Notes from Colombia

by Chris Bertram on October 4, 2016

Last Sunday, the 2nd of October, in a vote that defied predictions, Colombians voted in a referendum to reject the peace deal that had been negotiated between their government and the FARC guerillas. Many people were stunned by the outcome. My Facebook feed was full of people typing “WTF?” and similar, utterly uncomprehending that a people could vote for the continuation of this ancient and apparently pointless war. What follows is my own, inexpert take on things, based solely on the fact that I was there for the vote as an international observer and have had an opportunity to talk to some Colombians about what happened (albeit English speaking ones with liberal views). So read what I’ve written with that in mind.

On Thursday 29th September I was sitting on a Lufthansa flight to Bogota, Colombia and wondering what the next few days would bring. A few weeks previously, I had been asked whether I’d be interested in being an international observer for the peace process referendum that aimed to put the seal of popular approval on the peace deal struck between Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC and to put an end to a conflict that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives over the past half century. (And indeed is the successor conflict to several other brutal bouts of bloodletting in Colombian history.) I was acutely conscious that I was not particularly qualified for the task. I’d never visited the country before, my Spanish is sub-elementary, and I’d read some books and got to know a few Colombians. I also had no experience in the business of election observation, but had — at the suggestion of a friend who has done it multiple times — taken an [online course](http://www.odihrobserver.org/) provided by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

My reading had been a quirky introduction to Colombia by Victoria Kellaway and Sergio J. Lievano, *Colombia, A Comedy of Errors*, Tom Feiling’s recent *Short Walks from Bogota* and then Steven Dudley’s *Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia*. Feiling’s books is a great read, but Dudley’s is both harrowing and highly relevant to the current situation. It recounts the experience of the FARC’s attempt to enter the political arena in the 80s via the Unión Patriótica, a legal leftist political party, and what happened next. What ensued was that the paramilitaries and the narco-gangs, backed by state agencies, killed them all, literally thousands of people, politicians, supporters and voters. The lesson the FARC drew from this experience was that there was just no point in entering the democratic process because doing so would just get you murdered. Not an unreasonable conclusion perhaps. Still, the hope with the recent peace agreement was that the ex-guerrillas could be integrated without violence and murder on scale of the 1980s and 90s. The FARC are, in any case, not what they were, not a power able to threaten the Colombian state but a much reduced force driven back to inhospitable terrain. They have run out of options.

Arriving in Bogota and whisked to a very nice room in a Marriot hotel, it was hard to think of this as a country at war. Much, but not all, of Bogota is a bustling modern city. There are areas that make London’s Knightbridge look a little down-at-hell. Lots of people drive smart modern cars on the overcrowded roads, and there’s a rather spendid fast bus system with special stations. Shops are full of the latest goods, advertising slogans flash from signs and hoardings, and many people look and act just like they would in Western Europe or North America (actually, somewhat smarter). On the other hand, the rich are simply more visible than the poor and there’s plainly a great deal of poverty and you see some pretty desperate people on the street (though the same is true of San Francisco, come to think of it). The divide between the haves and the have nots also seems to have a racial component: the working class and poor in Bogota often have a distinct mestizo appearance, whereas President Santos and his ministers would not look out of place in France or Spain. Bogota’s setting, surrounded by mountains, also generates a sense that this is somewhere disconnected, and that if there’s a war on, it is happening somewhere else. What on earth have the FARC, nervously scanning the sky for attack aircraft in their jungle hideouts, got to do with what’s going on here?

The disconnection and incongruity of modern urban life somehow co-existing with guerrillas in the jungle elswhere is matched by other paradoxes of Colombian life and history. This is a democracy, and one with a long history. There has only been one dictator, back in the 1950s, and he was hardly in the Pinochet or Videla league. And Colombia has a constitution, jam packed with rights and guarantees for the citizen, together with a modern legal system and lots of lawyers. It is a reminder to anyone who will look that constitutional principles are insufficient to ensure that human beings are free of violence, fear and unfreedom. For much of modern Colombian history there has been a great deal of violence. Looking only at the postwar period there was brutal savagery following the assasination of the populist leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in 1948 and from the 1960s onwards, a range of different guerilla groups (M19, ELN, EPL, FARC) took on the Colombian state, with varying degrees of success, and were attacked in their turn by right-wing paramilitaries often sponsored by narco-gangs. Though the violence is now at a much lower level than it was, Colombia is still a dangerous place to be a trade unionist or to stand up for social justice.

