Havana Cuba. – At this moment, in which the balance of Our America seems to be tilting to the left, and in which various crises are mixed rapidly and strongly, the reading of the text “Integration in Latin America: from rhetoric to reality”, edited by Editorial Ciencias Sociales and Ruth Casa Editorial in 2008, it helps to acquire elements to understand what is happening and, above all, what could happen.
When the essays giving substance to the work were written, the United Kingdom had not left the European Union (Brexit), the United States had not begun the process of withdrawal into its continental space by the administration. Trump, The Covid-19 pandemic, the largest since the nicknamed Spanish flu of 1918 (actually started in the United States), hadn’t occurred, the BRICS were more a hope than a reality and the occurrence of a war that devastated all of Europe. It is in this scenario that we live today, 14 years later, when the re-reading of this book can provide the guidelines for a process on which the existence of a Latin America and the Caribbean that speaks with its own voice in the 21st depends. century.
Osvaldo Martínez is a doctor of economic sciences, university professor, lecturer, author of several books, was minister of economy and planning, deputy of the National Assembly of People’s Power and chairman of its permanent commission for economic affairs, among others you deserve. He has the gift of being able to explain in a fluid and understandable way the most complex and thorny issues of science.
Regarding the volume, the author states in the prologue: “Latin American and Caribbean integration in the 21st century will be the expression in terms of integration agreements of that old mole of history: the class struggle. It will decide whether the region moves towards socialist integration with all the national colors, smells and flavors woven into a profound supranational union or whether the prehistory of the disagreements and frustrations of integration will continue ”.
The history of Latin American integration can be summarized in a few fundamental points. It has always had brilliant perspectives from a theoretical point of view: the internal interweaving of a region with numerous natural resources, with structural similarities and colonial and neocolonial economic models, rich cultural diversity and affinities, with sometimes conflicting relations within the region, but forming part of a historical community, with a singular linguistic strength given by over 600 million people who, in a vast region, can communicate orally in Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese.
The works that make up this book contribute to the understanding of the complexity of this process, those that have been presented and discussed in a seminar organized by the Research Center on World Economy, in Havana, by a group of Latin American economists and sociologists including: Julio Gambina, Atilio Boron, Claudio Katz, Plinio de Arruda Sampaio Jr., Nildo Ouriques, Jaime Estay and Osvaldo Martínez, all of left-wing thinking committed to the project of true integration of our peoples.
With this I conclude, I hope you can find by reading this book, it will be useful for you to read it, Oh, and remember, if you see me around, say hello.
