The criminal response of the government of Jujuy, enthusiastic about
repressing and persecuting social protest, is the main bargaining chipwith which it obtained a solid concentration of political power in itsprovince. The democratic electoral system gives it the politicallegitimacy to build alliances and consolidate its territorial armedforces. This occurs with all provincial governments and, saving thedistances and some differences in perspective, the same occurs with thenational government. ---- Since the constitutional reform of 1994, therepresentative mechanism of the electoral system has been considerablysimplified. What we obtain as information from the elections arepercentages of a positive vote that is satisfied with what remains aftersubtracting annulments, challenges, abstentions and blank votes. Toassemble this legitimizing number, everything that is not expressedpositively in favor of one candidate or another is excluded.Thus it was, for example, that Nestor Kirchner assumed the nationalpresidency without even winning the ballot and with a derisorypercentage that strictly speaking represented a much smaller percentageof the electoral roll. He has been the president with the leastlegitimacy by the vote in Argentine electoral history, and withoutrequiring any proscription. Not to mention the Duhalde government that,having lost the elections, assumed the presidency by decision of thenational assembly once De La Rúa had fallen from grace.These are examples at the national level of what happens with theelectoral system of modern democracies, and it means that the legitimacyof rulers based on popular elections is somewhat secondary. Someone willhave to govern, and if three relatives participate in the elections, hewill suffice to convince two. The main political legitimation of therepresentatives of the people is not the elections, but the responsethey can obtain from the fattest bigwigs of economic power at the local,regional or international level. Then, it will be the ability of thosefish that defines if a town is relevant or not, and whether or not it isenough to change a government.The link between the political issue and the symbolic issue is stillsufficiently intense for repressive violence to injure sociallegitimacy. Without it, it is difficult for a government to clear itspath and not have to face permanent resistance that interrupts business.The repression in Jujuy in the general context of the national electoralcampaign is showing that this itch tends to disappear.The fierce repression of Jujuy strengthens the national projection ofGerardo Morales as Horacio Rodríguez Larreta's pre-candidate for vicepresident in what appears to be the least radicalized sector of apolitical army whose main propaganda virtue is that his pulse does nottremble to repress social protest. opening a gap of radical othernessbetween those who protest in the street and the republicanism that theyoffer as an identity in exchange for the fidelity of the vote.The space of Together for Change seems to have stolen the flag at thehead of Todos, which is now called Unión por la Patria, a rather uniquename that seems to be halfway between the Patriotic League and the Todospor la Patria movement. It must be remembered that they have been thepromoters of the anti-terrorism Law whose objective is strictly thesame: to give the State the institutional tool that allows it to suspendthe guarantees of the Rule of Law in the face of social protest when itdeems it unilaterally pertinent. They are the same officials,repositioned from here to here, who have to their credit the deaths ofKosteki and Santillán, the espionage infiltrated in the popularorganizations, and the most varied baseness in the repressive practicethat goes from the carancho gendarme to the prosecution of the oiltankers from Las Heras, going through the defamation of the teachers'union through a national chain.It must be said, however, that the association that they themselves makebetween the methods of confrontation and protest and the origin orlegitimacy of the protests themselves is questionable. One of the marksof our time is having naturalized a high level of confrontation for lowintensity demands. This phenomenon is important because it shows howeasily we are exposed to maneuvers that exceed us and to which wecontribute the wounded, the prisoners, the blind and the dead, withoutobtaining anything in return.When the Macri government sent parliament the pension reform with whichit sought to reduce the real value of pensions, a massive mobilizationgathered in the Plaza de los Dos Congresos to protest. It was the day ofthe vote and it was that pitiful day in which some remember the supposed4 tons of stones thrown at the police, others at the fat mortar, andmany of us remember the savage hunt with gas, rubber bullets and policepersecution that was launched. against those present to evict theconcentration. Or the cartonero run over by a police motorcycle at willand without any consequences. Or the festive hugs between allegedadversaries inside the palace when the session was cancelled.I remember that a few days later they voted again and the pension reformwas approved. Depending on how you look at it, the confrontation of theorganizations mobilized in the square against the police was impotent oreffective. I don't remember such a confrontational protest in the centerof the Nation's power since 2001. What was achieved? Why did therepresentatives celebrate? What changed? What was really the objectiveof the protest and the concentration?The representatives celebrated, yes. They also did it when thegovernment changed. On that occasion, many celebrated the modificationof the retirement law, now carried out by Alberto Fernández, leadingnational progressivism, to once again harm retirees, without any resistance.Jujuy's situation is not disconnected from the rest of the Argentineregion, nor from the South American region. The extractivist model thatthe government of Jujuy promotes is a State policy that is carried outfrom the Nation and from the provinces, and that by force of developmentmakes its way above many popular demands and against the materialinterests of the working class. What is observed in Jujuy in theforeground is how economic interests, linked in this case to miningactivity, are transversal to the different sectors of local politicalpower and take precedence over any other economic development strategythat may be less degrading of the environment. environment and moreprofitable for the local population. But it is also observed, in thebackground, how it is that the extraction of lithium is of interest tothe two blocs that are disputing global economic hegemony, and how it isthat the hot confrontation of the cold war no longer involves the frankwar between armies and states but by political intervention in theconfrontational activation of local populations.In other words: the armies are the last option, and conflict between thecivilian population and the police is preferred instead.This is not a current novelty: it was one of the novelties of the coldwar. But now, in the aftermath of that one, it is observed that a lot ofprogress was made in the techniques and technologies that serve thiskind of confrontation. In a situation of discomfort and frustration likethe one that exists today throughout the world, the broth is ready whenthe Lord orders it.In Argentina the century began with the overthrow of the president. 