By virtue of being the most diverse and hybrid area on the planet, Latin America is a kind of potpourri that is difficult to understand due to the number of ingredients it contains. Are we the poor suburbs of the West, as some see it, or are we by now, after two centuries of independence, something new and different?
The old white elite, with something of an inferiority complex, used to aspire to be Spanish, English, French or, at worst, the United States: They went to bullfights, played golf, drank French wine and did their shopping in Miami. What we really are is a complex jumble of things, not a homogenous continent that can be summed up in sensationalist slogans that make little sense such as "Homeland or death" or "Ever onward until victory."
The Latin American left has itself many different ingredients. All of these lefts (and a few centers and rights) were at Hugo Chavez's funeral, some with genuine tears in their eyes, some concerned with making gestures for their domestic gallery, or to ensure the free oil keeps on coming, or perhaps with the secret satisfaction of seeing the corpse of an old enemy go by.