Social Movements in Crisis | Los movimientos sociales en crisis

Editorial, El Diario:

For approximately 20 years, populist concepts have proliferated in our country with the primary aim of dividing the population and making them believe, for instance, that it was essential to initiate a “process of change,” which implied not repeating the mistakes of previous governments vilified for not professing socialist ideology. However, gradually, since MAS came to national power, reality has shown otherwise: Bolivia’s main problems have not been resolved.

We will now refer to the definition of “social movements” (a neologism for social classes) expanded over the last twenty years. This is an abstraction that, like all abstractions, means nothing. On the contrary, only concrete terms have value. In this way, it was unclear what social classes these “movements” were made up of, where they were, and where they were going. Later it was learned that in Europe “social movements” are groups of architects, doctors, drivers, service employees, etc. But in our country, this category was applied only to peasants and some sectors of workers, turning them into supporters of the MAS government. In other words, in the old world, everyone can be part of social movements, but in Bolivia only those who support the government in power.

Initially, in our country, these “social movements” were united around national and democratic objectives, but as soon as these were forgotten, these organizations divided or are on the verge of extinction, leaving their supporters orphaned. But there are still other “social movements” that naively believed their objectives would be fulfilled by the government and did not change their loyalty. They do not realize that, despite official declarations, those demagogic corporate solutions were swept away. Hence, their fate was decreed with their fragmentation and solitude.

Due to these antecedents, the popular uprising of 2019 occurred. Although it was momentarily frustrated, it continues to mature towards the goals of a national and democratic ideology that must be fully achieved. Otherwise, the country will remain in a vicious circle of permanent reaction.

In summary, the process initiated at the beginning of this century succeeded as long as the “social movements” had their historical expression in the dominant political current. But once their leaders lost historical perspective, adopted individual stances, and forgot their promises, the “process of change” came to an end, definitively and irreversibly.

Leave a comment