38deaths and hundreds of wounded were used for that. And above thepolitical overflow that unfolded in the assemblies and in the popularresistance, which was the virtuous aspect of that process, what was leftof everyone leaving is a return of each and every one. And that happenedbased on an insurmountable condition: the population had no capacity tomanage public affairs or to recover economic activity except throughtheir representatives. The people do not deliberate or govern: becausethey do not allow it and because they do not have the capacity.When we see the street heat up and rebellion break out, far from thelogical and necessary enthusiasm, we must always ask ourselves what weexpect to happen if we win. That is the measure of the rebellion. It isperfectly true that the real consequences of such processes are neverforeseeable, and that the best usually comes as the unexpected. But itis absurd to promote a confrontation whose virtue is unknown. And inthis sense, what do we expect to happen if we win?In Jujuy, two issues of great importance for the working class are beingdisputed: the recomposition of the teachers' union's salary and thearrest of the constitutional reform project that would aggravate theexisting situation. But once again the same basic question appears,which implies evaluating whether the current organizations of theworking class, including their long-term perspectives, are up to theconfrontations in which the people are risking their heads.Let's be clear: the popular resistance or the activism of theorganizations that resist the advances of the extractivist model incomplicity with the Jujuy government are not being questioned here. Whatis in question is whether the working class currently has the capacityto replace that model and take control of public affairs and economicactivity. That's the real discussion right now, and not the chance togain some sort of circumstantial advantage to reduce damage. Damagereduction is important, yes, but it cannot be the ceiling of the popularrevolt. Because, like it or not, the popular revolt is a damage in itself.The romantic epic of activism has confused the need for the strugglewith the praise of it. It is different to assume the inevitable than toclaim it as a virtue. There is nothing virtuous in the fight that is notthe determination of the own dignity of the one who fights for what heconsiders fair. And that is so, precisely, because the commitment to thecause is praised to the point of justifying the fight. The fight, thefight, the confrontation is always something that must be justifiedbecause in itself it is not fair.Commitment to the cause is commitment to the idea. This commitment is initself virtuous because it is a dimension of individual existence thatis linked to a principle that exceeds it, even if it is no more than theclaim of one's own image of oneself. When death is preferred overslavery, there is no assessment of death itself, as if being a slavewere worse than being dead, but living with the idea of not havingfought for one's own freedom is unbearable. What is at stake, beforefreedom itself, is dignity, a dignity that consists in seizing one's owndestiny.So the question here has two dimensions. One is one in which the dignityof those who fight is given by the commitment they assume with thecause. But then there is the other part: what is the cause? What is theidea?The dignity of those who fight in defeat is guaranteed. The problemappears with victory. That is one of the great problems of heroism. Whenyou think about victory, the dignity of commitment to your owndetermination is no longer enough, but what is at stake also matters. Soit is imperative to consolidate clear objectives for which we decide tofight and according to which this fight becomes worthy of itself, thatis, justifiable.Currently the working class is decimated. Not only because of theeconomic precariousness in which it finds itself and which promises toworsen, but because it has lost its own idea: the working class has lostits ideological determination.The economy is not enough. Class is not the pure expression of materialinterests within an economic system, but also the conception that framesthose same interests in a social order and explains them as belonging tothat system. The empirical evidence that the comrades relied on twohundred years ago to consolidate the popular expression of the workingclass does not exist today. This empathy is limited to more or lessextensive or reduced sectors of the same class that live differentrealities and often have antagonistic interests. Today it is necessaryto recompose the idea of class because it is an essential requirementwhen it comes to transforming the situation.We must consolidate the idea of a project that puts the working class ina position to appropriate its own destiny by taking control of economicactivity and reorganizing common life around principles capable ofovercoming the self-destructive misery of contemporary capitalism. Thisimplies abolishing work together with property and conceiving aproductive system capable of guaranteeing the existence of theinhabitants while also guaranteeing the common disposition to productivework, without anyone parasitizing the collective effort insatiablymonopolizing the benefit.The struggle for control of the land, for environmental conditions andfor the distribution of wealth cannot unfold outside of a productiveproject because the same thing will happen to us again: winning theconfrontation will lose the consequences. Any victory is pyrrhic ifthere is no project and the ability to carry it out. We have alreadyverified this a thousand times. From the moment we understand that theorganization of the class works as a function of the social revolutionand that this revolution demands the creation of a common project, wewill have the chance, perhaps, to win by winning, and to combine thedignity of the struggle with the dignity of the idea. In the meantime wewill continue to praise the suicidal heroism of lost causes.HERNAN MANCUSOhttps://organizacion-obrera.fora.com.ar/2023/07/03/rebelion-y-dignidad/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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