Por: Angel Ontiveros
“The death of the Other affects me in my identity as a responsible self (…) constituted by an undescribed responsibility. This is how I am affected by the death of the Other; this is my relationship to his death. It is from that moment, in my relationship, in my deference to someone who no longer responds, a fault of the survivor” Emmanuel Levinas
Perhaps one of Leibniz’s most well-known and least understood statements is that we live in the best of possible worlds. Both owe much to the criticism, hilarious as few and superficial as any, to which Voltaire submitted in the Candide the Leibnizian explanation of the existence of evil. Is it the current Bolivia that we know only one of the countless other parallel Bolivia’s? The fact is that, according to the objectives of the 2030 Global Agenda of the UN, Bolivia lives one of its best worlds. It is one of the countries with the best economic development, production close to self-sustainability, free universal health, low rate of inequality, nascent industrial development, without illiteracy, less poverty than ever, less child mortality, less dropout, more access to water, electricity, home gas, and a reasonably functioning democracy. From a global perspective, all of the above are achievements that many do not have. The United Nations formulated what is known as the Global Agenda 2030 containing 17 goals for achieving sustainable development. They are objectives that aim to eliminate poverty and hunger, improve human rights for all, achieve equality and empower women, as well as ensure lasting protection for the planet and its natural resources.
Target 16 of this agenda indicates that UN members need to promote inclusive peaceful societies, as well as the construction of effective and inclusive institutions at all levels. Does such a beautiful formulation in this regard become a meaningless utopia or an effective instrument for change?… How do we consolidate the idea of equal rights for all and the right to basic security for all in convulsing social and political times like today? And is our empathy enough to interest us in those who lack rights? Research shows time and time again that we tend to think of categories of “us” and “them”, and that human beings have a selfish nature, around the world the nationalists raise their flags and their walls.
These days many who were anchored in front of their televisions watched the clash of the many Bolivias in the streets. Innocent people and humble and helpless women are assaulted by fascist slashes in cities filled with clashes, tear gas, bazookas, motorcyclists, and masked people. Usually, the face of indigenous or peasant Bolivia attacked by a social fascism. This multi-reality fits within the other Latin American multi reality that, is on the streets for different reasons. But here we will deal only with Objective 16 of the United Nations. For those of us who show these events in Bolivia, what do we think, what reflections can we make?…
What happens in the multi-world of the country is a very cruel thing to see, people feel provoked and divided for different reasons. The fact that the victims of violence have an indigenous or peasant face and that they are associated with negative things has created two social imaginaries: those who oppose the current political process (a mix of various groups), and those who support it (mostly indigenous and peasant). What are the reactions of these varied Bolivias to what they observe on their screens? Some will feel anger that the government does not accept their demand to step aside, others will feel compassion to see people like themselves attacked in the streets, the images change their perspective, now they are “they”, most of the country that feels attacked. Others will say that what happens is something realistic that was expected after a controversial election. The obligatory question is: from which group and how far will its empathy for one of the Bolivias at conflict extend? Hopefully, there are those who understand that the real reason should be to align with an existential and cosmopolitan perspective, to understand that all we are or can be victims of what may happen, that we cannot assume that democratic institutions and the rule of law will always work in Bolivia, that can change overnight. Our parents who have lived the Mamertazo of 1951 know it, at this time the new generations are living it with the new Mamertazo, a blow planned from the outside. A lot of blood has been flowing under the bridge of history from 1825 to the gates of 2020, the world macrocosm is reflected in the Bolivian microcosm, many wars, coups, dictatorships, fascism, people killed, persecuted, exiled, emigration, internal migration, exclusion, social upheaval, there is no other optimistic view of history. We all have or know someone who lives, has lived or was the victim of one of the aforementioned worlds. We know that the story is not a journey from one point (a) to another point (b) like a journey on rails, there are many dramas as achievements on the journey. And what does the global 2030 agenda adopted by most UN members have to do with all this?
