What happens to the Peoples when the right wing takes power?

Published at: 31/05/2024 06:00 PM

The right wing always works for their interests, and that is why once they take political command, they eliminate all the achievements achieved by the People for their well-being and in order to support this statement, we can review the setbacks faced by the Peoples of the region once they took power.

The Argentinian economist Claudio Katz explained in an article called “Onslaughts and Failures of the Right in Latin America” published on the website of the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debts (CADTM), and here is what his behavior has been like in Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia , Argentina, Ecuador and Colombia, to name a few examples in an analysis of each case that illustrates the profile of this trend in Latin America:

Brazil

In his administration, former President Jair Bolsonaro caused a structural stagnation of the economy and aggravated social regression, repeating the tragedy of hunger affecting 33 million people. This scourge is particularly shocking, in a country that ranks third in the world for food producers.

In addition, Bolsonaro gave ample proof of his fascist pretensions, multiplied daily violence, workplace intimidation and fear, with 40 weekly murders in major cities.

Nor could it replace the current political regime with some version of totalitarianism. Former President Bolsonaro staged an assault on Congress, the Planalto Palace and the Supreme Court, which sought to force the intervention of the army, his “plan B” was to force a scenario of ungovernability, to weaken the government of Lula Da 'Silva at the beginning of his administration (Stedile and Pagotto, 2023).

Bolivia

The failure of an assault in Bolivia anticipated Brazil's outcome at the beginning of the year. There, too, a failed coup attempt was consummated, to repeat with Luis Arce the coup that overthrew Evo Morales in 2019.

Against Morales, the extreme right represented by Jeanine Añez, who served as vice-president of the Bolivian Senate Chamber, provided armed gangs to kidnap social leaders, assault public institutions and humiliate opponents. He reiterated his old behavior in support of military interventions, against governments confronted with the American embassy.

That coup was the most cynical military intervention in recent decades in South America. He didn't have an institutional costume or a soft mask. Evo Morales was forced to resign at gunpoint when the generals refused to obey him. He did not resign out of simple stress, he was expelled from the presidency by the top of the army.

But the main peculiarity of that operation was the fascist tint provided by right-wing politicians and thus, they established terror in the “liberated zones” by the uniformed and under the leadership of Luis Fernando Camacho, the main opposition politician To Evo Morales they put Bolsonaro's proclamations into practice: With bibles and evangelical prayers, they burned houses, raped women and shackled journalists.

On the side of racism, we saw how right-wing aggressors shouted against the Cholo, while they mocked the coyas, burned the Whipala flag and beat the denigrated people of the race, implanted in La Paz the vandalism they had tried in their stronghold of Santa Cruz; all this protected by force policeman.

This hatred against Indians reminds us of Hitler's initial provocation against Jews. Añez never disguised his contempt for indigenous peoples, in his calls for violence he explained that women of native nationalities are satanic witches and that men “are made to serve”, with this premise he created legions of violent people to humiliate indigenous people (Katz, 2019).

Argentina

The expansion of the extreme right in the country of the south is the most recent and, as in Brazil, it emerged in the confrontation with a center-left government. The first flashes in the street marches against Kirchnerism were captured by traditional conservatism and catapulted Mauricio Macri to the government in 2019.

Former President Macri left that country indebted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for 44 billion dollars, with complaints of the diversion of that money and irregularities in the contracting of that debt.

Now, with the arrival of Javier Milei to the presidency, who has adopted a scandalous pose, he is wasting demagoguery to capture the anger of the middle class and the desperation of the impoverished. But their priority is the erosion of the democratic gains achieved after many years of struggle.

In fact, Milei maintains the return to the times of former President Menem. It not only promotes a similar scale of privatizations, with greater labor deregulation and commercial openness. It also proposes counteracting the current superinflation with some reinstatement of convertible, which would irreparably ruin the country's economy.

