The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America - autonomous ...

66 Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America
with the aristocracy against the common people, whom it allegedly
defined as brutes or things, devoid of reason. But although the revolutionary
implications of Christianity could be thus deflected, they
remained ready to burst forth when times were ripe, to clarify the
social struggle, and to stimulate action. "The instinct of which we
speak derives from the ancient Christian revolution. This is the
light brought from on high in order to enlighten and disentangle the
gloomy chaos of inequalities and frightening abominations that
they called the Roman world. The Christian revolution is the celestial
explosion, the revelation of equality,- this is the providential
truth in the heart of a society that rests on privilege and slavery"
(Mercado, 1853 :iii).
As Mercado went on to say, a new age was dawning, relentlessly
preordained in the march of reason and the essence of man, both embodied
in Christ—who personified the Liberal creed. This messianic
vision foresaw social equality in the divine inexorability of God's
conquest of Evil. The God of the status quo, the false God of the
ruling class and a corrupt clergy, systematically negates humanity.
Now the time has come for the two forces that compose the social
order to fight out the cosmological contradiction that engulf
it. Equality versus privilege. Free inquiry versus authoritarianism.
Nature versus cultural artifice. Reason versus Dogma. The lower
classes, headed by the radical Liberals, were fighting the slave owners
or ex-slave owners and the clergy—those conservatives who
were holding back history and truth. To be a Conservative meant to
conserve the old civilization. To be a Liberal meant to follow the
true teachings of Christ—democracy and liberty—as summarized
by Mercado:
I saw during those solemn days, elderly people of eighty years
spontaneously arm themselves and march to battle to defend
the legitimacy and the regeneration of Democracy; elderly people
barely clothed and trembling with their many years, but
strong with their faith and throbbing with their enthusiasm for
the Republic. I saw hundreds of young people and adolescents
leave their homes, their wives, their children, and their belongings
in order to offer their lives to the holocaust of the Holy
Cause—to contribute to the triumph of Democracy and the redemption
of the people. . . . We extinguish all the distinctions
of rank because all men are brothers, and we all have the same
right to enjoy the benefits of a society organized for welfare under
the protection and guidance of Providence. [1853 :lxxviii-
Ixxix]