Indirectness, submission and other West-issued traits assigned to Latin Americans

The post-modern West often disregards how they achieved their post-modern status, particularly when it comes to observing the nature of people from developing nations who made the developed West become developed.

There’s almost like an automatic association of Latinness with the warmest and kindest people in the world. In alternative mindsets, references turn bitter: a culture merged in indirectness, roundabouts and submission. Though I’ve been framed in both, I’m here to shred the latter. I wonder whether society in the developed West considers the developing West acquired such associations. The following breakdown of history, combined with my “situationship” in the UK,  hopes to broaden the scope of those who look at the South with West-prescribed glasses.

In a personal setting, I’ve been through situations where London has picked up on my lack of decision-making when figuring out where to go for a simple dinner, choosing an activity for a date, booking a pub for a night out, you name it. And I’m under the impression that my dearest readers might instinctively agree with them.

In workplaces, in terms of what Brits call “room for improvement” (for those unaware, this means what you are shit at), I am told about my excessive humbleness and subordination. Every time I hear it, I wonder what could happen if I choose to become rebellious, decisive and direct with my immigrant card in Corporate Britain. Do we all agree what capitalism is about, and though everyone plays a card in it, only a few can choose which card they want to play with?

Now bringing those two settings together,  have you noticed how the recent U.S. intervention in Venezuela left a worldwide noise where the voice of the local pedestrians wasn’t covered to a big extent? - Donald Trump claimed his objective was to redevelop the oil and gas industry to Make America Great Again, and so did the headlines in the West: produce an agenda on the topics of economic reshuffle and redistribution of world power.

From the sources of news and public information I have checked in the UK alone (up until 22nd February 2026), the actual Venezuelans haven’t been the story at all; this editorial direction is not necessarily the cause of why we don’t hear from them. Latin communities rapidly understand how, in this type of situations the best choice they can make is to carry on with daily life as if there wasn’t any sort of military invasion (be it internal or external) that could blow away the roof of their house overnight.

We learnt the consequences of being direct, that is, demonstrating in favour of or against any political move: in much of the Andean nations, especially in the mountains and surroundings, the question is not what your ideology is or what party you choose, but rather who’s pointing a gun at your head when being asked so.

While the intention isn’t re-victimising, this article is nonetheless a question mark that navigates four angles for anyone in the developed West who hasn’t connected the dots between the privilege they are entitled to, and the price Latin Americans have had to pay for.

1. Geography

The geography in the Andes plays out a historical role in how and why forcing a Eurocentric institutionalism wouldn’t work, but rather trigger an everlasting violence. The system of capitalism, the rule of law, the idea of a republic, and the ideology of democracy  were some terms planted in the region without asking for consent (also known as colonisation). But consent wasn’t the only thing they didn’t mind: geology wasn’t considered before assuming institutions would work like they would in Europe.

The Western vision of transport and communication was challenging in South America due to the high and extensive Andean mountains. The laws and bills brought by the kingdoms would take months, if not years, to reach all communities, so since the moment the concept of towns appeared, the violent clashes with native communities isolated in remote mountains did too.

Up until today, such violence persists between countryside towns, capital cities, farmers and the remains of indigenous communities who survived the genocide partially because of the geography and their ancient knowledge of weather, nature and environment. Even though there are new triggers and ways of violence, the complexity of bringing a nation together and guaranteeing a two-way communication process across an entire country remains a top cause for disagreements, violence and conflicts that the developed West is yet to fix.

Think of Ayahuasca: in the UK it is common sense, up and down the country, to be an illegal drink; in the Colombian capital, it is common sense that it is not a substance to drink unless it is part of an alternative health treatment; while in the Colombian countryside, it is common sense that the drink is permissible for even children. Telling a community how to live and perceive the life they had already been living for thousands of years before they were ‘discovered’ was not only violent and logistically chaotic, but it also paved the way for other ways of violence and other ways of chaos.

Or put it in a much simpler way: Artificial Intelligence is all over Latin America, but some of the sub regions still lack access to drinking water.

