The remains of the cold war, the two-sided politics and the least worst

In Colombia although the 2003’s political reform made progress towards a theoretically strong regime in terms of moderate variety of political parties, the true is that the day to day of the political situation always refers to the same two-sided way of political argumentation.

The cold war was defined in a time when humankind was in the middle of an ideological, economical, military, and even technological dichotomy. States used to join one of the models designed by the two superpowers: United States and Soviet Union. Even though there were some who didn’t want to align with any of the two sides –such as the Not-Aligned movement- they always ended up asking for economical or military assistance from one of the superpowers.

Hence, it was difficult for Tito to distance Yugoslavia from the Warsaw pact and also it was difficult for Olof Palme and Andreas Papandreu to make Sweden and Greece really opposed to USA’s foreign policy. So, any discussion, whether it was of high importance -such as the decisions governments had to take- or not very important -such as a very simple discussion at university-, had to do with the support to one of the two models and at the same time to the refusal to the other opposed, which constituted a two-sided way of political argumentation (just affirmation and negation).

Today, almost twenty years after the end of cold war, the two-sided way of political argumentation in the so called western democracies has survived. Even though in theory and especially in parliamentary regimes we think of very diverse (more than two) ideological alignments –namely: communists, greens, social-democrats, social-liberals, christian-democrats, libertarians, conservatives and right-wing nationalists-, the true is that for each national context it always prevails a political argumentation that refers to just two options.

It’s common to see how minority parties always campaign for their coalitions (in most cases leaded by social-democrats or conservatives) but without emphasizing in their own proposals, as it was the case of the last Swedish elections. In other countries the two-sided way of political argumentation has gone so far as being regulated by law, as it is the case of Chile where citizens vote for the coalition of Concert of Parties for Democracy or the coalition of the Alliance for Chile. Not to mention countries with the tendency to consolidate a dominant bipartisan regime such as Spain (PSOE and PP) or countries where the bipartisan tendency is completely dominant like in the US (democrats and republicans).

In Colombia although the 2003’s political reform made progress towards a theoretically strong regime in terms of moderate variety of political parties, the true is that the day to day of the political situation always refers to the same two-sided way of political argumentation.

Thus, the words of president Uribe don’t go unnoticed when he called some students opposed to his reelection campaign in 2006 “guerrilla-men dressed like civilians”. So, in the current political situation anyone who opposes the Democratic Security policy could be called by the government and its friends as a member of FARC or at least a communist of the Democratic Pole.

However in “the other side” we still notice a typical political argumentation of the cold war. Anyone who barely supports or at least likes the progress made by the government with the Democratic Security policy could be called as “facist”, “neo-liberal” and other epithets. Jorge Enrique Robledo’s words can be still remembered when he blamed Gustavo Petro of being very prone of making alliances with “neo-liberals” –as the latter had talked with Cesar Gaviria, Liberal’s party director-, during the last Democratic Pole’s national congress.

But the worst is not that the political argumentation continues being two-sided, not recognizing the richness of democracies which has to do with the great variety of arguments. The worst is that the two-sided political argumentation leads us up to think of democracy just as a mechanism to decide who or what is the least worst. In the world today we find lots of examples which show this phenomenon. In 2002’s French presidential second round citizens reelected Jaques Chirac because he seemed to be least worst than the ultra nationalist Jean Marin Le Pen. As it happens, in our region presidents are used to find support for their political agenda telling citizens that otherwise they could return to the “neoliberal and exclusive” model, as it occurs in Venezuela. That is, if there is some difficulty to defend its own proposals or policies they should be considered by citizens as the least worst compared to other proposals.

In Colombia the two-sided political argumentation and specially choosing the least worst happens all the time and around here. For example they say it’s more probable that Andres Pastrana was elected because of a vote against Horacio Serpa than because of Colombians being convinced of his proposals. Currently, it’s common that politicians such as the president “look at the rear-view mirror” when they can’t defend the practice of their own policy, in the way that at least it seems to be least worst than what they did during past mandates.

If cold war is over, why not the two-sided political argumentation? Democracy is more precious and necessary in the way we look at it as a diversity of options to choose. It can’t be misunderstood just as choosing the least worst. It is actually choosing the best of the possible.

Free market and its hypocritical supporters and detractors in Colombia

The recent scandal of president Uribe’s children reveals the hypocrisy of some Colombians who preach for no state intervention over their economical and sometimes very profitable activities, although they don’t hesitate when finding an opportunity with the help of state to have a considerable advantage over the others.

But we also find another hypocritical group of Colombians. The ones who publicly reject free-market economy but can’t resist buying Diesel Jeans or signing for millionaire contracts in order to “support people’s causes”.

I was taught at school –like everybody does- that free market consists of low or no intervention from the state in the market. One of the main reasons to support this theory is that people’s wealth should depend on their own virtue, rather than any movement from the state. Another reason tells us that to let market operate, governments should promote economical stability by avoiding changes and reforms to law.

I was taught also that criticism to free market considers that state should always control the economy, so that there should be no room for private enterprises. This criticism states that people’s wealth should depend always from equal distribution by the state, and that reforms to law should be always considered for the good of the people.

Did I miss something? Or, does free market economy now depends on a certain intervention from the state in order to help somebody’s virtue considerably? Does stability exist when reforming law in order to benefit just a specific person? Where is virtue when the price of a piece of land increases exponentially from one day to another?

