opinion

Social scientists tend to interpret history as an evolution from bestiality to cultural refinement. Chroniclers of the here-and-now, journalists are less sanguine. In the aggregate, their accounts demonstrate that, in fact, human society seesaws wildly between states of stagnancy, feverish creativity, uneasiness and chaos. While these oscillations can be blamed on history's cretins, killers and kleptocrats, they are hastened, prolonged and fossilized by national torpor and idleness.

Cretins

Educated, painfully shy, ill at ease with court life and hopelessly disconnected from the masses, King Louis XVI of France was a cretin. A ruler who spends his time tinkering with clocks, tending his rose garden and chatting with God --- MUST be a cretin.

So was Czar Nicholas, a spineless party-going autocrat who played dominoes, ate caviar and drank champagne while his people starved and his wife made goo-goo eyes at the sinister Rasputin.

Killers

Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and the Shah of Iran were killers. So was Cuba's Fulgencio Batista and his intellectual cousins --- Chile's Augusto Pinochet, Guatemala's Generals Romeo Lucas Garcia and Efrain Rios Montt, Honduras's Gustavo Alvarez and Peru's Alberto Fujimori. They all resorted to murder --- indiscriminate or selective --- as a means of wresting control and ensuring blind submission from the people. And, as the people passively danced to their executioners' song, inertia, fed by fear, helped prolong the suffering.

Kleptocrats

Kleptocrats --- a term that aptly describes most Latin American heads of state --- specialize in purloining net wealth from commoners and transferring it to the upper classes into which they were born or to which they aspire to ascend. (Some kleptocrats have also been cretins and/or killers --- Honduran General and Chief of the Army Luis Alonso Discua Elvir comes to mind).

The archetype kleptocrat --- he stole millions of dollars from the Fondo Petrolero --- was Honduran President Rafael Leonardo Callejas. In Honduras, as elsewhere, a kleptocrat's success is measured by just how large a percentage of the tribute he extracts from the masses is retained by the elite.

Despite claims that most Hondurans embrace an egalitarian system of government, Honduras remains a partial democracy. It is one thing to espouse an ideology on paper. It is quite another to put it to work. While social scientists wrestle with statistical abstractions and theoretical models, journalists working in the region have long since diagnosed the problem with overt but seemingly fruitless candor:

1. On an empty stomach, democracy is an empty slogan.

2. Democracy does not work in a vacuum; the citizenry must vigorously take part in the process. Failure to do so empowers cretin/killers such as Honduran Congress President Porfirio Lobo to agitate in favor of the death penalty.

3. It takes a real leader to eradicate hunger and instill civic pride.

Like his predecessors, President Ricardo Maduro, heir to a long line of Honduran klepto-cretin-killers, has done nothing to involve his compatriots in the democratic process. On the contrary, his failed policies have led to grave and mounting social unrest that threatens the very core of democracy. He has spent his term in office looking statesmanlike in tailor-made Italian suits; he has traveled far and wide --- generally to beg for money –-- made promises he knew he could not keep and promulgated unpopular edicts. He continues to give sumptuous receptions while the vast majority of Hondurans are asked to survive on 50 Lempiras a day.

According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, "alarming levels of gang and government violence continue to plague Honduras as President Maduro's superficial and crowd-pleasing anti-violence rhetoric and measures are becoming increasingly counter-productive and controversial." Already one of the most corrupt countries in all of Latin America, and with a court system notorious for its venality, the Council concludes that Honduras and the Maduro administration have failed to either seek justice or harness it.

For the record

Here are some questions Hondurans may wish to ponder. Under President Maduro:

How many campaign promises were actually realized?

What reforms, if any, clearly benefited the country?

What presidential edicts, if any, helped improve the lives of the poor?

What statutes helped reduce crime and violence?

Why is, say, Venezuela's political life so vibrant and demonstrative, and why are Hondurans as flaccid as molasses? Why do Venezuelans engage in passionate rhetoric and fiery demonstrations, and Hondurans sit home nursing hangovers and producing more kids?

What is the difference between a poor 18th century Frenchman and a poor 21st century Honduran as far as daily life and expectations are concerned? What traits distinguish a relatively small band of Frenchmen, who managed to galvanize national support and overthrew a hated monarchy, from the vast Honduran masses who continue to get screwed by successive dynasties of inept, corrupt and indifferent regimes?

What will it take to awaken Honduras from its torpor? What will bring the people to their senses, lead them into the streets and give them the courage (or ignite the exasperation) to demand justice at last?

The answer lies in how Hondurans rationalize their own misery because that's the very key to their unending problems. They know that Maduro is an abject failure.

The fact that this kleptocrat is still in power and that the next kleptocrat will pick up where Maduro leaves off, speaks volumes about the moral fiber of their subjects and explains their unceasing torment.


W. E. Gutman is a veteran journalist on assignment in Central America since 1991. He lives in southern California.


Also in this section:
Bush, Speech to the UN
Kerry, Speech at New York University
Jackson, How the US election is likely to turn
Soca De Vote, Getting Caribbean-Americans to the polls
Liut, Goss's qualifications as seen through his stands on Haiti
Gutman, Of cretins, killers and kleptocrats
Carpio, G3 in the Greater Caribbean
Gutman, The sweet smell of revenge
Bernal, General History of Panama
Leis, Floods and building standards

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