Antonio Navalón
The newly elected President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has once again demonstrated an undeniable fact about the reality of the American continent. Colombia is the country in America where not only – in my opinion – the clearest and most fluent Spanish is spoken, but it is also characterized by a determination and character formation in which there is a constant struggle and where – unlike other places – dialectics is a critical element, although less important than action. In Colombia, as they say, “when it’s time, it’s time”. The day Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was killed, people reacted and provoked the “Bogotazo”. Colombia is also a country that has witnessed several internal armed conflicts that have lasted for years and in which thousands of people lost their lives. It is a country that has experienced frictions and tensions like very few countries have experienced.
Colombia is not worse than other countries; perhaps it is the least fortunate to have been blessed by the gods for the possession of raw materials or resources such as oil, capable – as happened to its neighboring country, Venezuela – of marking its history and destiny. With an ethnic composition not very different from the rest of the countries it borders, Colombia is distinguished by how it acts and its character.
Petro is President. Although he never touched arms, he was a guerrilla fighter. What is more, the great danger is not that he nationalizes or that he takes money from his compatriots; it is that it is really the first time that the left, the real one, the one that has been forged by land, sea, and air, is opposed by its two versions. In a context in which it is very easy to confuse a modern and absolutely developed city in the historical evolution with that other Colombia, the majority, which is rural and which in many parts continues to have a component absolutely closer to the country of the caciques than to the land of the democrats, Colombia seems to be at a crossroads.
We are facing a very clear situation. America, all of non-English speaking America, is in a position where never before has its fury, its hatred, and the pending issues occupied power as they do now. If we look at the cycle of the last few years in Argentina, Venezuela, and other countries, we will realize that there is so much accumulated rage and pending hatred that not even economic failure, abuse, or disenfranchisement through revenge and dialectics is enough to balance the situation. In a scenario where for the first time, those at the bottom, the poor, have the power, in many ways and for practical purposes, the situation could bring about even catastrophic effects.
That the world is in trouble is something we all know and that nothing and no one can deny. The difference of this situation in which the arrival of Petro to power does not imply a dramatic imbalance or unevenness – since what is dramatic is how the power is exercised and the people’s daily life – has once again a pending analysis to be made. After the Mexican miracle, the incomprehensible Peronist phenomenon or the Bolivarian failure, the situation in the Americas confirms what Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said about the Nicaraguan dictator, Tacho Somoza, “Somoza is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch”.
For the Americans, a Central American dictator who was theirs was reason enough to keep him armed and pitted against his people. The blood of Augusto Sandino did not stain the relationship, nor did it reach the modern rulers in Washington. Today, it is not that a character like Gaitan appears again; it is that finally, a cycle of history closes with the opportunity and once again – as it happens in so many countries; as it happened in Argentina; as it happens in Venezuela and as it is happening in Mexico – the dialectic, the blessed dialectic, is doing its thing. Besides, today the accomplished revenge – at last – by the power of those who had nothing is superior to living in a situation of permanent failure.
Will Petro know how to harmonize the development of institutions, politics, and the economy with his political discourse? It remains to be seen. But what seems clear is that at this moment in history – as it happened with Somoza – what matters is not failure. What matters is that it is our failure. Thus, continental giants are being built that at the end of the day, all they propose and promise is to make a reading of history to find out why or how it is that we came to fail so much. However, this is done taking great care that this account is never attributed to them and that their failures are inherited from the actions of the neoliberals or the governments that preceded them. And amidst all this, there is a sense of orphanhood. An orphanhood that arises after the clear abandonment of the United States. The United States has long ceased to be the father figure and the moral and political reference for the other Americas. All this has created a vacuum in a territory as large as the non-English speaking America and a deficit of political and economic references and role models to follow.
Russia is in Venezuela. Americans argue that Russia is also in Mexico. Any enemy of what was until very recently not only the leader of the world’s economy and of the ability to destroy the world, the United States, capable of penetrating the countries that surround them – especially the border countries, as is the case of Mexico – undermines its stability and security. It has reached a point where it is not even necessary to attack the Americans from outside; it is enough with the fury installed in the governments and the whole situation in which we are shaping a new America finally capable of resolving its pending accounts. An America that, beyond being divided and contentious, is capable of reducing its social gap and that can build and complete the long-awaited reconciliation that has been pending for so many years. An America that leaves aside the latent revenge for generations and opts for development and growth.
Will Lula win in Brazil? From my point of view, it is clear. What I do not know is what will remain of that Brazilian leader who was able to lift more than 28 million of his countrymen out of poverty. Instead of fostering a feeling of gratitude and promoting social development, he produced an outburst of social hatred and grievance. It was not enough to give them a better quality of life and life expectancy; Brazilians lacked much more. Where were the hospitals, the roads, or the schools?
In short, the world we live in has only one reading, which is unique and decisive. On the Internet, we can all see what each country has, especially those that have the most, and what the countries that, with great sacrifice – or simply because they were the beneficiaries of great resources and knew how to manage better what they had – have a higher development than the others.
We do not calculate how much it costs to get there; we estimate when I will get the piece of the cake to which I am entitled simply for being alive. I wish all the luck to President Petro and the Colombian people, but above all, in this situation, I wish it to all the non-English speaking Americas. As evidenced at the Summit of the Americas held in Los Angeles, the political and social situation is far from ideal. The panorama is potentially explosive, and it is so for a very simple reason, and that is that those who represent those who have the least, those who have no land, those who have no one – as Petro says – are currently in power. And the big question these leaders are unwilling to answer is why they want power? And the power they hold, beyond constantly reminding them that in the past they were robbed and that everything is the fault of those who preceded them, how will it really benefit their people?
In America, there is a contained hatred. If not filtered and properly managed, that hatred could explode at any moment with catastrophic consequences.
