Everybody is familiar with the complexity of understanding the
alternative processes that are taking place in the Americas, where
multiple topics and agendas intersect, in the common will to break with
the history of domination and exclusion of the subcontinent. On the one
hand, the 21st century has been accompanied by the arrival of
anti-neoliberal governments in various countries, with an unequal
record of transformation, but which are the response to the popular
majorities being fed up with their reality of poverty, inequality and
external dependence. On the other hand, precisely taking advantage of
this favorable context, many social movements - and many societies in
movement - have raised the need for progress in the implementation of
emancipative political agendas, that once and for all get beyond the
colonizing and subordination logic to which the region and the
population have historically been subjected.
So, after a few starts in which institutional and social actors
walked hand in hand, tensions between governments and movements have
emerged, as well as strained relations between old and new social
movements: how slowly or quickly processes of change is taking place;
the short life of governments or the long life of emancipation;
developmentalism or a determined transition towards good living; the
urgent need to overcome the patterns of dependency or the impossibility
to do so in such a short period (in historical terms). These are
precisely the debates that baffle and enrich the reality of Latin
America. The answers to these situations are not simple, nor are they
categorical, and deepening reflection on them is one of the great
challenges of all the Left, including the European left.
However, something that cannot be denied, regardless of where we
are positioned, is that all these processes initiated with the new
century have torn open gaps, have allowed for spaces of accumulation of
forces, spaces for the interconnection of struggles, spaces for the
exercise of citizenship rights by large majorities. And nobody can
capitalize that, it is part of the action path taken by both governments
and movements. The Right knows it well: it attempts to put an end to
this new exciting stage by any means. Thus, attacks of the oligarchies
and their media - hegemonically aligned with them - do not cease in
their effort of discrediting governments and social struggles, with the
aim of destabilizing the region and returning to the previous situation
of absolute control of the subcontinent. To do so, they are willing to
do anything, including coups d'état.
This is the key to understanding the coup d'état in Venezuela in 2002 and the coup d'état in Mexico in 2006 - via electoral fraud -. But it is also useful for understanding the coups d’état 2.0
in Honduras (2009) and Ecuador (2010), where new formulas of coup are
being tested, seeking for the international community and the population
not to assimilate them as such (but with identical results). In this
way, instead of the pure and simple military coup, new ways are
emerging, ranging from social destabilization generated by the police
to the fraudulent use of judicial and even constitutional resources.
This new coup scheme 2.0 is still very present in America
today. Last week, the President of Paraguay was dismissed on the basis
of a political trial, a legal figure of the Constitution which makes it
possible to remove a President from office based on a manifest
disability to perform his duties. In this sense, a legal staging was
orchestrated for an illegitimate and anti-democratic event, where a
President elected by popular vote was fulminated in a summary trial in
which he only had two hours to exercise his defense, unable to prepare
it properly, and against a very serious accusation. The ultimate goal of
the coup: that one of the most retrograde oligarchies of the
continent could put a stop to the timid processes of change engendered
in recent years, and prevent the Left from accumulating enough forces to
face the presidential elections in 2013.
On the other hand, since the past weekend, all the media of the
world echoed the turmoil generated by the police strike in Bolivia -
illegal in many countries - and which is perhaps a prelude of further
attempts of destabilization in the Andean country. Finally, we'll see
what happens in the Mexican elections, where a broad student movement
has gained significant momentum against the possibility that the PRI
returns to power (with the full support of the Right and large media
conglomerates.)
We must remain very much on the alert for these new realities, and
denounce without palliatives, both here and there, the abuses
perpetrated against democracy in the Americas. Regardless of the views
we hold about one government or the other, or their greater or lesser
commitment to the emancipation of the continent, we must be clear about
one thing: we cannot allow what has been achieved in the last decade to
be reverted, and we must join forces to prevent anti-democratic
regressions, not only because of international solidarity, but also
given the importance of the region as a source of inspiration to raise
proposals that allow us to envision other paths to overcome this crisis
of civilization that affects us all. Our paths are deeply intertwined,
their democracy is also ours.
(Translation FEDAEPS).
- Gonzalo Fernández is a member of the Internationalist Working Group of Alternatiba, Basque Country.
Source: ALAI
July 04, 2012
