Xenophobia and Racism in the Honduran Crisis
The political crisis has brought out the worst of Honduras. The media has already documented many of the country's ills since June: the reliance on the military to address internal political problems and the sharp polarization with Cold War echoes as well as political violence, repression and censorship. One nasty phenomenon, however, has slipped under the radar: the frightening nationalist sentiment, xenophobia and racism that have been on display since June 28--the day of the coup. Hondurans on both sides of this crisis have continually failed to recognize that substantial domestic support exists for both Manuel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti, and that these domestic forces are willing and able to mobilize themselves. They have proceeded by first defining "us"--the true Hondurans who "love their country"--and then using racial and national markers to identify a blameworthy "them."
Since the coup, Hondurans have been crying for leadership from "people who really love their country." Honduran politicians, media pundits and radio-show callers have repeated this banal phrase ad nauseum. They suggest that "true" Hondurans would never have gotten into this mess and that love of country is sufficient to ward off political crisis. That both Micheletti and Zelaya supporters utter this phrase reveals the patent absurdity of such arguments. People with widely divergent interests can all profess to "love their country." Democratic politics is about aggregating and balancing interests and developing representative institutions to mediate these interests and protect citizens' rights; it is not about who can be the loudest cheerleader for the nation.
Unfortunately, these "love of country" statements are not simply vacuous. In addition to being unhelpful, nationalist rhetoric since June 28 has gone hand-in-hand with troubling expressions of xenophobia and racism.
Xenophobia has plagued the rhetoric of both the Micheletti and the Zelaya camps. On Micheletti's side, condemnation of outside influences and a rejection of multilateralism has become commonplace after the international community's condemnation of the coup. This is bad news, but it's not quite xenophobia. Instead, xenophobia has reared its ugly head in the continuous references to "outside agitators"-- Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and Colombians (from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC)--stirring up the Zelaya supporters. The Honduran Right claims that their country has been infiltrated by Leftist, Communist and Marxist (any Cold War adjective will do, actually) rabble-rousers from all of these nations.
These phantom foreigners have taken the blame for organizing violence and funding insurrection. Some even blame them for the wave of pro-Zelaya graffiti that's gone up throughout Tegucigalpa. As one Micheletti supporter told me, "Hondurans have never put up graffiti like this. It's being done by people from those other countries." Meanwhile, first-hand experience at pro-Zelaya protests reveals that it's primarily adolescent Hondurans putting up the graffiti.
Perhaps the nastiest case of such "othering" came when the de facto government stripped Catholic priest Father Andrés Tamayo of his citizenship. Tamayo, a naturalized Honduran citizen born in El Salvador, has been an outspoken Zelaya supporter while the historically conservative church sided with Micheletti. The response from the Right: he's Salvadoran, he's not one of us.
The contempt for certain sectors of the Latin American Left has both long-term and short-term causes. Historically, Hondurans have always been relatively conservative for the region--the two dominant parties have been right-of-center, and leftist ideology never really took hold here. Widespread distrust remains for the leftist politics of other Latin American countries. The Right's reaction to Zelaya's alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and the other Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) countries brought this into relief.
People may be right to condemn Chávez' influence in Honduras and his bellicose rhetoric over these past few months. But this condemnation has fed a bilious blame game, where "true Hondurans" respect the government, while "foreign meddlers" sow instability. Those who use this language deny that Zelaya has substantial support in Honduras; instead of trying to understand and communicate with those on the other side, they simply deny their existence and blame it on foreigners.
Zelaya's supporters are equally guilty of xenophobia and racism, though with different targets. Their first targets are Honduran Arabs, whom they identify as a crucial part of the Honduran "oligarchy," owning major businesses and pro-Micheletti media outlets. Merchants of Arab origin have long occupied a place in Honduras; ironically, in the early- and mid-twentieth century they played a critical role in challenging the dominance of the United Fruit Company and even supporting labor organizing. As Dario Euraque's work has shown, this sector was critical in opposing caudillo rule and modernizing the brutal enclave economy, even if these businessmen were primarily driven by self-interest to improve conditions for capital. But few people here remember (or ever knew) this part of the country's history. Instead, Zelaya supporters have taken to blanket condemnations of the Arabs that, as the argument goes, control this country's economy and polity. Never mind that these people are Honduran citizens whose families have been in Honduras for generations; their last names mark them as enemies of the nation.
