In our country, these factors,
are today the agrarian oligarchy and the big industrial bourgeoisie.
The armed forces coordinate
and legalise the policy.
The interests of all converge under a single sign:
The system.
The system.
An internal enemy that throws open the country's doors
to neo-colonial penetration.
Courtesy missions arrive in every city.
Hundreds of "Peace Corps" organizations infiltrate the rural areas.
Missionaries of all religions
swarm over the remotest parts of every country.
Scholarships and loans are freely awarded,
and subsidies to universities, unions and intellectuals.
A common goal unites this infiltration:
The corruption of the national consciousness
to facilitate the domination of the country.
We must unconditionally respect promises
made by our allies,
to maintain their military presence,
unequalled service to the stabilisation of the dollar,
to extend our overseas investment,
to promote our programs of help and collaboration
in Asia and Africa, and to reinforce
allies favourable to the progress of our hemisphere.
7: POLITICAL VIOLENCE
The Latin American peoples have no chance of changing their lot
through the institutions of bourgeois democracy.
Of 20 governments, 17 are the product of rigged elections,
or coups d’état.
For 12 years now, the Argentine people have lived politically outlawed.
Their majority movement, Peronism, is illegal.
Their leader, condemned to exile.
The goal the Latin American pursues
in his fight for liberation, is the restitution of his humanity,
that humanity which neo-colonialism constantly denies him.
NEO-RACISM
The man of a dependant country will always be for dominant nations,
a segregated man, an underdeveloped man,
a subhuman.
A colonised country
implies direct forms of racism.
In the dependant, neo-colonised countries,
the forms of discrimination are more subtle,
but just as effective.
The Argentine oligarchy has on many occasions
enforced them in the course of history.
Following Sarmiento's motto, "Civilization of barbarity",
the first national form of resistance was crushed
in the massacre of "the Monorena".
Consequently, an anti-national, foreign civilization was imposed.
Yesterday 'gauchos' or 'montoneros'
'crilleros' or 'chusmas'.
Today 'descaminados' or 'grasa'
and to a certain extent ' mersa'.
Without question,
the people have always been denied a human dignity.
In certain rural zones of the country
racism can do without the niceties
it uses in the cities and operate out in the open.
The Indian is worth nothing.
And it's not true because we all have the same blood.
We have the same blood, but speak a different language.
That's why you see me naked,
About us, the 'criollos' years ago
didn't even bother themselves.
Nobody helped us.
Until today.
We used to go around with the dogs,
looking for the means to stay alive.
Or we would take an empty can and go down the river to fish.
That was our whole life.
Nobody helped us...
because the Indian was worthless.
Only a Christian had value.
Now they think they treat us like brothers
because they have had to accept their own religion.
They thought they could be done with us,
that the Indian was worthless.
Just like that without any reason.
And yet we have the same blood and walk like them.
But will the coloniser ever admit
that the blood of the man he has colonised is the same as his?
Here, in a vast region of the country,
men, women, individuals do not exist.
There are only the survivors of the ancient Indian tribes,
the 'mataco', the 'coya' the 'chulupie'.
Names that in the mouth of the master deny the victim of exploitation his condition as a man.
80% of the Argentine native population
has tuberculosis and syphilis.
They remain men, or potential men, who flee the movie camera
to avoid the 'criollo' or the white man.
Interiorised, but not convinced of their inferiority.
Men who hardly speak, who hardly sing.
9: DEPENDENCE
THOSE WHO LIVE IN RURAL AREAS SAY
THERE ARE MOUNTAINS WHERE THEY MINE ENDLESS GOLD.
The thing that characterises the Latin American countries is their dependence.
Economic dependence, political dependence, cultural dependence.
First Spain, then England,
now the United States.
The history of our countries is the history of an endless colonial sack.
Political independence does not exist without economic independence.
Jose Marti said:
"A people that wants to be free must first be free in business".
"Dependence does not permit any possible development."
The apparent development of a few cities like Buenos Aires
only translates the growing expansion of the great powers within our economy.
Yesterday, Mitre, Pellegrini, Pinedo,
today Prebisch, Prigerio, Alsogray.
Loans and investments
have always been part of the same politics of subjection.
So called imperialist aid
is an aid that always costs
he who receives it more than he who gives it.
For every dollar invested in Latin America,
imperialism gets back four.
Gold and coffee, meat and oil
grain and tin:
the labour of a people reduced to cheap manpower,
has built the wealth of the great powers.
In this exploitation lies the cause of the backwardness,
poverty and oppression,
that in turn guarantee the financing
and prosperity of the rich nations,
lies the origin of that obscure word invented by imperialism:
Underdevelopment.
