We have not seen the sun in a long time. The roads are overflowing, tumbling down like plaster.
The few ones that do work are jammed with traffic, and everything is complicated by continued protests by people that think protesting is still necessary for socio-political dialogue.
Among the latter is the so-called left wing in Honduras. Like in so many impoverished Latin American countries, it is a bastard chimaera of the Cuban Revolution, The Civil Rights Movement, and Marxist-Leninist social theory, all great landmarks of western civilization. Spearheading this movement, if it could be classified as one, is the Teachers' Syndicate, which has government appointed chiefs in the 18 state departments of the country, and paid by the same government. Strikes by unions are nothing new in Latin America, yet tend to remind one more of Steinbeck's Great Depression Era strikes, or the Teamsters' bloody affairs than of a civilized, pro-socialist movement. But neopopulism, the great political trend of Latin America's left, is always about a violent, bloody overthrow of the proverbial "powers that be" by the true owners of the land, or so we are told. Belgian or Canadian types of socialism are never discussed, rarely engaged or scrutinized, because they are too peaceful, to tranquil, and too even. No one pays. There isn't any reckoning, there is no revenge. But revenge for what? You could ask, and the answer is: Revenge for their wretchedness. They want someone to pay. Pay with blood.
We see pathetic graffiti on the walls, written with embarrassing grammar, painted with spray cans bought from the capitalist shop owners they claim to hate, asking for justice by means of such original slogans as: 'People Unite!',, 'Fatherland or Death', and "The People Rule The Streets".
Who are these idiots? We often ask. We try not, too, out of respect. We know they are angry, frustrated or both,but they are still idiots, and it is hard to empathize with their plight. One one wall, they praise Palestine, and chide Israel yet, on another wall, they call for the deaths (literally) of palestinian immigrants who have flourished economically in Honduras, obviously their marxian enemy.
Apparently, no one has ever read "1984". Or, wait, seen "The Matrix"? We read: "Jesus belongs to The People" next to "Abortion should be legalized". Controversial, to say the least, from The Nazarene's point of view. It seems that, contrary to what intellectual modernists would like, intelligent people are certainly not left winged in Latin America. As a matter of fact, we may forward the proposition that there isn't a left wing in Honduras. The left wing is an amalgam of "Communism for Dummies" combined with something else: German National Socialism. Neopopulism is more similar to German National Socialism with its xenophobia, hatred of the bourgeoisie, the return to the original owners of the land, and such a radical conservatism which is not part of an egalitarian socialism.
We can now count as a national malady these seemingly perennial teachers' strikes, especially since these teachers seem to be trapped in what appears to be a dramatization of the the Cuban Revolution, and the Spanish conquest combined into one horribly long and painfully boring opera with Riot Police included; a weird haze of neopopulist verve that has all but obliterated any chance of progress for this country. Not that neoliberalism has been inspirational, far from it, but these teachers still love their cell phones. You can see them through the TV, chatting away, sending texts, reloading their balance, etc. Even while getting clobbered by police.
There is something's very wrong with that, sure, and police can be awful people. But so are these teachers, one may argue. They can barely speak, let alone write, which is somewhat strange for a teacher, who is supposed to speak in public all day and correct what you write. It just seems that they are begging to be fired. Parents are tired of this and are taking action, opposing the strikes, and suing the teachers' unions for damages. The mostly male teachers did not count on the fact that women single mothers could do that. From monday, these women are empowered to hire new teachers. It sounds fair, if not just.
Why not? Because the teachers deserve a chance. A chance for what? Parents want education for children, and these people are not giving it to them for reasons that could easily be disputed in a courtroom, or with more organized strikes that show the rest of the people that they mean well, are looking for compensation, but not at the expense of others. When you do not take into account harm done to others, it is very hard to empathize with your cause. That said, these teachers are not up to task, badly need more education themselves (they cannot put a single, coherent sentence together), and they muddle their needs and demands with political events, such as that of June 28th, 2009 (The Manuel Zelaya Affair), at which point they were still on strike anyway, but who cares?
So perhaps finding an alternative to under-qualified, confused teachers would probably be a worthier task than beating the shit out of them daily with billy clubs. There are roads to fix, engineers to properly educate so they can fix these roads. If the teachers do not want to teach that is fine. That does not mean people do not want to learn. Teaching is the passing of knowledge from one generation to another. That is possible in any type of society, certainly a socialist one. It does not seem that probable in a neo-populist one, because everything is dependent upon demands, not needs. Teaching is a low paid job, and benefits should be afforded to those who take on the challenge, and the government should respond to those seeking help, compensation or both, but not at the expense of students. Those that do not, should simply find another occupation. The country's mothers are taking over eduction, and a few half-literate stragglers will certainly not stop them.
All the more power to them.
Federico Rosasuazo
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