Latin America Revolutions

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Latin America Revolutions
Introduction
As was the case with many countries of the world, Latin American countries were also colonized. The colonization in this region lasted close to three centuries. It was not until the 1800s that most countries in Latin America gained their independence. It was a huge struggle through revolution that brought about the independence of the Latin countries. However, even with independence came even greater challenges. Latin American countries faced a myriad of problems after independence some of which threatened to bring the countries down to their knees. Although these countries have slowly crawled out of the post-independence challenges there are some problems that they still struggle with to date. This paper has looked at some of the challenges experienced after post-independence and what caused the said problems. The paper has also looked at some of the problems that these countries have endured to date.
Conflicts in Politics
When the Latin American countries gained independence, there was a lot of excitement. However, there was also confusion in equal measure as they did not know who would take over the mantle from colonialists (Albert, p. 48). Although the leaders at the time has ideas on how to form a government that was fully representative, there was still no proper structure of creating a government. The lack of experience among the leaders often caused conflict as they could not agree on pertinent issues. There was also fear among the population of extension of colonization (neo-colonialism) among the newly appointed leaders.
There was also the challenge of fragmentation politically. Upon independence, it was the desire of most leaders in Latin America to unify their people. Unfortunately, they suffered fragmentation politically which made it impossible to have a united front. For instance, the government of Mexico was unstable even after independence due to constant coups, intervention from foreign counties and turmoil within the political class. (Alden, 48) There were several attempts to unify the nations in Latin America which failed owing to the barriers in terms of the geography of the countries. Further, there was no proper connection among these countries as the road network was poor and this made transportation among the various countries in the region very difficult.
Role of the Church
The ongoing in the church also contributed to some of the challenges experienced in post-independence Latin America. There were disagreements in the church mainly based on freedom of religion. While the population wanted to be given freedom to worship as they pleased, their leaders attempted to impose religion on them. Most of the leaders at the time were conservative and they tried to have everybody adapt to Catholicism as the main religion. However, among the population were liberals who introduced other faiths and this brought about division in the church. The conservatives on one hand insisted that individuals have rights while attacking the structure of the corporates that was adapted by the colonial regime. They also insisted that the society should be largely secular and supported a federalist type of government.
The Economy
This was yet another contributory factor to the challenges faced by Latin America after colonization. Immediately after gaining independence, Latin America as a region became heavily dependent on markets from other countries. They also relied heavily on imports and this led strengthening of old economic ties. These ties were with their former colonialists which would pose challenge of neo-colonialism. The former colonial masters would impose conditions which was loosely interpreted as colonialism of some kind.
Britain would then take up the position of dominant super power with Spain paving way. This meant that Britain took back her position as a colonial master making it difficult for Latin countries to trade freely hence crippling their economy. Consequently, the economy of Latin America as region became stagnant, with no growth registered, for close to thirty years. During this period the world was experiencing wars which had a ripple effect on the infrastructure of the country as well as growth of industries. There was also a lot of money that held up in undeveloped land and it was not possible for growth economically.
Indirect Governance
There was an attempt to limit the political power in Latin America after independence. However, this did not successes well and this paved way for authoritarian system. This brought about divisions among the liberals and conservatives. What would follow shortly after is struggle for power and eventually the liberals won (Doris, p. 17). Maintaining the status quo became difficult, as the disgruntled lot of the conservatives were the majority.
It is also necessary to note that the different states that make up the Latin region did not all gain independence in the same way. Although they experienced colonization relatively around the same time, each region had unique experience which directly affected th...