EVERYDAY WE EXPORT MORE, AND GET BACK THE SAME.
EVERYDAY WE WORK MORE, AND GET BACK THE SAME.
ARGENTINA'S FOREIGN DEBT IS SIX BILLION DOLLARS.
THE FOREIGN MONOPOLIES AND THEIR LOCAL ALLIES
CONTROL ALMOST ALL THE NATIONAL ECONOMY.
All the meat industry, energy, oil,
cereal commerce, the chemical industry the production of cellulose,
70% of tungsten, 92% of lead, 98% of zinc.
Money, Gold.
Also press agencies and the mass media.
10: CULTURAL VIOLENCE
The majority of the population in Brazil,
in Bolivia, in Peru, in Venezuela,
in Guatemala, Nicaragua,
in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, is illiterate.
70 million people. A third of the Latin American population
does not know how to read and write.
Illiteracy and educational colonization go hand in hand.
In an openly colonised country,
ideological penetration is not necessary.
But in a semi-colonised country,
ideological penetration plays an essential role.
It destroys in the people the idea of a nation,
and institutionalises and normalises dependence.
The primary goal of ideological penetration is to keep the people
from becoming aware, from understanding their
neo-colonialised position, and from wanting to change it.
In this form, educational colonization
effectively replaces the colonial police.
The middle social strata of the population
are the carriers of neo-colonial ideology.
The university the principal instrument of this colonization.
Behind the myth of academic freedom,
generations of students have been led to believe
that the university an island of democracy within an oppressed nation.
The university
is an organ of existing political power,
designed to mould minds suited to the system.
Behind the farce of academic freedom
are hidden the ideologies that legalise dependence:
the philosophy of the one-crop economy, liberalism,
trade, neo-colonial development, technocratism.
All authentically national thought
has been censured or simply ignored.
Thus an intelligentsia has grown up
that has no ties with the people or the reality of the country.
Now lets visit the Pepsi Cola Salon.
Here Manuel Mujica Lainez,
member of the Argentine Academy of Letters,
member of the National Academy of Fine Arts, is presenting his latest book:
"Royal Chronicles".
Mujica Latinez was recently awarded the "Kennedy Prize"
and before that the National Literature Prize,
the Municipal Prize, the Gerchunoff Prize,
and the Pen Club Prize
and the Writer's Society Prize,
the most important award hereabouts,
and the Gold Medal of the Italian Government
and the decoration of the French writers
and many other awards of the 'Gerchunhoff' type that I really don't remember.
Have you been influenced by European culture?
Yes, a great deal. I am a man of European formation.
Even as a child I received a classical education.
For that matter, I've done some translations,
impossible without such preparation.
It's not just a matter of knowing English,
but of capturing the Elizabethan spirit.
Where would you like to live? In Venice, always,
to the very last moment. I'd like to live there forever.
Here everything is complicated.
There everything is easier.
All those kids, when they have a vacation
they hop on a train and go to
Venice, or Vienna, Madrid, Paris,
wherever they please. They're so close to everything!
We're so far away,
so out of place!
This opinion is shared by an intelligentsia subordinated to neo-colonial power,
an elite that translates into Spanish,
the ideology of the oppressor countries for the petit-bourgeois intellectuals.
A hybrid, depersonalised elite,
always hiding behind something, apoliticism or objectivism,
indifference or intelligence.
11: THE MODELS
NOTHING IS MORE LOGICAL AMONG US THAN A RACIST HUMANISM,
SINCE THE EUROPEAN HAS ONLY BEEN ABLE TO BECOME A MAN
BY CREATING SLAVES AND MONSTERS.
COMRADES, LET US NOT HONOUR EUROPE
BY CREATING STATES, INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIETIES IN ITS IMAGE.
HUMANITY EXPECTS MORE FROM US THAN THIS CARICATURING
AND GENERALLY OBSCENE IMITATION.
As soon as he learns to read,
a child in a dependent country
is assailed by all the models of a civilization
he is forced to accept as a single, universal value.
Universalizing themselves as a class and system,
the bourgeoisie and imperialism
universalise the culture that supports their domination.
Behind the myth of a universal culture
they have hidden, in Latin America, their interests as a colonial class.
Hegel said:
"The best thing a child can do with his toys is break them".
But breaking down these values
in which one has believed since childhood,
to maintain itself, neo-colonialism
needs to convince the people of their inferiority.
Sooner or later, inferior man
will recognise Man with a capital M,
and this recognition will mark the collapse of all his defences.
If you really want to be a man,
says the oppressor,
you must be like me, speak my language,
deny your essence, alienate yourself in me.
Neo-colonised man, the intellectual, the artist,
have value only when they are recognised by the metropolis.
