Socialist Ecuadorean President's speech at Oxford

[kainscalia]

On the 26th of October of 2009 the university of Oxford opened its doors to welcome Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a socialist tyrant. This man gave a 'master conference' for both instructors and students at Oxford, titled "My Experience As A Leftist Christian In A Secular World."

Delivered in very poor English and with a staggering miasma of contradictory concepts, the speech was nevertheless well-received, and I reproduce it below. I am ashamed to say that technically speaking this man is 'my' president, as I come from that benighted country- though I would much rather be an American citizen (Immigration having other thoughts about the matter).

My Experience As A Leftist Christian In A Secular World

Delivered by Rafael Correa

Oxford

October 26, 2009

Latin America is the most Christian and at the same

time the most unfair continent in the world, which is

a contradiction in itself, even more so considering

that one of the most recurrent signs of Christianity in

the Gospel is the sharing of bread. On average, we

are in the world’s middle class. However, you can

find small dominant groups who live better than the

rich do in rich countries, while others, often the

majority, live in similar or worse conditions than the

poor do in the poorest countries.

Thus, the fundamental moral issue in Latin America

is the social issue, even more so considering that for

the first time in history, poverty and misery in our

continent are not the consequence of the lack of

resources, but of perverse political, social and

economic systems. As an example, Ecuador is a

country where about 40% of the population live in

poverty. However, our per capita income exceeds

4000 dollars per year. This means that with an

egalitarian distribution of income, a typical 5-

member household would make almost 1700 US

dollars a month, more than three times the poverty

threshold, estimated at approximately 500 US dollars

a month. In other words, in Ecuador, as in the rest

of Latin America, poverty could be eliminated just by

better distributing our income.

I repeat: for a Christian in Latin America, the

fundamental moral issue is the social issue. I insist

on this because, unlike the Latin American Church of

the 60s and 70s, when the Latin American Episcopal

Council (CELAM), during meetings in Medellin and

Puebla, placed the social issue at the centre of

pastoral action, however, the current Latin American

ecclesiastical hierarchy is placing greater emphasis

on issues related to individual morality and rituals.

In fact, in Ecuador, coincidentally in well-to-do

sectors, mass in Latin is back. It truly seems that,

not only in Latin America and within the Catholic

Church, but worldwide and in other Christian

churches, there is a revival of conservatism, focused,

as we just said, on issues related to rituals and

individual morality.

These lacerating differences explain many things that

are neglected by technocratic oversimplification, and

among them, the “lack of governance”. Before I took

office, we had had 7 presidents in 10 years. The

simplistic explanation for this is that we Ecuadorian

citizens don’t have a proper democratic culture. But,

how can we talk about a “democratic culture” to an

unemployed young man, for example, in a country

without unemployment insurance, when probably

many members of his family are living in a foreign

country as a result of the massive migration that

took place in Ecuador in the aftermath of the

financial crisis of 1999? If that young man belongs to

our ancestral peoples, or to our Afro descendant

minorities, his feelings of exclusion will be even

greater.

Indeed, belonging to one of our indigenous

nations or Afroecuadorian groups increases the

likelihood of being born and dying poor to over 90%.

In other words, in order to have governance we need

not only the formal democracy of political rights,

basically the right to vote, but also a “true”

democracy, that is, the right to education, to health,

to housing. Nowadays many analysts are satisfied

because in theory, Latin America has democracy. I

maintain that the only democratic thing we have is

the election process, and that there is still a long way

to go before we have true democracies.

As a practicing Catholic, I will always believe in the

importance of charity and solidarity. Those two

things will always be necessary to assist, for

instance, those least favoured by nature. I am

convinced that the State will never be able to

summon enough compassion and devotion to assist

persons with severe disabilities or terminal illnesses.

For that we need generous hearts, true vocations.

However, I am also convinced that the poor socioeconomic

sectors will not cease to be poor by the

work of charity, and even less so with rites, but

rather with justice, and this implies changing the

relationships of power within society. It is for that

reason that in Ecuador we launched the political

project we call the Citizen’s Revolution: to seize

political power in order to be able to transform the

relationships of power, for the benefit of the large

majority of the population. It is worth noting that

this is only the beginning. In fact, seizing political

power in Latin America is merely having a minority,

sometimes an insignificant portion of power, because

the powers that be have always dominated the

region.

Economic, social, news and even religious

powers continue to dominate -virtually untouched when

a new Administration takes office, unless, and

this is what is happening nowadays in many Latin

American countries, true democratic revolutions take

place.

Of course, as Don Helder Camera, the great bishop

of the Diocese of Recife in Brazil, who Paul VI used to

call ‘my Red Bishop’, was fond of saying, “when I

feed the poor, they call me a saint, when I ask why

there are poor, they call me a communist”.