Ironically, Zelaya supporters have unleashed equally vigorous rhetorical attacks against Israelis and Jews. This was initially motivated by Israel's recognition of the Micheletti government (the only other country to do so was Taiwan). Things turned ugly, however, when Zelaya and his supporters started blaming Israeli commandos for chemical attacks on the Brazilian embassy. And they reached their apogee when a pro-Zelaya commentator, David Romero, shamefully denounced Israelis and Jews as "people who damage the country" and wondered aloud why the world had not "allowed Hitler to complete his historic mission."
The U.S. ambassador, Hugo Llorens, issued a public condemnation of this unconscionable diatribe, but no one has taken on the deeper issue: the ease with which Hondurans have reached for both foreigners and domestic "others" as the cause of the crisis. The Latin American Public Opinion Project recently noted the low levels of political tolerance--namely, the low respect for the rights of those with unpopular or contrary views--among Honduran citizens. In the last few months, however, Hondurans have displayed a different type of intolerance--this time for those of different nationalities, faiths and skin colors. This second type of intolerance is always deplorable, but in this crisis it has also had the unfortunate effect of displacing blame and curtailing honest debate about the causes of this crisis and the sharp polarization within Honduran society.
As Honduras hopefully moves toward resolving this crisis, leaders on both sides should condemn the xenophobic rhetoric coming from within their ranks. Both sides must own up to the fact that substantial sectors of Honduran citizens--all of whom "love their country"--support both Zelaya and Micheletti. And when the dust settles, Honduras' new leadership must also reflect on the roots of--and potential remedies for--the troubling xenophobic and racist sentiments that this crisis has brought to the fore.
(Copied with permission from www.americasquarterly.org).
Daniel Altschuler: Soccer and the Political Crisis in Honduras
Hondurans had high hopes for two things last week: qualifying for the World Cup and settling the political crisis. Unfortunately for the Hondurans, they came up short in both.
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Regarding "... substantial sectors of Honduran citizens ... support both Zelaya and Micheletti", we have to remember that "substantial" in the case of Micheletti is a small minority, but nevertheless that *small minority* needs to be respected too. As of August 2009, according to the COIMER & OP poll, Zelaya was the most popular politician among those surveyed (45% liked, 22% neutral, 26% disliked), while Micheletti was the most hated (16% liked, 17% neutral, 56% disliked). [English excerpts and link to Spanish original: http://ln-
@changehn: You said: "few voices (a VERY small percent of the Honduran population) who support Zelaya." Wrong. The percentage is big: not only do 45% like Zelaya, but 52% of Hondurans want Zelaya to return to the Presidency of the Republic. The pro-Consti
Correction: "among those surveyed" is ambiguous, and should read "among the politicians and other well-known people listed in the survey". The actual survey uses standard demographic profiling methods and a sample size typical for professional opinion polls of this sort, so there are reasonable statistical grounds for considering it to be a fair estimate of the opinions of Hondurans in general, within an error margin of about 3%.
The results shown in this poll are absurd. They do not represent the true opinion of the Honduran people. These results are clearly meant to favor Zelaya and are a representation of the opinions of Zelaya's followers.
Here are some examples:
1. Elvin Santos is by far the most popular candidate and the favorite to win the elections, not Pepe Lobo.
2. In the approval of political figures: Eduardo Maldonado, Carlos Reyes, and Esdras Lopez all got high percentages. These people are only popular within their leftist followers.
3. According to this poll Cesar Ham is almost equally respected as Elvin Santos so he must be a popular candidate to the presidency. In reality he has all but publicly quit the presidential race
3. Radio Globo has a higher audience than HRN?? That's just ridiculous.
4. Cholusat and Channel 6 are, of course, the most popular sources of news. Sure.
5. Xiomara Castro had been a silent bystander in her husband's government. I bet most people didn't even know who she was until she started leading anti-Micheletti marches.
You need to look for the pictures of the Anti-Zelaya marches that took place across the country right after his removal, there were hundreds of thousands of people in total.
Three months later I'm getting tired of driving by the municipal building and seeing 10-15 people with the Resistencia screaming and causing disarray. I bet all of them were interviewed for this poll.
