Review: When Ollie met Ali...

28 When Ollie met Ali... Mike Tucker and Rob Marsden went to see Oliver Stone's new documentary film South of the Border at a special screening in Birmingham, sponsored by the Venezuala Solidarity Campaign. acclaimed Hollywood movies, has some form as a director of political documentaries- with no fewer than three previous Latin America films under his belt. Inspired by a recent book? by the, sometimes brilliant, Tariq Ali (who has a writing This is a radical film worth watching for the counter-narrative alone which pours ridicule on the slanders perpetrated by influential segments of the US media and political establishment, against the leaders and the movements in Latin Initially the film focuses on contemporary Venezuala, giving a potted history of the rise of Hugo Chavez from his humble beginnings, through his military career to his election to the Venezualan presidency in 1998. This is set against a backdrop of growing instability and mounting popular anger at the imposition of neo-liberal policies, at the behest of the IMF, by previous governments. The Chavista movement, whilst reflecting the class struggles of the urban and rural poor, is rooted in the (pan)national Bolivarianism as well as being strongly influenced by the Latin American 'tradition' of caudillismo, of charismatic authoritarian leaders, often from the This theme is reinforced by the film's format in which Stone criss-crosses Latin America to conduct a series of interviews with the leaders of the other Bolivarian nations. Actually, "interviews' may be the wrong word - they might better be Photo: banez friendly chats with Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Lula De Silva in Brazil, Cristina Argentina, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Cuba's Raul Castro and Fernando Luga, president of Paraguay, a former Roman Catholic bishop and liberation Here we see the danger in lumping all these countries and their leaders together. Venezuela is a democracy and Chavez himself has won consecutive elections whereas state. Bracketing these can play into the hands of those who attack Chavez as a disciple of Castro. Further, whilst Chavez and Morales widely criticised from the left for betraying the working class Stone hops from airport to airport - this is no Motorcycle Diaries - and we listen in vain for voices from below. We see precious few reflections of the popular and social movements which thrust these charismatic leaders forward, the mobilisations of indigenous peoples in Bolivia which catapulted Evo Morales to power, or which now sustain them in office such as the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela); Chavez party with over five million members. The people only speak when they are spoken to, as Chavez visits the farms and barrios, to dole out sage advice: "you need to increase the milk yield of these cows" "you should return to college to complete your education". The leading role which women have played in Latin American struggles is wholly ignored which does nothing to dispel the myth of that other stereotype of the region; machismo. The film looks at the emergence of democratic, populist and left leaning political leaderships across the continent, and we get a clear idea of the breadth and scale of an unfolding process, with all the unevenness that entails as individual countries map out their own paths, resisting US designs in different wayssome passive, some more active. This throws up some surprising insights. The Kirchners in Argentina are usually seen as being of the centre left but come across here as much more radical. They owe their positions to the mass movement in Argentina which toppled a series of governments in quick succession before bringing them to power on a platform of refusing to be dictated to by the IMF. Former president Nestor Kirchner raised eyebrows with his allegation that at the Monterrey summit in January, 2004, George W. Bush stated that US economic recovery was built on, and strengthened by, war. If this is true it should be trumpeted from the rooftops!3 The film reflects Oliver Stone's left-liberal, social democratic politics with an emphasis on change coming from above, from manipulation of the machinery of the state by enlightened individuals. Stone condemns what he calls predatory capitalism' but holds out a hope for a benign capitalism to take its place. To this end, he also points to the growing Hispanic population in the US itself, with links to the Latin American countries, and muses on the possibility of this becoming a conduit for a radicalisation 'north of the border'. Stone is thus reduced to a reliance on demographic change, a deus ex machina to break the political log-jam of politics in his own country. He appears to harbour naive faith, that Obama might not only be qualitatively better than Bush but that he would be able to exercise decisive leverage to effect positive change. Perhaps Stone sees in Obama another caudillo to join Chavez, Morales and the rest, south of the border! That said, it is an inspiring, amusing and, at times, moving film. If you get the opportunity to see it, take a few friends who perhaps know nothing about the struggles in Latin America. They may be inspired too. Notes 1 Thanks to Jay Woolrich and Tony Foley for their valuable comments 2 Tariq Ali, Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope, Verso, 2006 3 See http://www.juancole. com/2010/05/kirchner-bushangrily-said-war-would-grow-useconomy.html