It was a great honour to be asked to participate in the election observation mission and I can say that my experience of visiting polling stations, talking to the citizens who staff the voting tables, and observing the process was very positive. The citizens who do this are chosen randomly, rather like jury duty, and consist of three principals and three alternates, although in practice there were usually the full six sat at each table which is responsible for around 500 voters. The number of tables at each polling station varied, some had over twenty, others as few as eight. A constant stream of people walked in and it was all very relaxed and good-humoured. At none of the polling stations we visited, in a range of districts in Bogota from fairly comfortably-off to more working-class, was there any evidence of there anything untoward. I know that other members of the mission were sent out of Bogota and I heard no reports of anything going wrong elsewhere, which doesn’t mean there weren’t any such reports. As observers, we had very little preparation about what we should do and the criteria we should apply, although some of us had sought to mitigate this by preparing in advance. So my direct experience was of a free, fair and impartial process, but I cannot speak to the experience of others in other places. All in all the observation was very rewarding, you really got a sense of democracy as a festival, of people coming together to decide something of great importance.

When we arrived at the count in Bogota it became clear very quickly that things had not gone as expected. The piles of papers on the counting tables were just much closer in height than we thought they would have been. Sure enough, as the partial results fed through, it started to look neck and neck. At first I felt reasonably sure that YES would edge it, but then NO started to build a tiny lead which looked insurmountable as the proportion of total votes reported passed 90 per cent or so. My Colombian friends and interlocutors present at the count looked grim, some were tearful. This was not the result they wanted or expected. Having experienced the sense of deflation and numbness when a result goes against you twice over the past couple of years, with the Tory victory of 2015 and the Brexit referendum this year, I had some sense of how they were feeling, though obviously nothing in British politics compares to the serious violence that Colombians have lived through and hoped to put behind them. It soured the day for me too — though my role was focused on the fairness of the process — because that sense of democracy as joinging and unifying simply evapourates in the face of a result that pointed not to unity but to deep and enduring division, a mess. Not pleasant.

What explains the result? I think on one level it is just the fact that referendums are dangerous and unpredictable devices, liable to blow up in the face of politicians who call them, and that voters will use them not necessarily to answer the question they’re given, but to give the government a kicking. The areas most deeply affected by the conflict favoured YES, often by large margins, but voters in the centre of the country seem to have been guided more by negative feelings about President Santos and to some extent by identification with his predecessor, Uribe. I don’t want to push the Brexit parallels too far, but there’s a similarity here with the utter indifference of English voters to the implications of Leave for the Northern Ireland peace process.

Since the result, I’ve also seen US leftists blaming Human Rights Watch for the outcome, since they had opposed the deal on the basis that those who had committed serious crimes should answer for their actions. The sheer narrowness of the result lends a tiny bit of plausiblity to this, since it is necessarily true for any of a host of factors that, had they been different, they might might have changed things (if the strong winds on the Atlantic coast hadn’t blown? if the morning rain in Bogota had been less heavy?). But though I disagree with the HRW decision to put accountability before peace, and think they should be critized for that, fixating on HRW is mainly typical US narcissism: thinking that what happens in the world is basically a function of US choices and that they are causally and morally responsible for everything that happens in the world. No Colombian mentioned HRW until I brought it up in conversation, and internal Colombian politics, not the statements of US NGOs, is the main story.

The key part of that internal politics is ex-President Uribe, who cannot now stand because of term restrictions and who is fiercely critical of President Santos, who previously served as his defence minister. Uribe is a deeply divisive figure, often and not unreasonably described in places like the Guardian as far-right. When I’ve seen him interviewed on TV, I’ve found him pretty disturbing. His government brought a degree of peace and security to Colombia whilst showing a lack of squeamishness – to put it mildly – about human rights. Some pretty nasty stuff happened during Uribe’s term of office — but remember Santos was part of this too — including episodes such as the “false positives” scandal in which the army responded to a incentive scheme for killing guerillas by killing ordinary poor young men and dressing them up in guerilla uniforms. But making it relatively safe for people to travel across the country without getting kidnapped, or to drive a truck full of imported goods to the cities without being held up, is not nothing. People are grateful for that improvement in their lives and whilst Uribe is loathed by many people, he also has the loyalty of many others for whom Hobbesian order trumps justice. When Uribe set his face against the peace deal, there were always going to be a lot of voters who would follow his lead. Several Colombians I spoke to put this kind of attachment to Uribe (and associated loathing for Santos) at the heart of their explanation for the victory of NO.

What does the future hold? I suspect that endless war will not be the outcome. Both Santos and the FARC leader Timochenko seem committed to maintaining a ceasefire and there is already talk of involving the Uribe faction in talks to improve the agreement despite the NO vote. It is going to be hard to get past this point in the process, but FARC realistically have nowhere else to go. People I spoke to were nervous and uncertain, but after initially being incredibly fearful and anxious, were more optimistic within a day of the vote. But even if war is over, the NO vote suggests that the future will be difficult, because it is a barometer of the political balance of forces within the country. Many people believed it showed the strength of the Uribe faction and that his presidential candidate was likely to win next time. Those associated with the rejected peace deal, on the other hand, are unlikely to find electoral favour. That means that the election of any government that might do something, even something modest, about Colombia’s inequality, or about other aspects of its violent politics, such as the high number of murders of trade unionists, is unlikely.

