Center for Information, Documentation and Research Support (CIDAI)
E-mail: cidai@cidai.uca.edu.sv

Central American University (UCA)
Apdo. Postal 01-168, Boulevard Los Próceres
San Salvador, El Salvador, Centro América
Tel: +(503) 210-6600 ext. 407
Fax: +(503) 210-6655
 

     Proceso is published weekly in Spanish by the Center for Information, Documentation and Research Support (CIDAI) of the Central American University (UCA) of El Salvador. Portions are sent in English to the *reg.elsalvador* conference of PeaceNet in the USA and may be forwarded or copied to other networks and electronic mailing lists. Please make sure to mention Proceso when quoting from this publication.

     Subscriptions to Proceso in Spanish can be obtained by sending a check for US$50.00 (Americas) or $75.00 (Europe) made out to 'Universidad Centroamericana' and sent to the above address. Or read it partially on the UCA’s Web Page: http://www.uca.edu.sv
     For the ones who are interested in sending donations, these would be welcome at Proceso. Apdo. Postal 01-168, San Salvador, El Salvador.

INDEX

EDITORIAL

    After the events that took place on last May 1st , when alleged left-wing demonstrators attacked certain reporters who covered the activities of the International Labor Day, a debate about freedom of speech –encouraged by the most powerful media enterprises- emerged and it is not clear yet how far it will go. The thesis that these media enterprises want to impose before the eyes of the civilian conscience is that freedom of speech is being threatened by a political sector, whose actions and ideology are aimed to undermine that freedom. This sector is no other than –according to those media enterprises- the FMLN, a party that has turned into enemy number one for the freedom of speech issue in this country.

The claimed “evidences” are, among others, the aggressive attitude that some leaders such as Schafik Handal show to certain communication media and, more specifically, the mistreatment suffered by several reporters during the Labor Day celebrations. Situations such as these ones have been interpreted by the right-wing press as systematic attacks against the freedom of speech. The leaders of the right-wing press immediately intervened in such a critical matter, and energetically pronounced themselves against those who have dared to attack a fundamental and democratic right. The editorialists and journalists undertook the task of showing to the Salvadorans what the FMLN means: a threat against the freedom of speech, as well as against other democratic rights.

From the perspective of the right-wing media, the situation is so clear that it is not necessary to stop and consider other subjects. For their mentors and leaders, this kind of press is not only the symbol of democracy. Any disagreement with their ideology and their policies is an attack, not for the interests that it represents, but for democracy itself. Following this logic, their pages reflect the most fierce attacks against those who –because they disagree with their mottos- have been typified as the enemies of democracy. It is all about a sophistry, but an effective one, as the situation that the FMLN has been dragged into shows, since it is not willing to play the right-wing’s games.

Considering the economic and the political power that the media owned by the right-wing has, as well as the FMLN’s economic and political situation, it is difficult to accept that this party can be an actual threat. At least at the moment, it is not much what that party can do to systematically alter the media’s power. Perhaps the issue here is the fear to what might happen in the future, before the possibility of an FMLN with a considerable dose of political power in its hands. However, that is another problem, that has very little to do with the amount of power that the FMLN has in the present.

At the moment, it is the FMLN the one that looks defenseless before a systematically organized media attack, for which Handal’s temper tantrums or the push against the reporters and the camera men are nothing but an excuse to justify the attacks against the party and its leaders. The owners of the media and their employees know that they do not have much to lose in this dispute between them and the FMLN. This is not because the media might be right, but because they are more powerful than the FMLN. The media has economic and political power –because of the relations established among their owners, the ARENA elite and the high rank governmental officials-, and they also have the power to guide the public opinion according to their own interests.

In El Salvador, the right-wing media cannot be considered as an instant symbol of both democracy and freedom of speech, even if they insist on proclaim themselves as such. In this case, the concept of democracy is being used as a flag to justify systematic attacks against a party that, by definition, is considered as a mortal enemy. Where are the pronunciations of these freedom of speech defenders before the persecution and the murders of journalists committed by the armed forces and the security groups during the eighties? Where are the firm pronunciations against the PNC’s for mistreating the news media after the signing of the Peace Agreements? Is an apology good enough? Why is it necessary in this case and not in others?

