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causes, while in repressive societies, whether of the right or left, in–
tellectuals and artists are always in the vanguard of the struggle for
freedom. (Poland and Chile, two diametrically opposing cases, are a
good example of what I mean.) Should we see this simply as the cre–
ative man's characteristic spirit of contradiction, unsatisfied with what
he has and ambitious for what he lacks? In any case, this much is
clear: the artist and the intellectual, the principal beneficiaries of free–
dom, have been and in many cases continue to be its worst enemies.
In Latin America we know this very well. Great creators whose
works have given our literature authority and status the world over,
and who have extraordinarily enriched our language, our imagina–
tion, and our sensibilities, have not hesitated to place their prestige
and their word at the service of ideologies and regimes deeply at odds
with freedom . A good many of them have succumbed to the totali–
tarian spell of Marxism. But there are also artists and intellectuals,
among them some of the first order, who have shown themselves to
be accommodating and enthusiastic towards right-wing military dic–
tatorships, even sometimes at the very moments when these regimes
perpetrated their worst crimes.
In this regard, our nations have shown a discernment surpassing
that of many of our intellectuals . This is something of which Latin
America can be very proud before the whole world.
It
is true that in
our countries there are scandalous inequalities, that the spectacle of
poverty repeats itself like a recurrent nightmare from Bio-Bio to the
Strait of Magellan, and that in the areas of education and health,
work and law, there is still an enormous task to be done. But at the
same time , we Latin Americans can say that, unlike what happened
only a few decades ago in Europe, or what today happens frequently
in the Middle and Far East and in Africa, our nations have ' never
succumbed to the spell of despotism . Whenever they have been con–
sulted, they have declared themselves resolutely and overwhelmingly
in favor offreedom. My country has just done so, assembling in enor–
mous numbers at the polls, against Sendero Luminoso's rallying cry
not to vote . And so, before that, did the people of Uruguay, Brazil,
Venezuela, Argentina, and Ecuador (and there is no doubt that,
whenever they are able, the people of Chile will do so as well.)
If
one
analyzes all these electoral processes, one constant factor is revealed:
whether the elected parties and governments be of the center-left or
the center-right, they all unequivocally represent a democratic choice,
a choice for coexistence in diversity, for free expression, for the alter–
nation of powers . In all these cases , the nations consulted have se-