2016 has been a pretty difficult year all round, and one of its central lessons has to be that the politician who calls a referendum is a fool. They can transform careers in a day, as Santos, like David Cameron, now knows. US politics has that same binary character and is an opportunity for disaffected and angry people to hit out. After Brexit and Colombia, it would be unwise to discount the chances of a Trump Presidency.

{ 51 comments }

1

Rich Puchalsky 10.04.16 at 3:46 pm

“because that sense of democracy as joining and unifying simply evapourates in the face of a result that pointed not to unity but to deep and enduring division, a mess.”

There seems to have been some kind of loss of grip on liberal political theory, and of political ideas about democracy generally, in favor of a simple “democracy is good”. I write this as an anarchist who criticizes democracy from the point of consensus decision-making, not as a rightist, although as an ex-liberal I sort of wonder whether anyone still bothers to read American political theory at all with its reasons why the undemocratic nature of many American institutions was intended.

But yes, if you shouldn’t call a referendum because you will get results you don’t want, something is wrong with your practice, your theory, and a whole lot else. In particular, I think that the idea of leaving a negotiated peace agreement up to a popular vote is a recipe for demagoguery, and no one should be surprised when a people chooses continued, pointless war, as peoples have at almost every opportunity to do so.

2

Marc 10.04.16 at 3:56 pm

The rebels killed a lot of people too, and in the late phases of the conflict they seem to have been perceived as having transformed from a political movement into a drug-dealing enterprise. Fair or not, this view of them as criminals, not political opponents of the government, appears to have been a significant motivator for the no vote.

3

Raven Onthill 10.04.16 at 6:23 pm

I wrote after the Brexit vote: “The loser here, I think, is democracy and democratic institutions. All conservative fears about both have been confirmed. I think that, at this time, given the nature of modern mass media and balloting processes, we ought to be very, very afraid of direct democracy: demagogues have far too much power in this environment.”

Also this, on further reflection at that time: “Yet every state within the EU has its reactionary factions, which would rather leave the EU, regardless of consequences. In every country I have examined I can find specific issues, yet somehow all these issues have come together all at once.”

It is apparently not only the EU. We seem to be looking at a global reactionary movement.

4

Omega Centauri 10.04.16 at 6:31 pm

Raven. Thats what it feels like to me. I suspect it isn’t completely universal, there must be places that are immune to the contagion, and we just aren’t hearing about them.

I think it has a lot to do with the way for profit media chases eyeballs, it gives short shrift to careful thinking, and license for petty emotionalism, and gotcha style takedowns. Also I remember reading at the time of the great financial crash, that such events breed reactionary rightwing movements several years later. We may be at the peak of this particular wave (maybe thats being too optimistic though).

5

Rich Puchalsky 10.04.16 at 7:35 pm

Raven Onthill: “I think that, at this time, given the nature of modern mass media and balloting processes, we ought to be very, very afraid of direct democracy: demagogues have far too much power in this environment.”

Under-theorized special pleading. Has there ever been a moment, with modern mass media and balloting processes or not, where left goals have been achieved via direct democracy?

When people are given a choice to vote en masse on a yes-or-no society-wide question, is there ever an outpouring of support for the left?

6

Ronan(rf) 10.04.16 at 7:51 pm

(I don’t know much about Colombian history/politics, so the following are solely questions)

I’ve seen this claim

“The areas most deeply affected by the conflict favoured YES, often by large margins, but voters in the centre of the country seem to have been guided more by negative feelings about President Santos and to some extent by identification with his predecessor, Uribe.”

made in the last few days, but it seems that on such a low turnout (37%?) You can get results skewed by those more ideologically committed. Does the claim above mean that both Uribe and FARC* rallied their bases, but the less commited didn’t show up? If so, why was that?

* I’m not sure if FARC is the right term here, ie I don’t who holds political power in the regions it waged insurgency from, or even how popular it is. If anyone could expand on this I’d be interested to hear more.

7

Val 10.04.16 at 7:55 pm

Australia voted against banning the communist party in 1951 and for full citizenship rights for Aboriginal people in 1967. The second was righting what was by that time recognised as gross historic wrong, but both were voted for left wing causes.

That’s just a couple I know of in my country, I’m sure there must be others.

– Ireland voted for same sex marriage.

I think there is clearly some kind of right wing thing happening in a lot of countries now though

8

Val 10.04.16 at 7:58 pm

My previous comment was in answer to Rich Puchalsky’s question @5

9

Will G-R 10.04.16 at 8:29 pm

Rich: “When people are given a choice to vote en masse on a yes-or-no society-wide question, is there ever an outpouring of support for the left?”

