DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

   In its strictest meaning, the democracy is an organizational form of state that is characterized by the exercise of popular will, in which collective decisions are taken by the legal representatives elected by the people, through certain mechanisms of participation, who give them the powers necessary to perform that function. Based on the thought of Aristotle in ancient Greece, and supposedly conceived, in its simplest version, as "government of the people, by the people and for the people" with the purpose of opposing to organizations or states that intended to conserve and / or manage the political power by authoritarian principles such as absolutism, autocracy, despotism, dictatorship or totalitarianism, among others, manifestly contrary to the rights and freedoms inherent in the human condition, finds in the weaknesses of our kind, faithful the aphorism popularized by Thomas Hobbes "Homo homini lupus", its main handicap. The selfishness, that is in the beginning of much the human behavior, is a major factor that contributes to alter, and even destroy, coexistence among the people and the core values that the political theory of democracy represents: the freedom, the equality, the personnel rights, the pluralism, the tolerance, the participation and the opinion.

   When, as is the case of a significant part of the current political establishment, democratic mechanisms are used surreptitiously to reach the power, using public resources to their own advantage, practicing the nepotism and corruption in its entirety and promoting economic cultura of personal achievement, making a disastrous management and fleecing the government coffers, with all impunity, defrauding the trust of citizens, especially of those who, with his vote, toward his election, we are not in the backroom of democracy, but in the themselves sewers of the same.  In this situation, the theoretical benefits that may derive from the democratic system are automatically canceled and, democracy itself, in addition to not providing solutions, becomes the problem. Already, in his time, the famous Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi, with his popular wisdom, considered the "politics without principles" as the first of the seven factors he saw as more destructive to human beings.

   The full exercise of democracy can bring to many people the progress and social harmony, but is falsified and prostituted when  only is used as a flag and not is practiced, except to justify personal interests, or group, with total disregard for the rest of citizen. An example of this we have in the successive strikes of workers who, for various reasons and circumstances, have been organized in our country, Spain, and, at present, are being especially hard in the fields of mining and transport in Asturias. Without going into the reasons for them, or what it is de same, in the funds, that can be understandable and justifiable, what is not acceptable, because is completely and utterly reprehensible, are the forms.  How can  be justify that trying to defend or vindicate the rights of some are violated, flagrantly, the rights of others who, also, have not any guilt?  How can you accept that someone tries to intimidate, and even attack, to those people who want to use their freedom to exercise their legitimate right to work, or to try to hinder the mobility of those who, for one reason or another, have the need to travel, blocking roads and railways? How can tolerate that picketing strikers, euphemistically called informative, carrying away with violence, can damage vehicles, buildings, street furniture and everything in its path, while manifest with strong criticism for the actions of security forces that only  trying to prevent its excesses? In the name of what right?  In what exercise the freedom?  Do not think it is necessary to recall nobody that the boundary of our rights and freedoms ends where they begin the rights and freedoms of others.

   In my case, in that I have never had political ambitions, nor am I related to any party, being interested in the issue just enough so it affects me as a citizen, having been born, grown up, studied, raised a family and having practiced the profession of engineering  for several previous years in the Franco regime, in no time I felt the insecurity that currently live, or economic uncertainty and personal anxiety that many people feel and suffer for the absence the future employment prospects. Neither can see that the fundamental pillars of the state, such as education, health and justice, apart from the best technical resources available, which are obviously the product of the normal development of technology and not outcome the specific work of their managers, have been demonstrably improved. The same can be said of the family, as the foundation of society, in which the loss of core values ​​that characterize it is clearly worrying, with very uncertain future.

   Not that I have a negative personality or chronic pessimism, what happens is that what I now see do not like, and what I suspect may come in the future does not seem to be better. If there is not a radical change, and this process comes sooner rather than later, many of those who have lived what some call "repressive dictatorship",  may end up wanting to return to those times.

C. Díaz Fdez.

Oviedo, June 11, 2012