THE RISK OF NEOFASCISM IN THE U.S. BACKYARD
By Samuel Perez-Attias*
A small group of the elite that concentrates a big share of power in Guatemala, who has enjoyed the benefits of a system that enhances inherited privileges has closed has closed ranks and joined forces with other forces that see their sources of power violated as a result of the impunity prevalent in this country. The fear of losing privileges makes that elite to see justice as an enemy to overcome, that fear causes the elite to react like cornered beasts or boisterous children.
The fear of losing privileges causes the elite to be grouped with some natural allies, but also with other sectors that in other contexts they may have abhorred. Justice in Guatemala begins to enter the room of those who only saw it pass from their seats secured by the strength of the impunity they had built for centuries in the country.
Today they see how the structures of that fortress begin to collapse. When that privileged elite sees its worst nightmare become reality, it reacts with what at first seems like a tantrum, but it reflects anger, worry and fear. The tantrum of the privileged elite must be taken seriously. It is not the tantrum of a child who wants a toy. It is those who, accustomed to always having what they want, have accumulated a large proportion of power, which is nothing more than the economic, political and social structure of the Country.
The privileged elite is not a necessarily homogeneous group, it is an ultra-conservative faction of like-minded military men who now face trials for corruption, massacres, injustices and crimes against humanity. It is a faction of the Creole elite and owner by inheritance, of large tracts of land, wealth and privileges product of a State designed by their own ancestors, in their favor and ad-hoc to their well being. It is a faction of families that own oligopolistic industries that with a thundering of fingers can generate a crisis of scarcity, an economic recession, detonate an inflationary process and / or leave many unemployed in order to destabilize some government or process of change that threatens them and attempts with their privileges. They also have a powerful media machine in their favor, including the coercive power they have with media, threatening to withdraw their patronages to mainstream newspapers and TV channels if necessary.
The privileged elite is a group with strong ties, ergo, influence with religious groups, politicians and foreign companies and interests.
The elite with its networks, foundations, guilds and NGOs exert direct and indirect pressure, gaining adherents to its agenda by giving arguments of causes that do not necessarily reflect their interest. Today we learned that Genocidal practices were the consequence of feeling isolated from the international community during the internal conflict in Guatemala last century. Doing things “our” way, or perhaps, the way that strong ultraconservative elite that has ruled Guatemala wanted it to be.
The tantrum of the elites reaches absurdity when they manage to manipulate and influence high-ranking government officials to expel and erase everything that may threaten them, even if this implies violating the processes that benefit the rest of the country and, consequently, their own stability. Anger clouds their reason. In the end, the tantrum has been their habit all their life.
Although it is true that very few people care about what is happening in Guatemala, it might be a good idea to see it as a risk of the rise of a neo-fascist state at the U.S. backyard, with barbaric consequences as history has taught us.
