Antonio Navalón
I suppose that in 1930 when a man characterized by his particular mustache and melodramatic character presented himself to contend and fight for the German leadership, what produced the most was laughter and naivety on the part of those who witnessed the milestone. Adolf Hitler’s ability to communicate and his charisma were indisputable, as well as his polished hatred and the knowledge he had about the mentality and way of being of his fellow countrymen. Hitler was a leader who knew how to reach the spinal cords of those who sought him out. He knew how to touch the most sensitive fibers and direct them to action. And he took advantage of his abilities in such a way that, first, he used them to take undisputed power and leadership of Germany, becoming the guide and the Führer of his people. However, that was not enough. His ambition and hunger for superiority caused him to take a situation like what unfolded years after he came to power to infinity.
All the disbelief, laughter, and doubts of those who thought that someone like Hitler would come to power were buried in the hands of the military marches and the Nazi Goose Step. Every time a situation arose – no matter how ridiculous or exaggerated it might be – the German leader responded by producing or sending more planes, tanks, soldiers, or whatever was necessary for the development and culmination of the Holocaust and all the tragedies the world experienced during that time.
Unlike the Colombian presidential candidate, Rodolfo Hernandez, I do not have great intellectual respect, nor do I think Adolf Hitler was a great thinker, even though he later rectified his statement. Moreover, it seems to me that Hitler was demonstrating that while there is an infinite and all-powerful good known as God, it is also equally true the existence of a total evil known as the devil or the ability to harm or destroy everything possible.
There are those who call the candidate Hernandez the Colombian “Donald Trump”. A character with a lot of money and who built his fortune building houses for the poorest. He also knows how to move on social networks and capture the attention of whomever he wants. Hernandez has done so well that he has managed to get around eight and a half million votes during the first round of presidential elections in Colombia. And it has all been because people are looking for change without knowing very well what that change means.
In the 21st century, the century of communications, technology, the Internet, and the iPhone. In the century in which we have had to survive multiple terrorist attacks, increasingly severe human rights violations, and even a pandemic, how is it possible that hatred continues to be more and more latent and growing? How is it possible that there are still places like the United States where your skin tone is a reason for someone to attack or even end your life? Have we not learned anything from the past?
The United States has become a country that does nothing but seeks itself at the cost of shootings and hatred among its citizens. This can’t continue to happen in a world with the smell of burning and blood on the ground. Black Lives Matter and the other movements are not enough to counteract the deplorable situation we have become mired in as a society. We need policies, security, and programs that genuinely support and motivate and not just give away to those in need. With leaders like Donald Trump and some other Maduros, Ortegas, and modern rulers, we are in the age of the louts. And this is one of the times when we most need leaders and not the buffoons who are ruling.
There are two ways of being an oaf: the insulting one, that of the one who came second in a race – as in the case of candidate Hernandez in Colombia – and the one practiced in the name of good intentions and with love for the world and its people. The second is practiced with the desire or under the mask of pretending to do justice and benefit those who have not had the same opportunities or benefits.
I am ashamed to belong to an era in which everything can be done and, what is more, can be done almost without any human contact. Perhaps this may explain why politics today is increasingly grotesque and needs less and less human warmth and contact. Probably because of that, because of the collective ignorance, because we last as long as a tweet lasts because our personality fits in a TikTok, or because deep down, our whole life is a simulation arranged by filters – as if it were Instagram – maybe that’s why it is possible to elect leaders who never showed their faces but what they did see were the attacks on journalists who asked them inconvenient questions.
Rodolfo Hernandez is not an anecdote. Donald Trump was not an anecdote. Vladimir Putin’s hypersonic missiles capable of destroying half the world are not an anecdote either. The victory of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has a close relationship with the Russian leader – who has nothing but an apparently insatiable hunger for power and superiority – is not an anecdote. They are all things that are really happening. They are the consequences and reflect a way of life in which reality surpassed fiction. At this moment, there is no fiction in which there is room for so much mediocre reality or such a lame proposal.
If there was a world in which a different panorama could be drawn and the Americas would not be just another concern for the United States, with the latest events, it has become clear that this will not be possible. Today, the United States cannot focus solely on its domestic problems, but it also has to deal with the claims and positions that some countries adopt to be invited to the controversial Summit of the Americas.
Imagine an extraordinary meeting of the Americas with hunger, a thirst for social justice, and the need for adjustments, but yes, an America in uniform, militarized, and in an apotheosis of the triumph of ones against the others. A meeting in which the Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Nicolás Maduro, the Alberto Fernández, the Gustavo Petro and with the participation of the last one to arrive to the tribe, Miguel Díaz-Canel, will successively take the floor.
Let no one ask what they want to do with the countries and their societies. Let no one ask what plan or program they intend to implement to lift their people from poverty. Let no one ask how they understand the 21st century. They know it as a game of subtraction rather than addition. While on the other side is the supreme disgrace of the fact that today – unless a new generation of statesmen is born – who have read more than Wikipedia and know the history of the Americas, the reality is that the United States is neither here nor expected.
Whoever wins and whatever happens, the world is in crisis. Political structures and models of almost every kind have simply failed. The only thing that political systems can produce is great movements that threaten themselves because those who lead them have failed those who paid them and those who elected them to do their job and govern in a good way. And now, with all this failure of the structures that have ruled the world for more than a century, what emerges is the epidemic of the vulgarians.
