By: Raúl Zibechi

Concerned about the sliding of the war initiated in Ukraine into a third world war, the Spanish writer Rafael Poch reflects with arguments that are also valid for Mexico, Central America and the rest of Latin America: It is a historical scandal that in Europe, a recidivist continent in this matter, there are still no signs of a popular movement for peace (https://goo.su/7XesEwk).

I do not pretend that all his arguments, as we shall see, are valid for our continent. But let’s go in parts. He considers that the warmongering drift forces us to question ourselves and to review in detail everything that has happened in Europe in the last 30 years. I believe that the same can be said in Latin America, since today’s wars start even before the war on drugs, which undoubtedly raised aggression against peoples to new levels.

Next, he denounces “the blind disorientation of all that ‘right left’ that supports the shipment of weapons to Ukraine,” because without their help the war would be quite delegitimized. Poch argues that in the case of Europe, the cultural dominance of the United States has been observed in recent decades, just when the superpower is experiencing its greatest decline in history. This argument has global reach, since Yankee culture has penetrated deeply into our left, although they continue to raise an anti-imperialist discourse.

This culture defends, for example, imperialist wars cloaked in fights for freedom and human rights, in addition to criticizing dictatorships and defending gender equality, used as a weapon of war against some nations and not as full rights of all people.

But he also criticizes hegemonic journalism, because it has replaced the rationality of questions about resources and interests, about history, tendencies of dominance and geography, with the simplicity of condemning villains. That is, the question of context, so crudely eliminated from current non-debates, is obscured.

Although Rafael Poch’s 30-year historical review in his column Hacia la tercera (Towards the Third) seems accurate, we should add something that he addresses in a fairly general way when he attacks that right-wing left that, among us, is called progressivism and that governs a good part of the region.

Progressivism and the left have played a significant role in the demobilization and depoliticization of societies. In Europe there is no real anti-fascist movement, although the extreme right governs in Italy, it can be a government in Spain, it advances in Germany and in other countries. Nor was there a movement against Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian streets, because the left is betting on the ballot box and believes that the protest scares away votes from the middle classes.

When the peoples took to the streets in phenomenal uprisings (Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and now in Jujuy, Argentina), they have done so despite or against progressivism and the leftist parties that, once the flame of protest is extinguished, are preparing to channel it through institutional channels.

In Europe, being in favor of peace is synonymous with being pro-Russian and pro-Putin for that left. In our continent, defending the lives and territories of peoples is tantamount to playing into the hands of the right, as the progressives say. In this way, criticism and obedience to power are discouraged, clear symptoms of the depoliticization that crosses us as a society and that, in the long run, favors the right.

Because being on the left was always synonymous with exercising self-criticism and disobedience to power; never in making calculations about profits to reach power or to continue in it.

In Honduras, progressive President Xiomara Castro adopted the model of Salvadoran Nayib Bukele to combat gang violence. Violence against violence; militarization of society; all power to the police and military; strip criminals of their humanity, when they are from below.

Possibilism and pragmatism are the metastasis of progressivism and the left. Why doesn’t the President of Mexico condemn those who attack Zapatista communities and disqualify those who defend their territories and human rights organizations? Are those who shoot at peoples more defensible than those who only put their bodies, without violence, to defend life?

The communique of the National Indigenous Congress anticipates that we may be facing the preamble of a military and media offensive, to the extent that violence is minimized (https://goo.su/O4cxCtx). When the final stages of an administration are crossed, radical actions can be carried out with less political cost than in other periods.

In any case, we must not lose sight of the fact that the right-wing left came to power to unlock governability, in the face of the powerful activism of the peoples.

Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada, Friday, June 30, 2023, https://www.jornada.com.mx/2023/06/30/opinion/015a1pol and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee