The leftists presidents of Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, and the Prime Minister of Spain on Wednesday hosted a meeting “in defense of democracy” in New York to address the “risks” of growing conservative movements in the world.
The event — titled “In Defense of Democracy, Combating Extremism,” took place on the sidelines of the ongoing 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly and was moderated by Chilean President Gabriel Boric while also serving as a broader follow-up to another event hosted by Boric in Chile in late July.
The leftist heads of state did not invite President Donald Trump to participate in the self-declared “pro-democracy” event and instead extended invitations to representatives from Bolivia, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and European Council President António Costa, among others. The event also paid homage to late Uruguayan socialist President José “Pepe” Mujica, who passed away this year. Mujica is described as a “mentor” of current leftist President Yamandú Orsi.
Boric, as the event’s moderator, outlined to his peers guidelines for the leftist group such as moving forward with a “reform of multilateralism” towards a “new system of international governance,” asserting that the world is not the same as it was in 1945 when the U.N. was founded “and institutions, particularly the U.N., must accept this.”
Other guidelines mentioned by Boric covered diplomacy, international collaboration in digital governance, the creation of the Multilateral Youth Observatory, an international network of think tanks committed to “democracy and international fiscal cooperation,” and initiatives on climate charge ahead of the upcoming COP30 climate alarmist summit in Brazil later this year.
“I want to tell you that seeing you all gathered here today gives me hope. I have hope because we are speaking positively. Because it is not enough to point the finger at those we believe to be a threat. It is not enough to say, ‘I don’t like this,’” Boric said. “It is not enough to generate fear about the proposals of those in power. Instead, we must speak positively. We must convey the ideas we believe in.”
“Why does progressivism bring greater social peace when it governs? Why does progressivism enable countries to grow in a more equitable manner when it governs? Why does progressivism, when it is convinced of and exercises democratic values, defend human rights wherever they may be and freedom of expression, which is so threatened today?” he asked.
Brazil’s radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva prefaced his speech by noting that he will turn 80 years old in October and has been in politics since he was 24. Lula said he discovered that it “was necessary to engage in politics without reading a single word about Leninism, Marxism, or Maoism,” and recounted the circumstances that led to him founding the ruling Brazilian Worker’s Party (PT) and creating the Sao Paulo Forum, a coalition of Latin American and Caribbean leftist governments. Despite every president being given four minutes each for their speech, Lula went on for almost ten minutes because “we Latin Americans have a tendency to talk a little too much.”
“What do we have to do to guarantee democracy? You, me, Yamandú, Pedro Sánchez [Spanish PM], and all of us need to wake up every day and ask ourselves what we’re going to do for democracy. When you go to sleep at night, put your head on the pillow and ask yourself what you did during the day to strengthen democracy,” Lula said.
“How many people did you talk to about democracy? How many people did you talk to about the need for popular organization? How many people did you call to organize? Because my party, when it was created, we had a category nucleus, we had a nucleus by neighborhood, we had a nucleus by village, we had a nucleus by workplace, by place of study,” he continued.
Lula, who did not touch upon the erosion of Brazilian democracy through the political persecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro and other conservative voices in the country, asked his leftist peers, “Why have we allowed the far-right to grow as strongly as it is? Is it their virtue or our incompetence?”
He said:
What have we failed to do to strengthen democracy? Where did we go wrong? What did I do as President of the Republic to strengthen popular and social organization?
Because, often, we win elections with left-wing rhetoric, and when we begin to govern, we serve the interests of our enemies much more than those of our friends. Often, we govern responding to what the press publishes about us, to the demands of the market, to the need to please the market, to the need to please our opponents. Often, our voters who took to the streets, who were beaten, who were mocked, are considered sectarian and radical, and we begin to ignore them and pay attention to those who speak well of us.
This is the failure of democracy. What have we failed to do? And I think we’ve failed to do many things, and later, I’ll explain what we failed to do. So, I think that before we look for the virtues of right-wing extremism, we need to look for the mistakes democracy has made in its relationship with civil society.
Lula emphasized that if they find the answer to the question, “How are we exercising democracy in our countries?” then the leftist governments “will defeat the right once again.” If the answer is not found, he warned, “we will continue to be suffocated by the denialism, extremism, and fascist rhetoric we are seeing now.”
Far-left President Gustavo Petro — fresh from accusing President Trump of “murder” at the United Nations — called upon overcoming the “fears that the far right has imposed based on lies,” and recounted Trump’s speech at the U.N. this week. Petro urged to “fight a battle against lies,” which, according to him, were reinforced by Trump’s address.
“Yesterday, I watched Trump’s speech and asked the citizens of the United States how they were doing in New York, a libertarian city. In case they succumb to irrationality, we are in circumstances that precede widespread barbarism. Yes, totalitarian proposals are found in history, such as fear and lies,” Petro said.
According to the Colombian president, the “fear of the climate crisis, fear of free women, and fear of migrants,” are pushing the world’s youth towards the “extreme right.” Petro called for overcoming those fears in order to “defend democracy and build a future of equality and freedom.”
Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez announced during his speech that he will host the next gathering of the leftist presidents’ group sometime next year in Madrid.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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