"Democracy is a relative concept," according to Lula da Silva. Maybe. Jair Bolsonaro, his enemy, couldn't say it better. Neither does Donald Trump. Not to mention Putin. Sacred when he was in prison, democracy seems random to him now that he is in power.
It is an old story: democratic are friends, undemocratic are enemies, democratic institutions that agree, antidemocratic are those that stand in the way. Cynical, isn't it? With nonsense like that I would not approve of political science, or history of ideas or philosophy, no matter if ancient or modern. But he rules Brazil, is honored everywhere, often revered. It is what there is.
In case anyone had not understood, Lula explained that "Venezuela is the victim of a narrative of anti-democracy and authoritarianism." The syntax is revisable, the meaning very clear: poor Nicolás Maduro, poor Diosdado Cabello! History will make them a place in the pantheon of great men, in the sanctoral of righteous men.
What "narrative" he is talking about is a mystery: if a normal democratic regime did half as much havoc as the Chavista regime, the world press would crucify it, students would occupy universities, popular movements would burn embassies. Instead, nothing.
Human rights violated? Torture and censorship? The monopoly of power? Corruption and drug trafficking? The diaspora second only to those of Syria and Ukraine, countries at war? It must be true that "democracy is a relative concept", very relative.
I could go on, quoting Lula's sinister phrases about Ukraine, his fatal attraction to the aggressor and his contempt for the attacked, recounting his affectionate exchanges with Russian and Iranian leaders, emblems of the worst obscurantism, champions of the most repressive fanaticism. For what? Progressivism also, as we know, is "a relative concept", of coherence not to speak.
If the first Lula ignited hope, this one kills it. The one who then deluded us that the Latin American left, like the Iberian one, had converted to liberal democracy, is today a gagá that does not believe in anything, a monument to itself. At least it allows us to clarify: right and left are stadium banners, old tribal references, trivial categories for lazy minds.
Who in conscience would associate Daniel Ortega with Felipe González, Nicolás Maduro with Mario Soares? They are different families, Christmas dinners would end with fists. Lula, I regret to say, has returned where he came, has succumbed to the call of the jungle, to when he was on pilgrimage in Cuba: the populist left undermines the liberal left, national socialism to social democracy, fundamentalism to reformism.
But what to be surprised about? Why be outraged? Times are changing and democracy is in crisis. Do I not realize it? That I am blind? Don't I see that the new idol is Nayib Bukele? That from Guatemala to Bolivia, from Mexico to Peru, from right to left, democracy is a "relative concept"?
That democratic consensus is a thing of the past? It will be, but I have the impression that "the crisis of democracy" is the favorite album of those who have never believed in democracy, the perfect alibi for those who want to shake it off. Rule of law, limited government, balance of powers, individual freedoms, human rights... How many sophisms!
"The mistake," Perón said, Castro shouted, is "to associate democracy with liberalism." To escape liberal democracy, all kinds of adjectives are invented: organic, national, popular, social, participatory. Always different, they always mean the same thing: Latin America is the paradise of illiberal democracies.
However, it is not true that democracy is in crisis everywhere. On the contrary, for some it is not in crisis at all, and if it is, it is because it is the only player on the court, because nobody dares to deny it but many try to avoid it, because it has spread to areas of the world previously unthinkable where democratic culture is recent and in the process of formation. It may not always be the case, but it certainly is in Europe, where democracy is liberal, period.
Does anyone deviate? Does he cheat and look for adjectives? Viktor Orbán, for example? Sanctions fall on him. No one else dreams of following him. So it happens that Latin American tyrants, the leaders of the "relative democracies" pampered by Lula, are slapped in the face in Brussels. It just happened.
But not even Lula can say anything and always get away with it. How irritated he was with Gabriel Boric! With what paternalistic snobbery he treated him! Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are dictatorships, the Chilean president said. A no-brainer. And a necessity: how to sell cat for hare to its citizens? How to be accepted as democratic at home by befriending tyrants outside?
The fact is that by history and culture Chile and Uruguay are to Latin America what Hungary is to the European Union. It is as difficult to digest liberal democracy as it is for those who have anti-liberal democracy. There is still hope, then, whether Lula likes it or not, for many democracy is not a "relative concept."
Loris Zanatta is a historian. Professor at the University of Bologna, Italy.