The Greek bailout referendum? Except of course, literally the very next day the Troika chose to act as if the referendum never happened and laid the hammer down on Tsipras, and Tsipras caved. It’s almost as if the neoliberal establishment is actually trying to make sure anti-establishment sentiment is always expressed through fascism, and never through socialism. Almost as if…

10

Chris Bertram 10.04.16 at 8:59 pm

@Ronan it isn’t clear to me that the FARC actually has a base in electoral terms and I don’t think there’s any real way to find that out since they haven’t been standing in elections. The view people expressed to me was that it was people affected by the conflict who most desperately wanted an end to it. But I didn’t see those areas for myself.

11

Hector 10.04.16 at 9:43 pm

To understand Bogota is important to learn its history. I will like to share this documentary.

12

efcdons 10.04.16 at 9:43 pm

Val @7

Australia also voted against conscription for WWI, twice. I would count it as a referendum vote for a left wing position in that the Australian left was anti-conscription.

13

Matt 10.04.16 at 9:47 pm

The rebels killed a lot of people too, and in the late phases of the conflict they seem to have been perceived as having transformed from a political movement into a drug-dealing enterprise.

At one point I worked on some asylum cases for people fleeing very serious death threats from the FARC, and so did a bit of research on the subject. I’m far from an expert, but this was more or less the conclusion I came away with. I don’t think it’s that unusual for rebel movements that last very long. In the Russian civil war, there were several White groups that degenerated from genuine (if often seriously misguided) political/military units into roving criminal gangs within a few years.

I do hope that some new solution will be worked out. Discussion on NPR the other days focused on the difficulty of trying to turn a 700+ page agreement in to a yes-or-no voting issue, and people voting against it (supposedly) because they dislike the current president. The later may be justified, but I’d hate to see that lead to more killing.

14

Omega Centauri 10.04.16 at 10:04 pm

I’ve long had the impression, although I’m extremely far from being an expert, that rebel/guerrilla/terrorist groups over time morph into organized crime gangs. Its probably a slippery slope, gotta raise cash for the cause and so start kidnapping and/or dealing drugs/embezzling and such as a means to serve a political end. After a while its the only thing that they have left which they know how to survive financially with.

15

Jesús Couto Fandiño 10.04.16 at 10:12 pm

For what Colombian aquittances tell me, the No campaing managed to position themselves as a “not against peace, but against this peace” successfully, insisting that the conditions were too advantageous and no justice was being dealt to criminals.

Which, frankly, is what the FARC are. The list of human right violations commited by them is very long. But as there is also a lot of criminals on the other side, following the great tradition of Colombian civil wars to degenerate into acts of barbarism right and left… an “unjust” peace may have been better than the tenous posibility of negotiating one with the FARC leadership that involves them going to prison for 30 years.

It seems that the Yes side didnt put itself into the finish line, guessing it was all done and celebrating beforehand, also. And that there was some division in the government ranks about who was managing the process, as in who is going to get the accolades to be put as next presidential candidate. Seems the vicepresident figured out it was not going to be him so he put less effort (as in, almost none) into campaigning

16

Rich Puchalsky 10.04.16 at 10:21 pm

Will G-R: “The Greek bailout referendum?”

Is “I would really rather not pay back the money” (odious debt, if you prefer) a particularly left-wing position? And Tsipras caved because it was pretty clear that a majority of Greeks really didn’t want to leave the Euro, which left him with no real choices.

17

BenK 10.04.16 at 10:58 pm

If there is a single perspective that unifies the past couple years, it is a sort of alt-right view that the globalized elite have started to lose their grip on the local electorates and didn’t even pay them enough heed to realize it. Netanyahu, Brexit, Trump, FARC… each not just a kick in the teeth, but an unexpected one. In each case, there was an attempt to shame the electorate, as far as I can tell. When shame works, it is powerful. When it fails, it fails spectacularly. The only way to recover is to start offering respect, which turns out to be more than a bitter pill.

18

stevenjohnson 10.05.16 at 2:42 am

In Plan Colombia, unexpectedly low turnout may be due to voter intimidation. It is a strange and wonderful world, so maybe not. It would not be wise to bet against it, though.

If you really want to moralize, any plan that penalizes FARC without penalizing Alvaro Uribe is unjust.

Obviously if the capital suits refined liberal tastes, every thing is peachy.

19

Frank Wilhoit 10.05.16 at 3:07 am

Rich Puchalsky @ 1: Pardon my unfamiliarity with your previous work, but are you saying that consensus decision-making is a bad thing, or that democracy inhibits consensus-decision-making or causes it to yield bad results? A case could be made for any of these and lacking your context (I know, inexcusable on my part, what can I say) it really is not clear which you mean.

For the rest, you are falling into the universal elision of democracy and the republic, which are entirely different things. The valid and useful critique of democracy is that it is and can only be the tyranny of the majority. If there are institutions that constrain the majority or that enforce minority rights, if 49.999% do not lose, and lose everything, and lose it hard and with a quickness, that’s not democracy; it’s something else, and it may as well be called by its name, if it had one.

