AND
n the zigzagging future In this third decade of the 20th century, in this third decade of the 20th century, an expansionist desire of the neo-fascist right stands out, the extreme right, whose ideological elite met for the first time in Mexico and for the second time in Latin America, with a regressive message, archaic and intolerant, attacking the values of democracy, freedom, enlightenment, equality and justice.
It is an extreme right that, as Anne Applebaum affirms in her text The twilight of democracy does not believe in the values of civilization and today criticizes not only socialism, but to representative democracy, religious tolerance, the independence of the judiciary, freedom of expression and of the press, and republican institutions
.
It is an anti-democratic right that is consolidating in sectors of the United States, which has come from perpetuating itself in Hungary, from winning in Italy, from growing in France, from increasing in media stridency in Spain and from becoming entrenched – although not from succeeding – in Brazil; an extreme right that threatens to regionalize and already has beachheads in the opposition of Chile and Argentina.
An ultra-right that attacks and calls to annihilate all expressions of progressive thought, especially egalitarian socialism and liberalism with a social commitment and defender of the rights of women and men, human rights. Not just sitting governments, but what she, in her paranoia, perceives as a threat to her mercantile, class, racial, and individualistic interests.
The so-called Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), already 50 years old, was created between obscurantist sectors of the United States, critics of liberal democracy, racial minorities and the establishment of that country, and little by little it has been extending its tentacles to other countries and other continents. Today it is the epicenter of the world ultra-right, in the manner of an Ultra-right International, the nemesis of the Socialist International.
At the continental level, it intends to be an ideological counterweight to the Sao Paulo Forum, as one of the organizers stated at the Santa Fe Summit: just as Lula founded the Sao Paulo Forum with a very strong radical agenda, the CPAC meets in Mexico to mark a path; It is the beginning of a movement in defense of life, the homeland, the fundamental freedoms that are at stake today.
.
As in times of cold War, the speakers addressed the alleged dangers of socialist governments and the Sao Paulo Forum, that aims to destroy people
so they declared a war footing against the progressivism that wants to censor ideas, against abortion and in defense of gender binaryism
that is, against sexual diversity.
It is about a movement that, we said, had a domestic gestation in our neighbor to the north, in the 70s, in full cold War, with the banner of stopping communism, both real and imaginary, but which is now constituted in a network of organizations and media figures whose new crusade is to stop changes in the world and even regress towards traditional values: an end to the State and secular education; a chauvinistic nationalism, hostile to immigrants; a closed society, refractory to minorities; rejection of personal preferences; penalization of the right of women to decide over their bodies.
Also, notably, an ideology closed to the reality of climate change and global warming, when it should be the commitment and common struggle of all governments and all human beings, beyond ideologies; work for the conservation of the balances of nature and restore them where they have been upset.
It is a constellation of regressive forces coming together to stop changes perceived as destroying national identity, to turn back the clock of history and restore medieval values, to cancel the rights of minorities and women, even those who had status. of acquired and consummated rights, with constitutional protection, in the same capital of the so-called free world.
For this reason, at the CPAC Summit, figures from various countries met, in person or virtually with recorded messages. From the American continent, central actors of Trumpism, such as Steve Bannon; Eduardo, son of the still president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro; the former right-wing candidate for the presidency of Chile, José Antonio Kast, a nostalgic for Pinochet; Javier Milei, former losing candidate of the right in Argentina, among others. From Europe participated, in one format or another, Víctor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary; Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox in Spain; representatives of the Le Pen family, icons of French neo-fascism, and a delegation from the extreme right-wing government of Italy, among others.
In short, the world is not safe from the threat of the transnational ultra-right, nor are the conquests of civilization, science, enlightenment, democracy, social struggle and, in general, progressive thought permanently shielded. Forward-thinking values have to be defended, today and always.
*President of the Colosio Foundation
