“This is a political book, a passionate book—a polemic, if you will. Its purpose . . . is not to rehearse facts ; it is to punch and kick the many people who deserve it.” Thus declares the author in his preface (p. v). And he does a lot of punching and kicking—perhaps also a little shadowboxing—directed primarily at Latin Americans, but sometimes at the bureaucrats, technocrats, and military of the United States.
The volume is divided into four long chapters with the following titles: “Notes for a Treatise on Parasitology”; “Notes for a Treatise on Mythology”; “Dialogue of the Deaf and Dumb”; “Memorandum for Amnesiacs.” The meaning of the first two titles is clear enough. But who are the deaf and who are the dumb? And how do they manage a dialogue? The fourth title is amply justified, for the author’s verbosity is a strain on the memory of the reader—at least the memory of this reviewer, who has read the volume repeatedly without gaining assurance that he has grasped the author’s meaning and message in all of its phases.
The jacket flaps make this declaration: “Mr. Alba presents an extensive catalogue of the continent’s [Latin America’s] shame: forced peonage in countries that boast of their progressive legislation; capital that flows to foreign bank accounts at the rate of more than $1 billion dollars a year . . .; racism so rooted in tradition that no one notices it; corruption so deep-seated that no one protests it; political ‘reformers’ activated by lust for power unadulturated [sic] by humanity or justice. Most of all, he flays the smug Latin Americans who blame the United States for all their ills but continue to rely on it for grants and loans.”
The same jacket flaps also prepare the reader for Alba’s announcement that the Alliance for Progress is dead—“killed by the powerful oligarchs, the corrupt governments, and the self-satisfied middle class of Latin America.” But the jacket flaps go on to tell the prospective reader that Alba begs for a new Alliance, and that “the first task he lays down for the new Alliance is to teach the masses what their rights are; the second is to teach them how to achieve the better lives these rights can bring them.” Although Alba does not clearly indicate where these teachers can be found, apparently he expects most of them to come from outside Latin America and mostly from the United States. In late 1964 and early 1965 did he expect Latin America’s powerful oligarchs, corrupt governments, and self-satisfied middle class to tolerate such an invasion from abroad?
Most readers will probably like to have more information about Alba. The jacket flaps indicate that he is a native of Spain, the founder of a popular Mexican magazine, a contributor to The New Republic, The New Leader, and Dissent, and the author of a “definitive history of Latin American labor movements,” scheduled to be published in translation in the United States. Footnote citations in the volume here reviewed include a book on militarism, another on “Subamericanos,” and a third entitled Líder. He is probably a refugee from Franco’s Spain and a member of the “non-communist Left.” Readers of his Alliance Without Allies will need fortitude, patience, and tolerance.