20

RNB 10.05.16 at 6:36 am

Didn’t only 37% or so of Colombians vote on the referendum?

21

Raven Onthill 10.05.16 at 6:55 am

Jesús Couto Fandiño@15: it seems to me there might be something to be learned from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Or perhaps some other process is needed. An impartial international tribunal might be appropriate. I don’t know. This has gone on for so many years. If the conflict is to be resolved, justice must be done, and must be seen to be done. And, somehow, once justice is done, the peace must be kept.

22

Phil 10.05.16 at 9:12 am

FARC may not have anywhere to go, but it takes two to make peace. The government & the armed forces may take the referendum result as a mandate to fight FARC to the death, like the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of the Tamil Tigers. If it does go that way, I doubt they’ll be too precise in distinguishing between FARC activists, FARC sympathisers, trade unionists, socialists, indigenous rights advocates, etc. The chance not only to remove FARC from the equation but to address the conditions that gave rise to FARC may just have been missed; if so, the prospects for peace & any kind of social justice have just got a lot dimmer.

23

engels 10.05.16 at 9:50 am

FARC may not have anywhere to go, but it takes two to Cumbia. FTFY

24

Rich Puchalsky 10.05.16 at 10:35 am

Frank Without:”are you saying that consensus decision-making is a bad thing, or that democracy inhibits consensus-decision-making or causes it to yield bad results?”

Neither one, really. I prefer consensus decision-making to democracy, but that’s because I think that decisions should be made in small groups of people. Consensus decision-making has problems in the area of getting anything done, but we generally need to get less done at the moment anyways.

As for institutions that enforce minority rights, ensure that 49% don’t lose everything, etc., that’s a minimal and historical critique of democracy (thus my reference to American political theory) but it’s not sufficient. People like to emphasize that because everyone generally agrees that 49% of people can get a very bad deal under pure democracy, but this particular situation in Columbia is about something else — it’s about whether anything negotiated by representatives can really hold, or whether all such agreements have to pass a second, demagogic screen.

25

engels 10.05.16 at 11:01 am

Consensus-decision making is a form of democracy. What you’re calling ‘pure democracy’ would be more commonly and accurately called ‘majoritarianism’.

26

Z 10.05.16 at 11:12 am

it seems to me there might be something to be learned from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

My Colombian colleague tells me that indeed the plan put to referendum included such a truth and reconciliation commission, with no punishment to follow but nevertheless an investigation of the various crimes on both sides. She says that this commission explains in part the opposition of the Uribe faction: any investigation would have exposed many crimes directly linked to Uribe. Another reason according to her is that Uribe and his political allies wanted to claim more of the political fame that comes with such a historical agreement. So they sabotaged the current agreement to be able to present their own version, essentially similar but with no truth commission (according to her, rumors are already spreading that he would support a new version with the commission removed).

27

Rich Puchalsky 10.05.16 at 1:28 pm

“What you’re calling ‘pure democracy’ would be more commonly and accurately called ‘majoritarianism’.”

It’s true that people commonly call this majoritarianism, and call themselves radical majoritarians or say that they have a deep commitment to majoritarianism. When they voice sentiments like “You really got a sense of democracy as a festival, of people coming together to decide something of great importance”, or mourn that the “sense of democracy as joining and unifying simply evapourates in the face of a result that pointed not to unity but to deep and enduring division, a mess” it’s because they have a well worked out and open commitment to majoritarianism.

28

Will G-R 10.05.16 at 1:42 pm

Rich: Is “I would really rather not pay back the money” (odious debt, if
you prefer) a particularly left-wing position?

For all the Job-like patience Varoufakis has shown in trying to explain this point, I guess it still hasn’t sunken in even among leftists: the purpose of Keynesian fiscal policy in a situation like Greece’s isn’t to avoid paying back the money, it’s to establish the basic conditions for enough economic prosperity that the money can actually be paid back at all. Of course the idea that our debt-enslaved nation in particular should be given a chance to rid itself of debt and poverty isn’t an inherently left-wing position — Varoufakis’ plans for aggressive monetary policy around a reintroduced drachma could easily be taken up by a future Greek fascist regime, which seems ever more likely if the present Troika-imposed economic conditions continue — but the Greek people at least seemed ready to implement such an economic agenda in a leftist/socialist context before trying to do it in a rightist/fascist one. Even if the Troika does succeed in driving Greece into the arms of Golden Dawn, at least we’ll be able to thank Varoufakis for providing the closest thing to an inside glimpse we may ever get at the international policy mechanisms of neoliberal imperialism by which creditor nations keep debtor nations in chains.

In any case, it seems bizarre to assume that Tsipras agreed to the Troika-imposed austerity agenda out of respect for the will of the Greek people, as evidenced by said people’s overwhelming rejection of said agenda in a referendum the very previous day.

