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Arabica Robusta

Podemos: Latin America exports political ways and means | openDemocracy - 0 views

opendemocracy.net/...ports-political-ways-and-means

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry social movements latin america

shared by Arabica Robusta on 22 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The first 15 years of the twenty-first century have generally been quite positive for Latin American economies. This has been due, to a great extent, to the rising price of most exports, which in turn has produced an improvement in tax revenues that different countries have used to reduce disturbing poverty levels. Oil has regularly exceeded $120, but high prices for natural gas, copper and soybeans have also helped the economies of these countries to grow vigorously and to improve the living conditions of their people.
  • It seems, however, that the continent is capable of exporting more than just commodities. Together with the economic good times linked largely to rising exports, we are currently witnessing an unusual phenomenon from a historical perspective: Latin America is beginning to export political practices and ways of doing things.
  • This is the fertile ground from which Podemos springs. But we must add to this the political tools that Podemos is using to take advantage of the situation. This is where the adaptation of Latin American leftwing neo-populism comes in.
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  • The first thing to say about Podemos is that it is an organization characterized by ambiguities. Iglesias says certain things and then undoes his words; he is assertive and then softens his stance. His discourse fluctuates and is veiled under a mysterious mantle calculated to throw analysts off-balance, in a manner that might remind us of the 1998 interviews of Jaime Bayly and Oscar Yanes, in which an apparently tamed and moderate Hugo Chavez busied himself with disowning measures he later went on to implement.
  • Its neatly vertical structure, headed by trained social scientists, conducts a flawless strategy aimed at accessing power (Iglesias himself holds a master degree in political communication) through the development of a post-Marxist discourse that blurs the class struggle (the traditional political engine of the Left) and fills it with concepts of social inclusion without losing a bit of its belligerence.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Where are the people who are going to change things? - 0 views

pambazuka.net/...94014

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry africa pambazuka burkina faso compaore sankara

shared by Arabica Robusta on 23 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Despite what melancholic lyrics may suggest, they exist – the men and women who want to change things. In the months leading up to the 2006 elections in Uganda, there were demonstrations outside the Central Police Station and the High Court where an opposition presidential candidate, Dr Kiiza Besigye, was first detained and then brought to trial.
  • The vendors only came back at lunchtime. As I learnt over the coming days, their commitment was striking: day after day the market vendors attended court in solidarity with Dr Besigye. By contrast, office-workers stayed at their desks. You do not win government contracts by demonstrating in the streets.
  • It is heartbreaking to watch the video footage [iv] of Sankara appealing to his fellow presidents to repudiate unfair debt agreements with IMF and other foreign creditors at the Organization of African Unity Summit in 1987. He accused them of degrading their people. He says, only half-jokingly, that if they do not support him he is going to be assassinated: “I may not make it to the next meeting.”
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  • Mariam Sankara describes him in terms reminiscent of Biko’s conscious black man, “Thomas knew how to show his people that they could become dignified and proud through will power, courage, honesty and work. What remains above all of my husband is his integrity.”
  • He too repudiated debt as a solution to all that ails Africa. But after an attempt to barter trade with neighbouring countries he gave in to the beckoning finger of the North.
  • In either case, his official statement was clear, “When it comes to medical care for myself and my family there is no compromise [vi].” The families of the 16 women a day who die in childbirth for lack of essential drugs, properly motivated (or simply paid) staff and lack of equipment held their peace.
  • Agricultural reform in Uganda was meant to be brought about by the National Agricultural Advisory Service (NAADS). It was funded to the tune of $100m over 8 years, with $50m repayable to the World Bank. The project review after eight years reported “no significant differences were found in yield growth between NAADS and non-NAADS sub counties for most crops….[vii].”
  • Genuine agents of change die young. Either they do not make it to State House or they die while there (with the possible exception of Jerry Rawlings in Ghana). Such is the dynamic. The rest capitulate early while continuing to assume the demeanour of revolutionaries. They can do so because Western powers are willing to turn a blind eye to their increasing profligacy in return for their signatures on a succession of documents keeping their countries in debt bondage. They rule for decades, well into old age at which point they usurp the role of Elder Statesmen and receive credits due to others [viii].
Arabica Robusta

Social Movements In Spain: Insiders' Perspectives | PopularResistance.Org - 0 views

www.popularresistance.org/in-spain-insiders-perspectives

podemos spain social movements social movements globalization liberation neoliberalism

shared by Arabica Robusta on 23 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • After more than four years of austerity, with increasingly harmful effects for most sections of the Greek population, the new government was welcomed as much needed “breathing space”.
  • In the end, it is irrelevant whether Tsipras and his allies deliberately planned this course of action from the start, or whether their project collapsed under the enormous pressure of the Troika’s neo-liberal hegemony – with a key role reserved for the German government.
  • Of course, many activists now argue that this development was foreseeable and its outcome was intended from the start. We consider this position as wrong, and believe that such processes always count. An I-knew-everything-beforehand-attitude allows people to ignore their responsibility to try and shape history, and, even worse, to look down on those who accept the challenge to provoke change.
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  • It is much more important to learn from these experiences and generate strategic debate. Whilst it is crucial to continue to ask questions, we still have to carry on.
  • During our investigation of these forms of solidarity, we often found ourselves in social centers. Four out of six of our conversational partners considered these places as an important starting point of their political development. The two others, both local groups of the PAH did not start from a social center, but organized most of their work in, and with social centers. It’s impossible to deduct a homogeneous political “strategy of the social centers” just from the thoughts and ideas of our conversational partners.
  • Those who still have hope must carry on asking about how we can organize a life away from domination, coercion and poverty. Within this debate of the left, the political developments in Spain (from our point of view of discussions about Germany) needed more clarity. The reasons for that may be many, but an intensified debate about the local developments seem to us to be even more important. We chose the interview as the form of presentation so as to give voice to the activists themselves – they contain a variety of positions on the many different issues that were discussed.
  • Podemos, Ahora Madrid and Barcelona en comú, as well as and other leftist parties and regional coalitions, grew in strength and won many of the biggest town halls. These were the democratic results of that eruption of anger. Several mass demonstrations with hundreds of thousands people in the streets together with a strong independence movement in Catalonia, and many regional and national campaigns against the political establishment have together created this “new democracy”.
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