Mariner promised many posts ago that Guru would investigate Central and South America, which seem to have a separate world history from North America, the West and even an Asian influence. Understand that Guru is quite theoretical in nature and does not always have documentation. This liberty, however, enables Guru to visualize history in very broad sweeps of insight. Having said that, Guru does his homework by searching for thematic truths that together encompass history, geography, environment, culture and politics.
As Pogo Possum once said, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” The abuse is racism. From the beginning, it is part of our genetic heritage as tribal apes living 100,000 years ago in Africa. Homo sapiens is a tribal ape; there is nothing we can do about that. A point of reference most folks know is how H. Neanderthal was overrun in Europe by H. sapiens. Common reasons for this fratricide were differences in appearance, physical and mental composition, the withdrawal of an ice age, the changing environment, etc. Today, all of us have a few genes that originally belonged to the Neanderthal; rape and pillaging exists in H. sapiens just as it does among indigenous chimpanzees, another brother ape. Ironically, the original H. sapiens was a black skinned variety living in Africa. Today, a late ice age variety with white skin has turned against its black ancestors.
If a phrase may be proposed for the American racial experience, it would be ‘urbanized racism.’ Guru will not digress into the North American experience because it is heavily and continually documented. The focus is Central and South America. Brazil is examining racism in a proactive way. For example, they consider affirmative action an extension of racism. Universities in Brazil are looking for national equalization solutions that are not available except through socialism – a long reach for the plutocracies today.
We must remember that the American continents for eons were not populated by European or modern Asian varieties of H. sapiens. Long, long ago, in the midst of the ice age, the original inhabitants migrated from the Asian continent up through Russia to the Bering Strait, bringing with them not only a different appearance but a different perception of theology and social justice. In North America, these original inhabitants were dealt with in the tradition of the Neanderthal elimination – genocide. In the southern continents, these original inhabitants still exist in enough numbers that an active subculture is a visible part of the society – consider the Amish in the US as an example. Many readers have knowledge of the spiritualist religions remaining in the Caribbean which originally came over with slaves.
The Spanish conquistadors inadvertently cut off the southern continents from North America. Native tribes and cultures were disrupted enough that the Aztec civilization in the southwest lasted only 200 years; trade with North American natives disappeared.
Because the southern continents were isolated from western history for an extended time and because the huge forests of the Brazilian catchment and the foreboding mountains to the west made it difficult to experience North America’s western expansion, South America remained largely undeveloped until the age of fossil fuel early in the twentieth century. The nations of South America remained poor, ill-managed governments that survived primarily on International Monetary Funds (IMF) until the middle of the century. To this day, the southern continents are underdeveloped and suffer the pains of political growth the rest of the western world experienced in earlier times.
The political history often is jaded by economic abuse and class discrimination. Even in today’s news cycles, most of the nations are in financial difficulty and suffer governmental mismanagement.
But a new day is coming for the southern continents. Several minerals that are becoming harder to find around the world lie in wait – especially in South America where beryllium, thorium, lithium, rare-earth metals, and mica are in abundance. Chile, for example, sits on the world’s largest source of Lithium.
Further, the undeveloped nature of southern continent economies is a plum for economic expansion by larger industrial nations. China spends more development money than any other nation – ranging from Mexico to Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego. The coming age of internationalism may be good for the southern continents if colonialism can be kept under control.
There is much more to write about southern continents with regard to environment, culture, social structure and ethics. But that is another post.
Ancient Mariner