G U I D E T O T H E P E R F E C T L A T I N A M E R I C A N I D I O T G U I D E TO T H E P E R F E C T L A T I N A M E R I C A N I D I O T Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza Carlos Alberto Montaner Alvaro Vargas Llosa Introduction by Mario Vargas Uosa Translated by Michaela Lajda Ames MADISON BOOKS Lanham New York Toronto Plymouth, UK Copyright O 1996 by Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Carlos Alberto Montaner, and Alvato Vargas Llosa Translation copyright 02 000 Michaela Lajda Ames English language hardcover andpaperback rights throughout the United States of America. The Publisher shall not assign this license nor issue the Work under any other imprint other than its own without written permission of the Author($. Originally published under the title Maual del perefecto idiota latinoamericano. AN rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. Published by Madison Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlejeld Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Distributed by National Book Network Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mendoza, Plinio Apuleyo. [Manual del perfecto idiota latinoamerican~spaiiolE. nglish] Guide to the perfect latin American idiot / Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza,Carlos Alberto Montaner, Alvaro Vargas Llosa; introduction by Maio Vargas Llosa; translated by Michaela Lajda Ames. p. cm. ISBA\- 973-1-56333-13J-3 I. Latin America-History. 2. Latin American-HistoyErrors, inventions, etc. I. Montaner, Carlos Alberto. II. Vargos Llosa, Alvaro. 111. Vargos, Llosa, Mario, 1936 IV. Title. em~hepapeurs ed in this publication meets the minimum requirements ofAmerican National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSIINISO 239.48-1992. Manufactured in the United States of America. In memo y of Carlos Rangel and forJean Frangois Reuel, one on each side of the Atlantic, together they have relentlessly fought political idiocy C O N T E N T S Translator's Notes Translator's Acknowledgments xi Foreword Mor~oVa rgas Llosa xiii I. The Family Portrait I 2. The FamilyTree 9 3. The Idiot's Bible 2 1 4. We're Poor: It'sTheir Fault 37 5. The CureThat Kills 63 6. "Let's Create Two,Three, One Hundred Vietnams" 77 7. Cuba: An Old Love Is Neither Forgotten nor Abandoned 9 5 8. Rifles and Cassocks 1 07 9. "Yankee, Go Home!" 1 27 10. How Beautiful Is My Flag! 14 1 II . The Idiot's Friends 161 viii CONTENTS 12. Here Comes the Big Bad Wolf! 175 13. Ten BooksThat "Shook the Latin American Idiot 183 Index Expurgatorius Latinoamericanus 209 About the Authors 219 T R A N S L A T O R ' S N O T E S A work of this type imparts a great deal of challenge and enjoyment to the trans- lator. Its unique "part literary/part academic" approach, blending the scholastic with workaday vocabulary, demanded that its playfulness and rhetorical wit be maintained in order to whet the reader's palate for the meatier factual and sta- tistical data embeddedwithin. Although no effort was spared in retaining the de- lectable wordplays, with heavy heart I must acknowledge that some of these lin- guistic gems were lost due to the particularity of the language. Certain personalities, and even some of the political and religious references appearing on these pages, will probably be unfamiliar to the average "Anglo" reader. But it hdn't seem necessary to specifically point out, for example, at each and every reference to "liberal" and "neoliberal" that it is nearly opposite to our current English usage of these words, being more synonymous with what we would describe as a "classical" or "Jeffersonian liberal"; that is, a "libertarian." Yet such considerations are fundamental, since the ideology of the entire book rests on them. Quoted in the Guide are also numerous other works, which are addressed in two ways: First, texts originally appearing in English or with published English translations are listed only with their English title. Second, foreign works with- out published English translations are first cited in the original language, fol- lowed by my translation of the work in quotation marks and parentheses. In ad- dition, all quotes from foreign-language sources are my own translations of the originals, unless otherwise noted. But enough of these minutiae, our idiot awaits. . . .