Latin America’s Post-Colonial struggle to remain European. The quest for Blanqueamiento and European identity: Cultural Pathologies of Alienation and Shame.

Latin America’s Post-Colonial struggle to remain European.

There exists a psychological pathology in several of Central and South America’s ruling social class of alienation from their preferred self and collective identities of masculinity, femininity, and patrimony. In our next reports, we'll explore this pathology and the observable sequalae that our research team have been documenting over the past several decades. In the years after the FARC-EP demobilised and folded their thousands of ‘guerrilla families’ into towns and farms where they transitioned into civilian life, nearly all of us were surprised when one of their members successfully won the presidency. For segments of Colombia’s Eurocentric population however, the surprise was accompanied by feelings of betrayal and abandonment. They believed that they had “sacrificed for generations to put down the leftist ideology and now, voters had given them at the ballot box, what they had not been able to achieve on the battlefield”. Not all segments, but enough segments with sufficient corporate and political support to bring them into a resurgence. From their perspective, they had fought alongside Colombia’s Armed Forces to battle the forces of communism, socialism, and an indigenous transformation of Colombia’s society only for the political system to hand over to their enemies, the keys to the Republic. In the Madrid Forum, they found an anti-communist voice in the work of the Disenso Foundation, a think tank of the right-wing Spanish political party Vox, led by Santiago Abascal. The Forum’s founding document, the Madrid Charter, includes signatures by right-wing members of the Republican Party in the United States, Venezuelan opposition members, Cuban dissidents, Fujimorists of Peru, and other representatives of political parties from Latin America. The Madrid Charter was more of a manifesto calling for an international structure and detailed action plan.

The Vox political party initially introduced the project to the government of former United States president Donald Trump while visiting the United States in February 2019, with Santiago Abascal using his good relations with the administration to build support within the Republican Party and establishing strong ties with core American supporters of Donald Trump’s populist movement.

The quest for Blanqueamiento and European identity: Cultural Pathologies of Alienation and Shame.

The population in the interrelated countries of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru consist of segmented societies with vastly different psychological organization and sociological constructions. Each of these three countries share their physical spaces with the original pre-Columbian indigenous peoples of the Amazon Basin and the Andes Mountain Range as depicted above in figure 6. Most of the political-military power, economic control, and national cultural expression rests with the small percentage of those who identify as (but not always are, by DNA) Caucasoid-European. The highest socioeconomic level of citizen in these three countries is called a ‘criollo’ or pure Caucasian-European descendant whose Figure 6 Criollo, Mestizo, or Indigenous? “mejorar la raza”. individual/family bloodlines can be publicly traced back to European bloodlines without the introduction of either Indigenous or Afro Latino DNA. Race, therefore, is mostly subjective and important only to those families who define themselves as European versus Indigenous. These two collectives exist at opposite ends of the psychosocial spectrum of society, are in direct opposition to each other, and each constitutes approximately a quarter of each countries’ total populations. Often, our qualitative research discovers that those individuals and their families who are most vocally insistent that they are European-Caucasian are, by visible observation, from a mixed or mestizo heritage, albeit closer to European than indigenous in phenotype.

These segments of mestizo populations are often extraordinarily sensitive to any suggestion that they may not be a part of the European-Caucasian ethnic group and may go to excessive lengths to deny their actual mestizo identity and engage in processes that deepen and secure their preferred membership as European-Caucasian or criollo identity phenotype. In each of these three countries, Racial/ethnic descent is highly politicised in the way it is reported. In Colombia, race and ethnicity are artificially grouped into three racial groups—Europeans, Amerindians, and Africans.

