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Civilizar Ciencias Sociales y Humanas

versão impressa ISSN 1657-8953

Civilizar vol.17 no.33 Bogotá jul./dez. 2017

 

Letter from the director

Cartas del Director

Ignacio Restrepo Abondano1 

1Decano. Universidad Sergio Arboleda. Bogotá - Colombia.


How do Democracies End?

I do not refer explicitly to Revel’s classic book, although obviously the concern is the same. In September of last year, signed the pacts of Havana, the “Tenth Conference of the Farc-Ep” was held in the plains of Yarí. As a result of that conference, a long manifesto entitled “The political solution as part of our history” was written. It is not possible, in this brief writing, to refer to all the content of the manifesto, but to two or three paragraphs that, in my opinion, synthesize the thought of the leadership of that guerrilla that devastated the country for more than 50 years and that apparently, intends to continue ravaging it.

In the thesis 25 of the manifesto on the “continuity of the struggle through legal political action”, it is stated: “we will continue to be guided by an ideology inspired by Marxism, Leninism, Bolivarian emancipatory thought, and in general, by the sources of critical and revolutionary thought of the people “. And in the 26th thesis, referring to the “Battle for the implementation of the final agreement”, they add: “a reformist cycle is coming which, under the conditions of the class domination regime existing in the country, should be revolutionary”

It is clear that given the precariousness of the Latin American democracies and for that matter ours, allowing the entry of this “Trojan Horse” by contract, within our environment, is practically an announced suicide. The social and economic inequality, the institutional weakness, that although it has always been, with more truth has been evidenced under the Santos government; the corruption that from years ago eats our system, but that has shown all its harshness from the Odebrech phenomenon; the lie as official truth that weakens public opinion and the low appreciation it shows for institutions, evidenced throughout a thousand surveys and the definitive lack of a solid democratic culture in the country, do not presage but a catastrophe for our defective, but ultimately the Colombian democratic system.

Because it is clear that neither Marxism, nor Leninism, nor the Bolivarian liberating thought as Chavismo understands it, nor the revolutionary sources of the peoples, nor the socialism of the 21st century as the guerrillas want -now dressed as civilians- are compatible with a democratic system. However, the media, coalition parties and many good people believe that here it is impossible to repeat the tragedy that Venezuela is experiencing, having already declared the demise of the remaining democratic system, if any.

And it is that democracy is not forever: Democrat was the 5th century BC Athens. But it perished. Democrat was the Weimar Republic, but it was brought to ruin by the multiplicity of parties and the lack of democratic visionary leaders. Cuba, was once democrat. Turkey was a democracy and today is an oppressive dictatorship. Venezuela had a brief democracy, defective if you like, but by far, preferable to the horror of the present.

No democratic system is free from the enemies that lurk everywhere: internal divisions; the totalitarian temptation (Revel) as is the present case of Turkey; the populist leaders, like the case of Peron in Argentina that left an incurable wound in the democracy of that country; extreme pacifism, as is our case, when we are ashamed to use the defenses of democracy for self-defense; the fallacious use of poverty and inequality for leaders who, instead of solving them, worsen them, as “socialism of the 21st century” is demonstrating.

We are about to contemplate the birth of the Farc-Ep party that has received all the contemplations of Santos and his allies, thanks to the “achievement” of a peace that more than peace is an irenism. Peace for the Farc and its democratic appearance today is just another of the “forms of struggle” to achieve its perennial objective, namely, to destroy Colombian democracy.

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