Evo, Rafa and Hugo - The Leadership of The Second Independence.
Grounding the fifth international on the existing process of Latin American Second Independence as a model would give the Fifth International an objective and concrete basis in an existing process of class struggles that project themselves geo-politically and geo-economically. From this basis, the development of a new anti-imperialist, anti-colonial internationalism could be premised upon intercontinental and interegional multipolar networks that incorporate autochthonous anti-capitalist struggles in north america, western europe, asia and africa. The convergence of the PSUV with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is a perfect foundation for the V International, a first step already taken. The Sandinista Revolution of 1979-1990 is the direct precursor to the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution, the Ecuadoran Revolucion Ciudadana and the Indigenista Revolution in Bolivia. The Nicaraguan Sandinistas where the first to base their operational model on the premise of a "civic-military alliance" that seeks to construct an ''armed democratic socialism'' in defiance to USA/Atlantist imperialism. The proliferation, in context of multipolarism, of national spaces of “armed democratic socialism” that seek simulatenously to (1) transition from neo-colonial dependence to revolutionary democracy as the precursor for the emergence of existing socialism, and that (2) foster regional integration on the model of ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) and UNASUR; would progressively undermine the hegemony of North Atlantism over the globalisation process.
Multipolarism as the new Internationalist Anti-Imperialism:
According to El Economista de Cuba (The Cuban Economic Review):
“América Latina padece todos los males de la globalización y la postmodernidad y ninguna de las ventajas prometidas: el crecimiento económico sin empleo; la concentración del saber en el Norte, deja fuera a nuestros pueblos de las tecnologías de punta, de la creación y desarrollo de centros de investigación científica; la destrucción del medio ambiente —envenenamiento de las fuentes de agua potable, tala de los bosques—, etc.; el desarrollo del modelo de crecimiento basado en las exportaciones a todo trance, la privatización de las empresas estatales y servicios de correos, salud, educación, seguridad social, originando un crecimiento sustancial de la pobreza; la apertura de las fronteras para el flujo libre de capitales, de flujos financieros y de mercancías provenientes del Norte, arruinando de este modo las economías nacionales, y no así el flujo libre de personas del Sur para el Norte; reducción del salario real; dependencia alimentaria del exterior; incremento de la Deuda Externa; etc.”
[“Latin America is a showcase for all the evils of globalisation and postmodernity without any of its promised advantages: economic growth without employment growth, the concentrtation of knowledge in the north, it leaves our peoples outside the circuit of advanced technologies, it prevents the development of scientific research centres, it destroys the natural environment – poisoning aquifiers, clearcutting the forests – etc. ; the model of development and growth based on exports at all costs, the privatisation of state enterprises and of postal, healthcare, educational, social security have resulted in the substantial growth of poverty; the opening of borders for the unrestricted flow of capital and of financial transactions, and for branded products from the north has bankrupted national economies , but not the migration of people from the south to the north; the reduction of real wages, food dependence of foreign dources, the increase of external debt obligations…”]
The emergence of ALBA, MERCOSUR and UNASUR as forums independent from the OAS has created a “multipolarisation effect” in Latin America. The United States has lost control of South America. The emergence of the Argentino-Brasilian geo-economic entente and of UNASUR have broken the power and influence of the State Department controlled OAS. The SUCRE monetary system is making inroads into commercial spaces formerly dominated by transactions in USA Dollars. BOLIVARIANISM emerges as the most radicalised expression of the overall political and social movement for the Second Independence of Latin America from the status of neo-colonial domination imposed by USA/North Atlantist imperialism in the mid 19th century (when the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed). The Second Independence calls both for the development of a self referential and autonomous post-capitalist models of political-economy for sovereign Latin American nations, for PLURINATIONALISM and for the subsequent voluntary and democratic integration of sovereign peoples into the Latin American "patria grande" (greater fatherland). The Bolivarian Revolutionary government states that its goal in Venezuela is the construction of an "armed democratic socialism" (the Bolivarian concept of Revolutionary Democracy) based on participatory democracy, civic-military alliance, nationalisation of natural resources and planned infrastructural development; where poverty is to be eliminated by empowering the poor politically and economically - i.e organising the poor politically around communal councils and allocating economic resources and targeted social services to the politically organised poor in a decentral manner so that they can solve their own problems in situ.