The Colombian government attributes African ethnicity as distinctly African as observed in the participant’s phenotype. Amerindian’s are populations of recognised and (now) protected indigenous peoples of the Andes Mountain Rainges and Amazon Basin who self-identify as such. Colombian citizens who identify as neither recognised Afro-latino nor protected indigenous, are characterised by the census as being ‘Colombian of European descent’ and by the government’s count, constitute around 87% of its population. Social science demographers, however, describe Colombia as one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the Western Hemisphere and in the World, with 900 different ethnic groups. During qualitative and quantitative data collections, most Colombians identify themselves and others according to ancestry, physical appearance, and sociocultural status. Social relations reflect the importance attached to certain characteristics associated with a given racial group. Although these characteristics no longer accurately differentiate official social categories, they still contribute to one's rank in the social hierarchy. In 15 of Colombia’s most populated departments, social scientists have determined that the average Colombian (of all races) has a mixture of 47% Amerindian, 42% European, and 11% African. These proportions of ethnic reality vary widely within the various socioeconomic population segments and can actually be used to determine the likely sociopolitical attitudes of a given social segment. Population segments further from the seat of power in a given department or town tend to refuse to identify in self characterisation of their own ethnicity outside of ‘Colombiano’ in an attempt to remain neutral. Population segments that are close to the seat of power in a given town that are distinctly indigenous or darlkly mestizo, however, are likely to embrace indigenous worldviews. Population segments that are close to the seat of power in a given department and city that are distinctly criollo or light-skinned mestizo, are likely to embrace European worldviews. In Colombia’s communities of criollo or light-skinned mestizo’s, European identity is based on ethnic purity as a measure of belonging combined with claimed lineage and family wealth which is preserved at all costs to ensure the family does not slide downward into indigenous categorization and out from European privilege.

A study by Latinobarometro in 2023 estimates that 50.3% of the population are Mestizo or around 26 million people, 26.4% are White, 9.5% are Indigenous or around 5 million people, 9.0% are Black, 4.4% are Mulatto, and 0.4% are Asian, however estimates of each vary between sources. Therefore, it can be estimated that 26 million people are Mestizos (being the largest population

segment in the country), 14 million people are White (includes castizos and euro-descendants), 5 million people are Indigenous, 5 million people are Black (excluding mulattos), 2 million people are Mulatto, and 200 thousand people are Asian. Indeed, Colombia is an ethnically and linguistically diverse nation. The various groups exist in differing concentrations

throughout the nation, in a pattern that to some extent goes back to colonial origins. The new Colombian government under the liberal presidency of Gustavo Petro and his VP Francia Marquez, has begun to enforce laws that protect indigenous and Afro-Colombians, challenging the centuries long preferential status of Colombia’s European Caucasian elite. This is where race-ethnicity become political constructions of identity rather than mundane census statistics. Returning to figure 6, the balance of sociopolitical power rests within the 50.3% majority of the Mestizo population. But this population is NOT a

Figure 9 Comedic relief indicators of psychosocial anxiety over race, ethnicity, and cultural identity

