reflections
Many argue that faith in the institutions, in the rule of law, has been lost in Guatemalain the so-called civil society it is argued that there are no counterweights to the factual hegemonic power, that the political parties are all the same, that the University of San Carlos lost its social essence and was an easy prey to corruption, that the unions are run by mafias that they seek only their particular interest, that the flare of rebellion slowly dissipated in the consciousness of the student body until it became a weak flash of light.
A fragment of a poem by Otto Rene Castillo allusive to this social nihilism: “One day, the apolitical intellectuals of my country will be interrogated by the simple man of our people. They will be asked about what they did when the homeland was slowly going out, like a sweet, small and lonely bonfire”.
It seems that the Guatemalan became socially resilient, who knew how to adapt to adversity, to the traumas of the thirty-six-year internal war, to natural tragedies, to threats from organized crime, to serious problems such as deplorable services of health in national hospitals, the calamity experienced in public schools or stressful situations due to lack of work and economic problems.
For Nietzsche, nihilism is associated with Western culture, when society reaches its own ruin, its total decadence, it remains empty, exhausted from the fictitious values represented in metaphysics, Christianity and the old morality. It is about the denial of all religious, social, economic and political principles.
The description made by Nietzsche is also associated with what we now know as a Failed state. The term failed State is used to describe a sovereign State that is considered to have failed to guarantee access to basic services for its population: health, housing, education, work, security. The failure of a State is measured with the following parameters: political corruption and judicial inefficiency, overpopulation and contamination, high levels of crime, drug trafficking, high levels of poverty and extreme poverty, lack of housing, uncontrolled migration, low average school education.
The essential question at this juncture is: What can we do? The followers of social nihilism assure that one cannot participate in politics because the entire political party system is rotten. That there is nothing to do anymore. That the State is co-opted by organized crime. That corruption and impunity exceeded any limit.
This is not entirely true. Faced with such an extreme situation, citizen participation is a legitimate strategy for a new beginning, to work to return things to their place. We must make active citizenship prevail in Guatemala.
active citizenship is a concept that applies to all those people who make up a community and display a behavior committed to everything that happens in it. That is, the active citizen is absolutely involved in all matters that concern the community in which he lives and participates in everything to find a solution to social problems.
Citizen participation in political activity is legitimate and legal. Let us not look for excuses where there are none, we must make the concept of active citizenship a reality, we must get the corrupt out of the political arena, we must return the institutionality to the country, conscious citizens must visualize the country in ten, fifteen or twenty years, what we want to see decadent, collapsed more than it is or radiant and developed for the good of future generations.
We just need a strong dose of will and self-confidence that things can change. The learning after so much disappointment should be: You have to participate in politics, to have access to the places where decisions are made. You have the last word.
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