Did I miss something? Or, does a state-oriented economy now allow some private enterprises owned by specific persons? Where is the promotion of equal distribution of wealth when some of the leaders of the Colombian left earn many times a farmer’s basic salary?

We find people who truly support free-market; people who support free market but with a light intervention from the state; people who promote a high intervention from the state but accept that one can’t live without the market; people who truly reject free market, and many others in between. But one should practice what he preaches. If some people don’t want any intervention from the state, they don’t have to ask for any specific help from it. If some others don’t want free-market to govern people’s lives, they don’t have to ask for getting high benefits from it. Otherwise most of the people would think that free market and state intervention are just concepts made only to favor interests of very few.

The seven sections of the Colombian society when condemning violence. Which one are you for?

It’s important to discuss and to think about the tendency to condemn the violence coming from a specific group and at the same time to justify or to be indulgent with another. If one looks at it very carefully it could be one of the main reasons that explains the everlasting Colombian armed conflict.

Generally speaking it’s normal to hear expressions and statements about the exact dimension of violent actors compared in quantity to the rest of the Colombian population. It’s very common to hear expressions such as “we -the goodies- are much more than the baddies”. They aren’t false at all. They really reflect the hope of living in peace one day.

However it’s not common to think about how many of the goodies are prone to be more indulgent with one or more forms of violence. It’s important to discuss and to think about the tendency to condemn the violence coming from a specific group and at the same time to justify or to be indulgent with another. If one looks at it very carefully it could be one of the main reasons that explains the everlasting Colombian armed conflict.

To keep it simple, there are seven sections of the Colombian society when condemning the forms of violence coming from the different groups in the armed conflict. I will explain each of them starting from the extreme sections and ending by the one in the middle.

The first section could be integrated firstly by the left-armed groups such as ELN and FARC but also by people that could help them rather logistically or with some sort of money to carry on fighting. This group is composed of very few Colombians compared to the rest of the population. It’s not the case of some years ago when the guerillas were helped by a group of little farmers who felt oppressed by the state. This section of the population publicly condemns any action from the state and paramilitary groups and obviously not the ones committed by the guerrillas. We could name it the armed left and its sponsors.

The seventh section is the armed right and its sponsors and is composed of the paramilitary groups, members of the state that perpetrate illegal actions such as false positives and the people who could help these operations logistically or with some sort of money. This group could be bigger in quantity than the armed left and its sponsors but it’s still too small compared to the rest of the population. The armed right and its sponsors publicly condemns any action from the guerrillas while keeps quiet over their own activity.

The second section of Colombian society when condemning violence is composed by citizens who think that any act of the guerrillas is justified by the fact that there is a dictatorship regime which acts against the people and with the help of oligarchy and paramilitary groups. Even there is the feeling that the acts committed by left-armed groups fulfill minimum standards of a fair war or at least that when it’s not the case it’s because of false propaganda from the government. Among this section that we can name the armed left’s naïve supporters we find very few Colombians, some of them little farmers who feel safer under the control of the guerrillas. However we can’t say this group supports the guerrillas with money or logistically.

In the sixth section that we can name the armed right’s naïve supporters there is still a very small group of population but bigger in quantity than the armed left's naïve supporters. Here, we still find expressions in some well-off circles such as “paramilitary groups are a legitimate response to guerrillas in the absence of security from the state”. Also when talking about excessive force from the police or the army, it’s common to think that anything is worth to defeat the guerrillas.

We could name the armed left’s indulgents those composing the third section. This group is much bigger than all the previous and it rejects all forms of violence both from the armed left and the armed right. But there is a big indulgency over the acts committed by the guerrillas. The armed left's indulgents are used to recognize the atrocities perpetrated by FARC and ELN but put all or most of the blame for the conflict on the armed right. This section of citizens is composed mainly of radical members from the Colombian democratic left.

The fifth section may be named the armed right’s indulgents because of the indulgence towards the illegal actions perpetrated by the state and paramilitary groups. It rejects the illegal violence from those actors but the condemnation is so little compared to the blame attributed to the guerrillas. Last year there was a big demonstration on February 4 against FARC. There were massive rallies in most of Colombian large cities and towns. There was a massive condemnation to the crimes of both paramilitary groups and the state on March 6, but it was not the same in quantity as the rallies of 4^th of February. This shows that most of Colombians –being the bigger section- could condemn the illegal action of the armed right but if asked who’s to blame for the conflict, they probably answer FARC and ELN. President Uribe –at least when he speaks publicly- is a member of this group. He represents the majority who think that the illegal acts committed by the armed right are very few compared to the ones of the guerrillas’.

Finally, there is a minority who thinks that regardless of the discussion on who is guiltier of the conflict, any violent act committed rather from the armed left or the armed right is to be condemned the same. This group is smaller than the armed right's indulgents, the armed left's indulgents and even than the armed right's naïve supporters but could be growing these days. We can name the fourth section of Colombian society the non tolerants of any violence. For good of peace the bigger this group is the quicker we reach an agreement of stopping violent actions.

At least there is progress towards peace if there are fewer Colombians in the first and seventh sections. However, justifying or being indulgent with the violence from the armed left or the armed right is the same as waiting the other to make the first step, which means that nobody will give up until the other gives up and so that peace depends always on the other’s commitment and very few on its own. That’s why I prefer to be part of the non tolerants of any violence. Which section are you for?