uniform block of ethnicity, but one of graduating degrees of phenotype and psychosocial cultural identity. The lighter a Mestizo’s skin colour, the more that he/she is expected to support the white/criollo/Eurocentric elites that control much of the socioeconomic activity in Colombia. The darker a Mestizo’s skin colour, the more likely he/she is to be treated as part of the indigenous and Afro Latino landscape that must be controlled and managed through political and coercive power. The absurdity of this violent situation is that indigenous and Afro-Latino phenotypes are not perfect indicators of cultural identity. The darker one’s skin and the more one’s facial features reflect one of the typologies of indigenous (versus criollo) phenotypes as shown in Figure 7, the more likely one is to be excluded from consideration as belonging to the power-holding Spanish culture. This racial cultural dynamic illustrated in figure 8 is a social, political, and economic practice of Blanqueamiento (whitening) to mejorar la raza (improve the race) so as to achieve a supposed ideal of biological and symbolic ‘whiteness’ or Europeanness13 that has accompanied the deterioration of society. This psychosocial pathology is based on trauma that has been transmitted generationally over the course of colonial and post-colonial social construction and involves a powerful condition of racial inferiority within the inheritors of Post-Colombian society. The trauma, or broken reality transmitted was that physical beauty and psychological value-as-love was encapsulated within the phenotype and archetype (prototype) of the Peninsulares Criollos of Caucasian Europeans. This racial-inferiority cultural dynamic presents itself in a social, political, and economic practice of Blanqueamiento (whitening) to mejorar la raza (improve the race). During my research in Ecuador (and other countries), I found there to be a commonly accepted cultural imperative where each family felt ‘called upon’ to achieve a supposed ideal of biological and symbolic ‘whiteness’ or Europeanness. Our field research found several markers of this pathology such as parents sending their children to the United States or Europe to find a marriage partner. Parents of the affected cultural pathology demonstrated a strong preference for books, movies, and stories that depicted positive-heroic beauty phenotypes and archetypes quite dissimilar to their own. During our research in Quito and Lima, we interviewed phenotypical mestizo women about their preferences for love interests and heroic ideas in romance novellas and telenovelas. A significant majority of responses demonstrated preferences for blond haired, blue- or green-eyed men and women with fair Caucasian complexions. These same phenotypes and archetypes were and are still, disproportionately represented in telenovelas, books, and magazines, especially in households closer to the upper echelons of the socioeconomic elite in the capital cities of Latin America. The most popular heroes and heroines in film and literature are blond haired, blue/green-eyed light-skinned European looking actors, even though those phenotypes have not been present in this region for decades. Racial preferences became clear as we researched into the desired cultural prototypes of social and business interaction between the economic groups. Our research with post-pubescent teenagers confirmed the transmission of this phenotype/archetype preference of Euro-Centric Caucasian over their own mixed heritage mestizo typology, with accompanying emotional displays of ‘learned-shame’ and guilt. While the practice of Blanqueamiento works to affirmatively change racial identity of the dominant segment of mestizo society, other practices work to defend against subconscious threats of racial identity disintegration such as demonizing darker-skinned segments of society. Examples include light(er) skinned Mestizo parents sending their children to the United States or Europe to find a marriage partner so that their grandchildren will be the ‘correct’ phenotype for presentation to upper-class society. While the practice of Blanqueamiento works to affirmatively change racial identity of the dominant segment of Latin American society, other practices work to defend against subconscious threats of racial identity disintegration such as demonizing darker-skinned segments of society. The president of Guatemala from 2016 to 2021, for instance, was Jimmy Morales, and-up comedian who came to local fame portraying a blackface character that denigrated Afro-Latinos, which account for around 0.2% of the population. In Colombia, the 45-year comedy television show, Sabados Felices, was shut down during a live performance in Cali by angry Afro-Latino and Indigenous residents for the show’s practice of demonising (real or perceived) people of non-Euro Caucasian culture as comedic relief for Caucasian viewers. The graphic in figure 9 offers some context into this aspect of psychopathology of the upper-class ruling communities of the Andean-Amazonian countries of South America. The psychological and emotional relief that the audience and comedians are constructing through comedic relief emanates from the racial disparagement and subsequent demonization of a tiny Afro-Latino minority group. The release they seek is from cognitive dissonance, anxiety, and stress caused by their own negative inner self-estimation of value compared to their preferred prototypes (phenotypes and archetypes combined) of personhood and family identity. The targeted African-Latino populations feel only loathing towards this type of show, and the indigenous Amerindians express confusion and disdain. Those social members whose bloodlines are impure variations of Peninsulares Criollo and indigenous Quechuan can fight against their impurity by resorting to the practice of Blanqueamiento. Or they can resort to ethnic-defection (abandoning their Euro-bloodline) to the one side (of the social contest) that will allow them to join without negative stereotyping and embrace, highlight, support their indigenous phenotype and archetype over their Spanish side. Another line of research interest into this phenomenon is the fantasied preference for, versus actual phenotype of, the upper-class mestizo population segments in the tri-state region of the Andes/Amazon. Rather than culturally beautify their existing phenotype – mestizo – significant numbers operate in a fantasised projection of their own lives onto imagined cultural phenotypes that they, in their own life cycles, can never be. The most popular heroes and heroines in film and literature, for example, are blond haired, blue/green-eyed light-skinned European looking actors, even though those phenotypes have not been present in this region for decades. During interviews with members of right-wing styled self-defence forces in Colombia, we find that, while economic upward mobility is always a concern, the most alienated-shamed responses are not about physical or financial gain. Rather, it is about psychological affirmation and distinction of their large group identities as European-Caucasian as distinct from Afro-Latino and Indigenous portions of their Mestizo collective. They psychologically ‘need-to-be’ European Caucasian more so than actual European Caucasians and this is the core

