When Our Last Hope Disappears
By: Erreh Svaia
Goat Dispersion
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
Desmond Tutu
When all hopes on politics are lost anything can happen, we all hate political parties, even the recent events on France's political system are proof of it, but without political parties it will be hard to carry on with democracy, but in order to build trust, political parties must increase democratic and transparency controls inside and in the government, as long as political parties keep conducting themselves by their own inner logic and denying citizens their rights to be better represented, we can expect more candidates like Trump or Macron to emerge globally, now we know what Trump is all about, it is also happening in Philippines with Rodrigo Duterte and in Turkey with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who have used fear as their best ally and have become authoritarian leaders on the basis of reducing civil freedoms in exchange of supposed protection from terrorist or drug traffic violence.
The Macron bet is even complex, we still don't know what will happen in France, Macron's credentials and background could lend to some high hopes that great things could happen in France, but Alexis Tsipras exuberant youth was also a cause of hope in Greece, but things didn't end up as many expected, in fact Tsipras and Syriza didn't make the change they promised as the Greek economic tragedy keeps being a menace on the European Union, Macron was sold to us as the next civilian democratic and peaceful revolution against traditional political systems but its failure could send us on a desperate spiral of drastic outcomes, what if Macron's outsider proposal ends up like Tsipras' and nothing really changes, but becomes only a continuation of Hollande's decadent and directionless administration, what if Macron ends up destroying the hopes behind the outsider myth, if you tried the traditional right, the traditional left and even the political outsider and nothing worked, what else can we do? After the opposition myth dies, what else is there left for bus?
We saw exhaustion on USA and France traditional politics, people willing to jump from the cliff into the unknown rather than continue with the same old situation and that made fertile ground for populism willing to seize the opportunity, if we have learned something from history we must remember what happened in Russia when economic volatility put full power on Vladimir Putin's hands and he hasn't let it go, it's been 17 years since Putin ascension to power and he looks unwilling to let it go while he is alive, we have seen people giving their vote for an outsider in Venezuela and how an oil rich country and once a consolidated democracy turned into a devastated military dictatorship with a life level equally to an impoverished African country, so if we have tried the traditional politicians and the outsider what's left for all of us? Giving up democracy forever? Yes, people like Emmanuel Macron in France, Alexander Van der Bellen in Austria or a reinvigorated Angela Merkel in Germany are giving democracy high hopes again, but in places like Mexico as the opposition coming from a retrograde left is close to take advantage from a partial crisis concerning more about security than about economy, the myth could be destroyed leaving the door open to true outsider and unknown fringe figures like Layin, candidate who unashamedly claims to steal "just a little", "El Cuahu" an illiterate former football soccer star who seems to be manipulated by his former sport manager, or "El Pato" Zambrano, a socialite disguised as a "socialist candidate" if traditional politicians are a complete failure we are bound into truly uncharted territory and the outcome could turn out into a tragedy, we should be aware of where anger can take us, and better think twice before letting desperation take over our decisions.
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