The list of questions can be endless, but the same conclusion will always be reached: the defense of the freedom of speech issue is something that has nothing to do with the Salvadoran right-wing journalism. This particular practice of journalism wrongly believes that freedom of speech consists in saying whatever their spokespeople feel like, denigrating whoever they please, disrespecting the dignity of the people and the institutions, and that everyone accepts –specially the affected ones- their attacks without any reactions.

They do not care to consider that freedom of speech is not even close to their interpretation. Freedom of speech is not only about what the media can or cannot say, but about the spaces that -inside and outside the media- are opened to the citizenry to be able to give their opinion about the different public affairs without feeling restricted. And, as paradoxically as it might seem, the media can turn into an obstacle for the freedom of speech. This happens when media monopolies are created, which not only impose to the public a determined ideological point of view, but when those monopolies close the spaces where different perspectives can be presented and discussed.

In El Salvador, the right-wing media have not only formed an alliance of a virtual monopoly, but they also characterize themselves because they systematically exclude the information and the opinions that are contrary to theirs. This procedure could be justified with the “freedom of the market” speech, but never with the right to speak freely.

    Anyone who is conscious of the dangers that Fascism brings is already relieved, because the French voters contributed to defeat the candidate proposed by The National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen. His surprising rise, and the way in which his electoral defeat became a fact a few days ago have caused many reflections. Based on two aspects, this article will present an examination of the events: the limits of the representative democracy, and the need for Europe to start redefining its identity.

What the representative democracy offers
The most generalized analysis about the support that the former legionnaire Le Pen got from the working class, the young, and the unemployed voters is that there is a great disappointment about how the traditional political parties -the left as well as the right-wing politicians- have administrated the political affairs. Consequentially, these parties are invited to recuperate -or, better said, to establish- a connection with the needs of the voters. In a way, this is true. Contemporary history shows it: Hitler became powerful with the "help" of the economic crisis, and because of the people's disenchantment with the political parties.

The indifference of the politicians, more than the final cause, is probably the symptom of another problem. Representative democracy contemplates electoral mechanisms in order to gain power. It assumes that the population is represented by the political parties. Consequentially, the political parties act in the name of an alleged "popular will". And here is where the problem is located. Excited by the "will" they represent, the political parties take decisions without consulting the population they allegedly represent. They only consult the higher levels of the party or the power groups that support them. That is why it is not so strange if a party that arrives to the power starts making decisions that have nothing to do with the people's aspirations.

Since this conception of democracy -which ignores the people's decisions - immediately shows its limitations, new movements emerge and embed themselves into the electoral game with their anti-system flags. These "opposition" movements capitalize the voters' discontent. Therefore, atypical candidates appear to compete for the elections, just like it happened, for example, with the Peruvian businessman Alberto Fujimori. These candidates, encouraged by their challenging discourse, easily gain power. They do not have the electoral strategy of a political party, their campaign is personal. The message that they send to the voters is that they will not be voting by party -who would want to vote for one of them, if they are corrupt and inefficient?-, but for an individual who incarnates the need for change. The strategy is based on the personal charm of the candidate. Le Pen's intolerant discourse, his promise to reinforce the anti-immigrant measures, were the foundations of his strategy to seduce the voters.

This is a historical stage in which disinformation runs like gun powder. The media's dictatorship generates an instant consensus of the ideas that are more convenient for the power circles. The analysis does not light the fire as much as the extreme right-wing movements' discourses do. Accustomed to delegate the political decisions to others, the voters of the occidental democracies have lost the faculty to decide and to act by themselves. Given the exhaustion of the representative democracies, trapped by the tedium and the apathy of the voters, the great offers tend to be reduce to only two options: either authoritarian governments are chosen, or they vote for the "democratic" parties, who are corrupt and compromised with the interests of the world's power centers.

Elections are not negative by itself. It is ridiculous to think that millions of Salvadorans will be able to gather together at the Legislative Palace to make decisions about the social and the economic policies. The problem is that the people, except for the election day, have no influence over the public affairs. The parties and the politicians think, decide, and act -even those who intend to take advantage of the confusion and introduce themselves as "independent"-.

