PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY vs REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
We as citizens of the United States observe politics from afar and the vast majority of us may participate in the political process only to the extent that we go to the polls once a year to vote. We may endeavor to follow the news accounts of our nation's politics as they unfold, and of the consequences those political actions yield, but we have little power to influence our "democratically" elected officials. Perhaps we write an occasional letter to our senator or representative, but we almost inevitably receive a vague and impersonal response explaining why they will vote in our opposition.
Over the decades, our representative democracy has been systematically undermined and has ultimately failed in preserving the well being of the people of this nation. The system that the founding fathers painstakingly devised in order to best serve the interests and the will of the people has been corrupted and the systems of checks and balances on power that they instituted have been stripped away. Most of us accept this reality as being beyond our control and continue to observe, comment, and complain without aspiring to achieving any real change, without any hope of instituting a new system of governance that would instead take directly into account your views, and the views of your neighbors, and would empower you to make real positive change possible in your communities.
This site will attempt to explore in depth the places in the world where people are successfully bringing about that type of change in the face of similar odds, where an alternate form of democracy, which is called participatory or direct democracy, is taking root. Initiative, referendum & recall, community councils, and grassroots organizing are but a few ways in which direct/participatory democracy is achieving great success around the world.
Our system of representative democracy does not admit the voice of the people into congressional halls, the high courts, or the oval office where our rights and our liberties are being sold out from underneath us. Our local leaders and activists in our communities, and even those local elected officials who may have the best of intentions are for the most part powerless to make real positive change happen in our neighborhoods, towns and villages when there is so much corruption from above.
In places like Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, India, and the Phillipines, new experiments in grass roots community based governance are taking place. There is much to be learned from these and other examples of participatory democracy from around the world when we try to examine how this grass-roots based governance could begin to take root here in our own country in order to alter our political system so that it might better serve the American people.
In the hope that one day we can become a nation working together as a united people practicing true democracy as true equals, we open this forum…
Foro social en Guatemala
La Usac será la sede.
Por: Helmer Velásquez
Fuente: http://www.elperiodico.com.gt/es/20080925/opinion/72082
Convocada por tercera ocasión, la cumbre social del hemisferio congregará alrededor de 6 mil representantes de redes sociales, populares y pueblos originarios de las américas y el mundo, del 7 al 12 de octubre, bajo el alero de la Universidad de San Carlos, cuya Ciudad Universitaria será sede del evento. ¿Por qué es importante este evento para el movimiento social guatemalteco? El proceso de construcción de la cumbre está llamado a constituirse en el motor de la refundación de la propia alianza social. Debe ser el acicate para la forja de nuevos y cualitativos niveles de unidad.
Revitalización de la agenda del movimiento, reconstrucción de vasos comunicantes e impulso a nuevos y beligerantes actores, dentro de los cuales las comunidades organizadas en defensa de sus recursos naturales y territorio adquieren singular relevancia. Bajo estas premisas, el movimiento social guatemalteco, –sigo acá los comentarios de Edwin Ortega y Jeanina Ponce, personeros del foro– aspira a renovada unidad, agenda política común y vínculos estrechos con los procesos de integración de los pueblos. La importancia del foro se refleja en los temas de agenda dentro de los que aparecen: Nuevos roles de los Estados. Democracia directa, social y popular. Pueblos originarios, resistencia y lucha por el territorio. Mercantilización de la vida, instrumentos de la apertura comercial versus comercio con justicia. Crisis e inequitativo acceso a los alimentos.
Militarización de nuestras sociedades. Neoliberalismo y post-neoliberalismo. Desarrollo endógeno.
Socialismo en el siglo XXI. Cambio climático. Minería. Reforma Agraria. Equidad de género y de pueblos. Entre otros sensibles problemas a debatir. Este festival de la amistad y la solidaridad entre los pueblos, es excelente oportunidad para pensadores, dirigentes y activistas sociales nacionales, para el intercambio de ideas, experiencias y propuestas con dirigentes internacionales de amplia experiencia. Una innegable oportunidad para escuchar a los nuevos pensadores latinoamericanos.
Cierra el III Foro Social Américas con una caminata por las calles de la ciudad de Guatemala, en conmemoración del Día de la Resistencia Indígena, Negra y Popular, desarrollo rural y reforma agraria, demandas centrales de la organización campesina e indígena guatemalteca, quienes estarán presentes a lo largo del recorrido. La Guatemala social estará de nuevo al centro de la mirada continental: hospitalaria, solidaria y políticamente responsable.
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