Until I was in my twenties, I didn't even know where Uruguay
was. Then I found myself in the Public Record Office, which in those days was
in Chancery Lane, reading a massive leather-bound volume of nineteenth century
ambassadorial despatches. Thick, linen-based paper, crackly with age, covered
in flowing handwriting that had turned sepia over the centuries. Very Da Vinci Code, now I come to think of
it. All written from Rio Janeiro.
"Rio?" I hear you cry. "That woman still
doesn't know where Uruguay is!"
Ah, but we are talking the 1820s and Latin American
boundaries were still up for negotiation back then.
Not that I knew much about that. I was doing the legwork for
a biographer of Dom Pedro Primeiro the first Emperor of Brazil. I was just
ordering up the volumes I'd been told to and taking notes of anything that
mentioned Dom Pedro. I had no idea that Brazil had ever had an Emperor and
didn't much care, but those letters from the British Envoy-Extraordinary and
Minister-Plenipotentiary were cracking stuff.
For Lord Ponsonby hated Rio. I mean, he really hated it. According to him, the climate was vile, (hot and
sticky or windy as hell); the town was ramshackle, culture non-existent, the
court ill conducted and the Emperor unspeakable. What's more, his lady wife was
suffering badly – from both the temperature and the Emperor, by the sound of it.
The biography's working title was Every Inch a King, which in the circumstances was perhaps
unfortunate. Dom Pedro, had been brought up in Rio ever since he was nine years
old, when the Portuguese Royal Family escaped from Napoleon, transported by the
British Navy. The climate, Lord Ponsonby implies, was conducive to lustful
thoughts and lascivious behaviour. And the Emperor was still in his twenties
and having the time of his life. General randiness was clearly the order of the
day and pretty public, too.
Please, wrote Lord Ponsonby, could he and his wife not move
to Montevideo, where the climate was mild, the breezes gentle and the general
conduct altogether more what Lady Ponsonby was used to? He made Uruguay sound
like Paradise. Which to him, it probably was, poor soul.
Anyway, he helped set up the nation of Uruguay, mainly
because having a buffer state between the powerful nations of Brazil and
Argentina would benefit British trade, I have to admit. Uruguayan opinion is
divided these days on whether that was a) a Good Thing and b) what the
residents of the time really wanted. So unless you already know the opinion of
the people you're with, it's a subject probably best avoided in the pub with a
bunch of Uruguayan supporters.
And Uruguay has remained some people's idea of Paradise ever
since. In the last century it was often called the Switzerland of South America
because it developed a Welfare State. And yes, Ponsonby was right, there's that
healthy year-round mild climate and fertile countryside too. And the country's strong commitment to
education has delivered universal adult literacy.
Its long tradition of democracy was interrupted 1973-1985 by
a repressive military dictatorship, a fate that it shared at the time with both
its immediate neighbours and pretty much the whole of the sub-continent. To be
fair, the military claimed to be taking a stand against the Tupamaros, a left
wing guerrilla group which kidnapped the British Ambassador, Sir Geoffrey
Jackson, and held him hostage for eight months. But the generals and the
guerrillas are both gone now. And in 2013 Uruguay was the first country to legalise the cultivation, sale
and consumption of marijuana for recreational use, as a measure to counter drug
cartels.
But it is really its comprehensive Welfare State that is the
most fascinating thing about Uruguay. The country introduced its first state pension
programme in 1896 with a fund for teachers. Thereafter, pensions developed
piecemeal, trade by trade. (The UK passed the Old Age Pension Act in 1908.) Child
benefit payments started in 1943. (1946
in the UK.) Again, to be fair, social welfare programmes have had their hiccups
and the system became a political football for a while. But Uruguay's Welfare
State has always broken new ground, in both its successes and failings
As for its national football team, what can I say, except
that, in football as in so much else, the country has always punched well above
its weight? This year Uruguay qualified second in its group. Brazil (population
208 million) won 12 of their 18 games and led the group. Uruguay (population
3.4mn) won 9. Argentina (population
44mn) and Colombia (population 49 mn) won 7 each.
Latin America's Paradise , as Lord Ponsonby thought? Well,
it's definitely in with a shot.
Thank you so much Jenny for this fascinating post.
Jenny Haddon writes romantic fiction as Sophie Weston or
sometimes Sophie Page. http://libertabooks.com/sophie/
Her latest is, serendipitously, The Prince's Bride. http://tulepublishing.com/books/the-princes-bride/ It
was written and published before Harry and Meghan made their announcement,
honest!
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