In educational matters, as explained by the Argentinian professor and politician, Daniel Filmus, in a study published on the Página12 portal , “we see, for the first time in Argentine history, an unprecedented situation: A government that, based on the attempt to apply the theories of the Austrian economic school and anarcho-capitalism (extreme philosophy of liberalism) that proposes the privatization of all goods and services), which conceptually states that: a) the State does not have to be responsible for managing the education system and access to the right to education, since this would be a responsibility of families and the market, and b) the model of economic development and social values does not require that education, science and national technology play a strategic role”.

It is important to remember that Kirchnerism strongly modified the development model carried out in the previous decade, for which it conceived education as a tool for social integration and economic development that privileged industry.

Contrary to what was done by previous governments, the project led by Javier Milei does not pose any definite function for the education system. Already in his election campaign, the current president proposed that compulsory education should be eliminated. It wasn't an impromptu stance. This is the concept that many of the ultra-liberal economists and of the Austrian school state as dogma.

Later, Professor Filmus commented that “this conception does not envisage that education plays an important role in training for work, productivity or scientific-technological development. Mainly, because the proposed model does not include an expansion of the labor market, a process of industrialization or the creation of its own knowledge and technologies. Following the theories of Human Capital, anarchocapitalists argue that society should not invest in training workers or professionals who do not know if they will find jobs to pursue their careers, since this would imply “overeducating”. Under their paradigm, this implies carrying out public spending that would not obtain a rate of return that justifies social investment.” In other words, why should society finance the studies of a future engineer who will surely not be able to apply the learning he obtained over years of study in the country? This would be a risky investment that should be taken on by individuals.

In addition, upon his arrival at the Casa Rosada, in his quest to reduce public spending, he eliminated at the stroke of a stroke 8 ministries out of the 18 existing ones, not counting other State agencies, in addition to the elimination of subsidies to companies that provide basic services and that the value of the real rate be transferred to users.

Ecuador

After the administration of Lenin Moreno, who came to the presidency by the votes of the left, the country had lost confidence and then chose to bring the banker Guillermo Lasso to the presidency , who handed over a country with a hyperinflationary economy and several corruption scandals. Added to all this was the wave of citizen insecurity and the increase in murders related to drug trafficking. Fuel prices rose to almost match international prices and these increases affected the pocketbook of ordinary Ecuadorians.

Under the same vision, Daniel Noboa became president and contrary to waiting for a change, the government has initiated a policy of “state of emergency” that so far has not diminished violence in the streets, insecurity or the increase in drug trafficking in the country . These scenarios are conducive to the extension of economic problems and marginality, which seem to be some of the determining problems that country is experiencing.

Colombia

The history of the neighboring country has been plagued by violence, and the Colombian extreme right has a fierce history of war against peasants and workers. It has incurred an unparalleled degree of savagery. In no other country in the region have so many mass graves with the remains of massacred people been found.

In addition, gangs were created that specialized in the daily murder of social militants, with a systematicity unparalleled in Latin America. In 2016 alone, 198 popular leaders and 1,284 social fighters were assassinated, terrorism has made Colombia the nation with the largest forced population displacements in the entire continent.

During the government of Iván Duque, the narco-military structure forged by the drug clans perfected its operational capacity and has already exported mercenaries for different tasks. This is how they organized the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Möise, which shows the regional structure of these criminals.

In addition, they formed a parallel army, which has been intervening for decades in parapolitics, to keep the country at the top of the world ranking for cocaine exports and that the main political figures of the Colombian right have countless ties with that narco-economy.

Now President Gustavo Petro faces the monumental task of forging peace, in the face of reactionary sectors waiting for the moment to counterattack.

Faced with this, as the investigative journalist Alberto Vergara Paniagua shows, “the left has better interpreted the need for change and offers a project with which you may agree or not, but it comes with a project, after all, aimed at the well-being of human beings, communities and their rights within their differences”; while the right seems having run out of plans other than pretending to remain an American colony. The Peoples have already woken up!

AMELYREN BASABE/Mazo News Team