29

Rich Puchalsky 10.05.16 at 2:28 pm

However you interpret the actual content of the Greek referendum, the point remains that if pretty much any Greek no matter what their politics doesn’t want to be ground down by debt, then saying No is not particularly left-wing. (I don’t think that Tsipras cared about the will of the Greek people as such, but he was in a game of chicken that he didn’t actually have the left support to follow through with. The content of the political commitments behind the Yes or No matters.)

At any rate, I was trying to call attention to a particular kind of narrative trope. It goes something like this:

1. Democracy is great! I like to see everyone coming together in unity to decide something important.

2. But the people really voted the wrong way in this referendum. They voted so obviously the wrong way that I’ve lost trust in them.

3. There’s a reactionary mood right now, and people shouldn’t call referenda.

4. But democracy is great! I like to see everyone coming together in unity to decide something important.

Is there any kind of theory that can break this cycle?

30

David 10.05.16 at 2:51 pm

Well, on South Africa, the TRC was a compromise between what the ANC wanted (trials) and what the National Party wanted (total amnesty). It was really a piece of political theatre, and had little actual practical effect, but the important thing is the two sides could agree on it and move on peacefully. Of more importance perhaps is the referendum called by De Klerk in 1992 to ratify the unbanning of the ANC and the Communist Party and the effective end of apartheid. It was limited to the white community, but gave him a resounding vote of confidence.
Can I make another attempt to persuade people to read David Van Rumbeyke’s book “Contre les Élections” – now, I believe translated into English – which gives a series of alternatives to traditional parliamentary systems, not necessarily involving referenda?

31

Raven Onthill 10.05.16 at 2:54 pm

Z@25: oh, I see. But would the FARC accept such an agreement, or trust a negotiating partner that conducts itself in that manner?

32

Layman 10.05.16 at 3:12 pm

“It was really a piece of political theatre, and had little actual practical effect, but the important thing is the two sides could agree on it and move on peacefully.”

My wife is a South African who grew up under the Apartheid regime, opposed the government and supported the ANC, and lived there through the end of Apartheid and the election of the ANC, etc, until 2000. She still has family there and we visit often.

She describes the effect of the Truth and Reconcilation process as profound. It shamed many white supporters of Apartheid into reconciliation with the end of that world, and had tremendous cathartic effect for the victims of that regime. She recalls entire businesses ground to a halt, with the entire staff of the business gathered together around radios listening to the testimony. She describes the outcry among white South Africans at the outrageous confessions they heard from their erstwhile public servants. It moves her to tears to speak of it, and I have seen this same effect among other white and black South Africans I’ve met. The effect is certainly fading in light of the failure of the ANC to provide even basic honest governance in recent years, but there’s good reason to believe the effect bought them years of goodwill.

33

Will G-R 10.05.16 at 3:19 pm

Fair enough, Rich, Syriza’s fight with the Troika never developed to the point where it would have had to directly choose between leftist internationalism and fascist Greek nationalism, and in theory its stance up to the point it was crushed last summer could have been compatible with either. I guess the broader point is to emphasize the cleavage between establishment liberals’ revulsion at anti-establishment sentiment in general and their revulsion at fascist anti-establishment sentiment in particular, the fusion of which lets them disguise their pro-establishment stance as a stance against racism and sexism and so on (the way Merian did in the previous thread, for example). In fact, when anti-establishment sentiment expresses itself in a fascist/nationalist context, these people are perfectly willing to abide its existence even as they rail against it to drum up support for their preferred set of liberal elites; when such sentiment expresses itself in what even hints at being a socialist/internationalist context, their response is to crush it swiftly and completely.

34

Chris Bertram 10.05.16 at 3:20 pm

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David 10.05.16 at 4:18 pm

@Layman. I don’t dispute for a second your wife’s feelings, nor the experiences of people she knew. But there’s a large amount of scholarly work, opinion surveys and so forth which shows clearly that most white South Africans (i.e. those who did support the government) took little or no interest in the TRC, and felt no involvement with, or responsibility for, what the regime had done. For what it’s worth, I was in SA frequently during that period, and that is also the impression I gained, confirmed by friends from the country. The opponents of the government (at least the ones I knew) were not surprised either: they had always known this kind of thing was going on, and in some cases had suffered from it.
But that’s slightly beside the point. The TRC was an inspired political compromise which, through an almost religious ritual, enabled the country to undergo an unexpectedly peaceful political transformation. Maybe something similar would work in Colombia, but there were a number of special features in the SA case (notably the strong religious dimension) which might mean it was not easily exportable.

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engels 10.05.16 at 5:10 pm

Is there any kind of theory that can break this cycle?

My two Euro-cents: democracy is great (but not perfect). You can disagree about what it involves (consensus/deliberation/representation/etc) but it doesn’t just mean ‘majority decision making’ and it certainly doesn’t mean giving the electorate a one-off policy choice in the context of an otherwise highly elitist and authoritarian system. As Chris sats, that’s just an open invitation for the ‘fuck you’ response that our illustrious rulers in fact got.