The Global Agenda 2030 is one of the most ambitious agreements on sustainable development, social, economic, and environmental sustainability. 17 goals have been created to achieve the objective of this agenda, the goals are read as follows: 1.- End of poverty, 2.- Zero hunger, 3.- Health and well-being, 4.- Quality education, 5.- Gender equality, 6.- Clean water and sanitation, 7.- Affordable and non-polluting energy, 8.- Decent work and economic growth, 9.- Innovation industry and infrastructure, 10.- Reduction of inequalities, 11.- cities and sustainable communities, 12.- Responsible production and consumption, 13.- Climate action, 14.- Underwater life,15.- Life 16.- Peace, justice and strong institutions, 17.- Alliance to achieve the objectives. All governments around the world are committed to achieving three major goals by 2030; eliminate extreme poverty, reduce inequalities, injustices in the world, and provide a solution to the climate crisis. Reading these goals and comparing with economic and social indicators we will realize whether or not Bolivia lives one of its best worlds. First, one wonders, what does the point of formulating goals in this way? The important thing to know about the Global Agenda 2030 and its goals is that they are the result of a political decision and the result of political negotiations that, give it strength and weakness at the same time. Its strength is that all countries at the UN General Assembly have agreed and signed the Agenda, hence there is a global political momentum around the 2030 Agenda, which can serve as the basis for a claim of responsibility that civil society organizations can use against their governments since they are signatories to that agreement. its weakness, given that it was a political decision, is that his achievement will decanse political will. Using an analytical lens one can be more skeptical, and to think that this is very diffuse. For example, the word inclusion, a vague term, but with a very positive burden, make goals not feel so meaningful and useful, however, it should not underestimate how much such statements, in reality, can influence people’s motivation. Although the goals are not only aimed at governments, or mayors but are aimed at all. We know that such statements made by institutions or persons with authority and legitimacy have a normative effect and affect the propensity to be accepted.
From a legal perspective it is important to think that societies and countries have an interrelationship and interdependence, that breaks the vision of self-sufficiency, if they were founded on neoliberal premises based on individuality, a failure will translate into “your failure, is your failure”, and not so when you obey a societal or structural feat in a communitarian society where the difference between me and them disappears. The absence of an agreement or convention, the lack of a joint force of action for the construction of a society leads to a dangerous path. This can be seen, for example, in the dissolution or challenge of principles that for many years we considered so natural. For example, the right to protest, if this right is violated by each other, a tsunami occurs throughout society.
How to interpret then goal 16 on the creation of peaceful and inclusive societies: utopia or a right? If we take this statement out of the context of the Agenda, and its discussions at the UN, it will sound very trivial, because no one wants to have exclusive and violent societies. This, however, cannot clearly understand what is meant by inclusive societies, that is if this is restricted only to excluded citizens or groups, or does it contain a broader meaning that also encompasses animals and nature? And what is a peaceful society? Will it be a society without wars, or does it have a broader meaning? Perhaps peaceful societies should be included in democratic processes, perhaps there are not stable dictatorships with peaceful societies such as Saudi Arabia which lacks a democratic process? Aren’t the opposition marches also lacking in Venezuela, and now in Bolivia, a democratic framework? That is, exercising the right to protest without undermining the same right to others? Target 16 should therefore explicitly call for the creation of peaceful and inclusive societies within democratic political processes. And how to translate this into your implementation, how to make it happen? What can be done to achieve an inclusive and peaceful society? what is required of the citizen? The right is one thing, but to what extent is it about empathy and individual action?
The introduction says that human beings have a selfish nature, however, there are other studies that claim that the human being is social by nature, and that we, therefore, have the ability to feel empathy for others, and that we tend to think of a group perspective. The problem is not selfishness, but, our empathetic ability and our ability to think from a group perspective is very limited because that means having to relate to others different from ourselves, understand ourselves, even the most natural of this act, the ability to have visual contact, and be able to communicate. Now include all? If I am going to include all in my moral positions, that demands more than my natural capacity for empathy, because for psychological or biological natural reasons our empathetic capacity is not very broad. And here we have art in general (film, literature, fiction) an ability to expand empathy, art helps us to see things from a more diverse perspective of a group. When this is not enough, then we will have to create institutions that when we are not in crisis, assure us that we can respect the values of others. This would help prolong empathy by sharing responsibility, costs, and predictability in society.
