2021 is over, or what we could call year two of a pandemic that continues to hit the world mercilessly, accumulating waves, infections and too many deaths. A year that has also revealed the incapacity and incompetence of many governments, more concerned when making decisions about their electoral future than with facing the pandemic and its effects on our battered societies. In addition, the actions of those governments also teach us that in these decisions the safeguarding of certain economic interests continues to take precedence over the care of people’s lives.
But, although one more year this could be classified as a pandemic, if we look at other realities, we will see how Latin America advances in closing the ideological dispute that has dominated the continental scene in recent years. They spoke with interest, especially since 2015, of the end of the progressive cycle, and it was intended, in that same sense, to impose the idea that this type of governments had failed in the challenge of improving the living conditions of the great majority and, therefore, that their time was up. Thus, an attempt was made to reopen the door to the return of neoliberalism as a political, social and economic option for an entire continent. Even the right wing gained ground in that goal after elections in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay or Ecuador.
Certain governments used, along with repression, the pandemic to stifle any possibility of social protest
However, neoliberalism, now in contention again, is showing itself without force, and is already an exhausted model that has nothing exciting to offer to society, except the return to the privatizations of strategic economic sectors, a new avalanche of cuts in social services or the return of the state to a subordinate role at the service of the desires and constraints of the markets. And that, we know, for the great majorities only brings renewed processes of impoverishment, coupled with the elimination of the slightest redistribution of wealth that, once again, will be concentrated in a few hands, widening the inequality gaps.
In this scenario, even in a context in which certain governments used, along with repression, the pandemic to stifle any possibility of social protest, 2021 has shown the exhaustion of Latin American societies before a possible new turn of the screw of neoliberalism .
Three countries, three processes, could roughly illustrate this closure of the continental dispute: Colombia, Honduras and Chile.
Colombia, as of April, starred in journalistic covers and even opened news programs worldwide. The social protest seeped into televisions, radios and, above all, on social networks. To the frustration at the boycott by the government of Iván Duque to the implementation of the Peace Accords, there were endless lists of assassinated social leaders that did not stop growing until reaching numbers that did not occur even during the hardest years of the armed conflict. But, this scenario found new triggers in social fatigue in the face of an economic situation that twisted the application of neoliberal measures, which translated into new difficulties for a dignified life for the great majority. In addition, historically forgotten sectors such as indigenous peoples and, especially, youth came onto the scene of the protest. And this broke the certain image of a Colombia that was considered a “favorite daughter and safe place” of neoliberalism throughout the continent. The Colombian regime showed its miseries, translated into criminalization, repression and assassinations against those who raised just social demands.
2021 has shown the tiredness of Latin American societies before a possible new turn of the screw of neoliberalism
From that moment on, the spearhead of the liberal-conservative involution, the one that had always followed closely the economic, political and military postulates that came from the “big brother of the North”, cracks. There is strong opposition and there is social protest in development and growth. Colombia is thus facing 2022 with elections that will be decisive in changing the classic orientation of the country, but that can also strengthen the closure of this continental dispute, tilting the balance towards options for progress, greater equity and social justice.
A little to the north, in the Central American region, Honduras made the leap in 2021. Who established the term “banana republic”, with all that this entails as a euphemism for a failed dictatorship or democracy, defined by a high and continued political instability , and dominated by corruption and illegality, without ceasing to be so, in the last twelve years it has become the “extractive republic”. In this way, it could be defined by the accumulation of projects of this type that drain the country from hydroelectric projects to those other miners, from agribusiness to selective tourism. Thus, after three fraudulent electoral processes, which followed the 2009 coup, the country had surrendered, as if it were a farm, to the interests of the local oligarchy and transnational corporations of all kinds.
But in the last elections, Honduran society has said enough and has bowed overwhelmingly, to the point of making a new fraud impossible, for that electoral option that proposes to leave neoliberal policies behind, regain sovereignty and work for the improvement of the living conditions of the women. large majorities. And this, in addition, must become a revulsion for the entire Central American region, with special emphasis on what we could define as its clone in terms of corruption, extractivism and violations of the rights of nature and people: Guatemala.
Boric’s victory in Chile was a new endorsement of the urgent and necessary transformations that Chilean society requires and that, in some way, infect the rest of the continent
Finally, we walk towards the extreme south, towards Chile. In this country, along with Colombia, the “darling” of neoliberalism on the continent, a popular rebellion has been waged in the last two years that put an end to Pinochetism. And it must be remembered that that dictatorship turned Chile into precisely the first laboratory of neoliberal measures. However, since 2019, with a strong protagonism of the younger sectors, the revolt has advanced not only in denouncing an unfair society for the majority while the opulent minorities increased their wealth, but also in the construction of new life proposals which are now being discussed in the Constituent Convention. The first round of the elections shook the hearts of many and many as the candidacy of the far right reached the first position. However, the second round was a new endorsement by the urgent and necessary transformations that Chilean society requires and that, in some way, infect the rest of the continent.
For all these reasons, these three processes show us the reality of Latin America in the recently closed 2021. And in some way also, they certify the closure of that dispute that was again intended between the return to neoliberalism or the persistence in progressive processes that close definitely the passage to an old, finished time, to a past time that did not bring to the region but an increase in inequality and greater levels of impoverishment. Now, in 2022, Latin America is moving towards new challenges, but the panorama has cleared and the need lies in extending and deepening the progressive, left-wing political and social processes, and the necessary transformations towards a more equitable, free, truly democratic and full of social justice.
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