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=> Mexico moves toward soft totalitarianism: Tariq Ali

Mexico moves toward soft totalitarianism: Tariq Ali
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Mexico moves toward soft totalitarianism: Tariq Ali
Journal Day
Monday October 21, 2013
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/10/21/cultura/a08n1cul

In Mexico, as in many countries of the world, democracy is gradually ceasing to exist to make way for a regime of soft totalitarianism , product, of course, of neoliberalism, said in an interview with La Jornada essayist, historian and filmmaker Tariq Ali ( Pakistan, 1943).

The reporter also found in Mexico, invited by the organizers of the 13th International Book Fair (FIL) in the Zocalo to participate in various public gatherings and share your acute analysis of social movements, fundamentalisms and new forms operation of imperialism, among other topics.

The appointment with the writer is in a hotel in the historic center, in the middle of streets patrolled by soldiers and dozens of police cars around. Tariq Ali out, watching the soldiers, asking that he take a picture with them back and said: No wonder what is happening now in Mexico, is the logical outcome of the neoliberal policies that until recently had certain controls, but have lost all kinds of restrictions and neoliberals now operate freely the trouble is that this can get even worse, is a process of degeneration .

The author lamented that the country will be accepted as normal totalitarian old habits they already knew: In this normalization, no matter which party wins, whether it is right or center-left, because it is a system in which the totalitarian party has hegemonic control and dominates the whole system .

The last time Ali was in Mexico was in 2007, when he participated in the International Book Fair of Guadalajara. Began the government of Felipe Calderon. The writer then claimed that the United States had worked hard for your candidate wins. (La Jornada, December 2, 2007)

Around the world there is always a thought things can not get worse, but yes, they get worse. When I was here six years ago, many people expected that in an election so clearly manipulated enardecerían citizens and would be protests, but that did not happen, the process continued , explains.

Therefore, points out: "For a system change requires the active participation of all actors in society. By the time a group or movement that refuses to participate, as did the Zapatistas then said 'we do not get our hands dirty on issues such as politics', at that time impossible to change. It's the same position they are taking the indignant in Spain.

These arguments, saying that politics is dirty and abandon everything, not useful. Failure to act with the political system tools abandons any possibility of change .

Tariq Ali, adviser to the American television channel Telesur, based in Caracas, and author of Pirates of the Caribbean. Axis of Hope, in which he presents a portrait of Fidel Castro, Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez, says the only country where there is a real breakthrough and change of system is Venezuela. do not call what happens here a revolution, but there is a real work in favor of the poor, is the only region that is moving in that direction today. In Mexico there was the possibility of change. If the group had not pushed Calderon manipulated elections, this country would be marching in that direction .

Now, what might work, he adds, is the combination of a charismatic leader with clear ideology that defends with passion, and a social movement that underpins it and take care of that program a reality. But leaders do not fall from the sky, are the product of very specific situations. Mexico has a rich tradition in that aspect, there's the peasant revolution of 1910, pushing the country to change, or the model of Republic of Lázaro Cárdenas, who pushed the nation toward the most vulnerable people. No single type of leader, it is important that the nation push in the right direction .

A purpose of the revelations that former agent Edward Snowden did the German weekly Der Spiegel, broadcast Sunday, for the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA, for its acronym in English) email spied the former president, Ali jokes : Snowden have to tell what really interests us is not how many tequilas was put Calderon, but how and what interests manipulated the elections .

Tariq Ali has been a political activist since the 60s, studied political science and philosophy at Oxford. In 1990 he began writing fiction, among his best known novels are grouped in the series the Islamic Quintet. His work The Shadows of the Pomergranate Tree, a study of the decline of Muslim civilization, was awarded in 1994 in Spain as the best novel foreign Archbishop Juan Clemente Award Rosalia de Castro Institute.

He insists that "we live in a world dominated by what I call the 'extreme center', a stream that supports the wars, fighting, abuse, plunder and neoliberal behavior is seen worldwide.

"In Mexico, the enemy is twofold: not only the local oligarchy, but the great American empire, it is a strategically important country, so the northern neighbor is always going to invest and spend whatever it takes for the oligarchy here remains where it is.

"The left, whatever it may be, has to understand that when it attacks the interests of the local oligarchy, attacks the empire. Symbolic acts are very important, but alone will not accomplish much. All this has been seen in Europe.

"The only country where leftist movements tend to something else is in Greece. The middle class is terrified with the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), which has been merged into a single party factions and organizations that made up until now, in order to boost his chances of becoming alternative government.

"The leader of this party, Alexis Tsipras, whom I spoke last week, is a very capable and intelligent. They asked him who he admired in the world and said Hugo Chavez immediately all European media were on him. But his speech did not change.

"You need leaders like this. Hugo Chavez was a person with great passion, not afraid to speak his mind. Combined with a strong social movement pushed to change. His absence is a blow, you lose a lot, but we should not think that a movement depends on a single person, would be doomed to failure.

"The great weakness of the Bolivarian movement in Venezuela is that Chavez too dependent, and that is what I said. It bothered him, but I recognized him and explained: 'That's the problem we face, but the whole middle class is hostile to our project, if you do not understand is that you're not seeing the whole picture'.

"It was true, Chavez and his group were very isolated in that sector which traditionally produces intellectuals and spokesmen of society. A leftist intellectual of a university, my friend, to ask why Hugo Chavez did not support me, 'we do not support is a mulatto, someone who has slave blood. "

I've never seen racism as marked as the one in Venezuela. The hate generated Chavez in some sectors of society was terrible, in the media came to call him monkey, because the racism so deep. So had to work from scratch to integrate society as a project, that was his big problem. Today, the other is that Nicolas Maduro is not only Chavez, but seeks a mistake, politically and psychologically, great, trying to be .

Tariq Ali has just finished writing a screenplay about the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) that may lead to the big screen Oliver Stone to commemorate the centenary of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. A project that seems of paramount importance, because "we live in a world in which all conspire against the memory, for history offers solutions to citizens. Without the enormous sacrifice of the Russian people and key victories Red Army had not ended the war as over. In many places do not deny it, but not talk about it.

"It is a worldwide tendency to feel that history is dangerous, and leftists, who suddenly became postmodern and started playing with some concepts, is partly responsible for this.

I'm also about to finish a book that aims to demonstrate that the U.S. empire is not over, there is and is strong. That left says otherwise is very dangerous , concluded the author, who will talk this evening at 17 pm in Forum 1 with the public to attend the International Book Fair in the Zocalo of Mexico City.



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