Terrorist? Conflicts of the New Left represented by Gabriel Borick in Chile

Santiago, Chile.- In the hurricane of pre-election rhetoric, Enemies Gabriel Borick Accused that “Controlled by the Communists.” The problem was not boric, but some said “those around him”. Those comments were intended to use the deep opposition against the Communist Party of Chile to the detriment of the electorate, and the war’s rivals have engaged in branding him as an extreme left-wing candidate in the war between the two extremists.

The funny thing about this dynamic is that it was tried Claim political motives for war And attitudes that are clearly not yours. As a representative New type left in Chile, Borik has long been critical of the center-left governments that have ruled the country for the past three decades, accusing them of being too neoliberal and intimidating. But, at the same time, he is willing to question what is sometimes presented as an implicit position of the moral superiority of his generation.

“My generation has the impression that history began in 2011 … to be careful to put broad front politics into politics, not morality,” he said in 2017.

Continually, Borik repeatedly confronted Communist Party (PC) positions, thus overthrowing regimes in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. And supported Cross party agreement It started the current constitutional process in Chile.

The account of the two ideological extremes, on the one hand, is based on the admiration that Borick represented the far left while Jose Antonio Cast stood on the far right. Of course, part of Borik’s rhetoric and behavior confirms that view. His beginnings were as a student leader in a group called the Autonomous Left, which developed an active approach and political system that placed him well on the left of Chile’s traditional socialist sectors. But still Borick left the group in 2016 and formed the Broad Front, which seeks a more pragmatic approach to forming alliances and gaining power.

However, in July last year, according to Borik, he was in charge of visiting a group of imprisoned protesters after the October 2019 protests. Similarly, he stressed that “we cannot accept murder or violence. Revenge or against those who think differently from us ”, in 2018 he visited during a visit to Paris, one of the assassins of former Senator Jaime Guzman, who was assassinated in 1991. These actions raise his fist and call his supporters “comrades”, revealing that Borick is trying to join a romantic and revolutionary left intellectual community.

Still, if you look at their election plan, there are some elements that can be classified as radical. Of course, any progressive agenda has all the results expected: recognition of minorities such as feminism, the green economy, the LGBT community or indigenous peoples. But there is also control, not nationalization; Financial responsibility, not in vain; And a commitment to respecting the independence of the central bank. Borick proposes to reduce the working week from 44 hours to 40 hours, similar to the hourly load in much of Western Europe.

The most lavish proposals – the expansion of the public health care and pension system, the restructuring of the national rail network – may not be possible in the short term, but they will not pass revolutionarily. They are trying to change the nature of Chile’s development model from a neoliberal system to a social democracy. Honestly, The “Boric revolutionary” did not identify himself as a social democrat.

These contradictions show how difficult it is to define the boundaries of the new left in terms of the traditional ideological spectrum. If the infiltration of feminism and environmentalism into every aspect of the political arena seems to intensify at another time, the new generation will face existential threats different from the existential threats of their parents, and those positions seem to be the fruit of public knowledge.

On the other hand, the debate is as old as socialism. From the internal divisions of Salvador Allende’s presidency to the eternal debates between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in pre – revolutionary Russia, Marx’s critique of the Gota program, which struck the 19th century German Social Democrats as the most feared. The left always raises the question of how far to go and how fast to go.

The struggles in Chile in 2019 are the result of the unfulfilled expectations of a growing middle class that has not been rewarded for its past sacrifices. Before the second round, both Cast and Borick tried to speak to a frustrated majority. Cast emphasized order and security; Borik, about social justice. In doing so, the candidates tried to repair the failed trust by giving it even more confidence, which is a dangerous proposition that could explain why. Borick now wants to emphasize gradualism. This new position does not only reveal the current political realities and echoes of past debates. It is also an indicator of the type of tensions the Boric government may face.

War Robert L. Funk

This paragraph was first published in the American Quarterly