The challenge for the representative democracies is to guarantee the necessary conditions, so that people can make decisions about the national, sectional, and local affairs. This is how the discourse about the civilian participation emerges. Most of the times, this discourse remains on a procedure level (consultations), without actually attacking the root of the problem: the citizenry's apathy to get involved with their society. This rejection is not only a problem of unawareness about their rights and duties. The problem is not only the lack of information about the civilian rights. Otherwise the efforts of the Non Governmental Organizations to promote the "civilian education" would be enough to neutralize the problem. It is necessary that the citizenry feels that it actually has power. The power to make decisions about the issues that affect it, whether they are at a national, community, or personal level. That is the key factor of the problem.

Europe should take a look at the mirror
Politicians such as Le Pen, Haider, Berlusconi, and others have climbed using a xenophobic discourse. Their thesis is that immigrants take away from the citizens their inalienable rights and their social benefits, that a foreign laborer comes to steal the bread of a French woman, that an unemployed Dominican takes away the social benefits from a Spanish citizen, and so on, and so on. Showing off a shameful hypocrisy, the European right-wing (and also The United States’ right-wing), ignore the fact that the emigrants are the ones that do, forced by the circumstances, the dirty work that the nationals reject. The greatness of the first world is based over the work of the foreign hands, but also on the injection of vitality that these people bring into the culture.

The xenophobic parties and movements feed themselves with two elements: nostalgia and fear. Nostalgia, because they use their sentiment of loss of the colonial time's splendor. Fear, because the slave and the barbarian have trespassed the colonial enclave, and now they stroll along the streets of the first world.

Even if the immigrants that come from the Third World -Africa, Asia, Latin America, Albania, the former Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey- are still marginal groups, an interesting phenomenon is emerging. The immigrants' descendants, born in the first world, are already citizens. They have inherited the marginalization of their ancestors, but they are citizens. This is what afflicts the xenophobic. Suddenly, they realize that there are French people who descend from Arabs, or black Germans, or American citizens with Latin American parents. In The United States the descendants of the Latin Americans are a "minority" that is not so small anymore, and that little by little it integrates into the public sphere. The same will happen in Europe.

This is how the European identity will have to be modified. The xenophobic do not want to realize that Europe has become what it is now thanks to the immigration and to the descendants of mixed cultures. The closing of the frontiers only hides the fear for an unavoidable reality. Many of the modern Europeans now have Arabian last names, or even relatives in Mali, or in the Dominican Republic. The respect for their dignity would be to accept that the European culture has a new opportunity to keep growing.

    One of the most evident characteristics of the present national situation is the relative loss of credibility of the economic model, which began with ARENA’s first government, almost thirteen years ago. The first programmatic lines were clear (the macro-economic stabilization, and the reorientation of the economy), and they had considerable effects over the Salvadoran reality, as well as over the administration of the two former governments. Independently from its consequences, the economic measures were eventually implemented and caused a social impact that has almost never been evaluated nor mitigated.

The privatization, the exemption of the tariffs, the tax reform, and more recently the negotiation of free trade agreements, are some examples of certain economic measures that have sensibly transformed the margin of performance of the authorities involved with the economy, and the climate of the business deals at the companies as well as the employment, sometimes for better and sometimes for worst. A measure apparently designed to regulate the economic performance can end up eliminating the necessary regulations, opening spaces for the “free game” of the market forces, and affecting the society’s welfare.

The operation of the market criteria is not questionable; however, it might be questionable when its promotion negatively affects the sustainability of the development process, starting with the growth of the industrial and the agricultural production. During the past seven years, ARENA’s economic model has shown different signs of exhaustion. This model worked relatively well during the early nineties (when it generated high growth rates), but now it requires an examination, even if it is not analyzed from a conservative perspective. The slowdown in the GNP’s growth rates, the incapability to generate the necessary resources to finance the public expense and exorcise the growing fiscal deficit, the growth of the public debt, the price crisis of the traditional exportation products, and the low growth level of both the family remittances and the maquila are the elements that should be necessarily evaluated in its true dimension, and not only blame the circumstances because there might be certain “factors” that will soon disappear, as the government tends to explain the situation.

