It is not only a Puerto Rican crisis

Editor’s Note: The Puerto Rico Supreme Court on Wednesday (Aug. 7) ruled that Pedro R. Pierluisi had been sworn in as governor last week on unconstitutional grounds. Wanda Vázquez, the Secretary of Justice, now becomes Puerto Rico’s third governor in the last five days.

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HAVANA – At the time of redacting these lines it was not clear if Puerto Rico had a governor. A constitutional struggle questioned the legitimacy of the hurried appointment of Pedro Pierluisi, a substitute for Ricardo Roselló, who was forced to resign amid massive protests rejecting him.

However, this is not what’s most relevant in this affair. Because with or without a governor, everyone knows that the United States is who rules in Puerto Rico. It is that power which now trembles as a result of its own contradictions.

The mass media blames the protests on cases of corruption found in the Roselló government, together with the publication of homophobic and misogynist messages, which the defunct governor had shared with some of his collaborators. But the history of the governments of Puerto Rico is plagued with much more serious crimes than these that had never caused a reaction of such proportions.

The mobilization of the Puerto Rican people can be attributed to recent abuses and insults, such as the indifference of the federal government before the damage caused by Hurricane Maria, or the image of Donald Trump throwing sanitary paper to the victims, to remind them that they are a “shithole country,” as he has described the region.

However, beyond the short-term disgust and even the weariness of problems accumulated by their condition as a colony, lie the symptoms of the fundamental problem which is related to the deterioration of the hegemonic capacity of the United States.

At its peak, after the end of World War II, the United States could afford to sustain this colony at the expense of large federal investments. Important militarily, Puerto Rico occupied a privileged geographical position for the control of the Panama Canal and other Caribbean routes. It had deep water coast lines ideal for the movement of submarines in the Atlantic, as well as territories that could be used as polygons for testing and training by the U.S. military. These qualities were diminished in importance by diverse factors, which included Puerto Rican opposition movements, and the fact that the Pentagon lost interest on the island.

Initially, another reason for success was the need for expansion of some U.S. manufacturing industries, which in Puerto Rico found a tax haven requiring less labor and environmental protections, as well as the ability to pay lower wages than those paid to workers on the mainland. 

It was also a time of certain economic growth, although it was questioned in its social and environmental implications. It included the galloping growth of emigration, whose number today is four times higher than the population of the island itself, and continues to increase. This industrialization project collapsed for the same reasons of globalization that explain the deterioration of American manufacturing, which have been aggravated by the rejection of U.S. industrialists who refuse to compete at the expense of their own contributions.

Finally, and in the face of the Cuban Revolution, Puerto Rico was presented as the showcase of the United States in Latin America. Based on this logic, large investments were made in order to prove that it was worth being a colony of the United States. In fact, Richard Nixon advised Fidel Castro, when they met in 1959, to follow the Puerto Rican model. Puerto Rico as a “failed project” has become politically important for the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean.

We must therefore conclude that the United States is not in a position to sustain a colony that contributes little and costs a lot. Much less incorporate it as a new state in the Union, as the annexationists claim, who are precisely the same people who now compete with each other for power of a situation that is in shambles.  

The demonstration of popular power shown by Puerto Ricans has been an adrenaline shot for a people who have to face the harsh reality of never having been able to determine their own destiny. It is true that this may not be enough to transform the country’s reality, but it has been a show of dignity at a time that is required in a special way by Latin Americans inside and outside the United States.

Most Puerto Ricans who took to the streets would probably not vote for independence if another plebiscite were held. It is an apparent contradiction, given the images that show them expressing a patriotism that a lifetime of colonialism has not been able to erase. The explanation must be sought in ideology. Among other things, the United States has been responsible for sowing the idea that independence is not economically viable for Puerto Rico. And the fact is that practice has shown that dependence is even less viable.

The U.S. dilemma then becomes — even in the hypothetical case that they can shake loose of Puerto Rico — a case where they can never do it to the Puerto Ricans, who were baptized as Americans in order to use them as cannon fodder in their wars.