New Cultures

Migrantes en la Frontera con USA. Fuente: Elestímulo.com

The Venezuelan social crisis has led me to reflect on the social body, from which, in my opinion, the political and economic dimension of society emerges and depends. As I understand it, at this time the most extraordinary polarization and the most tremendous wave of migration in history coincide. In other words, the social crisis manifests itself in these two great forms: division and migration, contrary to unity and stability, which are clearly social goods, perhaps the greatest. Therefore, migration and division speak to us of one of the most significant social crises in the West.

The path that exists between division and unity is integration. This path matters in itself, and in fact, in every strong society, integrating processes have played an important role, but today it must be the center of social issues because the immense migration, if it is not known how to manage it, feeds a greater social and cultural division, which puts social stability at risk, giving rise to mistrust, violence and ungovernability.

In other words, countries are no longer single-national, but multi-national. Each country is like a small continent inhabited, each for its part, by different cultures, without mixing with each other, forming tribes closed in on themselves. In a country like the United States, (a typical form of this reality), the feeling of tribe is manifested in the different neighborhoods, where the English language is not spoken, but the language of the country of origin, and those who do not are from the clan and where marriages are often culturally required. This type of migration or migrant does not seek to become in-cultured in the country of arrival but instead seeks legal and economic security to preserve one's own culture.

But there is a paradox in this: it would be a mistake to think that those who emigrated to the United States were not attracted by the values ​​and fruits of their culture. English America offers itself to the world as a great military, political, and economic empire, and its participation in wars, its democratic continuity, and its GDP demonstrate this.

Now, when the social crisis began to worsen the countries of the South, the fundamental option was the United States of America. For a moment, when the North American visa system contained the most popular migratory forces, in a country like Venezuela, the migrants chose some southern countries (Peru, Argentina, Chile), but as soon as the migratory pressure increasingly discovered new paths and networks to make their way across the northern border, as political instability deepened in the south1, migrants would decide to venture out, as they do now, and risk everything for the American dream. At this moment, South America is like a great Cuba, where the inhabitants carry out extremely painful feats to cross the border.

Generally, Latin societies have migrated in masse to English America, still fully aware that they will move away from their language, family and even their religion. In other words, although the migration process is painful, Latin American societies, especially the most popular ones, want to integrate into English America, even in the midst of great abuses. Although the border is a danger, lack of documentation is almost certain, jobs are hard, and drugs haunt the streets, when Latinos manage to integrate into American society "for a better life" and find something they are looking for, they are deeply grateful to the society that receives them for their benefits. They want it, the women want their children to be Americans, and they walk with labor pains to give birth in the English part. Thus, they reject their native culture at all costs, risking their lives to win a new one.

This American fever, manifested in the long strings of walkers heading north, contrasts with the discourse of many local governments, who blaspheme against the Empire. It is normal, the great human achievements revolve around contradiction. The small Latin American countries see in the strength of English America as a danger to their existence, since the nature of the great empires absorbs the small countries around them, even more so when they are in crisis; even more so, when a large part of the population rejects the local government and ponders the advantages of its powerful neighbor.

This phenomenon is like a very powerful magnetic field, which attracts neighboring populations towards itself. Is it new colonization? One in which power is gained over subjects without having to fight for their territory, but rather by attracting them to their own (which in the case of the United States is vast). How would a father feel if his son approaches him and says "I don't want to be your son anymore" and goes to the neighbor's house, and there he looks happy -perhaps a little nostalgic-, but with no desire to return?

In other words, in this context, what does the discourse for independence and autonomy mean, which in politics translates the national and anti-imperial? Could it be that all this is already a myth? That is to say, what does not fit into nationalist thought is precisely what justifies the long cordons of walkers: the desire to want to be integrated into another society different from the native one, losing the small identity to gain a seat in the empire, of forgetting the old to gain the new, changing language and culture to benefit from the American order.

The migratory phenomenon questions the cultural equality of peoples. Here reality surpasses ideology, the senses surpass reason, and facts surpass words. If all cultures are the same, why move to a new one? Why suffer so much, pay so much money, move away from the family, and work so many hours a day? What is questioned in this situation is the absolute value of independence that today consumes all political propaganda and spreads everywhere, from self-help books to government systems. Moreover, as the independence discourse is questioned by the migratory phenomenon, the independence exploits that gave rise to it are placed in parentheses.

It is curious that at a time when sovereignty, non-interference, self-determination, and self-esteem are valued above social love, when the most powerful country in the world announced that the precious border was going to be guarded by a great wall that would divide the North from the South, so much resistance has been met. Not even the most authoritarian countries supported this idea. Why? Isn't it the dream of every oppressed to be forgotten by his oppressor? (Following the independence line) Isn't the dream of every "slave" to be forgotten by the "owner"? It seems rather that many want the son to be independent of the father but not that the father be independent of the son.

Now, if the most authoritarian and pro-independence countries reject independence from their oppressor, does that mean that power relations are much more than relations of domination? Or, instead, will power be a relationship that can be a service? For example, Zimbabwe, a small African country that had been a British colony, had been a country with economic development based on agriculture, where the British owned the farms and the Africans worked as laborers on them. This country became independent in the eighties and the English fled, getting acquainted with them, so the agrarian system declined and although the independence rage lasted for some time, the country did not take long to enter a social and political crisis without precedents that the highest inflation recorded in the history of the world has left us as a reminder. The curious thing is that of the almost one million people who have migrated from the country, approximately 20% have fled to the United Kingdom. What does all this mean then?

(TO BE CONTINUE)

1: Always hand in hand with polarization and economic instability (associated with the turn to the left that Latin America is making)