Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism - Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1845)

 

Facundo or, Civilization and Barbarism

Through an incredible coincidence I finished my previous book and started on “Facundo or, Civilization and Barbarism” on the flight to... Argentina. There was absolutely no coordination involved, that vacation had been in planning for a year and I am not skipping on the List. It just turned out that way. So, I would be travelling around in Argentina for three weeks and keep bumping into references to this book, particularly its author Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. Every town in Argentina has a street, a monument, a school to his honour. To say he is a big name in Argentina is a massive understatement.

“Facundo” is an odd book. Part of it is a description of the geography and people of Argentina, almost a travel guide or investor briefing. Then there is a large chunk that is presented as the life story of Juan Facundo Qiroga and the last chapter is the story of José Felix Aldao. This sounds like objective science and history, but comes through as an opinion piece.

Sarmiento lines up two opposite forces dominating everything in Argentina: Civilization and Barbarism. Civilization is represented by education, economic and intellectual progress, European influence, the cities and the part of the revolution that aimed at establishing a modern democracy in the spirit of the American and French revolution. Barbarism on the other hand is the loss of all the above to the wild nature and anarchy of the countryside. The gaucho, the Argentinian equivalent of a cowboy is the quintessence of this barbarism. Unlearned, poorly dressed, bad mannered and disrespectful of rules and property. That barbarism is the rule of the jungle where strongmen becomes warlords ruling through their strength and terror and fight for the freedom to do whatever they want, which usually means amassing wealth and power to spend on dissipation and more wealth and power. This fraction aims politically for a confederation where individual units only respect the central authority nominally.

Sarmiento sees himself as representing civilization and describes a development in Argentina that has led to the victory of barbarism. He is in opposition to the current ruler or Argentina, Juan Manuel de Rosas, whom he paints as the devil himself. What we have here is therefore an unreliable narrator who has chosen side and tries to convince us who is right and who is wrong and his description of the gaucho, the caurdillo (large landowners of the countryside) and the federalists is therefore one long vilification of these. He may of course have many good points and there is no doubt that those were terrible times, but it is difficult to parse what are facts and what is fiction.

The character Sarmiento has chosen to represent barbarism is curiously enough not Rosas, but Qiroga. It is as if Sarmiento assumes we all know what a terrible guy Rosas is and so focus on one his tools that demonstrates all the barbarism Sarmiento assigns to the Federalist cause. We get the full story, from Qirogas childhood, through his various campaigns and until his assassination. I will not start to describe those campaigns because I got completely lost in them. Typically, Qiroga will gather an army of gauchos, terrorize a neighbourhood and fight a battle. If he wins, he will conduct heinous crimes against his enemies. If he losses, he will escape to some backwater and raise another army. His rule will be arbitrary and based on terror and mainly aimed at all he would think consider themselves better than him.

While it is clear that Sarmiento is strangely fascinated by Qiroga and sometimes even praises his talent, he generally uses his portrayal to exemplify all the horrors and disasters this caudillo-gaucho regime is causing on Argentina and its suffering population. If Sarmiento is to be believed, entire cities in the interior have been virtually destroyed and the population reduced to beggars. Even Buenos Aires, the glorious light of Argentina, is reduced to a source of income for Rosas.

While Sarmiento’s Argentina is in ruins, he sees a lot of potential. We hear of people who has done great things for the country in science, religion, economy or in the military, only to see their work destroyed. If only Rosas and his regime could be ousted, Argentina could be a great place.

Sarmiento would eventually rise to power in Argentina and he is known throughout as the great educator. He founded schools and universities throughout, encouraged immigration from Europe and was a supporter of many industries. I learned in Mendoza that it was Sarmiento who invited a French agronomist to found the wine industry there, which is now one of the world centres of wine production (and the wine is good too!). He would consider the dichotomy of barbarism and civilization unique to Argentina, but it is likely not. What he calls barbarism, some might call freedom. What he calls civilization, some might call colonialism. The world is not as simple as Sarmiento makes to sound.

It was super interesting to read this book with actual present-day Argentina as a backdrop. I know too little about the country and its history, but being there offered a perspective to the story that was quite unique. Sarmiento would likely be both pleased and abhorred by what he would see today, but I found the wonderful Argentinians pleasant, polite and civilized in Sarmiento’s best definition, which more than I can say about many people at home.