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Reflections for a new democracy and a new law right

23.08.03

Jaime Yovanovic Prieto (Profesor J)

The State is in crisis. The parties are in crisis. The values are in crisis. Nowadays we live survival of the fittest, where it is possible to invade another country in the face of the the institutions that remain passive and the sterile protest of the people. The electoral abstention grows everywhere and in Chile 2 million young people have refused to register themselves in the electoral registries.

In this democracy there is no respect for the people voice. Is the marketing democracy, where the public services are managed according to the propaganda capacity of the partidies systems that handle millionarie sums from them who aspire to obtain a later benefit, that is, the parties are bought and they are sold, this is the money government, the “money-cracy”.

Also the present one is an absolut democracy, centralized, vertical and authoritarian, that deposits the social sovereignty in an unipersonal figure that according to Montesquieu reproduces the functions of the king, the executive authority, like the Pharaoh. In conclusion, they try to name democracy to which it is not.

It is time for us to leave from the prehistory of the democracy, assume the social thing, the people, the receiver of the sovereignty, totally and start to think about a new kind of democracy.

It will be task of the intellectuals, artists, students, social scientists, women, young people, homosexuals and lesbians, profesionals, campesinos, originaries communities, workers, suburbs population, unemployed, in conclusión, of the living forces of society, outside of the politic parties, start this process constituting local groups of reflection on a new democracy and new law.

Every location in Chile is diverse, each one has something different from the others, with different geography, different weather, differents natural products, different population, different histories and experiences, traditions and idiosyncracy. It is not possible to organize and administrate the material, natural and socialas facts in Chile in the same way than in Tierra de Fuego, Osorno, San Fernando, Quillota, La Serena, Iquique, San Bernardo; La Florida, Cautin, Valparaíso, Pudahuel, etc, as well as there are more populated areas than others and that all that must be considered in these reflections we propose.

It is a fact that it has been settled a strong centralist practice in the country that has taken some tos ay that ‘Santiago is Chile’, but it is also true that the vertical organization has lead many regions t olive in complete misery and abandonment in the middle of the wealth of the earth and water, that would perfectly allow to provide the goods that te local popultion may need. The same thing happen with the city downtown, districts and outlying areas. The abyss between the locations is a concrete demonstration of which we affirmed we are in the prehistory of democracy. It is not possible to coexist with these huge differences of access to the goods consumption, what proves that the actual marketing mechanisms are contradictory to a real democracy.

It is not posible that a small layer of society becomes richer everyday and the social majorities are poorer and marginalized.
The discussion about a new democracy in all the localities must consider how to organize and administer each one of the territories to guarantee the right of all and each one to have a worthy and complete life.

It wll be fundamental in these groups of reflection on a new democracy and rights that we purpose that the participation of political parties, nor of the ideologies, the political left, right and center, because the only thing they are doing is, to divide still mora the population and to dad some people against others. It is terrible to watch at a school or a district 5 or 10 ideological groups disputing teh favors ofn common people and recruiting for their programas and projects that promises the gold to the people affiliated with them, or people who votes for them in the student center, the district elections, in the labour union or in the state comitia.

The people rencounter as sensible human beings is a fundamental fact to settle a solid base of reflections about the end of the democracy prehistory. Divide to reign has been always the the rule of the powerful ones. The reflection groups must find some common points of the population in the different locations and do not think about new ‘organics’ to govern people, but in ‘activities’ that may permit enjoy the constant encounter and to stimulate the exchange about the local problems and needs.

They can’t either be considered as groups that with other localities make a bigger group and then bigger, and bigger, as a nacional pyramid, because this Hill only end in the same things we are criticizing.

We are not proposing a democracy ‘model’ either, but diverse democracies, that each locality discovers it’s own and start to practice it, to prove that it is possible, positive and necesary.

This will imply a concerted effort of self-call of the people in their work, study or living places, where two or three neighbors and partners call others to participate in the community dialogue, the democracy and their rights. It is not necessary to be ambitious thinking about the whole city, because there it is where every initiative is diluted and remains only in the super structure looking from above to downwards. Ballons must be avoided, prioritizing spaces where people could have a real community of immediate, nearer and eventual encounters , where thet can recreate the direct social contact and think about the reconstruction of the social, independent communitarian being as the concret and operating subject of democracy.

In law field, each locality has its differences with others, reason why it is legitimate that the norms of social behavior are also different. This implies the creation of suitable normative systems to the self-manage activities of the local population, that should not be considered as a ‘confrontation’ with the state, but as superation ways of the actual prehistoric democracy and rights modalities. It is expected that the judicial institutions wisely assume the respect to legal pluralism as an achieve of democracy in all the communities.

The abuses, dishonesty and corruption Hill not be able to be developed in these democratic social spaces, because it is the own population the one that takes care directly of all the problems in every location where these reflections groups are created, and it must be avoided to design leaders or heads, so that it is the community the one that becomes jumbled without leaving all decisions only to a person or group of people, and that they might accumulate in their hands all the power. The main idea is to avoid the power or hegemony manifestations,
also surpassing the slight knowledge of being against power and hegemony, in order to practice the no-power, the no-hegemony, but the harmony, the affection and the respectful interchange between the people who coexist daily

The stablished authorities and powers do not have to fear these gruops of reflection and democratic base experiences, on the contrary, they have a practical school of popular sovereignty and social creativity, because who better knows the social problems and needs are the own inhabitants of each locality, that will be able to develop the responsibility and solidarity sense in the exchanges with neighbours and partners.

This will also be an effective measurement against the crime and delinquency, since who by necessity have decided that path, now will be able, next to their neighbours, relatives and friends, to look for set solutions to the problems and needs of everyone that constitute the community.

Tha poets, singers, artesnas, writers, musicians, painters, declaimers, communicators, teachers and other people and groups dedicated to the art, communication, teaching and creation have a fundamental role in the stimulus of the creativity in the reflections on a new democracy, as well as the spreading of reflections from one location to other, and the motivation of experiences exchange.

The university students, besides to constitute their own horizontal and independent democratic spaces for reflections about their reality, may participate with supporting nets for the urba districts and rural communities, to spread their knowledge about the new democracy in other locations with differnt ways of understanding the education, the science and the profession, practicing a service vocation with the community and gathering social experiences elements to take them to a university ambit reflections. The youth generosity, altruism and solidarity are a great stimulus for the localities reflections.

As for me, after finished the implications of the case where I am unjustly accused, I set out to give conferences, seminaries and courses spreading these reflections about a new democracy, for which I hope to count on the support of universities, churches, cultural centres, NGOs, students groups, communitaries groups and more.

In special I Hill dedicate my efforts to the constitution of a nacional network of jurists and law students that develop and practice the principles and contents of the alternatives laws and the alternative use of it, that should be constituted in bastions for the defense of the people rights, to give the rhetoric battle, practice by the respect of legal pluralism, that study and investigate on procesuals methods and judicial interpretation, to promote and defend the human rights and be stablished as new legal suporting centers for the reflection groups about a new democracy and new ways of rights in the localities.

Jaime Yovanovic Prieto (Profesor J)


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