Destabilization of people based governments

There are not few ongoing processes in Latin America, Africa and other parts of the world oriented to destabilize people based governments. These processes are driven by economic and geopolitical interests that see their privileges threatened. More virulent is the reaction if the transformations they face could generate a contagion effect in other countries. The destabilizing attempts are led by political and media operators that respond to the economic power that emerged from the tremendous wealth concentration process that prevails in the world. Their strategies adapt according to each country’s circumstances but they share a common objective: promoting social turmoil and economic instability that will enable installing a feeling of chaos, corruption, insecurity and disarray. They try to frighten the middle classes and make them lose sight of their real interests as to align them in their favor.

The destabilization processes seek to impose changes in the policies of transformation, but, if they fail to achieve it, they can even end up in the destitution or replacement of governments that go against their own interests: they are illegitimate reactions but easy to expect from those who do not come to terms with losing the control they exercise on a country’s critical institutional means.

Social turmoil to trigger political instability

The destabilizing action uses any social tension to stir up emotions against people based governments, financing and securing a wide media coverage of protest demonstrations, negative statistics (whether they are real or manipulated), roadblocks, episodes of violence and insecurity, abrupt strikes, opposing politicians and neoliberal analysts that interpret what goes on according to their perspective. Those who get those supports become subordinated to the interests that promote the destabilization and, aware or unaware, act against the ones of the majorities.

A State with a democratically elected government that promotes transformation constitutes a force, perhaps the only one, capable of limiting the power and privileges of sectorial interests; that is why those interests try to discredit it in front of the public opinion. They count with politicians, media and ´specialists´ to impose a biased perspective regarding the country’s march, concealing good decisions and enlarging mistakes. They propose their own agenda of concerns that is far from the transformational objectives, and relentlessly repeat it in all the fronts they count with. When it is necessary they misinform, manipulate information or do not inform about what goes against their interests or unveils the political operations. They seek to manipulate expectations in order to bend them in their favor, which they often manage to do [[[Regarding the impact that the manipulation of expectations has on economic development->http://opinionsur.org.ar/Manipulation-of-expectations-and?var_recherche=expectations].]].

The destabilizing action uses a diversity of arguments; including attributing to people based governments the problems other previous governments generated with their policies. They conceal that most of the structures that today block the march were established by the same forces that are working to restore the circumstances that made them possible.

In their actions, people based governments also make mistakes in terms of planning or management that are enlarged and used against them. Facing this it is not right to resort to concealments but instead to use the opportunity to rectify the march, clarifying the challenges to face and making explicit the significance of the chosen course to transform the established order. In a democratic context, inherent tensions to any social process are faced by clarifying what is going on and unmasking how interests that are impossible to defend in plain sight play in the shadows.

Strengthening the support base of transformational actions

People based governments that face recurrent destabilizing attempts need to broaden the base of social and political support of the transformation processes they carry out. It is frequent for sectors with similar transformational interests to act each one on its own in the shadow of party quarrels or secondary interests. These situations favors power groups that take advantage of them to deepen divisions and multiply struggles as to protect their masked privileges; this way they manage to deviate and sterilize energies. It is the old paradigm of ¨dividing and conquering¨ that picks on the meanness and selfishness that are also present in transformational sectors to mobilize one against the other.

If the purpose is to transform hard processes such as the unbridled wealth concentration that prevails in almost every country [[[Ending with the unbridled wealth concentration->http://opinionsur.org.ar/Ending-with-the-unbridled-wealth].]], it is necessary to make wills converge and organize them seriously taking into account their interests, needs and emotions. It is an effort of clarifying and learning at the same time; of summoning while integrating perspectives and proposals of those who are summoned. We will have to banish any attitude that attempts against the calling to actively participate in building the transformation, among other the following: not listening to anyone else but those that share our perspectives, the negligence of not paying the required attention to really understand others while respecting non-central differences, the incompetence or lack of determination to make wishes and initiatives converge, the fallacy of believing that truth and what needs to be done can only emerge from our own minds. Those attitudes lead to resounding failures or, at the very least, severe setbacks. The required leadership must know how to open up to diverse groups that due to ideas and trajectories can, preserving their identities, converge in the transformational effort.

A wider support of transformational actions ensures them greater viability without giving up fundamental issues that are essential to the chosen course. The focus of this strategic decision is building spaces of participation that will enable integrating groups that have not been summoned to participate or that were summoned without including the possibility to have influence on some matters that interest them and do not affect but instead strengthen the trajectory of transformation. Facing this kind of summoning is not simple because of the weight that fears carry as well as the larger coordination effort needed that comes with diversity. It is initially necessary to build trust and understanding between parties that are suspicious of each other but that, once the relationship is consolidated, can find multiple synergies as they work together. Here lies a good part of the answers to the destabilization that is being imposed upon people based governments.

In contexts where opportunities, tensions and threats get mixed up, disagreements between compatriots that share transformational objectives constitute painful absurdities and very dangerous liabilities in the march towards a better future. It is worth overcoming them; it is necessary to do so.

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