A few months ago, an Ecuadorian very good friend of mine said: "What a spectacular move what happened in the assembly!" I replied... "Ah! Deluxe!"
He replied: "Correistas & PSC in the abyss!"
I asked him to talk.
I worry about the ways politics work in Latin America.
I really like the Social-Christian ideology, but I cannot and do not understand how they got allied with Correísmo.
A few days ago, the allied tried to take down the legislative power.
Then and Now
It is not about left vs right policies for the people, but about left+right policing the people.
The same is happening in Chile. In Ecuador, they are working together (left and right) as an opposition to the government, but in Chile, they generate the same result by attacking the nowadays finished government.
What happens in Chile is like if the old right-wing politicians in Chilean politics would have negotiated with those renovated left-wing young politicians who won the elections during the last months all over Chile.
The conversation with my friend happened a year ago. He was in Miami, after having received the vaccine there.
At that time, the Ecuadorians were not able to vaccinate in the country. That changed with the new government; nevertheless, that is not important anymore for the left and the right: the oil price is booming and they want the money. They do not want to serve, but to be served with the extra resources that will come easily with the oil getting around 100 USD/barrel.
Some months ago, the problem was different. People in the right and in the left were trying to get vaccinated as a right, as stated in the Constitution in Ecuador, but as of March, and after 15 years of Socialism in Ecuador, only the eldest among the elder, and the most in risk were getting partial access.
The last government of Ecuador did what they could, after a inherited political, social, cultural, environmental and economic crisis, after 10 days of Correísmo. Even with that, Correísmo received almost half of the vote in Ecuador.
While this happened in Ecuador, in Chile, the left took over the power from the right. People were not worried because we were all fully immunized in Chile. 15 days ago, the news was that Chile was the global champion of inoculation economics.
But that was not important for politicians on the left and in the right: ideology and sensationalism were the dishes of the last months before the news of the Constitutional Convention, its maximalism, and a few days ago, the news of the result of that maximalism made reality as a menace for the world in the hands of Putin´s Russia.
Now, in America, we can work in our offices, have voted, and see how Chile walks towards the route that Ecuador was abandoning, that is the same route that Russia never abandoned: the totalitarianism.
We only have the United States of America for getting a new vaccine against totalitarianism.
We have to take care of America as a continent. Our European friends will have the chance to fly to Chile and Ecuador if we stay free thanks to a common defense of democracy and freedom. We hope, there and here, that we -in the Andes- do not get oriented in the path that other countries in the region have chosen, because the so-called socialism created only more inequality and poverty there (Venezuela, Nicaragua, and even Argentina).
I wonder what will come to Chile in the next years, starting the next weeks.
I said to my friend: "If you have time we can talk".
Here in Chile, we do not have a Carnival Holliday, and 1 year ago, he was on holiday so, we had the chance to talk after he returned from his Carnival in Miami, fully immune to Ecuador.
After our chat, I started writing this article. I never published it.
THAT WAS 1 YEAR AGO... IT REMAINED AS A "DRAFT".
I felt it was too sad to expose that reality at that moment.
Now, I think it was about time to mention that reality, that is the one that prevails for many rich people in the world: they need a free country where they can receive even the most basic needs that our countries destroy thanks to our weak politicians.
From next week on, we will need to understand or discuss what will be happening in the future of Chile, and for that, it will be necessary to analyze what happened recently and can happen again in Ecuador. The same, we are now understanding what happened in East Europe and Russia, and those lessons are going to be basic for all of us for understanding the future that we can expect in the World.
We have shown in numbers, that Ecuador is representative of Latin America, and it is well known that Latin America is representative of the World. We are the median of the median.
Having said this, let me go back to Ecuador.
As I talked to my friend a year ago, on Carnival holiday in the USA, on the other hand, I was talking to another friend in Quito: a classmate in high school. His father passed away a few days ago, his mother was intubated that day and he had been informed of have got COVID-19. He was really sad, and we were praying and trying to see what we can do as classmates for him and his family.
Really hard.
Last days, I had the chance to talk to a couple of friends in Africa. That of my Ecuadorian friend was still the scene happening among some of their friends who work in Africa, We saw how our politicians look the same: discussing about left vs right. We concluded that it does not matter if we stand on the right of the left, but we have to believe in the global Dialogue between left and right in times of war. Ideology has received a new form: totalitarianism vs freedom.
Three ideas here:
1. Fighting neither solved the costs in resources and time of my first friend, who still has lots of employees nor solves the costs in life and health of my second friend, who has a small store where he has worked since we were teenagers.
2. I see how the Social-Christian Party in Ecuador broke with CREO, the party of the new President, after the Social-Christians made a pact with them and Correismo, that the population resented as a false ideology. Amazing that they now are attacking (finally the government, after the pandemia, and in the middle of a probable war).
3. Now I see that the pragmatic politics got together Social-Christians and correístas, both are a little bit more representative than the 1-year old broken alliance of CREO (right / Christian Democracy) with the Social-Democracy (center-left) and Pachakutik (left-communitarianism). The indigenous movements once again got broken in two and have allowed the right and the populism to take over.
People say that Democracy and Christianity were better represented in the new arrangement that happened one year ago in Ecuador, and should have been the way for the new normal in Chile. It seems, that is what will come.
Is That Possible?
We, liberals, tend to think that extending rights is not a bright idea; nevertheless, when social dynamics walk towards development, as happened in Europe or the USA, rights are just part of the social equation.
Hope we all dialogue and understand that during the coming months.
The fall of Chile would be the falling of a liberal idea in the midst of a war.
It is important and urgent to cooperate with and among our countries to consolidate democracy and emerge from the crisis.
Let us pray and act together so that our Presidents and politicians act as Guillermo Lasso has tried to act until now, fortunately.
In war times, no single country can act alone with respect to others, and no single country can survive if its citizens do not collude around the national interest.
Comments