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Rich Puchalsky 10.05.16 at 11:07 pm

“it doesn’t just mean ‘majority decision making’ and it certainly doesn’t mean giving the electorate a one-off policy choice in the context of an otherwise highly elitist and authoritarian system.”

All existing large-scale democracy is the kind of democracy described above. I think that when pretty much all existing examples of a thing have certain characteristics, that thing can be said to have those characteristics. Yes, not in theory, but eventually theory has to match observation.

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merian 10.06.16 at 12:43 am

Richard Puchalsky #5

When people are given a choice to vote en masse on a yes-or-no society-wide question, is there ever an outpouring of support for the left?

France had two referenda to do with decolonisation (1961 – Algeria, 1988 – New Caledonia initial agreements, to be finished up 2018 with a second referendum which should make the country entirely independent). Both passed overwhelmingly, though obviously in very different contexts. Ireland of course got same-sex marriage via a referendum. Bavaria (probably other Länder) need referenda for any state constitution change, and quite a few in recent years have been toward the left (protection of the environment, equality of sexes, equality of forms of partnerships, funding for municipalities, and further back in 1970, lowering of the voting age to 18) but not all (limitations on public debt, possibly stuff about support for volunteer engagement, though that one might be left, right, or non-political). Bavarian voters also opted with 70% to get rid of the Senate (upper chamber of the legislature), but the Landtag (lower chamber) also had to agree, and (unsurprisingly) didn’t.

But I see those as exceptions. The whole process is an obvious target for demagoguery.

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engels 10.06.16 at 1:00 am

All existing large-scale democracy is the kind of democracy described above.

No, most large-scale soi disant democracies existing today are liberal democracies—i.e. they have constitutional protections for minority and individual rights. So if anything your observation supports my point: democracy doesn’t just mean majority decision-making.

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merian 10.06.16 at 1:06 am

(PS: I forgot to say, thanks Chris B. – that was fascinating.)

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bruce wilder 10.06.16 at 1:32 am

Constitutional democracy is not majoritarianism per se, though a majority principle, with modifications (there are always modifications) may prevail in particularly institutional contexts.

Pure majoritarianism, where people are elected or confirmed in office by plebiscite is characteristic of fascist regimes, which want popular support but do not want the endless deliberation and horse-trading that goes on in democracies.

In a functioning constitutional democracy, any important and broad change in policy will have to be enacted repeatedly by the same and different institutions of government. In the U.S. context, one big city will act followed by others; one State will act followed by others; sometimes, a State that acted earlier will enact or modify its reforms. Private institutions with a prominent or semi-public character may act or declare an allegiance. (We’re equal opportunity employers! Our building won a prize for green efficiency! Our coffee is Fair Trade!) Courts in one State will act, followed by a Federal court, then several Federal courts in different Federal Circuits. A State may enact referenda, if the State Constitution permits. A popular movement may form and campaign or a business-sponsored group may form to produce propaganda; permanent lobby and study groups exist to provide propaganda. The Congress may try to legislate. The President may act thru some vehicle of executive action or cooperate with Congress or not. Federal courts may weigh in on Federal executive action or Congressional enactments or State enactments. It can go on and on like this for decades, but this cumbersome process also trains the mass political culture even as mass sentiment has some effect in shaping governance.

Getting to 51% in some vote (if 51% is even the conventional or legal standard in a particular institutional context, it may not be) is almost an afterthought, it has to be done so many times. Even if a persistent coalition is able to marshal majorities, it still has to be done over and over, to stick.

At bottom, all this political enactment isn’t about bare majoritarianism. It is an extended negotiation. What makes it democratic is respect for the right of the individual to participate and to object on any side of any question. Losing a vote never erases that respect. Even conviction for a crime should not have that effect (though, of course, the least democratic States in the U.S. routinely deny convicted felons the right to vote).

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David 10.06.16 at 12:05 pm

Part of the problem, surely, is the liberal concept of politics as a kind of sport, a competition for power between professionals where one of us wins and one of us loses. This is less of a problem in multi-party systems perhaps, but on the other hand multi-layer systems don’t necessarily help, because you simply have a hierarchy of 51%s, each blocking the one above or below. Thus political stalemate, to which courts often contribute, since they find it easier to stop things than to facilitate them. Naturally, our concept of referenda is therefore binary, expecting yes/no answers to complex questions. Maybe it’s time to look at other models of consensual decision-making, of the type we find in societies in Africa and Asia, where compromise (in the best sense) is actually a political virtue, and complex issues tend to be discussed in detail. In Japan, for example, what looks like a wester-style parliamentary system is largely a facade – long discussions between parties have usually settled things in advance. Maybe our combative, binary system has something to learn.

