Oliver Stone has just released a new documentary, South of the Border, featuring interviews with seven South American presidents--six present and one immediately past. The point of the documentary is to help redress the terribly distorted nature of US media coverage of the rest of the hemisphere, particularly the continent of South America, where the election of Hugo Chavez has helped set off a wave of similar electoral breakthroughs that have finally allowed the continent to assert a degree of independence from outside influence that has not been seen in at least 100 years.
On Monday, Stone and one of his screenwriters, political activist, author and journalist Tariq Ali, appeared on Democracy Now to discuss the documentary. At the very beginning, Juan Gonzales kicked things off with a brief intro to the film's trailer:
JUAN GONZALEZ: Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone has taken on three American presidents in JFK, Nixon and W. A Vietnam War veteran, he was decorated with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. As a filmmaker, he's tackled the most controversial aspects of the war in his classics Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July. He looked at the greed of the financial industry in the Hollywood hit Wall Street, and the sequel, Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last month.
Well, now the acclaimed director of films like Salvador, Comandante and Looking for Fidel, returns to Latin America. In his latest film, releasing this week in the United States, Oliver Stone takes a road trip across South America, meeting with seven presidents from the continent. Here's the trailer. It includes Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, Argentine president Cristina Kirchner and her husband, former president Néstor Kirchner, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa.
OLIVER STONE: Who is Hugo Chávez? Some believe he is the enemy
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN: He's more dangerous than bin Laden. And the effects of Chávez's war against America could eclipse those of 9/11.
OLIVER STONE: Some believe he is the answer.
MAN ON THE STREET 1: [translated] I am with you, Chávez.
MAN ON THE STREET 2: [translated] Hello, President.
OLIVER STONE: But no matter what you believe, in South America he is just the beginning.
GEORGE TENET: Venezuela is important because they're the third largest supplier of petroleum.
PRESIDENT HUGO CHÁVEZ: [translated] Bush made a plan: first, Chávez, oil; second, Saddam, Iraq, oil.
PRESIDENT CRISTINA KIRCHNER: [translated] For the first time in the region, the leaders look like the people they govern. If you go to Bolivia and look at the face of Evo, the face of Evo is the face of a Bolivian.
OLIVER STONE: Could we say the goal of presidents of the region would be to own their own natural resources?
PRESIDENT LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA: [translated] The only thing I want is to be treated as equals. I personally have no interest in fighting with the United States.
OLIVER STONE: Rafael Correa is now being cast as one of the bad left.
PRESIDENT RAFAEL CORREA: [translated] With all due respect, knowing the North American media, I would be more worried if they spoke well of me.
REPORTER: Today, the Argentinian president, with concern about US trade policy, seemed in no hurry to embrace his American counterpart.
NÉSTOR KIRCHNER: [translated] Bush told me the best way to revitalize the economy is war and that the United States has grown stronger with war. Those were his exact words.
NARRATOR: This summer, take an incredible look at an extraordinary movement.
PRESIDENT LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA: [translated] For the first time, the poor are treated like human beings.
PRESIDENT HUGO CHÁVEZ: [translated] And perhaps this is one of the things that keeps us going-the optimism, faith and hope, and the concrete evidence that we can change the course of history. It's possible, Oliver.
NARRATOR: South of the Border.
OLIVER STONE: I'm just curious. How many sets of shoes do you have?
PRESIDENT CRISTINA KIRCHNER: [translated] They always ask questions like this to women. I don't get it. They never ask a man how many pairs of shoes he has.
As US politics turns increasingly infantile, it's refreshing indeed to be exposed to an entire group of elected presidents who act like adults. I know it's not a very high standard in the grand scheme of things, but it cuts to the quick: Ever since the US beat up on the crumbling Spanish Empire in the Spanish-American War, and decided to muscle up on its enforcement of the implicit threat contained in the Monroe Doctrine, Latin America has suffered from almost-continuous invasions and intrusions by the US that have primativized and infantilized its political culture. Now that period has come to an end, and anyone who thinks it's going back needs to have their head examined.
There were some exceptions--most notably under FDR, and to a lesser extent, briefly under JFK. But these were more or lest temporary gifts, reprieves granted that could be--and were--readily reversed. This time, it's different. This time, the newly emergent independence has been won through struggle from below, not granted from above and afar.
