All of South America is outside France.
Did you mean to type something else?
Most of France is in Europe, but most is different than all.
Is that you, Donald?
George Washington and Simon Bolivar both lived at roughly the same time and fought similar revolutions.
South America's woes really began in the early 20th century when, despite avoiding the devestation of the world wars, they succumbed to socialist revolutions which ravaged their economies and destroyed their future prospects.
Countries colonized by Iberians are simply mired by the problems introduced by the Iberian attitude to wealth and work (namely that one ought to violently seize the former to avoid the latter). In Colombia alone there are something like 35 murders a day, and quite a few of those are for 3 year old iPhones worth less than the assailant's motorcycle.
The preference for seizing wealth translates into the political sphere in these countries and had a lot to do with why the revolutions there took on a distinctly socialist character. On the one hand you had large landowners refusing to make any kind of concessions to the laborers they were exploiting, and this gives you the guerrillas who financed their operations via the drug trade (the right-wing paramilitaries later start doing the same thing as they lose institutional support).
Both parties distrust each other. Keep in mind that this isn't like the American culture war. Most of these countries were dealing with full-scale civil wars in the last century.
Consider Colombia again: 3 years ago, they elected a former socialist guerrilla as president. One of the first things he did was decriminalize the possession of narcotics. He compared cocaine with whiskey a few weeks ago. This variety of civic incompetence is quite typical in South America, and is the source of most of its problems.
Also cocaine is not comparable whiskey? Why is that?
It is the result of the Iberian approach to politics which is not cooperative but based on clientelism. They inherited it from the Romans. The general dynamic is that socialist revolutions emerge as a result of landowners seeing other people as peons to be exploited. The socialism itself is downstream from seeing the state as a seat of power to be seized for personal enrichment rather than a public office.
>Cocaine is not comparable to whiskey
Cocaine is far more addictive than alcohol. Neither substance is socially desirable.
And hopefully not to be pendantic about it but you did in your reply precisely show how and why one might compare cocaine to alcohol. I am still confused about your point there, but it doesn't really seem important to your conceits anyway.
No, you've misunderstood me. There is no exogenous force. South America is itself a product of Iberian colonialism. You could, I suppose, say that South America did not have problems with ineffective governance prior to the arrival of the Iberians. This is somewhat dubious, though, because those governance structures look nothing like our own. The Aztecs were probably effective governors during the time that they ruled, but would anyone really prefer to live in a world where they had won?
People who live in impoverished countries create these narratives to avoid acknowledging their collective failures. There are plenty of examples of countries that have been colonized which are today completely peaceable, as well as countries that have never been colonized which are nonetheless comparatively unstable.
South Americans are particularly susceptible to these narratives. It is usually associated with leftist ideas surrounding decolonialism, but this is by no means exclusive - plenty of conservatives will blame the gringo for problems that are squarely within the realm of their control (at least insofar as anything can be "within our control," but the premise that such a culpability exists is already accepted by anyone arguing that "It's all the Americans' fault.").
> you did in your reply precisely show how and why one might compare cocaine to alcohol.
Petro's exact words were: "La cocaína es ilegal porque la hacen en América Latina, no porque sea más mala que el whisky." This is manifestly not the case. The sort of blase attitude he takes towards a substance that has done so much to destroy his country is emblematic of the civic incompetence I alluded to.
>razor wire and electrified fences around properties
That is a sure sign that LOCALS see dangers present
It is shocking at first to see razor wire, electric fences, perimeter sensors, shards of glass embedded at the top of concrete block walls.
In the US you don't know if that house you are targeting has someone inside waiting with a gun. That is shocking to many outside cultures too.
In South America, plenty of people have guns - they just don’t have permits or licenses for them. Chile is relatively orderly on that front, but most places aren’t.
So unlike the US, it’s a lot less likely someone is going to call the cops if someone gets shot.
That isn't 'white panic' lol. Are you perhaps insecure about your own race?
Luckily, I flew out of Chile on Saturday. Although it felt like it was the safest place I have visited in South America so far the empty white powdered dime bags on the sidewalk, people telling me to be very careful walking alone at night, razor wire and electrified fences around properties was a reminder of how dangerous it is.