Don Helder was one of the greatest proponents of

the “Liberation Theology”, basically a Latin American

product which proposed that the Church should be

the historical subject, called upon to instate the

Kingdom of God on earth, understood as a kingdom

of justice. Personally, my social and economic

principles are based on the Social Doctrine of the

Catholic Church and on the Liberation Theology, and

the socialism of the 21st Century that we are

building in Latin America, at least in the case of

Ecuador, also draws upon those same sources.

The CELAM Conference in Medellin summarized, “The

Latin American bishops cannot remain indifferent in

the face of the tremendous social injustices existent

in Latin America, which keep the majority of our

peoples in dismal poverty, which in many cases

becomes inhuman wretchedness. A deafening cry

pours from the throats of millions of men, asking

their pastors for a liberation that reaches them from

nowhere else”.

In turn, the Puebla Conference said:

“A more in-depth analysis reveals that this poverty

is not a passing phase. Instead it is the product of

economic, social, and political situations and

structures, though there are also other causes for

the state of misery”. And it added, “In the light of

faith we see the growing chasm between rich and

poor as a scandal and a contradiction... This is

contrary to the plan of the Creator and to the honor

we owe Him. In this anguish and pain the Church

discerns a situation of social sin, of even greater

gravity because it exists in countries that call

themselves Catholic”.

The most significant concept emerging from this new

practice of the Church is the “preferential option for

the poor”, as the spiritual guide for the actions of

community-based Christian groups which developed

at this time, during the greatest ecclesiastical

transformation of the 20th century in our Americas.

In the late 1960s, some priests even opted for

armed confrontation, like Camilo Torres, Domingo

Laín, and Leonel Rugama. However, their decisions

were not an isolated event. Even the Populorum

Progressio encyclical justified insurrection "in the

very exceptional circumstances of an evident,

prolonged tyranny that seriously works against

fundamental human rights”. The Bishop of San

Salvador, Monsignor Arnulfo Romero, also invoked

the “right of insurrectional violence”. Paradoxically,

State violence took a toll among the members of the

Church. Monsignor Romero himself was

assassinated, as were Ignacio Ellacuría and others

that carried out their apostolate and suffered

martyrdom in the hands of death squads in El

Salvador.

At present, the situation in Latin America has

changed, and no sensible person would even

consider encouraging armed transformation.

However, it is fair to acknowledge those who, faced

with an extreme situation, chose that path.

However, the words, concepts and visions of Medellin

and Puebla are fully in force today. The preferential

option for the poor is not welfare or charity and even

less still the spiritualization, which is so far removed

from reality of everyday pain and suffering.

It is about frontally attacking and uprooting the causes of

inequality and injustice, and to do so we need true

revolutions, democratic and peaceful. Indeed, that is

what we need: revolutions, in other words, radical,

profound and swift changes of the political, social

and economic structures. For the dominant powers,

this is populism, and even communism. It is worth

noting that Latin American oligarchies consider that

even making the rich pay their taxes is communism.

In Puebla it was said that, “Latin America finds itself,

in several places, in a situation of injustice, which

may be called institutionalized violence. Such

situation demands global, bold, urgent and

profoundly renovating transformations”.

This is perhaps the greatest agreement among those

that, today, in Ecuador, have wagered on the

Citizen’s Revolution. We have said that our homeland

needs a profound, swift and peaceful change, and to

that end, the first great achievement was the

approval, by the immense majority of Ecuadorian

citizens, of a Constitution that is a beautiful song to

life, to human beings, to Nature. Some fragments of

it have been given to you today, translated into

English, so that you may fully understand this

revolution which, as in other countries of Latin

America, is not the result of a time of change, but of

a genuine change of time.

We can see in the fundamental principles of the

Constitution the decision to redress that centuriesold

inequality we have denounced. However, that

Constitution was subject to tenacious opposition,

naturally from backward forces, and, among them,

certain high-ranking authorities of the Catholic

Church that, as we have said, have suffered a

profound setback, by restricting their actions to

individual morality, instead of dedicating themselves

to address social issues.

The hardships of Latin American nations, as rightfully

stated in the Medellin and Puebla Conferences, are

not related to a manifest destiny or to the character

of their citizens, even less still to the contentedness

with which we should expect to receive in the

afterlife what we were never given in our earthly life.

There are people who are responsible for our

misfortune; there are names, surnames, concepts,

ideologies, including market theory, neo-liberalism,

criollo lackeys, colonialism and neo-colonialism.

When I first took office, in my inauguration address

in January 2007, although I was the first president

with a degree in economics in the history of the

country, when I referred to the new economic policy,

instead of talking about unbearable technicalities, I

said, “the new economic model in Ecuador will

prioritize decent and sovereign policy, in other

words, rather than liberating the markets, we will

seek to liberate the country from atavisms and

powerful national and international interests that

control it; with a clear preferential option for the

poorest and the forgotten; and prioritizing human

beings over capital”.

And it is hard to believe that all public policies in

recent years have benefited the powerful, as well as

large capital interests.

