There has
been a gradual erosion of support for the Catholic Church in Latin
America. Rather than a move away from religion, this signifies
the consolidation of a phenomenon that has been quietly taking
place for some years: the rise of evangelical churches. An overwhelming
85 percent of the population of Latin America declares itself
religious. The novelty is that 15 percent of the population now
declares itself Protestant rather than Catholic.
The second
important finding has to do with attitudes toward the United States.
Around 40 percent of Latin Americans have a favorable opinion
of the U. S., a much smaller figure than 10 years ago. In Argentina,
Venezuela, Uruguay, and Bolivia, the figure is lower. Despite
the fact that more Latin Americans than ever want to migrate to
the U.S. (it is estimated that one million illegal immigrants
came into the country last year) and that many families depend
on cash remittances from migrants based in the U.S., a majority
of Latin Americans continue to view their northern neighbor with
suspicion.
There is
a subtle connection between these two findings that is worth noting.
The spectacular
growth of Protestantism in countries like Brazil, Guatemala, Peru
and, to a lesser extent, Mexico, is one of the ways in which ordinary
Latin Americans have revolted against centralized power. Unlike
the Catholic Church, which has always been associated with the
status quo, the various evangelical cults that have gained strength
among the poor speak to a more flexible, decentralized and less
hierarchic form of religion. More importantly, the Catholic Church
is perceived as being attached to the elites. Since only one quarter
of respondents said citizens are equal before the law in their
countries, it is hardly surprising that an institution perceived
as part and parcel of a discriminatory system is losing support
to religious groups that have penetrated the shantytowns with
a message of spiritual revolt against the status quo, emphasizing
self-help and social cooperation as substitutes for state action.
How does
this relate to continuing skepticism toward the United States?
When people respond to surveys, they tend to associate “the
United States” with the U.S. government rather than with
a set of values. The interesting question is why the growth in
spiritual alternatives to Catholicism across Latin America coincides
with a distrust, at least among large chunks of the population,
of the U.S. The obvious explanations have to do with Washington's
interventionist foreign policy, the anti-U.S. rhetoric of certain
leaders, and the stern tone of some U.S. representatives who tour
Latin America, including military officers and diplomats. While
there is no question that a country like Mexico still reels from
the humiliating Hidalgo-Guadalupe treaty of 1848, by which that
country lost half its territory to the U.S., and leaders like
Hugo Chávez and the “Peronistas” in Argentina
whip up anti-U.S. sentiment in the region, I would suggest a more
important reason needs to be taken into account.
Among many
Latin Americans, there is the perception that the U.S. is too
closely allied with political and business elite groups. These
are the very groups that ordinary Latin American citizens have
been revolting against for decades, by moving to a different church,
by supporting “outsiders” in various Presidential
elections against traditional parties or by creating substitutes
for state services at the grassroots level. Among some Latin Americans,
the U.S. is perceived as another pillar—like the Catholic
Church, traditional parties, or the military—of the prevailing
system. Although nothing in the survey specifically connects the
two, there is an interesting consonance between the level of dissatisfaction
with the main official institutions in various Latin American
countries and the level of skepticism toward the U.S.
Understanding
why this is so is not rocket science. For ordinary Latin Americans,
the obvious attraction of the U.S. as a land of opportunity is
somewhat overshadowed by the most immediate face of the U.S. in
the region, namely the various representatives who tend to associate
themselves with the prevailing Latin American governments, perceived
as favoring their cronies (except in extreme cases like Chávez
in Venezuela). There is, moreover, a very loose perception of
who constitutes a “U.S. representative” because in
people's imaginations that notion includes frequent visitors from
the International Monetary Fund even if they are not U.S. citizens!
How does
one rectify this? Apart from the obvious way—lending less
support to measures seen to reinforce the prevailing system based
on legal discrimination between those who are close to government
and those who are not, I can think of only one way: a massive
increase in exchanges that do not pass through official institutions
of any kind. In other words, a greater communication between civil
societies rather than between governments or entities perceived
as being part of the status quo.
