Taking Note
MF
Springtime IF MARX WERE ALIVE TO CONTEMPLATE Haiti and Paraguay today, he might well declare a new law of history. Something like, "The potential for revolutionary change is directly...
...In both countries social movements-labor, women, squatters, peasants-have been at the forefront...
...Each of them was once the glory of progressive politics in the Hemisphere-Haiti during its revolution at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and Paraguay in the days of the Guaranf-Jesuit republic of the early seventeenth...
...Who could have imagined a few years ago that these two small, isolated, and ignored nations would be transformed from objects of pity into beacons of hope...
...Friends of Haiti are quick to list the ways in which its liberation will not offend the United States: no U.S industry to nationalize, no strategic resources to withhold (in fact, no industry or natural resources to speak of), no links to extra-hemispheric powers (what power could there be...
...OINING THE MAINSTREAM OF "DEMOcratic" politics is not what makes Haiti and Paraguay inspiring: rather how it happened, and where it may lead...
...Finally, the Shakespearean characters CalibAn and Ariel, referred to by Miguel Rojas Mix, are from "The Tempest," not "A Midsummer Night's Dream...
...More than any other movement, the progressive grassroots church has been the motor of change in both countries...
...We all know how quickly that eroded...
...His platform: justice, openness, and participation are the route to dignity...
...But both peoples seem determined to persevere against all odds...
...the press functions openly and critically...
...Laws are being challenged...
...During the campaign, he never flaunted his doctorate or his mastery of five languages...
...XXIV, No...
...Ninety percent of those eligible voted...
...And we should defend the advances Haitians and Paraguayans have achieved at such great sacrifice...
...P ARAGUAY, TOO, IS A PRESSURE COOKER that burst...
...After living for a century and a half under iron-handed dictators, everyone is suddenly organizing, demanding, insisting...
...but the people have begun to travel down that path...
...Now all eyes are on them...
...Yet he has gone after other corrupt former officials, and allowed the old system of domination to collapse...
...Though named for Chile's conquistador, it flourished in what is now Ecuador...
...In Haiti it took five years of massive public protest after the dictator was forced to flee-a determination that refused to budge...
...Both countries' processes are unfolding under the watchful eyes of the military and the United States, neither of which can be very pleased...
...Due to an editing error, Luis Guillermo Lumbreras' article identified the pre-Columbian Valdivia culture as located in present-day Chile...
...Any one of these attributes could have earned him a life in solitary confinement a little over a year ago...
...Aristide was swept into office by an avalanche of poor people-lavalas in Creole-who learned to live in the shadow of death, and refused to give up hope...
...Andr6s Rodriguez, Stroessner's number two man who overthrew the dictatorship in February of last year, has a long record of illicit activities...
...The same could be said of Paraguay...
...It was done by Liz Heron for New Statesman...
...According to some polls, the front runner for mayor of Asunci6n by a wide margin is Carlos Filizzola, an independent socialist union organizer...
...political parties are rushing to catch up, and it may be irrelevant whether they ever do...
...The first municipal elections in the nation's history will be held May 26...
...These days, when so many have stopped dreaming of the future, when economic crisis and resurgent Empire seem to have dashed all hope, we should all take heart in "Marx's" new law...
...Aristide has successfully retired a number of high officers...
...Both nations have long since been forgotten by the rest of Latin America, scorned for being Black and Indian, the poorest and the near poorest, and left to suffer under two of the longest line-ups of dictators any nation has known...
...As the appeal of Marxism wanes, the ethics of community life, drawing on socialist traditions so deeply rooted they transcend Christianity, continue to offer keys to liberation...
...There is so much to do, and none of us knows how much time we will have to do it...
...The electoral calendar is crammed: one campaign after another through the end of the year...
...Internal party elections will follow, then elections for a constituent assembly in November, and, once a new constitution is written, a plebiscite to approve it...
...a UR PRIMARY OBJECTIVE IS TO MOVE from misery to dignified poverty," declared Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the humble parish priest who assumed Haiti's presidency in February...
...Something like, "The potential for revolutionary change is directly proportional to the objective hopelessness of the circumstances...
...A liberation theologian expelled from the Salesian Order for his radical views, Aristide has spent many of his 37 years living and working in the slums of Port-au-Prince...
...The obstacles are enormous, the process barely begun...
...He has survived six assassination attempts, the most recent in December, and refuses to accept any salary for serving as the nation's president...
...CORRECTIONS In our last issue (Vol...
...However, the Bush Administration's "wait-and-see" attitude is frighteningly reminiscent of Carter's Nicaragua stance in 1979...
...In Paraguay it will likely take another five years of intense activity before one could imagine an Aristide in power...
...Aristide won 67% of the vote...
...We are all thrilled, frustrated and exhausted," women's organizer Line Bareiro told me in April...
...5), the translator of Eduardo Galeano's article was inadvertently omitted...
Vol. 24 • May 1991 • No. 6
