[Marxism] Rafael Correa: Ecuador moves towards a “Citizen Revolution”

[Walter Lippmann]

(An exceptionally important discussion of 21st century socialism
and why the obsession with "nationalization", and of universally-
applicable "models" as the decisive indicator is wrong as the key 
to deciding what socialism really means in the present context. 
This interview, taken from Cuba's JUVENTUD REBELDE, is to appear 
in LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE. Includes ecological elements as well.)
=================================================================

JUVENTUD REBELDE
Ecuador moves towards a “Citizen Revolution”

President Rafael Correa says that Socialism of the 21st century of is
a model that could break with neo liberalism

By: Hernando Calvo Ospina*
Email: digital at jrebelde.cip.cu
October 31, 2007 00:44:19 GMT

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1620.html
A CubaNews translation by Ana Portela. 
Edited by Walter Lippmann. Original:
http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/internacionales/2007-10-31/ecuador-va-hacia-una-revolucion-ciudadana/

Those persons in charge of writing the new Constitution were elected
on September 30. The organization of President Rafael Correa Delgado,
Alianza País, won more than 70 percent of the votes. Such an
overwhelming triumph had never been seen before in the electoral
history of the nation.

With 80 representatives out of 130 the Alianza will have an absolute
majority in the Constituent Assembly giving the Head of State the
possibility of “re-founding the Republic” and move the country
towards a development model that breaks with neo liberalism.

In his unassuming office in Palacio de Carondelet, a colonial type
edifice, headquarters of government, President Correa explained what
Socialism of the 21st Century was as “applied to the particularities
of Ecuador”.

“We propose a citizen revolution, of radical changes of deep and
swift changes of political, social and economic structures. Political
institutionalism of the country is exhausted. A congress that,
according to surveys, has only three percent of credibility is not
representative. Those groups that call for political parties are only
fiefs, caudillos, without the slightest inkling of an ideology. This
country cannot support what has been lived in an economic level of
the past 20 years through policies imposed by Washington and that
have been a disaster for Ecuador and Latin America. And that in our
country, among other things, has resulted in more than two million
emigrants in the past years.

“I am not concerned of how the United States government, the
Europeans or any other country see these changes. Much less what
transnationals think and want. My concern is the Ecuadorian people
that are the rulers and owners of this country. I expect that no
nation, however powerful, try to dictate our policies.

“We are also not going to accept that the Colombian government
continue to fumigate along the border because it is toxic for our
citizens, our vegetation, our animals, our waters … Much less if that
sister nations wants to involve us in the internal fratricidal
conflict of that country. We will not get involved in that but if we
can help somehow to solve it, there we will be. We have said clearly
that Plan Colombia, a strategy of Bogota and Washington, is
militaristic and violent and has not served to offer a solution to
that war. We receive the negative effects of that Plan, beginning
with the number of Colombians who are forced to take refuge in our
territory.

“To continue. To move this citizen revolution forward we need
Socialism of the 21st Century. Many told us to add the word
“humanism”. We said no, because we are not afraid of that word. It is
with socialism that we find justice, equality, productive economy and
generator of jobs.

“Our project is called that way because it has coincidence with the
scientific socialism of Marx and Engels. For example, here the people
should rule, not the market. The market must be the servants and not
the master. Human beings can no longer be treated as instruments of
production, in function of the needs of accumulation of the great
capital.

“Market economy has concentrated on the creation of merchandise and
their value regardless of the needs of the human being, nor the price
paid by the environment, etc.

“The importance of collective action is another coincidence with
classical socialism. We must overcome that fallacy of individualism
as the driving force of society where, by the wave of a wand, they
made egotism a rule of social virtue and competition a way of life.
And that is how they made us compete even with countries of the
Third. World. That is an absurdity. That forced us to cheapen our
export products, accept labor flexibility, lower salaries, etc. And,
who won out?: the so-called First World, foreign capital.

“We have differences with classical socialism. For example, today it
is very difficult to speak of state ownership of all the means of
production. But we must make them democratic. Although it is
necessary for the State to own the strategic means of production for
the economy of the nation and that, therefore, cannot be in private
hands.

“One of the main errors of classical socialism is that it differed
little with the concept of development of capitalism. What it has
offered us is a quicker route and with more equality, to reach the
same concept of industrial development and increase production. Let
us look at the competition of the Soviet Union with the United States
that produced more. But it did not give us a different alternative of
sustainable development considering other dimensions, such as the
interaction with nature. That is one of the challenges of Socialism
of the 21st Century: to present a different proposal of development.

“Another difference and that will certainly shock some traditional
socialists. We must deal in principles and not in models. In this,
classical socialism was arrogant and overbearing. They always sent us
to such and such a page to find truths and solutions. They gave us
catechisms. That is a big mistake. We must adapt to the situations of
each country, without pre-established models. I say so as an
academician: I believe that any attempt to class such a complex
process and the advance of society, is condemned to failure.

“We have the great advantage and obligation to continue to build. We
cannot allow indisputable definitions, dogmas. We must not lose sight
of the essence of our force: creativity.”

*Colombian journalist living in France, Hernando Calvo Ospina, made
this interview as special correspondent of the French monthly, Le
Monde Diplomatique.


====================================
Walter Lippmann
Havana, Cuba
"Un paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
====================================