After receiving the 2010 Nobel Prize for literature, Mario Vargas Llosa gave an interview with Inger Enkvist at the Swedish Academy. Enkvist begins by asking broad questions pertaining to the role of literature, of fantasy, the humanities, etc. He then asks about one of the key themes in Vargas Llosa’s work.

“In your oeuvre one often finds fanatics, characters that are cynics, politically, and also skeptics. And almost always there is a fracture [in your narrative] separating the world of politics and the world of ethics or morality. Can you comment?”

Vargas Llosa, with his usual nonchalant straight-forwardness, answers:

“I come from a world [Peru] where politics, generally and save exceptions, has been in the hands of the worst kind of people […]; a world that has had a very entrenched history of dictatorships that have been very violent and very corrupt; a world where politics seemed to be the monopoly of cheaters [pícaros], of bandits, of the most violent people. Naturally […] there have also been decent people, idealists; but they have been generally defeated, left in the margins –destroyed, in the end. So it is not at all strange that my oeuvre presents a view into political life in Peru and Latin America [which shows] such tradition of violence, of large-scale corruption, of thuggishness […]. In Latin America politics has generally been a terrible source of violence, of corruption, of backwardness. It would have been absurd and unreal for me to describe such political world as it were a world of generous beings, of idealistic characters who work for the common good [begins to laugh], who had a great sense of honesty [laughs]. This would have been tantamount to writing science fiction, right?”

Right. There are exceptions, of course, Lula, Bachelet, and others. But, and I think that Daniel Dayan would agree as indicated in his last post, Vargas Llosa is here revealing nothing new at all. His oeuvre, in fact, as it concerns political life in Latin America, likewise reveals nothing new. Yet, and Dayan may agree again, such obvious statements nonetheless say a lot. Hearing these things out loud is meaningful. Bear in mind that these “bandits” alluded to by Vargas Llosa have always, for 500 years, strived to confine that sort of talk to the backstages of everyday life. In Peru, for example, the former president Alberto Fujimori –the very caricature of this sort of Vargas Llosan being: corrupt, cynical, violent, populist– did his utmost to control all aspects of what one may call “the frontstage discourse” in my country. He bought journalists, owners of newspapers and TV stations, celebrities –allies—, literally paying them, for their acquiescence and service, millions or thousands of dollars, depending on their rank and their ability to bargain.

This has been shown by dozens of videos which Fujimori himself recorded from the Intelligence Service Agency (see this link for example). Videos that, to Fujimori’s humiliation, were at some point leaked to the local media. It seems to me that, in fact, the special characteristic of the Third World is that people like Fujimori always, at all cost, try to avoid such backstage leakage. They have always tried to confine the inevitably dissenting popular discourse to the backstages, because they know, of course, that when such discourse leaks to the frontstage, it asks them questions that they cannot answer, it makes their life more difficult (as the author of The Politics of Small Things may agree). To be sure, we in Peru and in Latin America love to express our unedited and often angry opinions about political life. Vargas Llosa is, of course, not the only one who does that. But though we all talk and complain a great deal, our opinions seldom come to dominate the frontstage discourse, partly because the Fujimoris of the world resolutely fight such leakage.

And Vargas Llosa’s (non)revelations have meaning because they manage to encroach upon key areas of the frontstage, thus facilitating dissenting public spheres, thus catalyzing aspects of the politics of small things. His (non)revelations are, again, meaningful. Unlike many of the characters depicted in Vargas Llosa’s novels, who enjoy impunity, Fujimori ended up in prison –precisely because of the leaked videos, precisely because of the frontstage transfer of information. (Incidentally, he has been convicted among many other things of having provided support for the assassination of an eight-year-old boy who was executed along with his father for political reasons.)

Importantly, when he was in office, most people knew that he was corrupt and murderous. And we were not surprised when we saw, via the leaked videos, that he had bribed local and thuggish newsmen, etc. But, never mind that, we all got very excited. We devoured these images. And then eagerly talked about them, and not only in the kitchens and pubs, but in the media, in the frontstages. Soon, demonstrations became a common sight. International attention and then international pressure mounted. Fujimori’s administration began to fall, naturally, irretrievably, one video at a time, one demonstration at a time. These (quasi)revelations forced key aspects of the politics of small things. Similarly, the “revelations” provided by WikiLeaks about Latin America, and the Third World in general, have revealed very little (corruption, cheating) –while, however, having facilitated significant advances in the public sphere. It seems to me that they have thus made life a little bit more difficult for those Vargas Llosian characters, who often monopolize politics in our countries.