Dilma Rousseff, President of Brazil.
Kristina Fernandez, President of Argentina, and
Michele Batchelet, who will be elected president of Chile this year...
...running three of the most powerful countries in Latin America.
We had the iconic photo of Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa--three nut-brown faces of the presidents of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador--sitting together in obvious friendship and looking beautiful at some event in Bolivia, as I recall, wearing colorful indigenous serapes.
I remember my Spanish books from high school (long ago). The leaders of Latin America were all white. I didn't know enough, then, to find this odd. But I remember it NOW and realize how odd it was. Countries where the vast majority of people were brown-skinned inevitably had presidents, legislators, judges, newspaper editors, teachers, business owners, authors, and all the sort of leaders of society whose pictures make their way into textbooks about a country and its language, were pale-faced Europeans who looked to Europe for their social norms.
To have a 100% Indigenous as president of Bolivia--a largely indigenous country; or a mixed race president like Chavez (Indigenous, African and Spanish) of Venezuela, or Correa of Ecuador looking like a Mayan god-king--all sitting together, all elected presidents of their countries, all very popular, and strongly allied on social justice goals, struck me as amazing and revolutionary. It is a measure of how bad our corporate press is that it never acknowledged the historic nature of this totally awesome revolution.
And now we have another one coming close upon it--Latin America's WOMEN!
I think Rousseff will be re-elected and with a mandate, because her heart really is with the students and the poor protestors, and that will become increasingly apparent (as it has already started to). Batchelet in Chile is so far ahead in the polls, I doubt anyone can catch her. She left office the first time (got termed out but could run later--and is doing so now) with an 80% approval rating! She has huge personal popularity. Kristina Fernandez is having more of a struggle, and I don't know the current status of her term as President of Argentina (when elections are schedule, etc.), though I seem to recall that she was re-elected not that long ago (a year or two?).
So my iconic photo of the three new WOMEN leaders of Latin America may become a reality (simultaneous female administrations in Brazil, Argentina and Chile). I hope they realize how great that photo would be. They certainly share social justice and other common goals. I don't know if they are friends. Batchelet, in her first term, worked closely with Fernandez in her first term, on notable issues, such as the U.S./Colombia bombing of Ecuador and early peace initiatives regarding the Colombian civil war, and also, on stopping the U.S.-supported white separatist insurrection in Bolivia. They were in the avantgarde of the leftist democracy movement that was sweeping South America. Rousseff is not exactly a newcomer to that revolution--she was Lula da Silva's chief of staff. But she is a newcomer as chief executive, and is thought to have a more aloof personality than da Silva, or than the other two women presidents. Nevertheless, the common goals are there, including the common goal of improving the status of women in Latin America.
I hope they get together and someone is there with a camera!
Oh, and there is a FOURTH candidate for that photo--Xiomara Zelaya, who is running for president of Honduras and is doing very well, according to reports. All of these women are awesome--but Xiomara may be the most awesome, given what she has been through in Honduras. Rousseff and Batchelet have old wounds from U.S.-tutored torturers. They have endured much. So has Kristina Fernandez (though not imprisonment and torture). But Xiomara has had the recent experience of her home being shot up in the middle of the night, in a U.S.-backed rightwing military coup, and her husband dragged from their bed and abducted at gunpoint, as well as his supporters being shot, beheaded, imprisoned, raped, tortured. He, the elected president of the country, was forced into exile. She remained behind and led the opposition to the coup, with all the personal danger that that entailed. A great woman! I hope Hondurans are able to overcome U.S.-supported fascist rule and hold a real election. If they do, Xiomara will be the fourth female president in Latin America. All leftists. All committed to social justice. What a photo that will be!
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