Adios, Amigo: RIP Carlos Alberto Montaner, Author of “The Manual of the Perfect Latin American Idiot”

Carlos Alberto Montaner is no longer among us, writes José de Córdoba in the Wall Street Journal. 

Montaner, who during a more than half-century career wrote thousands of columns and more than two dozen books and novels, was a leading Castro critic, especially known in Latin America where his columns were widely syndicated.  

As I was building my personal website 20 years ago without understanding much of the internet, it was his weblog, El Blog de Montaner (then with yellow or cream colors dominating and under possibly a slightly different name), that influenced me the most, possibly because it also was in two languages. Then I learned of his book, “The Manual of the Perfect Latin American Idiot,” and both blog and best-seller were a revelation that I quoted a number of times on the blog which I was invited to join the following year (2004, the very blog that you are reading now).

Montaner, along with two other Latin American co-authors, wrote “The Manual of the Perfect Latin American Idiot,” published in Spanish in 1996. The book, which ridiculed the left for blaming Latin America’s ills chiefly on the U.S., became a bestseller, sparking debate throughout Latin America.

I admit that I hadn't read him in years, but I'm glad I didn't learn that in 2020, CAM had supported the presidential campaign of Hunter Biden's dad.

Breaking with Miami’s deeply Republican Cuban-American community, Montaner publicly backed Joe Biden’s first presidential campaign. In a column last year, he said former President Donald Trump didn’t “give a damn” about telling the truth.

If anyone doesn't “give a damn” about "telling the truth", CAM (in case you can read this), it's the left, from the current occupant of the White House to the culture via the MSM and the Department of Education (not to mention the installation of a one-party state in the USA). I'm curious to know what was Humberto Fontava's take on that (lack of?) policy.

Like most Cubans, Montaner initially welcomed Castro’s 1959 triumph. But he soon rejected Castro’s excesses and the new government’s Communist lurch. Arrested for his clandestine anti-Castro activities, Montaner was just 17 years old when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1960. But he escaped and made his way to the Honduran Embassy in Havana where he was granted asylum. In 1961, he was allowed to leave for the U.S. 

After studying literature at the University of Miami in the U.S. and teaching at a Puerto Rican university, Montaner moved to Madrid, where he started a publishing house, Editorial Playor. He lived much of his life between Miami and Madrid where he witnessed Spain’s transition to democracy after Francisco Franco, hoping it could serve as a model for Cuba.

In the hothouse world of Cuban exile society and politics, known for its sometimes violent rhetoric and extreme views loudly expressed, Montaner stood out for the equanimity of his voice and for his trenchant analysis. 

“Carlos Alberto created a space to analyze and discuss Cuba in a rational and calm manner,” said Pedro Freyre, a Miami-based lawyer active in Cuban affairs. “He was an example of moderation, intelligence and cordiality.” 

He was feared by the Castro regime as perhaps its most dangerous intellectual adversary.

Actualización: Gracias por el Instalink, Señor Driscoll

In the New York Times (surprisingly enough), one Clay Risen gives more details about Montaner's 1996 book.

One of his best-known books is “Manual del Perfecto Idiota Latinoamericano,” which he wrote in 1996 with Alvaro Vargas Llosa (the eldest son of Mario Vargas Llosa) and Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza. It was published in English in 2000 as “Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot.”

“The perfect idiot,” the trio wrote, “leaves us in third world poverty and backwardness with his vast catalog of dogmas presented as truths.”