of their psychopathology. This underlying psychosocial-emotional driver of social disintegration and participation in violent conflict suggest that the dangers that asylum returnees face cannot be calculated using western, rational logic. Perhaps more controversial is the suggestion that this disintegration has been increased by great-power interference and a failure to ameliorate the effects of post-colonial social ordering based on racial and cultural preference. Our professional assessment to the USA and UK foreign offices has been that these countries are in what may be thought of as a ‘free-fall’ into increasing levels of violence and disorder, that will continue until the underlying dissonance is finally resolved by those who survive. The research interest in this aspect of Colombian-Ecuadorian-Peruvian social conflict is in how the Mestizo ruling class could possibly perceive themselves; portray themselves; care about themselves; and ultimately, love themselves as their own real phenotypes, rather than the Eurocentric phenotypes they wish to be. Subconscious self-denigration of one’s own phenotype can have devastating social ramifications as we have researched in many violent conflict zones. I created a mixed social identities conflict model in figure 10 to help explain the driving psychopathology of ethnic and cultural conflict. Psychosocially healthy human societies define themselves using phenotype and archetype by what they are, which is illuminated by what they are not. In the model above, the two cultural/ethnic communities are blue & green and in mixed community #1, both are socially equal and desirable, in which case a byproduct of the two would be equally healthy. Think of offspring of Welch and English in the UK, or German and

French in Switzerland. In such healthy societies, differing cultural society segments ‘use’ each other (in a psychosocially healthy manner) to define themselves against the defining other. This natural and necessary process of healthy human communities furthers the constructive cultural identity competition that does not result in mutual negation of each other and powers economic output as both communities express their cultural identities in products and services. Liberalism, for example, requires the existence of conservativism as much as an ethnic ingroup requires an ethnic outgroup. This is the basics of psychological identity definition and perception. The ‘healthy’ part of this equation is each of the culturally-ethically different collectives can coexist without suffering undue threat of disintegration in the face of the ‘defining other’. In figure 10’s mixed community #2, the psychologically unhealthy segment is one which is unsure of its collective self-identity. Is it blue or green or blue-green? If the latter, does all members accept their balance of blue versus green? Is there preferential identity value in being more blue than green? Is the dominant elite blue? Or are they green? If both original blue and green communities provide equal valuation, then are both valuations accrued to hybrid ‘blue-green? What causes one society’s cultural segments to ‘use each other’ in a mutual healthy manner that builds them both? At this time, more research is required to be conducted to understand the linkages between social dysfunction in Latin America and the rise and sustainment of extremely violent criminal organizations and intractable conflict between Eurocentric and Indigenous-Centric national identities. However, a central part of psychological warfare is the inculcation of alienation and shame, often from self-loathing that is borne out of an idea that the targeted persons (blue or green) are ugly. Unlovable. Untouchable. Uneducated. Worthless. Outcasts. Dirty. Impotent. The most immediately assuaging and instinctual response to self-loathing is the sort of violent rejection that we are seeing playout in Bogota, Medellin, Cali, Quito and Lima, the principal points of our research effort. The only question remains is how destructive this action-reaction over Colombian-Ecuadorian-Peruvian collective and individual identity will become.