Welcome Speech

 

By Lothar Bisky, Juni 2010, Second Latin America-Europe conference, Brussels

 

Dear Comrades, Dear Friends, Dear Guests, I am delighted to be able to open this conference today at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Brussels, a conference which is already the second one on the topic of the assumption of government responsibility by the left in Latin America and Europe.

 

I would like to thank all of our guests for whom this conference is important enough so that you have come here to Brussels today, and especially those who have travelled from afar, from Latin America, for we all know how stressful and laborious such trips can be. Just as sincerely, I would like to thank all of our European participants for their presence. I am also pleased to see here in the room a few familiar faces, friends and comrades whom I have met on one or the other trip abroad, or whom I have had the pleasure to receive for talks in Berlin or Brussels.

 

The goal and purpose of our twoday conference is the continuation of the analysis initiated a year ago on the experience of the left in government in Europe and Latin America. Now, I know we have excellent academics among us, and we of course want to be live up to the scientific standards of accuracy and truthfulness in our investigations and evaluations of political processes in our countries. However, a purely academic analysis is not what we intend.

But we are all politicians here, we want to not only understand and comprehend the political and social processes, we also want to actively influence change. For this, we need, among many other things, knowledge and experience. And that is why we are here, we want to analyze and compare our experiences. We want to see how political and social processes are developing in our societies, what we of the left can and must do in order to do justice to the interests of working people, and also – and this is the theme of this conference – we want to compare our experience in government or participation in government, and see what it has brought us.

 

Experience is one of the most important measures for the further qualification and improvement of our strategy and tactics in achieving our political goals, it will help us to better define our goals and the steps needed to realize them. Mutual learning is part of the internationalist character of the left. If we were to merely look at our own countries, only at the processes occurring within each country, we would not be internationalists, and without internationalism, we would lose an important part of our essence. For us therefore, interna-tional experience is a natural part of our struggle. That is a matter of course for us all, or at least it should be.

 

We like to make statements like, “learning from the experience of Cuba”, “taking the experiences of Chile into account”, “learning from the Bolivarian process in Venezuela”, or “grasping the indigenous experience in Bolivia”. I could have named European countries here instead.

 

That is all easy to say, and sounds obvious. And yet, the exchange of experience must be organized concretely. We have to sit down and think about our own experiences, and structure them. We have to come together, exchange views, discuss our experiences, sometimes even argue.

 

And because that is so necessary, but doesn’t always succeed automatically, is why I am so grateful to the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and its Brussels Office for organizing this great opportunity to exchange experiences, and I want to express my gratitude to Birgit Daiber and her team.

 

Dear comrades, dear friends, over the course of these two days, there will certainly be a number of issues that will be discussed in depth and in detail. Openness and construc-tive criticism will play an important role. Everyone here will have to repeatedly critically re-examine his or her own experiences, or face the questions of all the others present here. Just telling success stories and hiding all the problems and difficulties will not get us any further.

Of course, the leftist movement has achieved great successes in recent years – more in Latin America, currently, than in Europe, where we are deeply concerned about the sad state of some parties and movements with a proud tradition. And yet, in Latin America too, all the processes are not unfolding without problems, we are still far from having answers to all the questions, new difficulties are emerging, resistance is growing. We need to talk openly about all this.

As to the fundamental question of whether the left should even strive for government involvement in the first place, even if, due to the relationship of forces, it is not in a position to call the capitalist system into question immediately, you already discussed that last year. And you came to the con-clusion that each case must be assessed individually. The relevant conditions in the various countries, or even in the provinces, districts or towns, are often too different to permit general statements.

 

However, if the left participates in the exercise of political power – to whatever extent, either as the sole ruling party or in a coalition – it must dedicate all its strength to creating significant changes for the people. I think the experience in Europe and Latin America has shown that those parties are successful which have understood how to at least initiate a visible change in society, and to set new points of emphasis in economic and social policy, with an orientation towards the interests of working people and the socially weaker strata, the marginalized and the disadvantaged, and who are serious about a genuine democratization of society, including the economy.

 

Where we succeed, we can be sure of popular support; left-wing government projects will be confirmed, as was the case for example in Bolivia and Ecuador and also in Uruguay. However, there are also plenty of examples for the opposite, unfortunately, especially in Europe, but Chile too probably belongs in this category, where the lack of abandonment of neoliberal policies was not of course rewarded by the voters.

 

Let us take up this discussion of last year and continue it constructively. Let us look carefully at the conditions under which the elements of left politics and left government have been successful and those under which they have not. Here, there may be more questions than answers.

I can neither presage the results of your deliberations and discussions, nor do I want to, but I would like to name a few topics which should definitely be discussed.

 

First, there is the well-known fact that the takeover of government power as a result of winning an election does not yet mean the conquest of power. Left government projects face the concerted power of business and also of the media. In Latin America, that is probably more obvious in Paraguay than in any other country.

 

What can be done in such a situation, in order to shift the balance of power? In a number of countries, suffice it to name only Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, constitutional processes and constitutional amendments have brought about change. Our friends of Frente Amplio in Uruguay have had years of experience with plebiscitary processes – especially in the defence of state property in the areas of general economic interest, i.e. energy and water supply, public infrastructure, etc. – and have almost always been successful there.

 

In Europe however, the people in many countries are denied such direct involvement in basic policy decisions, or else it is at least still restricted. Here, experiences from Latin America can show us ways which we want to follow, but cannot yet always follow.

 

The profound democratization of society and the involvement of people in the direct exercise of political power, in other words, a direct and participatory democracy, and the decentralization of decision making and management – are oft-cited tools when it comes to the transformation of society. Sometimes they are seen as a panacea: all you have to do is provide the people with the possibilities, and the problems will already be solved. This is by no means the case. There were and are many positive examples of how miraculous results have been achieved through participatory democracy or through forms of local self-government. And yet, actual experience has shown us that these processes are not self-running mechanisms. The involvement of citizens in the exercise of political power must be ever re-organized and re-designed, especially if the processes being controlled do not affect the interests of the people directly, as they would for example in the case of the construction of a new school or a health centre. So, dear comrades from Latin America, we are eager to hear about your experiences, eager to hear exactly how you have been successful in practice, and where the problems are.

This question has to do with another problem that is of great importance for all left governments at whatever level: the relationship to the societal organizations and movements.

 

The societal organizations and movements are very often a major driving force for the advance of progressive, democratic and left-wing ideas. Through their work, they help prepare the ground for left-wing government projects. However, after the accession to government of forces of the left, there have more than once been tensions and contradictions with social organizations and movements. Much has already been said about the reasons: sometimes, group interests and national interests are seemingly irreconcilably at odds, and there is also the limited scope of action of many left-wing governments, not only in financial terms.

 

Nonetheless, we must succeed in binding these forces to us over the long term, for they are our natural allies; ultimately, they often represent those parts of society for which we want to make policy. I think we are all interested in practical experience in this area.

 

And I would like to mention one last topic area about which we should share our thoughts here. That is the question of the development of approaches for a completely new model of the life and of the economy of humankind, which especially the indigenous groups, nations and peoples brought up repeatedly in conversation. Especially at the Alternative World Climate Summit in Cocha-bamba, many ideas, suggestions, and demands were raised, which go far beyond the problem of climate change and the solutions to it. We on the left would be well advised to take these projects very seriously, and to see them as an inspiration and as tools for the construction of “a different society”. Much of that can and will be incorporated into our own concepts. This too is something we should discuss.

Contribution by Daniela Trochowski ►