The paternalism of European culture
conceals the deeply rooted racism of the colonizing powers.
As early as the 17th century, Jesuit missionaries praised
the extraordinary ability of the native in copying European works of art.
Copyist, translator, interpreter,
at best, spectator.
Neo-colonised man will always be led
to leave his own creative capacities untapped.
Far from assimilating and transforming
the values of other cultures to build his own,
he gives up all efforts at research and invention.
The result is inhibition, uprooting,
escapism, cultural cosmopolitanism,
artist imitation, the betrayal of the country.
The model of a universal man,
with universal values, universal culture,
will always win out
over historical and class values.
CULTURE WILL BECOME A UNIVERSAL FACT AT THE SERVICE OF ALL MEN
WHEN WE HAVE DESTROYED AT THE UNIVERSAL LEVEL
IMPERIALISM AND CLASS SOCIETY, WHEN WE HAVE UNIVERSALIZED
THE COMPLETE LIBERATION OF MAN
Christ touched the sick,
the dead eyes of the blind, and made them see.
He touched the ears of the deaf and made them hear.
He put his hands on the cripple
and they got up and walked.
The dead came back to life.
Good men of Jerusalem,
unnail those two hands gently,
all powerful, merciful.
You will understand
like Veronicas,
who understand all the suffering
of humanity!
I see the gentleman has a ring on his finger.
A metal ring.
And his tie? It is green.
Any question you want to ask her. She'll receive you in private,
because naturally, there are questions that can't be answered in public.
Madam Diana will offer ten free consultations.
Now you can ask her a free question.
Anyone who has problems, about money, love, health.
If you have no money, ask away. Madam Diana will answer for free.
All you need is
faith and hope.
I see the gentleman has taken the 7 of spades.
The 7 of spades means he's not well, he's depressed.
All he has to do is ask me about it.
"Soledad! I've finally made Pepito confess".
Now I’m going to the police. They'll know I’m innocent.
"Mamma! My luck has finally turned!"
Priests, fortune tellers, faith healers, counsellors,
astrologers, professors of morals.
Between the system and the people,
there is a network of persons whose task is to sow confusion.
Neo-colonial violence thus also takes on sublimated forms.
God, Fate, Destiny, Immortality
are made to seem responsible
for a situation created by the ruling classes.
12: IDEOLOGICAL WARFARE
In Latin America, the war is waged principally
in the minds of men.
Ideological frontiers replace conventional ones.
The means of mass communication replace conventional weapons.
For neo-colonialism, mass communications
are more effective than ***.
An army of psychologists, sociologists,
motivational analysts,
try to divide and conquer the trade unions,
political and student organizations.
The popular movements are suffocated or slandered,
their leaders smeared.
Films, magazines, the radio and periodicals,
try to de-politicise the people,
to spread scepticism and escapism.
Prejudices and complexities are developed against everything native.
People are taught to think in English.
ALL MEANS OF MASS COMMUNICATION
ARE CONTROLLED BY THE C.I.A.
CENSORSHIP AND IDEOLOGICAL REPRESSION ARE TOTAL
REALITY,
TRUTH,
REASON
ARE,
LIKE THE PEOPLE,
ON THE EDGE OF THE LAW.
ARTISTS AND INTELLECTUALS ARE INTEGRATED INTO THE SYSTEM.
VIOLENCE,
CRIME,
DESTRUCTION
BECOME
PEACE,
ORDER
NORMALITY
I am a man of European origin...
Universal, cosmic...
We not are citizens of a country, but of the world.
Humanity, peace, love.
The 7 of spades means he's not well.
Ethical, that's the right word, ethical.
Abstract art, Pop and Op.
MONSTROSITY DISGUISED AS BEAUTY
13: THE CHOICE
The Latin American peoples
are condemned peoples.
Neo-colonialism does not permit them to choose
either their own life or their own death.
Life and death both bear the mark of daily violence.
This is our war.
Of hunger, of curable diseases of premature age...
4 people a minute die in Latin America.
5,500 a day, 2 million a year.
This is our war!
A genocide of 15 years.
The first world war.
What is the only thing left for the Latin American?
To choose through rebellion his own life
and his own death.
For the man who dies in the struggle for liberation,
death is no longer the end.
It becomes an act of liberation, a conquest.
The man who chooses his own death
is also choosing his own life.
He is already life and liberation itself...
In his revolutionary action, the Latin American
recovers his existence.
The end of "Neo-colonialism and Violence", the first part of the film.
The Hour of the Furnaces Part Two, "The Time of Liberation",
and Part Three, "Violence and Liberation",
are accounts of the Argentine people
during the 20 years preceding 1967.