We have unlimited responsibility for others, says E. Levinas, although we tend to fall very quickly into prospects of us and them to make the burden manageable. What responsibility of the individual, and how much can we rely on the current empathy to make things happen? The important thing is not to impair individual responsibility, empathy like other big words for example courage, are skills that are trained as a muscle that, requires practice and training. Maybe there’s no one with a natural empathy but, you learn to change perspectives, look with the other’s lens, or whatever. Remember the tsunami that affected Thailand; hotels, transportation, hospitals, mangled infrastructure, injuries, lost children. In the near-total absence of institutions, the poorest peasants living in the vicinity of the resorts were the first to spontaneously organize and go out to help, and to share their rice ration with the victims of the tsunami. That was a clear sign of how to exercise empathetic muscularity in a reality that lacked institutions to succor. These poor people taught us empathy in everyday life and in the facts, they showed us what kind of society you can make possible with your actions. Responsibility should not be limited only by what we feel empathy with, if we know, if we have the knowledge that other people even if they are only numbers in a statistic, they are human beings as we are, with the same basic needs, and that there is no relevant moral difference between the two, then one can have a responsibility for them, even though we are unable to feel empathy for them. It must be acknowledged that it would be irrational to treat them differently as we do for those who we feel empathy with. As individuals we have the ability to influence political institutions, reacting in a certain way as voters. . . what problems to prioritize when there are elections? Keep in mind that just as institutions can influence people’s attitudes, people also influence institutions and their actions.
What happens if we change the perspective? The planet coexists in parallel worlds, walls are erected between peoples, geopolitical wars, migrations caused by armed conflicts, economic conflicts, the rise of proto-fascist nationalism, intolerance, xenophobia, climate change, Brexit, extreme polarization in the political sphere, etc. It will be that some interpret all this as a sign that we have reached a tipping point, which we think like; Uyuyuy, haven’t we exaggerated with a lot of empathy? we can’t help all, now we have to get a little opposed, and then a problem arises with the goal of building inclusive societies, is it that people get tired of the message of inclusion? Is there a gap between the objectives of the agenda and reality, for all that we have just mentioned?… Even if the gap exists, all of this should only increase the value of the 2030 Agenda objectives, as they are also an instrument for demanding accountability. There are great forces outside the states, large civil society organizations as well in Bolivia, as in the Americas, but above all at the global level, which precisely uses the 2030 Agenda as an instrument of pressure against these trends. It is therefore not something that goes against the Agenda as such, but the fact that all the countries of the world have agreed on the Agenda, this can be used as a pressure tool against many of the above-mentioned phenomena. Seen with the lens of human rights, of the right, or simply with the eyes of many empathetic citizens, or social activists, it has been possible to experience the recent times in Bolivia that, many politicians make serious mistakes formulating internal and external enemies, making threats of either indigenous people, peasants, feminists, collas, or however they are formulated, these formulations that can be summed up as post-truths, have made possible aggressions, abuses, and a demonization large groups of society that might feel better in an inclusive society, rather than exclusive language or post-truths expressed by these politicians, or power groups. It is a dangerous mistake to say that, there is too much inclusion. Polarization through representations of enemies and dangers causes society to crack from within, so if we speak in terms of common goals, rather than terms of exclusivity so to speak, it is a more affective way of keeping society together. We live in a very unequal society in cities, but the disparity between the city and the poorest in the countryside is even greater. So how to ensure respect for the equal value of all and for their rights, at a time when society is being shattered? Some want the exit of the present Bolivian world, others the continuation and deepening of the process, others want to create walls among the people, others do not, some hate people for their offspring, etc.
We are facing the greatest battle in Bolivia, we can see in many cities of the country that demonization has driven too far, and it teaches destructive impacts, such as the attack with blunt weapons against helpless women, the humiliation of a mayor, beating people for their ethnic status, become the shameful and extreme examples of what we witness in Bolivia. We need to use existing political institutions such as arenas to resolve conflicts, make conflicts take place within these institutions, respecting the rule of law, to avoid confrontations between the parallel worlds that coexist in Bolivia. To require the State to expand the institutional capacity for all institutional levels of the State, this is a part of the 2030 Agenda, in order to be able to monitor and make it measurable. Civil society must be used in the 2030 Agenda in its relationship with the government, but also in relation to its own activity.
10-11-19
Angel Ontiveros
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