My favourite encyclical on the Social Doctrine of the

Catholic Church, the Laborem Exercem or Human

Labour encyclical of John Paul II, says that human

labour is not another factor of production, but the

very purpose of production. However, neo-liberalism

has reduced human labour to just another

instrument that has to be used or discarded

according to the needs of accumulation of capital. To

this end, in Latin America, forms of labour

exploitation, fairly well disguised under euphemisms

such as “labour flexibilization”, “outsourcing”,

“contracts paid by the hour”, etc., became

widespread. It is worth noting that, according to

multiple studies, “labour flexibilization” has been one

of the reforms with the least results in the region.

Furthermore, it did not generate greater growth, but

rather increased precariousness of labour and, with

that, greater inequality and poverty. However, even if

flexibilization would have succeeded, we cannot

reduce the dignity of human labour to mere

merchandise. It is time we understood that the most

important good our societies demand is the moral

good, and that labour exploitation, for the sake of a

so-called competitiveness, is plainly immoral.

Precisely, one of the main reasons leading to labour

exploitation was the fallacy of competition. This

principle is already highly questioned by economic

agents when it happens inside one country, but it is

truly an absurdity when it affects relations among

poor countries, where the logic of cooperation,

complementariness, coordination, and mutual

development should prevail. It is worth noting that

this neo-liberal, inhuman and cruel globalization,

which wants to turn us into markets and not into

nations, which wants us to become mere consumers

and not citizens of the world, is very similar in

conceptual terms to the savage capitalism of the

Industrial Revolution.

In those years, exploitation had no limits, until

collective actions within industrialized nations led to

the passing of domestic laws to protect labour. The

same is happening again today in a global market

without collective or governance mechanisms.

It is precisely to rebel against the consequences of

the Industrial Revolution and the labour issue that

Pope Leon XIII wrote his encyclical Rerum Novarum,

which was the starting point for what we know as the

Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. As a

Catholic, I anxiously await for a similar encyclical for

the time we live in, denouncing labour and migration

issues. For example, how can we ethically explain to

future generations that in this alleged globalization,

we are increasingly seeking greater facilities to move

capitals and goods, but we penalize and even

criminalize with increasing rigour the mobility of

human beings? How can Europe, with these policies,

call itself Christian? You cannot put an end to

misery with coercive measures, with an

institutionalized Apartheid.

As a Catholic, I anxiously await an encyclical that

denounces how in this world, just like during the

Industrial Revolution, capital has more rights than

human beings. For example, in Latin America, if you

want to denounce before an international

organization like the OAS a case of violation of

human rights, first you will have to go through the

entire judiciary system of the country in question.

However, any transnational company, without any

prior requirement, can take a sovereign State before

an arbitration centre to allegedly defend its rights.

Not only that, arbitration centres such as the one in

the World Bank, in addition to deciding whether the

transnational company is right or not, they can rule

on whether the law is too harsh or not. In other

words, they can issue a ruling regarding a law of an

allegedly sovereign State, which in addition, had to

have been known by the investor. There is nothing

like that regarding human rights. For example, I can

be against the death penalty established in the laws

of the United States, but I don’t have access to any

international court that may issue a ruling regarding

these laws.

I would like to see an encyclical that strongly and

frontally denounces, without euphemisms, the

ideology disguised as science which they tried to

impose on us as the end of History. In fact, beyond

the quantitative failures of the policies of the

Consensus of Washington, perhaps the most

disastrous legacy left by the long and neoliberal

night in Latin America is the new Gospel of the

market: “seek the purpose of profit, and all these

things will be added on to you”. In other words, as

the departed Nobel laureate in Economics, James

Tobin used to say, thanks to the alchemy of market

competition, the dross of personal selfishness

transmutes overnight into the highest individual and

social virtue. With the story of the invisible hand, by

seeking my own benefit I fulfil my social role, a truly

indefensible barbarity from the point of view of

Christian doctrine and morality.

Nowadays, those of us who want to change the way

things are, often become the target of those who

accuse us of disturbing the peace in our countries.

Obviously, all processes of change carry

consequences. However, peace is not merely the

absence of war. The insulting opulence of a few in

Latin America, side by side with the most intolerable

poverty, is like bullets fired everyday against human

dignity. We want truly to build a continent of peace,

which may only be founded on justice. Peace without

justice is simply pacification.

It is here that we find juxtaposition and harmony

among the social doctrine of the Church, the

Liberation Theology, and Socialism of the 21st

Century. The meeting point is, undoubtedly, social

justice. That is our goal: to transform, by

democratic means, the perverse structures that have

subjugated the humble men and women of our

nation.

To conclude, the Gospel says, “For where your

treasure is, there will your heart be also”. You can be

sure that the treasure I seek is not power, but

service, to serve my people, especially the poorest,

to serve my Homeland. But don’t fool yourselves, as

I said at the beginning, to do that, we must change

the relationships of power in Latin America, for the

benefit of the large majority. This is the reason why

we have taken this political course; this is the reason

for our Citizen Revolution.

==================================

I believe a very apt reply to this man's pastiche of a speech would be Ayn Rand's "The Monument Builders"