Moisés Naím: "In the past decade they killed democracy and we didn't realize it"

Moisés Naím knows power.

And so he warns us of his degenerations.

He has done so in his last two books:

and

(Debate) or in novels such as

.

He has had it in his hands as a former Minister of Public Works in Venezuela with Carlos Andrés Pérez and today he studies, observes and analyzes it from an organization such as the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, based in Washington, where this 69-year-old Venezuelan lives, or in his television program

and his columns in EL PAÍS.

He continues to be alarmed by the kidnapping of democracy worldwide, especially at the hands of mafia states disguised as what they are not.

More information

''Bye, bye', democracy?', by Moisés Naím

Question

.

Trump and all these: those of Brexit with Boris Johnson, at the head, the Bolsonaros, Orban, Salvini, Le Pen, Maduro and those of Vox, are they all Putin employees?

Answer

.

Including the oligarchs, who also work for him... Well yes, they are some of those who killed democracy in the past decade and we didn't realize it.

P.

In the book there is a chapter entitled

.

Will we end like this?

R.

_

It is a perverse and dangerous mutation of corruption.

From this we pass to kleptocracy and from there to a third variant, the one that Putin embodies: the criminalized state.

This implies that the criminals are not outside the government trying to influence it, but that the criminal is the government itself.

P.

Define for me the three 'p's that are the key to our misery: post-truth, polarization and populism...

R.

_

All three have always existed, what happens is that now they have been enhanced by a situation of technological and social change and economic and geopolitical transformations.

Q.

In what ways?

R.

_

Each of them is connected: populism, first, is not an ideology.

But a tool.

It is the divide and conquer of always.

This has as a consequence a polarization that increases in fractured identities.

And all this, in part, is produced by post-truth, another strain of propaganda, the narration of an alternative story to reality.

This is how they invent.

The three 'p's, which are enhanced by technology.

Q.

For not remembering what you wrote: "Put a KGB agent on Twitter and it's like leaving a child in a candy store."

R.

_

Of course…

P.

_

How did it occur to no one that these technological toys would also fall into the hands of the worst and would take advantage of them to conquer power?

R.

_

At the beginning of the internet, those responsible for technology companies told us that their inventions were going to be tools of liberation.

Over time, to a large extent, they have become elements of repression.

The intelligence services of the tyrannies saw that they could identify activist opponents there.

Now they coexist.

They help foster democracy and repression.

P.

But the precursors of the technology companies, seeing how their inventions led to that, what did they sin?

From naivety and immaturity or from greed?

R.

_

Of political naivety.

Nothing in their past had prepared them to understand that you can do without politics.

I have attended meetings in which some of them believed that they would be able to dismantle politics, that the parties would not be necessary because the people would end up choosing their leaders.

That I wouldn't need to go to Washington.

The intelligence services of the tyrannies saw that there [on the internet] they could identify activist opponents.

Now they coexist.

They help promote democracy and repression

P.

Until they became powers that be?

R.

_

Until today, the biggest

are them.

Reality has made it clear to them that politics exists and matters.

P.

They realized that and took a cut in the pre-Trump era.

By requesting millions of dollars from the United States Government to develop NSA control programs, as agent Snowden recounted.

Is Obama innocent?

R.

_

There are trends that transcend leaders.

This is what I told in my previous book,

, whose thesis is that it is easy to obtain, difficult to use and easy to lose.

That case in which they asked for 150,000 million dollars for that service illustrates it.

But the technology companies now face several laws in the United States and another in Europe, the Digital Services Law, which will be key and indispensable in their leadership, essential to control them.

P.

Writing these books on power, specifically the last one, you will never have sufficiently regretted having been right.

R.

_

What I regret is not having been more strident and clearer in the attacks that democracy suffers in the world.

P.

Do you mean more radical, you who are a paradigm of moderation?

A.

Not so much.

We just have to do a conscientious job of exposing autocrats masquerading as democrats.

Complicated, because, in addition, they act stealthily.

So far I have not been successful.

Putin, with his war, has been wrong.

Deeply

Q.

Do you feel powerless?

Or, rather, will impotence overcome those who truly defend democracy?

R.

You have to keep hope.

For example, I think that Putin, with his war, has made a mistake.

Deeply.

P.

_

Out of desperation or out of ego?

R.

_

We must not speculate.

But she was wrong.

There is no way to understand it, not even based on his own interests.

He was wrong about the way he invaded, he was wrong about the capabilities of his army, about the Ukrainians' ability to resist, which amazes us all and should not amaze us.

On the other hand, Russia is poor, it is also isolating itself from the world.

She suffers a demographic crisis and is going to regret a major brain drain.

Any young man from there has the world ahead of him and does not see the need to sacrifice his future in a society with medieval codes.

Many will go.

P.

_

This context is producing a crisis that affects pockets.

And something is historically true, that inflation produces, as in the thirties, fascism.

R.

_

The term fascism has become an easy insult and thus the word has been devoid of force and meaning.

I prefer autocracy: you get it better.

Exclusive content for subscribers

read without limits

subscribe

I'm already a subscriber