2. Culture

   
   

Fear has been by far the most efficient weapon to control communities in Latin America since the 15th century, up until the recent abduction of the leader of the Venezuelan regime. While in other parts of the world the fear takes the form of death, poverty or famine threats, in this region the historical form has been -and likely will continue to be- Christianity. This religion, combined with the stories preserved from medieval Europe, is the perfect antidote against the ancient set of beliefs in native communities who had to absorb the idea of someone else being more powerful than their relationship to nature and their own community.

Even if there’s been a refreshed resistance to the evolution of culture(s) and identity(ies) in the developed West, its society has still been able to open up to gender equality, blackness, immigration and a rising consumption influenced by environmental protection. Latin America, on its own, is yet to reconcile from the fear planted by the crumbs of Christianity, which prevents its believers from embracing such a cultural opening.  I am sensing a Latin culture essentially parked in the fear of Almighty God, an entity introduced by a continent that has long ago departed from a culture ironically ruled by religion. How did we allow that to happen? How did we allow that to remain?: Politicians. Their skillset at delivering fear is what drives me to the next subject.

3. Politics

   
   

The illusion of choice barely says a thing or two to a Latin audience that is eligible to vote. We no longer believe -or might never have- in a political agenda, yet we engage in the spirit, if you wish, of democracy: a European-imported system. I often hear voters claiming they will vote for the one who steals the least, and I have nothing to say against a reflection of how and why the Western idea of democracy failed since it was first imposed upon the region:

Mexico aims to stop becoming a bridge for illegal immigration. Colombia wants to eliminate war and cocaine. Venezuela dreams about a democratic state. Argentina perseveres in the search for market stability. With every election that passes by, all these never-ending dreams become the drive for change that candidates from all wings write on paper, and erase on the mountains, on the Amazon rainforest, or the rural side of the Americas. Basically, promises disappear where the blood and accountability can’t be traced back because geography takes it away.

It’s from that angle of localisation and reality where I question the “spirit” of a democracy that should have asked perhaps how theocracy was working in the Pre-Colombian Americas, before assuming that forcing a replica would work the way it does in Western Europe. Not that I want to touch nerves up here, in the developed world, but.... What has democracy done in the continent where it was born, anyway? In other words: name one democratically elected leader or democratically elected cabinet that has not been compromised in corruption and criminal activity.

4. The 'Narco-state' concept

   
   

Before wrapping up, I take now the opportunity to highlight how, instead of starting the article with a question mark on Latin Americans, I turned the question to where the Developed West is standing from when looking at Latin Americans: from a place of history, or from an enclosed proximity to their privilege?

The urge to ask that question comes from the final piece I want to digest: a diverse geography, a culture of fear and a symbolic democracy paved the perfect way to grow and distribute the most addictive drug in the world. For decades, cocaine has given away many things to the world: fun, power, addiction and crime in the countries where it’s consumed, while giving violence, poverty and loss of biodiversity in the region where it grows and where it’s exported. I want to focus on the depth of subsequent violence to which we, Latin Americans, are exposed because of cocaine becoming the main tax-evaded export on the continent.

México, Perú, Colombia and Bolivia have been condemned to an everlasting war where you could question the real owner of power, knowing how narcos control what one can and cannot grow in the region. It’s fantasising to wonder how we allow this to still happen in 2026, considering the layers of geography, culture and politics shaped by the pre-Modern West. As idealistic as dreaming about the day developed nations treat the addiction to cocaine seriously as a collaborative agenda with ‘backyard’ nations down there, in America.

Despite not having the best conditions to be decisive and take direction of our lives, we decided to remain kind, we decided to carry on, we chose to follow the direction of love, of idealisation. We chose to avoid conflict because for almost a century, we’ve been immersed in it. We decided to smile and live the day with whatever the day holds for us. We chose to exist before colonisers decided we exist. We decided to decide, despite imperialism opposing to it. With the glasses I’m wearing, that’s not being indirect or submissive, that’s being resistant, that's being strong.

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