Before coups d’état were a threat. Now the threat is from “coups de marché”

(Leonel Fernández, President of the Dominican Republic)

Although frequently enjoying foreign support, those traditionally participating in coups d’état were local people, well-known or at least identifiable. It was thus possible to adopt preventive and corrective measures against them, no matter how well they were entrenched.

In contrast, the “market” is a faceless power. It is the fruit of a great relinquishment of attributes –not only economic- in processes of privatization so highly considered by the spokesmen and beneficiaries of globalization as a remedy for all ills, and which when excessive in magnitude and competences have, to the contrary, produced almost irremediable diseases. Faceless and rootless power with its far-reaching tentacles, represented in the "great domain" (financial, military, energy and media) alliance that hounds democracy and obstructs social policies, using inadmissible speculative maneuvers, without any of the intended regulation or closing of tax havens, alienating the United Nations (in favor of groups of plutocrats, G8, … G20, placing the World Trade Organization outside of the scope of the UN) and acting with complete impunity at the supranational level (tolerating all types of trafficking, mafias, flags of convenience on merchant ships, uncontrolled destruction of the environment…).

In summary, weak states and strong “markets”.

If a re-founding of the United Nations System is not decisively undertaken to endow it with the representation and authority that is now more essential than ever; if rapid action toward emancipation in the European Union is not taken and the “creative efforts” to which Robert Schumann alluded in 1950 remain unleashed; if strong states and compact and committed regional associations are not quickly and efficiently achieved… the world’s drift off course will be unstoppable.

The values of social justice cannot be replaced with impunity by the interests of the marketplace; there can be no good governance from a position of submission to the insatiable voracity of the “markets”.

Let no one be deceived: if these worldwide trends are not radically reversed, the promises to create employment and promote welfare for today’s beleaguered citizens will be pure demagoguery, used to keep the present forces in powers… and the next day to continue to subject citizens to the “whims of the markets”.

To "create employment", but how? By making even further budget cuts, as the European Union is once again demanding of Greece, which is on the verge of bankruptcy and revolution? By also further cutting public employment and the construction of major infrastructures? By further privatizing the last state-owned enterprises that are still economically viable? By selling off territories in Africa or in the Aegean?

Either the states react once and for all, establishing an order and deadlines for what must be changed; eliminating money laundering; setting up their own rating agencies and regional observatories; and endowing the United Nations System with moral authority and real power… or the states will all succumb to the “coups de marché” as President Leonel Fernandez has so lucidly predicted.

From “adjusters” to “adjusted”

For decades the world’s most prosperous countries replaced aid with loans granted in draconian conditions, known as “structural adjustments”.

In effect, to receive those loans the recipient countries had to fulfill three requisites: privatization, reduction of staff, and the building of infrastructures (which in these “developing” nations were built by the lending countries).

On several occasions I expressed to UNESCO members States my total disagreement with such demands that benefited the donors more than the borrowers.

The “reduction” in public employees was applied above all to teachers and professors!

In 1969 when I was rector of the University of Granada and Spain was still an “underdeveloped” country, I was requested to receive a significant World Bank loan for vocational training in eastern Andalusia.

Knowing all of the demands that the loan recipients had to meet at the onset of negotiations, and without entering into details, I must say that after two years I decided to expel from my office a numerous delegation from the World Bank that had come for a third time to Granada from Washington to continue to “work on” the different stages in the process. The humiliation to which we were constantly subjected by the Bank’s bureaucracy was totally inadmissible. Given the reasons I expressed, the minister at that time –Mr. José Luis Villar Palasí- supported my decision.

But now the tables have turned and the countries that just a few years ago imposed “adjustments” upon developing countries are now being “adjusted” and must make multiple budget cuts, privatize, and reduce the number and salaries of their public staff…

And if we look closely we can see that the powers behind the structural adjustments are the same ones that are now imposing adjustments on formerly rich countries and are manipulating the rating agencies to their liking.

From “adjusters” to “adjusted”. We have to better learn our lesson quickly. And take action.

Peaceful action for the triumph of citizen participation

Yesterday was the 34th anniversary of the first democratic elections in Spain after a long period in which ballot boxes were few and far between. It is a day to remember and to render a special tribute to those who to achieve that transition gave great bits of themselves voluntarily, lucidly and with much solidarity. For the first time in many years we experienced the joy of seeing that the will of citizens could be freely expressed. And yesterday, in Barcelona 34 years later, thousands of people demonstrated in front of the gates of the Catalan Parliament.

The strength of the peoples is in their numbers, in the calm but firm proclamation of their desires, of their protests and their proposals. The peaceful demonstrations that have extended since May 15 from the Puerta del Sol to the plazas and streets of so many Spanish and foreign cities is a source of satisfaction, because it was time to cease being passive spectators, manipulated witnesses and distracted recipients to become actors, protagonists and participants. From subjects to citizens.

In the early 1990s when modern communications technology and especially internet and mobile phones first provided citizens with distance participation capabilities, it became clear that these are fascinating times and that the 21st century could finally be the peoples’ century, the century of genuine democracy, which constantly hears and acts upon the voices of the peoples.

Real democracy isn’t necessarily the one that exists, but rather the one that accurately reflects the will of the people. I have frequently repeated that in elections (and I always vote because this is one of the pillars of popular representation) our votes are counted but often we don’t really count, we’re not taken into account. Especially when, as is presently the case, both the written and audiovisual communications media transmit severely deformed versions of reality and of what actually transpires.

There is undoubtedly much room for improvement of democracy at the local, national and global levels. But it was previously very difficult to participate. Now it no longer is. Thus it is quite logical that, very soon, hundreds of thousands, even millions of citizens from all countries will express their agreement and disagreement, their projects and proposals through internet, using its huge capacity to convene and mobilize. This will benefit democracy because the will of the people will limit the markets’ and the rating agencies’ current hounding of government leaders; it will reform electoral laws where needed and will close down tax havens; it will transform our present economy of speculation and war (4,000 million dollars a day in military spending) to an economy of global sustainable development; and it will promote the education that will enable us to give a sense of direction to our lives and to act based on personal reflection.

But all of this will come with peaceful action, never with violence or conflict. In Madrid and in many other parts of Spain the behavior of both participants and observers has in general been exemplary. I truly hope that from now on the same can be said of Barcelona. Let’s hope that after 34 years democracy in Spain can be renewed. Let’s hope that the initial image of the 15-M movement prevails to guarantee the triumph of citizen participation, a contribution that will be made without the use of force.

The 15-M movement may mark the turning point in an evolution away from the inertia of applying yesterday’s formulas to resolving the problems of today. Evolution enables us to change what should be changed and to preserve what should be preserved. The alternative is revolution and (as I enjoy repeating) the difference between the two is the “r” of “responsibility”.

The future has yet to be written. Let’s be capable of inventing it.