Here's part of the interview where Stone talks a bit about the genesis of the film and what it's about:
OLIVER STONE: .... Chávez was sort of a natural, because he was such a demonized, polarizing figure. But when I met him, he was not at all what I thought, you know, what we made him out to be. So I went on from talking to Hugo. He suggested, you know, "Go talk to other people in the region. You know, don't believe me necessarily." So we went around, and we talked to seven other-eight other presidents-or seven other presidents in six countries. And we got this amazing unity in referendum saying, like, hey, these guys are changing the way Latin America is, and we don't know this story in America, when you think about it, except Peru and Mexico-well, Peru and Colombia really are the two American allies in the region. So what struck me as a news, as something that's historic, is that I've never seen these countries in South America, in a sense, unified by an idea of reform at the same time, because in the past, when Chile or Argentina or Brazil happened, we picked off the reformers one at a time, because they only happened-they didn't happen in a unity. And this is the first time I've seen that since--what, since Bolívar, maybe. We haven't--you know, going back to 1820s.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, what struck me also was, I think, the way you were able not only to present their viewpoints, in terms of how they saw the changes in Latin America, but also humanizing them, because for an American audience, the image of Hugo Chávez, of this firebrand, and then you have him on a bicycle in his-riding around in the yard of his former home, breaking the bicycle. And then-
OLIVER STONE: Yeah.
JUAN GONZALEZ: I thought the most comic line in the whole film was when, after breaking the bicycle, he says, in Spanish, "Whose bicycle is this? I guess I'm going to have to pay for it."
OLIVER STONE: He's not rich. His father is not rich, and he was also a military man. And he comes from a poor family. And he is what he is. He works for the people. I've never seen a man work so hard. I mean, he really cares. So do all of them, by the way. Every single one of them I met was elected duly, democratically, which Americans don't know. And they serve the people, unlike a lot of the oligarchs and dictators who ruled prior and we supported. But we're against these people. That's what amazes me. Why is our-what is it about America that makes-needs enemies and makes enemies out of these people who are reformers in their country? Whether it's Allende or the people in Argentina or Brazil, or Torrijos in Panama, or-the list is long. You know, why? Nicaragua.
Why do we need enemies? In particular, why do we need these enemies? An entire hemisphere of people were inspired to revolt because of us. (Well, yes, because of us and because of Haiti as well, but our revolution happened first, remember?) An entire hemisphere declared itself independent, just as we had done. And instead of looking at them as a proud vindication of our ideals, as close natural allies, we have always looked at them as something lesser, something inadequate, something, even, dangerous and dirty. Could it be as simple as just plain old racism?
Pretty much.
That and boundless greed for everything they've got.
Another thing the film deals with is how the continent has freed itself from the worst aspects of neoliberalism and outside control:
JUAN GONZALEZ: You also center in on the IMF and the role of the IMF, which, again, most Americans know little about the operations of the IMF around the world. Yet, in most other countries in the world, the IMF is well known.
OLIVER STONE: Mark Weisbrot is with the Center of Economic Policy and Research, and he's a co-founder of that, and he brought that element into this. It's very important. And obviously Americans don't care about economics as much; it's hard to follow. But Mark points out that in the 1990s, there was about $20 billion in loans from the IMF to Latin America. Now there's about a billion, which is interesting. They got rid of it, as Kirchner, Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, is a real hero here. He did technically default on the IMF, but then he paid them off. And he defaulted on the corporate bonds, which was a big scandal, but yet Argentine economy, which was predicted to be a disaster, improved radically. So did Chávez's economy for six years. I think the gross national product went 90 percent up, up 90 percent. Poverty was cut in half. So all these changes in all these countries have been positive since the IMF is out. They don't want our money. They don't want the loans. It's important.
The more that Obama and the Democrats betray the hopes and aspirations of their most partisan supporters, the more important it is to keep reminding ourselves that it doesn't have to be this way. And the strongest proof that alternatives are not just theoretically possible is to take a look at how other people live, and how they are moving forward, after generations of being held back. This look at South America is one of the potent reminders that yes, another way is possible. Another world is possible.
