Imperial Powers and Latin America.
Currently it’s fashionable to speak of crisis. There are crisis in any places whatever one sees, heard or read reports or commentaries. To be sure, they are real, severe and likely interconnected, yet apparently unknown interests are keeping them separated and confusion is a common place in those reports.
In the last few weeks, Toni Solo and Karla Jacob have written and talked in Tortilla con Sal, not only of the development before, during and after the municipal elections in Nicaragua on November 9, but also of the implications of those events in the Latin American stance confronting the Western imperial politics. In their opinion, being Nicaragua the weaker link in the chain, it is logical that its there, where the US and EU economical and political powers are to be applied.
The plans for the ALBA and associated countries to establish a trade area, with currency and all (The Sucre) have to be especially threatening to the declining economical power and sociopolitical influenza in the area for both the US and EU. This threat is made more real, by the declared intensions of Russia and China to joint ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative) as associate members. Should this happen or even if not, billions of devaluated US Bonds dollars may be dumped in the developing countries of this area.
If these recent developments are added to the declaration of Solidarity for Bolivian’s president, signed by all the presidents of the nations organized as UNASUR, the participation of all the countries of the area, but for Panama and Trinidad-Tobago in CORICOM (Caribbean Community) and the Central American Integration System SICA which temporary presidency corresponds to Daniel Ortega for the next 6 months, plus many other economic initiatives, it is reasonable to talk of a crisis of hegemony happening in the historical backyard of the US.
One more crisis? Perhaps its better to say: an easer way to see the interconnections of the many crisis.
About 3 weeks ago, in an Audio Commentary posted in Tortilla con Sal, Toni Solo was lamenting the silence of the intellectuals and Alternative Press here and Europe, while the mainstream media is distorting publications of the events happening in Nicaragua in relation with municipal elections. He even listed three possible causes for such unusual blackout, among them the support thrown upon one of the founders of the MRS party, Dora Maria Tellez’s fasting strike, by very prominent intellectuals, including N. Chomsky. It is not that Chomsky is to be infallible, but I doubt, accounting his vast accumulated knowledge and demonstrated insight, that someone will be capable to misguide him, or by the same talk any one and less all on the list of supporters. So its is possible some other explanation, even if in agreement with most of what is said in the audio commentary.
As a fourth possibility, it could be added, that the Alternative Media’s outlets have to survive mainly by donations of their audience and they have to allocate their products in a market supersaturated with culture of consumerism. In such market the public buys what it’s likes and Daniel Ortega is much disliked here, maybe to a lesser degree then the other demonized foreign leaders (Castro and Chavez), but enough to be not a package easy to sell.
Who are T. Solo or K. Jacob? Where did they came from? What kind of job do they hold? Commentaries and interviews by Solo used to appear at Znet, but not recently, where else is he publishing?
Their Different Focus publication “Tortilla con Sal” is rather interesting. They understand better that many people born, educated and working in Nicaragua, the dynamics of it’s social and political life and their correlation with what happens in the area. I just wish they were not as partial to “Danielismo” (a segment of the old “Sandinismo“) as they appear to be by their commentaries. I would like to know if ever they have investigated and written about the fallout of the authoritarian centralism of the FSNL party and it’s patronage style which culminate in “la Piñata” around the late 80ths, also the alleged transformations of the CSD into security centers and cogs in the electoral machine, but especially the possibility of the new “community councils” following the same paths.
Back to the blackout topic, indeed nothing is being said here about the municipal Nicaraguan’s elections, the unrest on the streets of Managua, the legal maneuvering of the loosing candidate and the opposition parties that has followed, or even the organizations and plans of the region nations alluded above.
A cursory Google and Znet database search reveal very few recent things related to the Central American- Caribbean area: George Gabriel is getting hands on experience participating in the reorganization of a Municipal Council at Calle Independencia in Merida, Venezuela. Jake Johnston recommended on 12/8, to take a serious look at what is happening in Latin America, maybe in a reverse of history, the developed countries can learn something new about democracy, solidarity, social responsibility, etc. In the Free Press Net, nothing either, yet Howard Zinn from his vast experience, is confident the free press is to cover what the mainstream press avoids publishing.
Not even Amy Goodman (a worldwide reporter) has uttered a word in these topics.
Why? Lack of interest, priorities, too busy with other important matters; maybe, but they are possibilities which should be rejected not to diminish hopes in a free press and because Nicaragua, despite it‘s fragility is posed to play an important role in the Latin American Revolution.
Be as may, for sure no knowledge will be accrued by the progressive intellectual intelligence if nothing is said about what is going on in the nearest and more traditional area of influence for the US.
Besides, if no one tries to establish and clear the correlation between these many crisis, it would be hard to undertake a comprehensive plan for solutions and without basic facts, no amount of rhetoric will jumpstart the economic recovery or the sociopolitical change necessary to save the planet.
Recently there was a brief but interesting exchange between Mandisi Majavu and Andy Lucker reviewing concepts expressed in “The Wretched Of the Earth” by F. Fanon. Lucker invited participation, but even if I wanted to do so, I wouldn’t find where to start participating.
Probably I better carefully read Mujave’s essay “Africa: Life after Colonialism“, in fact the whole series in the book edited by Chris Spannos: “Real Utopia“, and I should pay more attention to the work Andy Lucker is doing about the Bolivarian Revolution.
I have difficulties grasping the conceptual meaning that “Theory” “Strategy” or “Vision” may have in the sociopolitical science and I can’t do anything but comparing them with the meaning they may have in the science in which I had some training long ago. Of course, they are of great importance for understanding what people like Michael Albert and the group working around him have been saying.
For now, I remain with the unpleasant feeling that our intellectuals are still using the language of the oppressor, as it’s described for the first phase of literature production, in page 222 of The Wretched of the Earth.
Fore sure I couldn’t find literature which can be called combative, perhaps there is some in the lyrics of hip-hop music.
Maybe these criticisms are out of date, just today Chris Spannos commentary talks of Class War starting to show again in US and John Clark of the struggles OCAP (Ontario Coalition Against Poverty) and similar organizations, have been involved on behalf of the dispossessed in Canada.
Maybe I am living in the past and dreaming of things which were to be.
I am unsure if I should upload these few paragraphs to my Zspace, I expect no one will read them and they will have the same fate that poorly expressed ideas usually have, “to collect dust” on the Znet cyber-shelves. I don’t even know how to upload them any way.
Yet some one has to point out that important events may be happening in the so called US backyard, why not me? Those events may have the possibility to jumpstart the Change we all are Hoping for.
For sure, it is not from the top from where Hope and Change is to come, notwithstanding Obama’s rhetoric, if they are to happen it is from the bases where it’s expected to start.
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