Some time ago, I decided that I would start learning Spanish. I knew that as part of this endeavor, I would have to learn both to hear, as well as read, the language. I chose, then, to consume Latin American, and later Spanish media, that might hold my attention, and I made myself a promise: I wouldn’t watch anything in Spanish that I wouldn’t watch in English – it stood to reason that anything that bored me in my native tongue would frustrate me even more in one that I still speak only haltingly. So it was my luck that in 2019, when I truly became serious about this project, Caracol Televisión in Colombia released in cooperation with Netflix a 60 episode series titled Bolívar intended to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Colombia’s independence. Though I cannot commend all of its particulars as a representation of history, learned more than I imagined about how I look history from my own standpoint as an American.
In the course of its 60 episode run – fairly standard for a Latin American TV program of this type – Bolívar represents much of what Americans have come to expect from Latin American culture and storytelling. It leaves no opportunity for melodrama unexplored, and endeavors, wherever possible, to weave in otherwise pointless romantic intrigues to keep it audience from losing interest when the historical interest flags. It bears so great a resemblance to the standard telenovela that one periodically forgets parts of it are true, ignoring for a moment The Liberator’s perpetual hypercompetence that seems straight out of a G.A. Henty novel.
But if the program shows us some of the stereotypes of Latin American storytelling, it shows us also the world it grew up in with all its pitfalls and disappointments. The story of Latin America’s independence from Spain was not nearly so straightforward as ours is from Britain. The creole elite of Spain’s New World colonies sometimes had to try multiple times to win freedom after repeated failure and reconquest, including Colombia’s ignominious patria boba (Foolish Fatherland) period. Though the series understandably lionizes its subject, it also shows portrays him at his worst, the dictator, the man who failed to fulfill his dream of a grand republic, the veritable prototype of the caudillo still seen in the region today.
While watching the show, though, I caught myself viewing it through my own lens as a citizen of a republic that has been far more successful in securing representative government. At different points, I found myself awaiting the moment when these colorful characters would come together, compromise, build their successful, free republic, and move forward. I expect this, because this is how we in the United States approach our own history. The pieces of popular culture about our own past, whether it be HBO’s John Adams, the ever classic 1776, or Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, lack any real suspense for us because we know what is going to happen: the Founding Fathers forge a compromise, independence is declared and won, and then we write a constitution. Our empire of liberty is secured in 1801 with a peaceful exchange of power between factions.
I realized while watching the show that I had so internalized this script that I implicitly expected Bolívar to follow the same script. But if you know the history of Colombia in the 19th century, you know this is an unrealistic expectation. The newly independent people of New Granada had to turn to a dictator to save its own revolution. The Constitution of Gran Colombia signed at Cúcuta in 1821 lasted only a decade, and Colombia saw further disruptions and cycles of political violence through the remainder of the century. Colombian media does not presume a happy ending for Colombian history because that is not what the nation has got in its history, with its multiple civil wars and phases of endemic low-grade civil unrest. Viewing our southern neighbor through northern eyes distorted reality.
But I could manage such a viewing only with the hubris of American optimism, which afflicts even those of us who fancy ourselves realists or pessimists. If we always expect happy endings for our stories, it is because we have gotten so good at leaving the unpleasant bits out. Our revolution of 1800 was followed up with the embarrassment that was the War of 1812, which could well have ended in disaster, and accomplished little of what it set out to achieve. Our republic conceived in liberty waged war against a mostly peaceful neighbor, and tore each other to pieces over union and slavery in our Civil War. Our Civil War we cast as a triumph by virtue of its key role in ending slavery, but the damage it inflicted on the country was deeply traumatic. We anticipate victory for justice because that is what we have taught ourselves to expect.
There is no reason, though, why any of this had to end the way it ended. Nothing in history is really inevitable. The Civil War could have ended in Confederate victory. The War of 1812 could have ended in disaster. The crisis of the 1876 election could have divided the country again. Whatever victories this country has won, it has won through a combination of hard work and dumb luck. We would do well to remember this in our own age, when the strength of our national fabric is being tested more strongly than it has in a long time. The level of unrest alarms us because we don’t know quite how to react to it. We are so accustomed to victory, to the “good guys” getting their way, that we seldom want to countenance the possibility that they might not. Colombians, and to an arguably greater extent Mexicans, do not have this luxury. They have lived over and over the failure of institutions to govern well, and to dispense justice for their people. If their media does not overflow with optimism about the future of governance, it is because they have a well-earned sense of caution.
All of this should remind us that history is made by people. In a sense, Shakespeare was wrong. All the world may be a stage, but we are not merely players. Actors, in theory, only have to work with the lines they’ve been given. The position we find ourselves in today demands that we reexamine the script. We cannot expect things to go on doing well just because our internalized scripts tell us they will. When the old scripts don’t work, you have to write new ones. History doesn’t turn out well all by itself, you have to force it to, and those who lack the will to do so ought not promise themselves success. We should be optimistic enough to think we can make it through, but like our neighbors to the south, acknowledge that it does not always happen.