A new theory for today

By Blanche Petrich

From the Mexican daily La Jornada

The philosopher Enrique Dussel, a professor at Mexico’s Autonomous National University and a researcher at the Autonomous Metropolitan University, believes that for the period of maturation in which Latin American processes find themselves, with a majority of the elected governments being center-left, the construction of a theory for today’s reality is essential.

A liberation theory, innovative, critical, creative, that elaborates not on the destruction of the State, as the classical Marxists thought, but that contains participatory democracy for the political powers that rule today.

Dussel argues – contrary to other influential thinkers, such as the Irishman John Holloway of the Autonomous University of Puebla (“Change the world without taking power”) or the Italian Antonio Negri, a proponent of the theory of resistance – that the issue in fact is not to criticize the state, but to build a state that is useful to the people.

Dussel defines himself as a philosopher of liberation, “which is an American philosophical tradition, not a school of another tradition,” a body of ideas and works that a group of philosophers have been thinking about since the 1970s – although there are intellectuals who find this pretentious. With the passing of decades, we will see if we were right or not.

Dussel (born in Mendoza, Argentina, in 1934) recently received in Caracas the Liberator’s Prize for Critical Thinking, awarded by the government of Venezuela to the works of theoretical creation for the current Latin American reality. It is the most important award in Latin America, both because of the works and the thinkers it recognizes and because of its monetary value. One of Dussel’s works, “Politics of Liberation,” in two volumes, already received an award. A third volume is on its way.

Obeisant power

As soon as the interview begins, the teacher addresses, enthusiastically, the issue that has rightfully occupied in recent weeks the front pages of newspapers: the WikiLeaks disclosures.

“It’s a worldwide historical phenomenon,” Dussel says. “The transnationals that control the movement of money – Visa and Mastercard – closed WikiLeaks’ accounts in retaliation. And the next day more than 40 thousand citizens of good will blocked them. In less than 24 hours they staged an action that can paralyze them completely!

“This is an expression of political participation in the means of the technological revolution. These are very new things that have still not been processed in political philosophy. I see this as an example of what Evo Morales called obeisant democracy.”

It is, he insists, quite a leap. The electronic media revolution is the equivalent of the time when the steam engine appeared and set off the industrial revolution. This is a political revolution because this medium will change the process of political decision-making. Now people can get in touch and participate in decision-making in an incredible and instant fashion. That never happened before.

In the first volume of his “Politics of Liberation: World History and Criticism,” Dussel takes off from the origin of philosophy that is neither Eurocentric nor Hellenocentric, but was born in Mesopotamia, India, China, Egypt and concludes with some reflections on “the sense that Evo Morales has given to power, an obeisant power.”

–Why obeisant?

–“Looking at what is meant by the governments of Evo Morales, Hugo Chávez, Rafael Correa and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, it is absurd to suggest to them the dissolution of the state. We must have a completely different view of politics, even revolutionary politics.”

Time to govern from the left

–Whereto should criticism be directed, then?

– “Traditionally, the left criticized political power as domination. I say, political power is not a power of domination. It resides in the people, it is the consensus of the people. The institutions are not the place to exercise power; power has been delegated to them. When institutions believe they are the seat of power, they become fetishist.

“When a president says, ‘I have the monopoly of power,’ as Felipe Calderón did, he is wrong, he is obviously not a learned man. The state can use legitimate violence, but only the people have the monopoly of power. Every state institution has power delegated upon it, and that is what Evo Morales, following in the steps of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, called obeisant power.”

–This reference runs into some contradictions. It recalls the gap in Ecuador today between President Rafael Correa and the indigenous movement. Or the case of the Zapatista movement, which, when the first indigenous president took office in Bolivia, the natives did not see themselves reflected in the government.

–“What I have differentiated is the power, which resides in the people and the institutions. That is why the Movement of the Landless in Brazil, which is critical, says: Look, Lula was not ideal, but we supported him. And when he betrays us we’ll criticize him, but he is the lesser evil.

“Others say he is evil, and they stand four-square in opposition. But there is some opposition from the extreme left played, which touches the extreme right.

“What I am saying is that, at this point in Latin America, the left has a responsibility to exercise power on behalf of the people. The institutions may try to serve the people or can be repressive. Is not an a priori fact that the institutions always represent domination.

“Representative democracy and obeisant power must be controlled. The representation is necessary, because not everything can be done via direct democracy. We 112 million Mexicans cannot be in a permanent assembly. We must have representatives. But representation eventually corrupts, if it is not monitored.

“Now, thanks to the electronic media, we have for the first time in human history a networking system that allows the organization of that monitored participation. There are social movements, like Zapatism, that have great sensitivity when it comes to participation.

“Because that’s where the people’s voice is expressed. But we have to rethink the representation in a creative moment. Do not confuse the times. There is a time to criticize and a time to govern. And in Latin America we are in the time to govern.”

New theories are needed for the 21st Century

–The problem is when corruption comes too soon.

–”But that’s the human condition. That will never disappear. Whoever wields the power has many temptations to take advantage. That is why we must set up agencies of participation to act as monitors.”

–What theories give shape to what Chávez calls 21st-Century socialism?

–”This is a crucial point for the construction of theory in all of Latin America. There are categories that are no longer enough for our complex reality. We must renew everything. We need a new theory that is not a mere imitation of what was said a century and a half ago”.

Dussel cites some important sources for the construction of contemporary Latin American thought: Theotonio dos Santos, Immanuel Wallerstein, Franz Hinkelammert, Boaventura de Souza, Hugo Zemelman, the Hungarian István Mészáros. He adds Aymará thinking and Zapatism, which are not part of the classical theories.

“We have much to learn from these people, whom the left did not take into consideration. In 1994, Zapatism was a shock to many intellectuals. The point is to have a vision of the people that is not populist, that involves articulating class and indigenous ethnicities within the population.

“And that is a theoretical explosion, for what to do with the imagination of the people, full of religious mythical stories? The left has been traditionally atheistic and saw that imagination as retrograde.

“Or we can say, within the imaginary, as Ernst Bloch noted, that in the beginning hope takes the myths, which it calls the waking dream of mankind, and says, ‘some who are of domination and others of liberation.’”

Blanche Petrich is a journalist interested in Latin American affairs, human rights, and social movements.