Taking on the Pink Tide: A Brief Review of Ben Dangl's Dancing with Dynamite
The raw
force and passion of social movements do not lend themselves easily to
investigation from the Ivory Tower. Dynamic and fluid, a “movement’s” impetus
and value depend largely on who is telling the story. A union leader’s
perspective on a wildcat strike will differ from that of a rank-and-file
member. Students raging against debt and bankers fighting to keep the payments
coming will have radically different understandings of the loan crisis. It’s
all tied up in perception.
In Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and
States in Latin America, author Benjamin Dangl attempts to harness the
explosive, subjective energy of South American social upheavals long enough to
commit them to paper. Alongside chronicles of upheaval and solidarity, readers
are granted a quick glance into the parallel workings of the proverbial state –
cooptation and exclusion are among the most common tactics. He has decided to (cordially) address the elephant in the room:
how can/do South American social movements interact with the state while
defending their goals and integrity?
Dangl’s
analysis centers on this interplay (a “dance”, he says) between social
movements and states, highlighting the inherent tug-o-war the relationship
embodies. Sometimes a movement’s demands are reflected in policy. Other
struggles are camouflaged by stealthy repression or coopted by center-left
parties of the now-famous Pink (aka pseudo-socialist/populist) Tide.
With
the notable exception of the Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil, Dangl
focuses on movements which are not opposed to working within the proverbial
Machine. In Uruguay, for example, left wing activists morphed into ardent
supporters of “The Party” when the Frente Amplio needed support, abandoning
their grassroots beginnings and ideals to work within the state apparatus.
The
selection of less combative movements implies another set of exclusions, but
the choice lends his work mainstream legitimacy. Many of the region’s
purportedly left-wing leaders Dangl discusses engage in the same neoliberal,
authoritarian tactics as their right-wing predecessors, but with more
fashionable branding (hope, anyone?). The author is drawing an obvious
conclusion: a government cannot be both progressive and repressive, especially
when the targets are democratic, nonviolent movements.
A
bread-and-butter protester outraged by the shortcomings of the Correa
presidency in Ecuador is more sympathetic than a Mapuche militant disillusioned
by former Chilean President Bachelet’s anti-indigenous tactics. Dangl expertly
shows his readers feeling excluded and disenchanted by the state is not just
for wingnuts anymore. In the context of the mainstream’s idea of South America
(ex: bearded, jumpsuit-clad communist dictators bellowing orders from the
Presidential Palace to a sea of obedient, jumpsuit-clad followers), Dynamite challenges some of the most
pervasive stereotypes regarding support for the likes of the Morales or
Kirschner regimes.
But
Dangl does go the way of many lefty academics in his inability to sufficiently
critique Chavez (a negligible discussion of the problematic nature of top-down
revolution fills a few pages), he checks Western naiveté by questioning the
true radical potential of these leaders. The implication of acceptable
anti-authoritarianism begs the question of whether state or social movement is
the dynamite in Dangl’s analogy.
In the
final chapter, Dangl attempts to tackle the relationship between contemporary
US and South American movements. Readers will be relieved to note the obvious
comparison he draws between the disabling of US radicalism by the Obama
election and similar co-optive coups in Argentina and Ecuador. Dangl’s
insight is tempered by his suggestion that South American movements are
directly inspiring uprisings in the US.
To an
extent, Dangl is right. Movements in the Global North certainly have much to
learn from those in the South, and an exchange of knowledge is not only
desirable, but necessary. Many specific instances exist - Dangl notes the
Republic Window and Doors occupation in Chicago was specifically inspired by
Argentine factory occupations. Here in the Belly of the Beast, tactical and
ideological exchange with Latin American movements can make organizing more
potent and efficient. It's a welcome development when compared to the
southward-flow of neoliberalism and US crop surplus, right?
But the
Argentines were not the first to occupy a factory and water sovereignty
struggles are not unique to Bolivia. To suggest this is to engage in a bizarre
sort of paternalism which essentializes Latino knowledge and is likely
connected to the Indigenous character of many South American struggles.
Besides, Dangl’s work is evidence of a trend even more encouraging than a
one-way flow of radical knowledge from South to North. Dancing with Dynamite, in documenting that which cannot be pinned
down, is indicative of a vibrant exchange of knowledge where South informs
North and the North repays the favor: a globalization of resistance.
