In the framework of the 13 days of debate on socialism in the XXI century coordinated by the Workers’ Party of Brazil, table #6 was held this Saturday entitled The struggle for socialism in Latin America | Left and progressive governments, and good living.
During the telematic event, the Ecuadorian economist, activist, politician and former Foreign Minister, Ricardo Patiño, reflected on the political experience in Ecuador -with the arrival of former President Rafael Correa- and its similarities in Latin America.
Latin American Union and Post Capitalist Model
“These debates -and spaces- are necessary because we are at a turning point in geopolitics and in the very conception of regional development”, were the words with which Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza began his speech.
The Foreign Minister emphasized that given the current international and geopolitical inflection, it is vital to adapt the progressive model and, in turn, allow the development of all sectors of each country, according to their particularities and capacities.
“These are moments for the amplitude, so that the dogmas are not more than references that allow us to advance. At this time the dogmas do not help and less when the societies of the world have evolved with so many technological tools, and when time has so much meaning, this world has changed”, he argued.
He assured, recalling the words of the Liberator Simón Bolívar that “the peoples must seek and bet on that government which provides us with the highest amount of social security, the highest amount of political stability and the highest amount of happiness possible.”
The Venezuelan diplomat asserted that if the countries of the region move in the right direction, they could all meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals, contemplated in the 2030 agenda.
Along the same lines, the Executive Secretary of the Sao Paulo Forum and moderator of the debate, Mónica Valente, raised the need to rethink Latin American and Caribbean integration with an ecological approach as a strategy to maintain the sovereignty of the peoples.
“We must avoid the damage of an environmental crisis (…) The ecological transition must be made with the construction of a democratic and sovereign sdocialism and good living in mind”, she added.
However, she stressed that what the world was going through with the COVID-19 pandemic should serve to reflect on the inability of the “capitalist civilizational model.”