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Rich Puchalsky 10.06.16 at 6:17 pm

Saying that democracy is democracy at whatever scale is kind of getting close to the differences between left anarchists and state socialists, so I don’t think anything productive is really going to be said. Liberal democracies complete with their protection of minorities are the chief replication mode / justificatory apparatus for capitalism, so I could equally well say that we can argue fine distinctions between liberalism and socialism but basically what’s the difference.

I recognize Bruce Wilder’s answer as at least having the grip on liberal political theory that many left reactions to contemporary referenda don’t seem to. There’s a reason for all of that non-direct-democratic and even non-representative-democratic stuff. The U.S. system, to take one example, is now probably the longest-lasting (and most conservative) political system in the world, certainly having outlasted any kind of socialism, and should be respected as any living fossil that is tough enough to still be around should be.

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Chris Bertram 10.07.16 at 10:21 am

Well goodness me, they gave Santos the Nobel Peace Prize anyway.

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engels 10.07.16 at 10:29 am

Perhaps they’re going to start giving out prizes for effort, like my school did.

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ZM 10.07.16 at 11:16 am

Santos has been trying to save the peace talks after the No vote, so maybe they think giving him the Peace Prize will make him more likely to succeed in negotiating peace…

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F. Foundling 10.08.16 at 3:11 am

Frank Wilhoit @ 19

> If there are institutions that constrain the majority or that enforce minority rights, if 49.999% do not lose, and lose everything, and lose it hard and with a quickness, that’s not democracy; it’s something else, and it may as well be called by its name, if it had one.

If there are institutions that constrain the monarch, if he doesn’t get everything that he wants done, and with a quickness, that’s not monarchy; it’s something else, and it may as well be called by its name, and I really haven’t the slightest idea why nobody has bothered to come up with one. Too bad nobody told Charles I and Louis XVI that they weren’t monarchs when they had to summon their parliaments to get financing.

>For the rest, you are falling into the universal elision of democracy and the republic, which are entirely different things.

Ahem. A republic is just a form of government that is not a monarchy. End of story. A democracy is a system where sovereignty resides with the people understood as composed of equals, where consequently everyone (with some exceptions) has one vote. Then, of course, there seems to be this weird meme in the American conservative altverse, according to which a democracy means that ‘those people’ are allowed to vote in order to tax us (i.e. it’s what the Democrats want) and a republic means that we’re still allowed to vote, but ‘those people’ are prevented from taxing us through various mechanisms wisely devised by the Founding Fathers (i.e. it’s what the Republicans want).

Rich Puchalsky @ 16

>Is “I would really rather not pay back the money” (odious debt, if you prefer) a particularly left-wing position?

This wasn’t so long ago, but it seems people here have already managed to forget that many of the specific policies demanded by the Troika concerned issues such as privatisations, pensions, labour law and various kinds of public services – all of them issues of left/right politics. Similarly, the choice between responding to a recession with austerity and doing so with a Keynesian stimulus is a left-right issue. In general, the question wasn’t whether one should pay the debt, the question was how one should do it and which social classes would have to bear the burden. And, of course, there are those of us who would say that the right of nations to govern themselves is by itself a left-wing cause, too, although I am aware that quite a few people here would disagree with that.

OP:
>fixating on HRW is mainly typical US narcissism: thinking that what happens in the world is basically a function of US choices and that they are causally and morally responsible for everything that happens in the world.

As a foreigner, my impression is that Americans normally vastly *underestimate* the degree to which they are causally and morally responsible for things that happen in the world, and most of them are too busy with navel-gazing to give a damn. Colombia is no exception, since the right-wing side in the conflict was, as usual, aided by the US in a number of ways while committing (a lot of) human rights abuses. It’s true that HRW probably wasn’t a *decisive* negative factor in this particular case. On the other hand, one does need to be on the, ahem, watch-out for it:
http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/is-human-rights-watch-too-closely-aligned-with-us-foreign-policy
http://www.alternet.org/world/nobel-peace-laureates-slam-human-rights-watchs-refusal-cut-ties-us-government

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F. Foundling 10.08.16 at 3:53 am

@19
Perhaps I should add that a democracy is *by necessity* a republic, or else a ‘constitutional monarchy’ where the monarch in practice has no power, which amounts to the same thing, namely the absence of a hereditary head of state that wields real power. On the other hand, a republic does not have to be a democracy.

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EWI 10.09.16 at 11:29 am

I don’t want to push the Brexit parallels too far, but there’s a similarity here with the utter indifference of English voters to the implications of Leave for the Northern Ireland peace process.

The utter indifference of English voters for their supposed treasured United kingdom (which will fall apart with Brexit) has been interesting to observe.

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EWI 10.09.16 at 11:29 am

*supposedly

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engels 10.09.16 at 11:51 am

Perhaps I should add that a democracy is *by necessity* a republic… namely the absence of a hereditary head of state that wields real power

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