Where People Voted Against Fear
Galeano, Eduardo
The Upside-Down World Eduardo Galeano Where People Voted Against Fear A few days before the election of the President of the Planet in North America, in South America elections and a plebiscite...
...The winners have a tremendous burden of responsibility...
...Not even the most tireless electoral workers did as much for this victory as the tribunes of the homeland who alerted the population to the imminent danger if democracy were to fall to the tyrannical enemies of freedom and the terrorists, kidnappers, and assassins who oppose democracy...
...In their vote, the people asserted that water, a scarce and finite natural resource, must be a right of all people and not a privilege for those who can pay for it...
...Wouldn't it be democratic to do the same in every country...
...The World Bank, or the citizens of each country...
...Their attacks were extremely efficient: The more they denounced the devils, the more people voted for hell...
...In all these years of disaster after disaster, we lost a multitude...
...Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan journalist, is the author of "The Open Veins of Latin America," "Memory of Fire," and "Soccer in Sun and Shadow...
...The people also showed they know that sooner rather than later, in a thirsty world, the reserves of fresh water will be as, or more, coveted than oil reserves...
...In the final act of his campaign, the vice presidential candidate for the Colorado Party announced that if the left won the elections, all Uruguayans would have to dress identically, like the Chinese under Mao...
...The movement headed by President-elect Tabar...
...In 1992, Uruguay was the only country in the world to put the privatization of public companies to a popular vote: 72 percent opposed...
...The Uruguay of other days was the exception...
...Now we are trying to revive this creative energy and would do well to recall that the Uruguay of that sunny period was the child of audacity, and not fear...
...In a democracy, a true democracy, who should decide...
...And in the plebiscite, for the first time in world history, the privatization of water was rejected by popular vote, asserting that water is the right of all people...
...The owners of the country suspect the worst, and with good reason...
...It seems inexplicable, but there is an explanation: Who would these emigrants vote for...
...Uruguayans were bombarded with extortion, threats, and lies: A vote against privatizing water will condemn you to a future of sewage-filled wells and putrid ponds...
...Do democratic rights exist for real, or are they just the icing on a poisoned cake...
...Never had the abyss between the real country and electioneering rhetoric been so evident...
...Implacable reality will promptly remind us of the inevitable distance between the desired and the possible...
...Out of opportunism, yes, but also because after so many years of ruling together, the two parties had fused into one, disguised as two...
...He was one of the many involuntary publicity agents of the victorious left...
...How long can we go on trading gold for glass beads...
...Afterward, when democracy was restored, the dominant politicians destroyed the little that remained of the system of production and converted Uruguay into a giant bank...
...There is hope.'' But crisis moved faster than hope, and the hemorrhaging of the country's youth accelerated...
...This rebirth of faith and revival of happiness must be watched over carefully...
...The people asked, why do they promise change yet ask us to choose between the same and the same...
...Brother, don't leave,'' the new movement implored...
...The dream of a Switzerland of the Americas ended, and the nightmare of violence and poverty began, culminating in a military dictatorship that converted Uruguay into a vast torture chamber...
...As in the elections, in the plebiscite common sense triumphed...
...The left is coming to power in a shattered country, which, in the distant past, was at the vanguard of universal progress but today is one of the furthest behind, in debt up to its ears and subjected to the international financial dictatorship, which doesn't vote but simply vetoes...
...For centuries, Latin Americans have been trained in impotence...
...Wouldn't it be worthwhile for other countries to put the issue of water to a popular vote...
...But what is usually difficult, even impossible, can be imagined and even achieved if we join together with neighboring countries, just as we have joined together with our neighbors...
...And today this melancholic and subdued people, who at first glance might be Argentineans on Valium, are dancing on air...
...The country is unrecognizable...
...In the real country, badly wounded, where the only growth is in the number of emigrants and beggars, the majority chose to cover their ears to block out the oratory of these Martians competing for the government of Jupiter with highfalutin words imported from the moon...
...The Upside-Down World Eduardo Galeano Where People Voted Against Fear A few days before the election of the President of the Planet in North America, in South America elections and a plebiscite were held in a little-known, almost secret country called Uruguay In these elections, for the first time in the country's history, the left won...
...It will not be easy...
...Countries that are poor, but rich in water, must learn to defend themselves...
...Why didn't they make any of these changes in the eternity they have been in power...
...This article is published with permission of IPS Columnist Service...
...In the Broad Front's very first demonstration, which flooded the streets with people, someone shouted, half-joyous, half-scared, ''Let's dare to win.'' Thirty or so years later, it came true...
...And as is often the case when it is assaulted by bankers, the bank went bust and Uruguay found itself emptied of people and filled with debt...
...And as if in a bad joke, not content to just force its youth from the country, this sclerotic system also prohibits them from voting-one of a small number of countries that does so...
...Tired of being cheated, this time the people made use of that little-used instrument, common sense...
...More than five centuries have passed since Columbus...
...Uruguayans, so unbelieving that even nihilism was beyond them, have started to believe, and with fervor...
...A pedagogy passed down from the colonial times, taught by violent soldiers, timorous teachers, and frail fatalists, has rooted in our souls the belief that reality is untouchable and that all we can do is swallow in silence the woes each day brings...
...V?zquez ended the monopoly of the two traditional parties-the Blanco and the Colorado parties-which governed Uruguay since the creation of the universe...
...We should recall every day how right Carlos Quijano was when he said that sins against hope are the only sins beyond forgiveness and redemption...
...Today, we have very little maneuvering room...
...Largely thanks to these heralds of the apocalypse, the left won by an absolute majority, without a runoff The people voted against fear...
...That Uruguay instituted free public education before England, women's suffrage before France, the eight-hour workday before the United States, and divorce before Spain-seventy years before Spain, to be exact...
...The plebiscite on water was also a victory against fear...
...About thirty or so years ago, the Broad Front (Frente Amplio) sprouted on these southern plains...
...And after each election you would hear this exclamation: ''I thought that we Blancos won but it turns out we Colorados did"-or the other way around...
Vol. 69 • January 2005 • No. 1
