MORE OF THE SAME: SUNFLOWERS vs. NONSENSE
by Ruben Dario Utria
All indicators appear to point out that the current presidential campaign will be another lost opportunity for the country to find a new historic path that would permit the country to escape the profound and explosive institutional, political, social and economic crisis that has been affecting the country for many decades.
Now the debate is taking a turn to candidates previously accepted by the political and economic establishment, and weak concerns about investigations of questionable objectivity, and not about the grave crises of the country on all sides, the causes and actors; as well as the resulting unattainable transformations that this demands. In these conditions, the attention of the electorate and their preferences have begun to turn basically to the political parties, formal attributes and histrionic media displays of the candidates. That is to say that the inherited electoral rights, personal charisma, domination of the political scene, eccentricity and in this case also the circus-like atmosphere. At the same time, we've seen the entrance of pseudo-patriotic tricks of war-mongering confrontations with neighboring countries and the enchantment of the crusade against “terrorism” and the “axis of evil.” Additionally, we've seen the cybernetic mobilization of the so-called social networks, that have allowed the incorporation of hundreds of thousands of youth, politically unprepared and addicted to the internet.
In practice, this aggregation of factors constitutes the smokescreen that hides the real political scene: the desperate strategy of preserving at all costs the political and economic power of the conservative social forces that have maintained and continue to maintain the country anchored in the backwaters of history.
These factors, obviously happening because the present campaigns have pushed to the side the real national drama, of which some of the most critical factors are:
Violence generated by the paramilitary project which surreptitiously armed more than 60,000 criminal mercenaries in order to dissappear more than 100,000 Colombians.
Forced appropriation of more than 5 million hectares of agricultural land.
Forced displacement of 2.5 million farmers.
Assassination of thousands of teachers, social movement and union leaders, human rights activists, judges, academics and many other Colombians.
Institutionalized and generalized impunity, estimated to be more than 95%, which hides the hundreds of mass graves and more than 400,000 civil victims spread across the country.
Growth of common delinquency and urban insecurity about life and property.
Privatization and commercialization of social services.
Destruction of the social and labor successes of the working class.
Systematic generation of open unemployment, that reaches 15%, and the growth of the informal economy that now surpasses over 40% of the workforce.
Destabilization and precariousness of work and the minimization of salaries, as well as the amplification of poverty and homelessness, that in real terms is over 60% and 20% respectively.
Annihilation of trade unions and legislation against social protest.
Deterioration of the urban centers and depredation of natural resources.
Incompetence and backwardness in indispensable infrastructure for development and corrupt management of respective contracts.
Rampant institutionalized public corruption.
The continuation of narcotraffic and growing narco-addiction of Colombian youth.
The shameful deals between the national congress and other organs of citizen representation and the known associates of the paramilitary and narcotraffickers, as well as professionals in electoral fraud.
Flagrant violation of human rights and the disappearance and executions known as “Falsos Positivos” officially condoned as part of the politics of “Democratic Security.”
Illegal interception of personal communications of members of the opposition, including magistrates, journalists, academics, and diplomats.
War-mongering against neighboring governments trying to find political alternatives for transformation of their respective countries.
Military attack against a neighboring country.
Destabilization of the institutional system, seeking authoritarianism, and the fraudulent attempt to stay in power using the frustrated illegal referendum and the fascist thesis of “state of opinion.”
Escalation of armaments which has converted Colombia into the country with the largest armed forces in the region.
Unpatriotic and anti-constitutional exchange of national territories for the installation of foreign military bases.
To all this, add the violence generated by the leftist insurgency, although it's real impact is quantitatively insignificant in the national statistics, compared to the bloodbath carried out through forced disappearances, organized crime, reorganized paramilitarism, narcotraffic cartels, hired assassins, juvenile gangs, and the generalized impunity and common urban delinquency that has corralled the Colombian citizenry.
But the Colombian drama doesn't end there. It also includes the disaster of the national economy, which has receded in the last twenty-five years, pushed by the ruinous neoliberal doctrines, and has returned to the old model of “primary exporter”; the alienation of the best national activities and the ever-growing deals with privileged foreign capital for the politics of “investor confidence” that has empowered the financial and speculative commercial activity, and basically financed with the credit resources of Colombians. Neither have jobs been generated, it is uncompetitive and it has lost it's best markets as a consequence of the systematic turpitude of the government in international relations. The IMF recently announced that the national economy has and will have one of the lowest standards of living in the region, marked by the management of the actual international economic crisis.
These and other connected factors have converted Colombia into a violent country, internally convulsed, characterized by the most social inequality in the region and also for criminal impunity, institutionalized corruption, mistreatment of children and women and the lack of protection for victims; without hope for the youth and working people, which are then obliged to emigrate or incorporate themselves in the violence: the military and police forces, the leftist insurgency, narcotraffic, paramilitarism, or common delinquency. Maybe because of this, we appear before the world as a pariah nation, and we find ourselves virtually isolated on the continent. Disconcertingly the debate about this situation doesn't appear to constitute the axis of the actual electoral campaign.
And in all this political disaster for the country there appears to be no alternative: Liberalism has dissolved into its ideological limbo and its crisis of leadership; and the left – that finally had the historic opportunity to constitute itself into an alternative for national transformation – has fractured and appears to deviate towards the attitudes, practices and proposals of the traditional electoral politics.
Translated by Brian Oelberg
Bogota – Abril 23 de 2010
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