Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, Niger, Chad, Congo, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and… Mexico. These countries have two phenomena in common.
First, they are nations (if they can be called that) suffering from processes of internal decomposition and extreme polarization among their political, economic, and social actors. Some of them are classified as populists when there is a certain state institutionality, and they exercise power deliberately to inflame internal hatred to control the country.
Others are products of former colonies of European powers that never had an institutional development and whose exercise of power is an act of outright despotism. For tribal, linguistic, or religious reasons, they wage holy wars against their opponents within their national boundaries, even seeking to eradicate them physically.
The other common characteristic is that they have rulers clinging to power. Whether through elections or by force of arms, their rulers simply do not understand the exercise of power without the pretension of a certain permanence, either by force or by twisting electoral results to ensure their place in the presidential chair.
In all these cases, the typical hallmark of the house is the use of social, political, religious, economic, or even linguistic polarization to confront internal groups in a nation, with the sole purpose of maintaining power in the hands of a perfectly identified character.
Polarization is the inflammation of feelings of rejection, hatred, or fear of a sector of the population. These days, we are witnessing feelings of hatred towards Jews against the Muslim community in Gaza, and reciprocally, Muslims could hardly hate the Jews and the existence of the State of Israel more.
The Russian government has created an anti-Ukrainian narrative, branding them as Nazis and pro-Western to justify its war of conquest against that country. At the center of the debate are the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Church against Church.
In Venezuela, the State consolidates its power by establishing alliances between irregular and factual forces, such as drug trafficking and guerrillas, to prevent its loss of control. It employs the traditional narrative in Latin American practices: the accusation of a conspiracy from abroad, mainly North American imperialism, to overthrow the government. For a long time, this argument had enough traction to mobilize broad social sectors. It worked for a long time in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela until their populations chose to flee from internal repression and generalized hunger…precisely to the United States. Hunger kills ideology.
In Mexico, Lopez Obrador rehearses with hatred. The confrontation between one and the other is his happiest domain. Polarization has paid off for him politically. He has enjoyed a six-year term with ample power to do and undo. Well, mainly to undo because he is not an institution builder; instead, he is an institution destroyer. Building an airport, train, or a refinery is not institution building. It is creating a situation of overburdening the public treasury that Mexicans will pay for with more and more taxes. But the destruction of health and education institutions, the dismantling of public security forces, the erosion of autonomous bodies and trusts, and the brutal attack on the Judiciary will do the most damage to Mexico. And the attack on the constitutional principle of the separation of the powers of the State. And all this to see if, as a result, he could extend his stay in power.
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