Editor's Note:
Roberto Izurieta is Director of Latin American Projects at George Washington University.
He has worked in political campaigns in several Latin American countries and Spain, and was an advisor to Presidents Alejandro Toledo of Peru, Vicente Fox of Mexico, and Álvaro Colom of Guatemala.
Izurieta is also a contributor to CNN en Español.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author.
See more opinions at cnne.com/opinion
(CNN Spanish) -
After four years of aggressive, divisive and polarizing political rhetoric, it was refreshing to hear President Joe Biden's inauguration speech.
You are quite right when you said that the things that divide us are not new.
What was new in the previous four years was using the political podium, not to heal those wounds and divisions, but to promote and manipulate them for selfish and short-term political goals.
The struggles for civil rights and for the end of racial discrimination and marginalization have many years in the history of humanity and that of the United States. But what politics has to do is fight discrimination, not take advantage of it .
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Populist discourses prey on the marginalized: they always have.
At the end of their governments, the poor are no better off in the Venezuela of Chávez or Maduro, or the poor whites in rural areas of the US The factories have not returned to the US, many of the closed mines have not been reopened : the Manichean idea of making "America Great Again" for them was not fulfilled.
The fight against marginalization and poverty requires much more than rhetoric.
It requires clear, well-articulated policies that, over time, reduce this gap, not enlarge it.
To do this, you have to start with another search that Biden mentioned very well in his speech.
As a good Catholic (only the second Catholic president in the US presidency) Biden cited Saint Augustine, who had a passion for the search for truth.
In my previous article, as if anticipating the words of Biden's speech, I wrote precisely on that subject.
Although the truth that Saint Augustine was looking for and that one of the great philosophers of humanity did was mainly the absolute truth and the search for God;
in the Trump years there was a Manichaean war against fact and truth.
Until now most people are confused between two fundamental concepts in knowledge and science: the difference between "facts" and "opinions".
People are free to have their opinions.
What's more, it is laudable.
What people shouldn't feel free to do is change the facts.
The facts are real data (and confirmable of reality).
Data can be interpreted (and even should be) but should not be altered.
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Sometimes the facts are not clear because we lack information.
Science and knowledge advance rapidly and thanks to that search (of science) we have discovered the steam engine, reached the Moon and discovered the vaccines against polio and covid-19.
There are people (much more than we could imagine) who do not know what 10% of the number 100 is or that the Earth is not flat.
Ignorance hurts me and as a good Uruguayan and a follower of José Pedro Varela, I believe that "ignorance is not a right but an abuse."
But people are free to remain ignorant despite the fact that today it is much easier to inform and educate oneself, thanks to the easy access to knowledge through technology.
As Biden says, what divides us is not new and neither are conspiracy theories.
What has been new in these last four years is that they have been promoted by the president of the United States himself. That was simply a formula for disaster and the disaster occurred on the evening of January 6 when hordes incited by that speech vandalized the US Congress Freedom of expression is guaranteed, but freedom of action is not, among which is obviously violence and vandalism.
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What happened in the hours that followed, on the contrary, was a sample of what modern and civilized democratic unity means.
United, Democrats and Republicans formally confirmed the popular decision expressed at the polls on November 3 and the Electoral College on December 14.
President Biden's inauguration was sober, solemn, and began with clear demonstrations of the search for unity, as leaders from both parties attended Biden's requested church service.
Without a doubt, many of us miss the opportunity to go to greet the new president in the streets;
but we did it remotely as we are doing remotely everything that is possible for us because of the pandemic;
especially the celebrations.
Joe Biden receives a nation with three major problems: more than 400,000 dead from the covid-19 pandemic (and as the president mentioned in his speech, it is tragically higher than the number of US citizens killed in World War II);
an unacceptable delay in the administration of vaccines;
an economic crisis aggravated by this mismanagement of the pandemic and a state of very serious internal insecurity, largely because it has been encouraged by the now former President Trump for four years.
Despite all this, the change has already begun, because I believe that change often begins with words and messages that seek to help us find unity and progress.
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