Feliz Cumpleaños Simón Bolívar

Friday

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Simón Bolívar, 24 July 1783 to 17 December 1830

Today is the 226th anniversary of the birth of Simón Bolívar in Caracas in 1783. Also known as “The Liberator” for his central role in the liberation from Spanish rule of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Bolivia (many of which were once part of Gran Colombia, of which Bolívar was president from 1821 – 1830), Bolívar’s full name was Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte Blanco. No doubt there is much history in a name as extensive as this.

Bolívar had hoped to maintain the unity of Gran Colombia, though it was already beginning to disintegrate from internal tensions at the end of his life.

Latin American names are something to be proud of, though not all are as distinguished as Bolívar’s. Many persons and places we know by abbreviated names without even knowing that we know only the short form. For example, the full name of Cuenca, Ecuador is Santa Ana de los cuatro ríos de Cuenca (Saint Anne of the Four Rivers of Cuenca), while the full name of La Paz, Bolivia is Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Our Lady of Peace). These names, too, have much history behind them.

Simón Bolívar on a Venezuelan banknote

Anglo America north of the Rio Grande is famously disinterested history, so that history embedded in a name is forgotten as quickly as the name is abbreviated. We would do well, in terms of understanding the outlook of Latin America, to master its names, which at the same time would mean mastering its history, which is written in its distinctive names, both of persons and of places. And we will not understand ourselves until we do so, for this is at least half the story of the Western hemisphere, which has become, by historical accident, the destiny of Western civilization.

In reading about Bolívar today I learned about his “organic decree of dictatorship” by which Bolívar declared himself dictator on 27 August 1828 after the failure of the political process of the constitutional convention at Ocaña during April 1828. I have to wonder at the term “organic” in this political context, and specifically I wonder if this is the source, or one of the sources, of José Luis Romero’s distinction between doctrinaire and inorganic democracy. I hope to look into this.

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