Gaitanismo, Left Liberalism, and Popular Mobilization in Colombia [Hardcover]

William John Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2003

Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, Colombia's leftist political leader from 1928 until his assassination in 1948, gave rise to the country's liberal populist movement, Gaitanismo. His leadership and his assassination, followed by the brutal suppression of the movement and its followers, sparked the civil war, or La Violencia, and the violent political process that continues throughout Colombia today.

Using previously unexamined letters by Gaitan and his followers, W. John Green chronicles the rise of Gaitanismo and the reasons for its initial success and ultimate failure. Grounded in the rich correspondence between Gaitan and his supporters, interviews, and the vibrant Gaitanista press, this work focuses on the dynamics of popular political mobilization. It delves into the movement's left-Liberal ideological roots and examines the Gaitanistas' obsession with democracy and social justice.

Green provides an insightful portrait of Gaitan as a labor lawyer, deeply connected to the pueblo, who was more the symbol for the movement than the cause. He illuminates the connection between Gaitanismo/La Violencia and the continuing popular violence in Colombia, the distinctions between populism in Latin America and European fascism, Gaitanismo's development into a multi-class movement that superseded gender, race, and regionalism, and the maintenance of Colombia's long-standing formal democracy.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

"The breadth of Green's research and the originality of his ideas are truly impressive. In addition to the whole phenomenon of Gaitanismo, one can learn an enormous amount about the interworking of Colombian politics and especially the role played by gamonales and fraud in local and national elections."--Jane Rausch, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

"A definitive study of the intellectual and social sources of gaitanismo."--James D. Henderson, Coastal Carolina University

Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, Colombia's leftist political leader from 1928 until his assassination in 1948, gave rise to the country's liberal populist movement, Gaitanismo. His leadership and his assassination, followed by the brutal suppression of the movement and its followers, sparked the civil war, or La Violencia, and the violent political process that continues throughout Colombia today.

Using previously unexamined letters by Gaitan and his followers, W. John Green chronicles the rise of Gaitanismo and the reasons for its initial success and ultimate failure. Grounded in the rich correspondence between Gaitan and his supporters, interviews, and the vibrant Gaitanista press, this work focuses on the dynamics of popular political mobilization. It delves into the movement's left-Liberal ideological roots and examines the Gaitanistas' obsession with democracy and social justice.

Green provides an insightful portrait of Gaitan as a labor lawyer, deeply connected to the pueblo, who was more the symbol for the movement than the cause. He illuminates the connection between Gaitanismo/La Violencia and the continuing popular violence in Colombia, the distinctions between populism in Latin America and European fascism, Gaitanismo's development into a multi-class movement that superseded gender, race, and regionalism, and the maintenance of Colombia's long-standing formal democracy.

W. John Green is an independent scholar and consultant who has published widely on 20th-century Colombian history.

About the Author

W. John Green is an independent scholar and consultant who has published widely on 20th-century Colombian history.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Florida; 1st edition (April 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813025982
• ISBN-13: 978-0813025988
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,775,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Groundbreaking research & analysis, August 1, 2003

By 

Bert Ruiz "Author" (Pleasantville, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gaitanismo, Left Liberalism, and Popular Mobilization in Colombia (Hardcover)

Colombia is starting to get glaring academic attention. It is well-deserved and overdue. To this end, "Gaitanismo, Left Liberalism, and Popular Mobilization in Colombia," by W. John Green dares to study a controversial populist movement. His work is groundbreaking and his analysis in some cases exceeds that of highly regarded historians Richard Sharpless and Herbert Braun.

Jorge Eliecer Gaitan is arguably the most important politician in the history of Colombia. Green dedicates a decade to examine the life of Gaitan...the sire of the Gaitanista movement. However, in the words of the author, "this study...is more about Gaitanismo and the left-Liberal political culture from which it sprang than about Gaitan per se." Gaitan is the authentic defender of working and undervalued classes and a man who always diligently escaped the stain of official corruption and scandal.

In a nutshell, Gaitanismo was the first independent, mass-based, popularly oriented mobilization of its magnitude in Colombian history. Green tracks Gaitan's career from the Colombian Congress, to the Senate, to the Ministry of Labor, to the Mayor of Bogota, to Minister of Education and finally to the leading presidential candidate in the nation at the time of his mysterious assassination on April 9, 1948.

Green starts by digging into Colombia's past and exposing the wide historical divisions in the Liberal Party. He also pulls no punches and provides an excellent documentation of Colombia's elite-dominated political system. Unfortunately, according to Green, "for all its political vigor, the system was prone to domination by powerful groups and individuals...given to arbitrary decisions and less than democratic procedures."

The author also dedicates much time to the many clashes Gaitan had with his bitter political enemy Laureano Gomez, the dominant power in the Colombian Conservative Party. For the most part Conservative Party elites and even some members of the Liberal Party hated Gaitan and "exhibited a near universal mixture of fear, anger and loathing," Green writes. According to the author, to Gomez "the only route to salvation was the Roman Catholic Church, he was antagonistic to all breeds of Liberalism and insisted that those who disagreed were not only wrong but evil." Eventually many Colombians end up despising Gomez for his heavy sympathizing with Italian Fascism and German National Socialism before and during World War II.

Green admirably concludes that "the allure of Gaitanism sometimes seems unworldly." This book is comprehensive and well-balanced. And carefully explains why the Colombian oligarchy unleashed a brutal counter-revolution to eliminate the political
call for social and land reforms immediately after the assassination of Gaitan.

Bert Ruiz