Let's Twist Again

Let's Twist Again 

By: Erreh Svaia

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

Karl Marx

As long as people talk about you, you won't die, so I guess political scientist Francis Fukuyama will be around here for a long, long time, in 1992 Fukuyama gave us his renowned theory of The End of History, that signaled the end of communism and the triumph of capitalism, to be true, Fukuyama went a little too far with his theory, it didn't work as he expected and his theory is now a  very interesting footnote on what exactly happened, and why history didn't end the way he loudly announced, perhaps because the world is round and not flat, things didn't stop there, perhaps because what history tries to teach us, is that we never learn from history and we are condemned to repeat our mistakes, as Marx said, first as tragedy and second as farce, history mercilessly moved forward despite Yelstin's funny dance moves, and the USSR legacy of leftist politics also moved, but not in a funny way somewhere else to places like Cuba, we had the Castro-Lula-Chávez Chávez swinging Socialismo del Siglo XXI that took LATAM by storm, it was a less dogmatic (and way too populist inspired by Fascism and Peronism at some times) attempt at creating a new union of socialists republics, and to counter the supposed relentless attack of imperialism, for a while it looked like it was working, Venezuela became a world class player leading an anti USA block along with Iran, China and Russia, with strong man Hugo Chávez becoming the new poster man for socialism, spawning acolytes in southern Europe were people like Pablo Iglesias in Spain and Alexis Tsipras in Greece, and their new radical leftist parties, Podemos and Syriza, all this while Brazil rose as a new social champion in LATAM moving thousands of people out of poverty and becoming a regional power about to enter the first world, all this while Cuba discretely managed to save themselves from the collapse of their former benefactor and surviving and fittings into the post-cold war era, but things weren't as bright as they seemed to be, just as in a David Lynch movie, horrible things lurked under the surface, Venezuela was concentrating all its effort in the oil industry letting all other industries becoming obsolete, lots of money was arriving from oil sales but instead of being wisely invested it was used to create patronage networks within the poorest classes in exchange of votes, democracy was slowly being eroded, foreign industry was nationalized, free press attacked, while countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua fully concentrated on selling raw matters to the impressively fast growing Chinese economy, all this while Cuba benefited from Brazil's money and Venezuela's oil, the outcome was predictable, when China fast paced economy started slowing down, all this country suffered the inevitable consequences of putting all their eggs in a basket, and Socialismo del Siglo XXI started to sink, countries like Brazil and Argentina started to move towards the right wing in order to mend their damaged obsolete economies, as Ecuador's elections started to show these weekend, Rafael Correa socialist legacy was also on peril, leaving Evo “EGO” Morales and his recently open Museum of Evo, nearly all alone.

In a way southern Europe is a lot like South America, economically poorer in contrast to the rich northern part, so it was no surprise that it became fertile ground for a new brand of Socialismo del Siglo XXI, more populist and nationalist, sharing certain features with the far right movements of the National Front in France, Law and Justice in Poland, the Five Star Movement in Italy, Jobbik in Hungary and Golden Dawn in Greece, and precisely in Greece left wing radicals Syriza in coalition with Golden Dawn (a neo nazi party) managed to won the elections with Eurosceptic and anti-austerity rhetoric, leader Alexis Tsipras became south Europe's Hugo Chávez, in a powerful event that looked like the possible end of the European Union (Grexit), but Tsipras, as a typical populist failed to deliver all that he promised and the radical left either fail, disappointed like in Spain, or succumbed to more progressive, modern less dogmatic socialism like in Portugal, in Spain, the revitalized PSOE, Spain's major socialist party managed to stop the populist attack of Podemos, a supposed left wing party with ties to the LATAM Bolivarian Revolution, but the PSOE wasn't able to build a coalition so conservative Mariano Rajoy from the PP was able to stay as president.

It seems that as a consequence of the Spanish and Portuguese experience, and even the Austrian one, where a Green leftist leaning candidate was able to defeat twice Norbert Hofer from the far right Freedom Party, Germany and France are looking to revitalize their electoral process in the shadow of Brexit (With populist referendum that ended the administrations of David Cameron and in similar fashion with Matteo Renzi in Italy) , Trump, the rise of the Far Right and Putin's Russia shadow, in the Netherlands, up to these days an indicator of things to come, national populist Geert Wilders looks like the most well-known politician on the path to March elections, despite advantage on surveys, it looks hard for Wilders to form a coalition with other parties considering his attacks on Islam and on the European Union, he will probably not be able to build a major group that could defeat current prime minister Mark Rutte broad coalition.

So while LATAM is moving to the right wing at this point, leaving the populism of Socialismo del Siglo XXI behind, in Europe, the Far Right is mixing populism with nationalist instincts, with Germany and France strengthening its democracies with people like Fillon in the right wing and Benoit Hamon moving the Socialist Party more to the left looking for a wide coalition with radical leftist parties in order to counter Marine Le Pen dangerous nationalist delivery in France, while in Germany, where everyone counted with Chancellor Angela Merkel to win another time the elections, candidate Martin Schulz form the German Social Democratic Party has added some spice to what looked as a grey electoral process, giving Germans two powerful electoral options that might keep national populists AfD far from the heart of the European Union, looking just as Romania and Portugal Portugal as the democratic avant garde against national populism.

In another turn, the USA gave its back to the supposed progressive left wing politics of Obama and replaced it with the awful National populism of Trump, and if Obama's soft power and documentary maker Michael Moore socialism opened the door for the grime vision of Trumpism, it looks precisely like Trumpism will make the Democratic Party move farther to the left, picking right up where Bernie Sanders left and making it more feasible in order to confront Trump, continuing an endless cycle globally confirmed with Greece troubled economy making waves on the world economy once again, these times look a lot like when all started happening a couple of years ago, could we reverse this vicious circle or is a reality we are trapped and condemned to repeat forever, Francis, history refuses to end, just as Le Pen refuses to cover her hair in front of a Muslim leader, but she didn’t refuse to accept money from Kremlin related banks to fund her political campaign, in a France that looks more interesting than on Depardieu´s Marseille