PG. Nieto
CISI Advisor and Professor
A list is the enumeration of people, things, quantities, etc., that is made with a certain purpose, for example, the list for the supermarket. But the RAE includes a meaning, which it calls “black list”: “secret relationship in which the names of people or entities considered dangerous or enemy are registered.” It would be necessary to agree on what each one understands by “secret”, “dangerous” and “enemy” that appear in that definition.
In the history of humanity, black and white lists emerged that affected the development of societies. Let us remember some and their consequences. By age and importance, the first would be the Decalogue. White list of precepts included in the tables of the covenant that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, to seal the covenant with his people, Israel. A second black list, with dramatic religious and political consequences, was the one that in 1517 Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar, nailed to the door of the church in the palace of Wittenberg, Germany: “Questioning the power and efficacy of indulgences.” Relationship of abuses of the church marketing with the salvation of the soul in exchange for money, and that the Gutenberg press spread throughout Europe causing the Protestant Reformation. The birth of the Lutheran church supported by political and economic interests that questioned the power and authority of the pope.
The third would be the Hollywood “blacklist”, which contaminated the relations of the American people for twenty years, 1940-1960. A witch hunt orchestrated by members of the United States Congress, placing in it those who supposedly sympathized with or had connections with the Communist Party. Professionals from the film industry, mainly, were investigated by the “Commission on Anti-American Practices”. Actors, directors, screenwriters, whose lives were mercilessly exposed; questioned, insulted, disowned, even losing their jobs and social position. Actors of the stature of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn appeared in it.
Blacklists are a coercive tool in the hands of power, political and economic. The leader who wants to reach the last rung of Maslow’s ladder needs to manage two lists, one white and one black. The first to consolidate its public image, raising profile, which normally “inflates”; for example, including skills, courses and training that you do not have. The second would be a fetid list, to use against your opponents if necessary. A politician with limitations and insecurities cannot take the risk of being exposed to a society that he keeps deceived. He protects himself by picking up trash from his opponents, regardless of his veracity, tending to tarnish his abilities and virtues. When the adversary tries to expose his political deficiencies, it is more effective for him to tarnish his image, to divert attention, than to address the problem posed. When a leader abandons the political line of discourse, to enter the adversary’s personal terrain, he shows insecurity and incapacity, exposing his true profile to the population.
In this legislature we recall a couple of blacklists enlightened by US authorities to increase pressure on our battered institutionality. In 2019, the “Magnitsky Law” appeared, containing a list of Central American officials implicated in acts of corruption. But we did not see Apache helicopters landing at the Presidential House, but the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, delivering to the United States Congress the list of officials who had already been convicted, sentenced or subject to sanctions for acts of corruption.
This year the “dungeon masters” announced the “Engel List,” which included politicians from the Northern Triangle allegedly involved in acts of corruption. But analysts and former Senate advisers called it “impractical”, namely: “You cannot convict people in” the court of public opinion “without having undoubted and certified information.” What I have been calling “popular justice media courts.” Exposing the identity of a person subject to a secret investigation does not seem like a smart move. The list was not published. Rivers of ink and dozens of social gatherings dedicated the media to “Magnitsky” and “Engel”, we even heard of the imminent exit from the government before the elections, to make way for a provisional government … in the Matrix. The elections knock on the door, the political class has the responsibility of strengthening the mechanisms that give it credibility and strengthen democracy.
“Don’t let people who do so little for you control your mind, feelings, and emotions.” -Will Smith-.
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