Introduction
In Facundo: Or, Civilisation and Barbarism, Domingo Fausatino Sarmietno illustrates the conditions leading to the ascension of Juan Manuel de Rosas first from estnciero to governor of Buenos Aires city, and later the rise of the Argentine Confederation. The author does this by giving the life story of tyrant Juan Facundo, explaining that his barbarism inspired the tyranny of Rosas. From Sarmiento’s perspective, Rasos build on the barbarous caudillo as a model in systematizing his violent schemes: the atrocities perpetuated by Facundo resulted from the unrepressed passions the rural “gaucho malo,” whilst those of Rosas were planned acts of political violence. Therefore, Rosas’ reign of terror was a direct application of Facundo’s rural barbarism against the civilized cities of Buenos Aires, San Luis among others. Generally, the book affirms the dualism between civilization and barbarism has significantly shaped the nation of Argentina.
The Concepts of Progress, Civilization, Barbarism, and Violence.
Sarmiento’s text Facundo presents contradicting concepts of civilization and barbarism. The contrast between Sarmiento on the one hand and Facundo on the other is a good example of the inherent duality of civilization and barbarism. The author strives to defend the urban civilization and culture from the barbarity of the countryside. Barbarity, in this regard, is embodied by the rural, uneducated, coarse gaucho tyrant Facundo. While other cities of the western world at the time are experiencing growth in commerce, education, population, and prosperity, the Argentine capital city of Buenos Aires is unable to spread civilization to rural areas.
While Argentina’s geography is to some extent a barrier to civilization, Sarmiento categorically places the blame on the leaders who were barbaric, ignorant, uneducated, and arrogant. The author observes the characters of these gauchos impeded people in cities of Buenos Aires and San Luis. While both the urban and rural population participated in Argentina’s war of independence, Buenos Aires would be the only city poised to achieve civilization. The rural people took part in the independence war to show their physical strengths as opposed to desiring to civilize their country.
In this regard, therefore, the cities represent civilization and culture while the country is characterized by barbarism, violence, and utmost stupidity. The countryside is ruled by violent impulsive leaders like Facundo who build rural, cavalry-based armies that intimidate local population and loot their property (Sarmiento, 1998). The cities were the places of commerce and industry, two major factors for modernization and urban growth. In addition, the cities were the nurturing grounds of education, high culture, science, art, philosophy and literature. Sarmiento represents barbarism as resulting from lack of European liberal ideals. As he states, “En vano le han pedido las provincias que les deje pasar un poco de civilización, de industria y de población europea” – this civilization needed to be imported from Europe so that Argentina could be saved from itself.
Sarmiento proposes the imperial view of progress that is usually expressed in terms of space. The author espouses this space both in the dichotomy of Europe vs. America, and urban vs. rural. The European tradition, that rejects both the indenous and Hispanic tradition while building upon the criollista tradition, is favored by Sarmiento as he lauds the British and French enlightenment models (Sarmiento, 1998).
However, it must be admitted that Sarmiento’s conceptualization of barbarism is a double-edged sword. This is especially because, on the one hand, the author uses barbarism to refer to the indigenous population in a manner that does not rhyme with that of the imperial Spanish Empire. On the flipside, however, the author uses the term barbarism to denote the caudillos and gauchos. These rulers are expressed as agents of barbarism and enemies of education, civil stability, and high culture. They are accused of propagating social ills such as instability and chaos and being out to destroy the society by disregarding humanity and social progress.
Conclusion
To this end, it is clear that Sarmiento’s idea of civilization is one that entails modern ideas and progress, and is to be found in cities. Barbarism is seen as anything against the European liberalism ideals, and had taken root in the rural which was perceived as stultifying and barbarous. The countryside was run following traditional and archaic structures that represented permanent threat to freedom and central government, as well as obstacle to progress. Sarmiento proposes a solution to the problems of Argentina by calling for intensive programs for education, encouraging European immigration, as well as in founding cities.
At first, it seems like the two concepts are direct opposites, but they become more and more inseparable in the course of the novel. It is evident that Sarmiento’s description of the barbaric gaucho society in the Buenos Aires city also reveals the civilization level of the day. Generally, the Sarmiento text does not reach definite conclusions as to the level of “civilization” or “barbarism” in the two cities of Buenos Aires and San Luis.
Reference:
Domingo F. Sarmiento, Facundo: or Civilization and Barbarism (New York: Penguin Group, Inc., 1998.