Bolivarianism is one of the several new global south politics that have emerged in reaction to and against North Atlantist/Imperialist hegemony, the imposition of western political values and economic ideologies (such as neo-liberalism) which seek to rationalise the exploitation and looting of global south peoples and their natural resources to sustain an objectively, socially and ecologically, unsustainable hyper-consumeristic economic model in the nations that conform the North Atlantist Core (North America, Western Europe) . Bolivarianism calls for the creation of “a multipolar world where many worlds are possible, inclusive 21st century socialist ones".
The "Bolivarian-Zapatista" Organising Model as an effective form of social and class struggle:
Elsewhere, I have cited as a model for organising against the proto-fascist right, the ORANISING and CAMPAIGN models of the Venezuelan PSUV patrullas/ “Maquinaria Roja” of 2010 and the Zapatista "Otra Campaña" of 2006, specifically as they pertain basing campaign activity on existing social movements and existing social organisations ('las bases'); because these are successful examples of grassroots organising that do not operate on the premises of neo-liberal individuation and marketisation of political activity and discourse. a political program is not a brand, and marketing does not define culture. "one man one vote" is not democracy, only the first step towards democracy. the organising model of the PSUV has delivered victory after victory to the Venezuelan transition government, while the Zapatista "otra campaña" (which was global) was a direct influence upon the victory of Lopez Obrador / PRD and the formation of the parallel APPO government in Oaxaca. The reason the United States Embassy in Mexico ordered the PAN government to fix the election in 2006 was precisely because of the success of the organising model of the ''Otra Campaña''. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Bolivian MAS also based their campaigns on this "Bolivarian-Zapatista model" in 2006 and 2009 respectively; the result was two major victories for the Segunda Independencia / Second Independence. In the Nicaraguan case the FSLN returned to power, in the Bolivian sense the Indigenista Plurinational Constitution was ratified in a referendum - the first indigenous peoples' constitution in the Americas -north, centre and south. Bolivia became the first Indigenous People’s Republic in the Americas, a polity where indigenous majority rule was achieved on the basis of the political marginalisation of the hispano-criollo comprador bourgeoisie and its North American transnational patrons.
The humble origins of 21st century socialism where the “Caracazo” food riots in Venezuela against neo-liberal adjustment policies in February 1989 and the Zapatista uprising against NAFTA in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994. They chanted QUEREMOS COMER ! ( we want to eat) and YA BASTA ! (enough is enough). Their call was taken up by the anti-globalisation demonstrators who gathered in Seattle in December 1999, the PIQUETEROS in Argentina who deposed a corrupt neo-liberal regime in December 2002, and latter by those who participated in the massive global anti-war movilisations against the imperialist invasion of Iraq in February 2003. They chanted FREE TRADE IS WAR ! and FREEDOM FRIES WHILE BAGDAD BURNS ! The Fifth International must recapture this spirit, and develop it further; as it works to establish spaces of eco-social construction and democratic empowerment for marginalised social actors, in a multi-polar context free of imperialist entities and globalised transnational oligarchies dedicated to the pursuit of unipolarist domination agendas. It must impart new dynamism to the class based struggles of trade unionists in Western Europe fighting against the destructive social effects of the financial bailout; of peace activists in the United States facing repression at the hands of the FBI and Homeland Security Gestapo; and the struggle of migrant populations against systematic police repression, of the foreclosed and the homeless for housing and dignity, of the landless and those displaced by the wars of capitalism in Colombia and Afghanistan. The Fifth International must be an international of hope for those who find themselves in the losing end of global capitalism, not a talk shop for ideologues or a forum for the restatement of failed political theories from the past. /n2
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