UNGOVERNABLE GOVERNMENTS?

By: AVE

There are functional political systems and others not so much. There are political systems for life and others for death.

In Latin America, we think that democracy is the best system, but we must recognize it: it is not perfect. To say that we have the right and duty to elect our rulers to control them is a complete fallacy. It is just a nice theory because in practice it is the opposite, we give power to governments to control us from head to toe and at the same time, we give them the power of not being able to govern them.

Democracy has a long way to go, and apparently, its roots are not well structured.

The vote of a person who has a Ph.D. or a scientist or someone who is informed, who studies, who reads, has the same value as the one who sells it for food or money or because they just like the politician of the moment, the one with most propaganda or the one who knows best how to do it.

Without knowing how to choose we hand over power to the least prepared person to manage a nation, we give our luck and the fate of our families. That happens in my country and in the whole world. A concrete case: Venezuela. From being one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America, it became a starving country where there are no medicines, and every day less population.

Colombia is one of the countries that most Venezuelans have received. They are working in restaurants, developing their talents in the offices, helping in the marketplaces. You can find them also in the buses exchanging their currency for food or for «some collaboration» as they say, to be able to buy food and support their families. There are people less fortunate who only hold signs asking for help when the cars stop at the traffic lights. All these people have something in common: an ungovernable government that forces them to leave their country, their jobs, and their families.

Entire nations suffer every day thanks to their governments. Thanks to the politicians they have chosen or thanks to the votes they did not give. Many people believe that they should vote for the least bad politician and many others think that the best thing is not to vote, they remind me of the South African cleric and pacifist Desmond Tutu with his phrase: «If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”.

At this point, it is easy to deduce that only a few people think about the consequences of choosing someone who will govern for a few years – perhaps for many -, who will have the power, the control of their lives and of their entire country. For the rest of the people, there is only indifference, the indifference with the expatriate, the indifference with the refugee, the indifference with whom you need asylum. That is the same indifference that leaves so many people hungry, without study, without work, without opportunities. That indifference destroys entire families and countries and answers the question: why do governments become ungovernable?