The points made by the author are 100% valid and they are also the truth. Yes, there is a high level of infiltration in our country. Yes, It's almost entirely true that we have turned a deaf ear to the few voices (a VERY small percent of the Honduran population) who support Zelaya. We even assume that the majority of those people are paid to support Zelaya, they mistakenly believe that communism is the best path for our country and/or have political or monetary interests for Zelaya's return.
But the point I want to make is: Why is everybody ignoring the Library of Congress' report and now the United Nations adviser's report about the legality of Zelaya's removal?? These are very enlightening reports by reliable and respected institutions, why are they being swept under the rug? It must be that it's too hard for everybody to admit that it was wrong to condemn the removal of Zelaya and his people, the biggest traitors that Honduras has ever known.
It is not racism when the Hondurans find that agitators come to their country under the banner of Venezuelan embassy attaches, or Cuban embassy personnel and then they find Venezuelans and Cubans are inflaming the population against Micheletti`s government. That is a fact.
How can this author be so confused? Has he ever been to Honduras? There is a massive infiltration of Cubans and Venezuelans in Guatemala and Mexico as well working in shanty towns and in the remote countryside with the help of the PRD and the PRI (both leftist parties).
Furthermore, the author seems to deem the Cold War as imaginary, but it was not. There was a real fight between freedom and totalitarianism, whether he likes it or not. Don`t forget Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, East Germany and the Soviet Republics, the concentration camps and the insatiable hunger of the totalitarian states for more territories. That is happening today in Latin America. Whether this resembles Cold War or not, that is irrelevant. We do not want Fidel Castro and Chavez ruling these countries. Pointing at the nationality of the communist agitators is not racism.
You may want to look up the word Xenophobia. Then re-read your posting.
You may want to reread Robert's post. It contains facts.
Fact: Zelaya was/is backed by Hugo's money and inspired by his desire to change the Constitution, bring Bolivrarian/Castro socialism/
Fact: Zelaya camped out in Nicaragua, with paid Nicaraguan supporters at the border. (This is not even to mention Noriega's and others' meddling in an internal Honduras situation.
Well, it is not Xenophobia to identify foreign agents in my country and denouncing them as agitators. Please use a dictionary. Hondurans are aware where the attack comes from. Was it Xenophobia to deem the nazis as dangerous? It was not. This is the same case. I am annoyed at the level of ignorance of Mr. Altschuler and the people who post comments. It is not fair to see some facts and to put others under the rug as he does.
"Ironically, Zelaya supporters have unleashed equally vigorous rhetorical attacks against Israelis and Jews. This was initially motivated by Israel's recognition of the Micheletti government (the only other country to do so was Taiwan)."
Subsequent unacceptable remarks by a Honduran broadcaster aside, one has to wonder -- why did Israel jump so fast to recognize the coup leadership? One could also ask the same question of Taiwan -- seems both nations should be hesitant to embroil themselves in someone else's mess.
Do we sense some un-publicized economic or other motive behind these two nations' positions?
Anyone familiar with the situation and why this might be so?
Don't accept as fact that either Israel or Taiwan have recognized the legitimacy of the Micheletti regime. This assertion has been bandied about for several weeks in spite of a complete lack of validity.
Officially, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has said only : " Israel is closely following events in Honduras and hopes that the Organization of American States will bring about a solution to the crisis in the best possible way. " That is apparently the OFFICIAL Israeli position.
As for Taiwan, A free-trade agreement was implemented and went into effect in 2008 ( with the support and blessing of the Zelaya administration) in 2008. However, try as one might to source an OFFICIAL recognition of the Micheletti regime, it doesn't exist.
As an interesting side-note, a little research will reveal that Honduras was one of the first nations to receive Israeli arms shipments after Israel got into the business of arms manufacturing and sales.
Israel and Taiwan both have strong economic ties to Honduras. IMO, they will happily support any faction which ultimately comes out the winner in Honduras. After all, it's all about money, commerce, and the control of resources.
The fact is that Mr. Chavez hates the jews and has married his bolivarian socialism with antisemitism there in his Venezuelan empire. So he is exporting his crude ideology to wherever he decides he wants to expand his empire. One can see irrational comments about the Israeli state as official statements from Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala and of course Zelaya´s Barataria.
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