Thursday, May 5th 2005
Francisco de Miranda and Andrés Bello lectures at The Bolívar Hall

7:30 - 8:30 pm. Doors open at 7:00 pm.
Free entrance
booking necessary
020 7388 5788
Bolívar Hall of the Embassy of Venezuela
54 Grafton Way, London W1T 5DL

"Francisco de Miranda: a visionary Venezuelan thinker and actor of modern governance"

By professor Christian Ghymers

This conference is to pay tribute to Francisco de Miranda, the true founding father of Latin American identity and emancipation, most of whose thinking was done in the twenty years in which he lived in London. This 'most universal of Latin American citizens', born in Caracas in 1750, was a hero of all three of the revolutions, in what became the United States, in France, and in the Hispanic territories in the Americas, that together shaped the West. History can too often be unfair to those who tried 'to make possible tomorrow what appears to be impossible today'. Miranda should be more celebrated than he is in both continents. Indeed, the visionary thinking of this remarkably cosmopolitan citizen has something to say on questions of regional cooperation and integration in our globalising world today.

To remember Miranda is not merely to recall one curiosity, however sophisticated, from the many federalist utopias of the past. His proposals for a Hispano-American constitution, which he wrote in London between 1790 and 1801, were visionary. They strikingly prefigure that kind of government which, in the natural selection of political possibilities, has produced the European Union's Treaty of Maastricht. More exactly, they prefigure this treaty's insistence, after two hundred years, on the principle of 'subsidiarity'. This principle, so important, of course, for the United Kingdom's acceptance of the Union, insists on a decentralisation of government that will respect all sovereignties except in so far as these sovereignties themselves, and the powers they enjoy, require a federal authority. For Miranda two hundred years ago, as for the present European Union, federal powers should be few: in institutions to represent the members and an independent, union-wide judiciary to uphold laws common to all; over foreign policy, including defence; over trade; and over the currency. For the European Union now, reaching its conclusions after so much bloodshed, so for Miranda, travelling peacefully through the more enlightened courts of Europe to gather ideas for the constitution of a new 'Colombia' that would stretch from Louisiana to Patagonia. The loss for Latin America was that his ideas were so soon and for so long defeated by 'caudillos' and rent-seeking oligarchs.

Miranda saw two things very clearly. The first was that without a union of the former vice-royalties of the dying Spanish empire, there would be no true economic or political emancipation, and none that could be sustained. The second was that such a union was necessary to match the military.

commercial and political powers of the Britain in Europe and the United States in the Americas. Only in such a world, he thought, in which the three powers would balance each other, would it be possible to pursue development and ensure democracy and thereby defeat the old absolutisms and the new tyrannies of revolution. Only then, Miranda believed, alone among his contemporaries, would it be possible to sustain what we have come to call the 'human rights' of all.

"Andrés Bello: the evolution of his Americanist thought "

By professor Cesia Hirshbein

The study of Andrés Bello continues to produce new interpretations and perspectives.

I see him as the first 'Americanist', the first person who deliberately set out to find a cultural unity in 'Our America'. He did not have, it is true, a leading role in either military or political events on the continent. But in Venezuela during the last years of Spanish rule, in London, and later in an independent Chile, he was continuously thinking in a creative and original way about what these events might mean. My purpose is to trace the evolution of Bello's thought in his own poetry and in his publishing ventures into a balanced and indeed harmonious set of ideas on Hispano-American culture, laws and institutions, and to show how important his conversations with Miranda in London were in the development of his political views.

Christian Ghymers was born in Liège, Belgium, studied Economics at the universities of Liège and Louvain, and works presently at the European Commission where he is adviser in charge of information and communication for the Directorate General of Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN).

His career has developed along two main lines: as a civil servant, and as university professor, specialized in international macroeconomics. As a research fellow of the National Scientific Research Foundation (FNRS), he worked for the Belgian Economic Central Council and in 1978 joined the National Bank of Belgium, where he was adviser at the Research Department. Since 1986 he has been an officer at the EU Commission, where he worked closely to the preparation of the Maastricht Treaty on the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the launch of the euro; as adviser, he is in charge of multilateral surveillance (Convergence, Stability and Growth Pact, Macroeconomic Dialogue). In 2000, he headed a UN mission for three years, to foster economic policy coordination between Latin American countries and as a special adviser for regional integration.

His academic career, starting in 1971 at the University of Louvain, continued in several universities of Chile, France and Belgium. He is currently professor of International Economics at the ICHEC Brussels Business School where he also teaches on topics related to the economic history of Latin America. His main publications are on economic policy making.

His historical publications are the following:
« Quelques faits et réflexions sur les liens entre San Martin et les autres principaux libertadores », in Le général José de San Martin en Belgique : un destin, une époque , ed Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina, et Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Buenos Aires et Bruxelles, 1999.

"Francisco de Miranda, l'Europe et l'intégration latino-américaine", with L.X. Grisanti, Association Internationale Andrés Bello, ed. Versant Sud, Louvain la Neuve, 2001

"Influencia del Maestro sobre el Discípulo: el papel de Miranda y O'Higgins en la singularidad del caso chileno y de su gobernabilidad", in Revista del Instituto O'Higginiano de Chile, n. 19, 2002

Francisco de Miranda y Bernardo O'Higgins en la Emancipación Hispanoamericana, ed. Instituto O´Higginiano and Asociación Internacional Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile, May 2003.

"El papel de Miranda y de su generación en la emancipación latinoamericana: identidad latinoamericana, integración regional y gobernabilidad", with Carmen Bohorquez, ed. Asociación Internacional Andrés Bello, Caracas, 2005.

Cesia Hirshbein is professor of Venezuelan Cultural History at the Institute of Hispano-American Studies of the Central University of Venezuela where she also teaches contemporary Hispano-American literature. She directed the Institute from 1991 to 1997.

She has been visiting professor at the Department of Ibero- American Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, fellow visitor at the Institute for Latin American Studies of the University of London and research fellow at the Institute for Adavanced Studies of the University of Santiago, Chile. Her more recent institucional commitments have been dedicated to "The Fall of the Ancient Régime in the Province of Venezuela (1795-1830)", "The Literary Essay in Venezuela in the 19th and 20th Centuries" and "Andrés Bello".

She has published the following titles:
Los cuadernos del anochecer. Venegráfica, C.A., 1978.
Hemerografía venezolana. Caracas, U.C.V., 1978.
Historia y Literatura en Lisandro Alvarado. Caracas, Presidencia de la República, 1981.
Las eras imaginarias de Lezama Lima. Caracas, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1984.
Rufino Blanco-Fombona y su pensamiento americanista. Ediciones del Rectorado y de la Facultad de Humanidades y Educación de la U.C.V., Caracas, 1997.
"El Ensayo Literario en Venezuela" in: Nuevas perspectivas teóricas y metodológicas de la Historia Intelectual de América Latina. Frankfurt, Verbuert-Iberoamericana, pp. 123-138, 1999.

She contributes regularly to specialised publications.

Professor Hirshbein received the "José María Vargas" decoration in 1999.