During the last five years, the production has been reduced to lower levels, causing an intense slowdown in the economic growth. The most recent expression of this fact has been the accomplishment of an 1.8% rate for 2001,an amount that contrasts with the ones observed during the early nineties, when the growth rate oscillated between 6% and 7% (See Proceso 997).

Another sign of the inefficiency of ARENA’s economic reforms is the tax reform. The most recent facts and pieces of information show that problem, even when the effects that the earthquakes caused are separated from the public finances, which have caused new indebtedness. Most of the nineties were characterized by a potential fiscal deficit, but ever since 1999 and 2000, this process began to increase itself in an evident way, going from 3% to 3.6% of the GNP.

According to the governmental officials, the levels of this deficit are not critical yet. However, it should not be forgotten that ten years ago, a drastic tax reform took effect, which was intended to neutralize the tendencies that led to fiscal deficit. Such factor was described as the major source of other economic problems, such as inflation, the scarce investments, and the economic setback. Fundamentally, the reform meant that the taxation should be placed on the Value Added Tax (IVA, in Spanish) - a theoretically "neutral" tax on the consumption- and a reduction (or elimination) of the taxes on the importations, the income, and the patrimony. Ten years later, the results are evident: the state cannot cover its own expenses, and depends on more and more loans to cover its deficit. As if it was not enough with that situation, the low tariffs have encouraged the importation of goods and services that could have been produced locally. Obviously, this also encourages a slow growth tendency.

There are other elements that, although do not directly depend on the governmental policies, clearly show the vulnerability of the economic model: the drop in the international prices of coffee and sugar, the slowdown in the growth the family remittances and the maquila (See Proceso 981). The dependency on these products and flows involves a low growth rate for the economy, and a low level of employment.

In a scenery such as this one, the government places its highest hopes on the promotion of the free trade agreements, and underestimates the fact that the countries with a higher level of relative development demand a reduction of the state's intervention, and to open the markets unrestrictedly, when it ends up doing exactly the opposite. The first results are already at sight as far as the free trade agreement with Mexico is concerned. The exportations to that country increased, and they were almost duplicated; however, at the same time, the importation rates rose quickly to a very high level, neutralizing by far the initial positive effect. In only a year, the exportations grew in $12 million, while the importations grew in $56 million, and with that, the commercial deficit with Mexico grew in $44 million, equivalent to a 19% increase. Therefore, although it cannot be denied that the process has had its winners, it cannot be denied either that there have been losers. The Association of the Medium and Small Business Owners of El Salvador (AMPES, in Spanish) points out, for example, that the "incentives" created by the free trade agreement with Mexico have encouraged 28% of its associates to transform small industries into small business companies. The tendency is not flattering.

This is precisely one of the most significant dilemmas of the economic policy: Is it necessary to continue promoting (either deliberately or by inertia) an economy with three sectors, or should new alternatives be considered to diversify the agricultural production and the industry? The ARENA governments' discourse has been ambiguous in this line, since although it has been explicit in its intention to promote the production, many of its measures have had a negative impact. Not too long ago, the government reiterated its engagement to promote the agricultural production. A little while later, the government stated that the free trade agreement with The United States would be signed. However, The United States strongly subsidies its agricultural sector, and generates products with artificially low prices. It is almost impossible to compete with those prices. In fact, during the beginning of May, The United States' Congress and the government approved and supported a new program that increases the subsidies for the agriculture in a 65%, which can be a worrisome factor for the sectors that are dedicated to the farming activities.

The perspective is clear, as long as the free trade project grows stronger and the present policies continue in effect, the tendency to an economy of three sectors will keep steady and eventually increase. This is even more evident, for example, with the disappearance of the small business companies dedicated to produce different kinds or items, because of the arrival of the imported Chinese products with low taxes; or the displacement of the dairy products' stores, due to the massive importation of those products from the other countries of the region. More recently, a number small production companies have been transformed into importation offices that sell Mexican products. 

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