By Luis Alberto Padilla
Last week, regarding the delegation of the 48 Cantons that traveled to the capital to demand that the deputies archive the unfortunate and anti-democratic bill 6076 on social networks, a meme circulated that says: “Thank you for having stood up! for all of us, 48 Cantons! (If you did not accompany them to file the nefarious initiative 6076, at least circulate this thanks). So, regardless of whether the brave leaders of the K’iche’ people have achieved (or not) their objectives (because we already know how doubtful it is to manage anything in Congress and the double face of most of its members) we believe that this bold indigenous initiative allows us to reflect on the failure of that third attempt (the one in 1985) to establish a “representative democracy” (of which only the electoral process for next year is left standing, because the rest of its components –independence of powers, an MP at the service of justice and not the president, a CC with magistrates who obey their own conscience and not the chief executive– has disappeared). That is why it is not surprising that one of those surveys that are carried out periodically in Latin America on these issues has found that a majority of Guatemalan citizens are dissatisfied with such a completely non-democratic political system. On the contrary, in the indigenous communities, and especially in the 48 Cantons, if there is a vibrant community democracy which gives full legitimacy to its leaders and allows them to act with the full support of the citizens who make up their communities, as we have seen now who presented themselves to Congress protesting against a law that seeks to silence popular protests.
But what should we understand by community democracy and what is its difference with the so-called “representative democracy”? The first is a direct democracy (only comparable to the one that exists in Switzerland) in which the members of a community meet in an assembly to make decisions regarding everything that happens and affects their community, while the second consists of the Citizens of a country choose who will be their representatives, whether this is before Parliament (as is the case in Europe) or before a Congress of Deputies, which in some countries is usually made up of two Chambers, one with wide representation depending on the number of inhabitants and another depending on the number of states, provinces, autonomous regions or entities that make up a republic, federation or kingdom with this type of government system (senate) and it is these representatives who make decisions on behalf of those who have elected them. As we know, in Guatemala the deputies (with the honorable exception of some minority parties) do not represent anyone due to the spurious nature of the electoral rules, designed precisely for that: to prevent true representatives from being elected. And as for the separation of powers and an independent Justice System, we are not going to insist on its disappearance by the grace of the bad rulers who overwhelm us. Due to this, the last chance that the system of 1985 has to survive is that in the next elections the TSE prevents fraud (which the Corrupt Pact is surely already planning) and that, in addition, the citizens of this country find themselves in conditions to elect a president and honorable deputies. However, while that is the sad panorama at the national level, at the local level –in the 48 Cantons– we have a fully functioning and healthy democratic system from which all Guatemalans should draw inspiration.
To begin with, the three pillars of the community democracy system, which the distinguished K’iche’ scholar Gladys Tzul calls in her doctoral thesis “communal systems of government,” consist of: 1) the k’ax k’ol or communal work not paid, 2) kinship plots and 3) the “assembly as a communal form of deliberation to solve daily problems, matters of state aggression, or to deal with how and in what way what is produced on communal lands is redistributed”. It is therefore about collective strategies to manage, self-regulate and defend community territories through collective agreements that are the result of dialogue in community assemblies in which “the indigenous community functions as a political strategy that, despite the hierarchical textures ( like kinship), they have the capacity to update themselves, recompose themselves and structure their authority” as Tzul maintains. And to this it should be added that the K’ax K’ol, or communal work, since it is an unpaid social service that is carried out on a rotating basis during annual periods (which includes the service at the head of the communal authority, that is, everyone can occupy the highest positions) is permanently dedicated to the maintenance of the infrastructure (roads, bridges, drinking water) but also to the cultivation of communal lands, to the maintenance of the forest including reforestation programs, but also to attend purchases for cantonal festivals and religious ceremonies or to fulfill the rites of the spirituality of the Mayan worldview.
It is also the cantonal authorities that are in charge of carrying out procedures before the state bureaucracy or of opposing and resisting it, as happened during the 2012 protests that left a balance of deaths and injuries or those of last year calling for the resignation of President Giammattei. Therefore, decisions are made within the framework of a true system of participatory democracy which, as Tzul says, “is a political organization to guarantee the reproduction of life in the communities, where the k’ax k’ol is the fundamental floor. where those systems of communal government rest and are produced and where the full participation of all is at stake”. By the way, as we have already mentioned, the communal authorities provide their services on an ad honorem and rotating basis, something that prevents not only any “expropriation of command” from the community (because the leaders obey the mandates of the social group) but also prevents the corruption since it is “costly work” which, because it is not paid (k’ax means pain in the K’iche’ language), implies that there are no personal benefits.
So, if community work does not allow anyone to get rich or become an “important character”, what is at stake is the provision of a true community public service, which -if in Guatemala we really set out to end corruption- could be replicated in a large number of municipalities, although –of course– this would require a new constitutional regulation. Thus we would have true representatives, elected in community assemblies for annual periods whose main functions would be, as is done in the 48 Cantons: organize food production within the framework of food sovereignty and respect for natural ecosystems (circular economy), repair all kinds of tools and equipment, maintain communal spaces, springs and wells, manage water resources and carry out the recycling of waste and residues to reduce pollution and facilitate the adaptation and mitigation of climate change, etc. That is to say, all kinds of work in which the powerful force of community democracy (complementary to what a true representative democracy should be) would become manifest, strengthening communal life while demonstrating that it is possible to work not only for put an end to the oligarchic-colonial scaffolding of political power but, above all, to give renewed impetus to the process of emancipation of the native peoples of this country.
Democracy or barbarism. The community democracy of the 48 Cantons