The
word in vogue for the national problems without a solution is "challenge",
which in its broadest sense is, according to the Dictionary, " a task or situation that tests someone’s
ability “or "a goal or commitment difficult to carry out, and therefore
constitutes a stimulus to overcome an obstacle for whoever faces it". We all have learned, of course, that the present and the future are a direct consequence of our acts of the past.
Opportunity
on the other hand, although its formal definition is "a time or set of circumstances
that makes it possible to do something " for the topic at hand, it should be
better defined as "the ideal platform from which someone can efficiently
meet the challenges”. Within this context,
in order to establish which are the present and future challenges of the Dominican
Republic, it is essential to examine first what had been our opportunities as a
society, and what challenges we could not meet successfully in the past, to
infer then from our past history, our collective behavior in the future.
According
to many analysts, Rafael Trujillo , with his long and ferreous dictatorship of 31
years, was the creator of the modern Dominican State. It is true that Trujillo
created and made people respect important national institutions such as the Armed
Forces, the Central Bank , Government Ministries - among others. Yet to
celebrate 25 years of his reign, Trujillo came up with the so-called Fair for the Peace and Fraternity of
the Free World in 1955.
Commenting
on this event I wrote: "Reign is the proper word, because the celebration
of this event, which lasted throughout 1956, was a carnival-like caricature of a tropical Versailles, where only
Marie Antoinette was absent. That significant, non-reproductive investment, which
some estimate reached fifty percent of the National Budget for that year,
included a kingdom where it was crowned as Princess, Angelita the youngest
daughter of the dictator who, with her blushed Chamberlain , Joaquin Balaguer,
walked on a red carpet three kilometers long to a continuous party that
included performances with the dancers from the Lido of Paris and, among others, the orchestra of
Xavier Cougat, on a stage set on a glamorous Light and Water Theatre built
for the occasion, whose fountains might
have sprinkled champagne instead of water. Adjoining the Peace Fair also opened a Livestock
Show to display specially imported competition cattle and horses owned by the
dictator.
They
say that the great historical sin of Trujillo was that, with a power over a nation like few
humans have had, he did not carry out the social transformations to catapult to progress
and collective welfare, a country permanently married to extreme poverty and
misery. The pomp and waste of the 1956 Fair was a monument to the superficiality
and extreme insensitivity of its organizers and a slap on the face to the hunger,
disease, and ignorance of the poor masses.
Subsequently,
the Grand Chamberlain of the Fair, Joaquin Balaguer, assumed and exercised the
power inherited from Trujillo with an almost despotic arm for 22 years. Here Balaguer respected some
basic freedoms but, to gain and maintain personal power, systematically destroyed the
institutions created by Trujillo and, like his predecessor, with so much power
in his hands-rather than making social changes -via an authentic vocation of
service to his people- neglected it due to his tragic and ever unfulfilled quest
for personal power .
The
"democratic" governments that succeeded Balaguer - 12 years of the Partido
Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) followed by an equal number of years by Partido
de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD)- brought more of the same: The PRD with
its internal conflicts mainly over the acquisition of material goods through the use and abuse of public
resources - more Personal Power - obscured
the great contribution made by that party to remove the vestiges of the "trujillismo" left
alive by the Government of Balaguer. The second party the PLD, a luke-arm, half-succesful experiment
of shadows and lights, also marked its tenure in Power by allowing to take root and flourish, that permanent administrative corruption, the power continuity culture, impunity and the imprudence of not paying the large social debt accumulated over so many years, mortgaging
the future and investing in public works whose ultimate aim was the glory, material wealth and Personal
Power of the staff in charge of the Goverment.
So, the first present and future challenge of the Dominican Republic is to empower a caste of rulers who are not seduced by "the discreet charm of the
bourgeoisie" and who are decided to marry with glory, as did Lula da Silva
in Brazil, practicing " the so called art of doing the obvious "
, that is "what everyone knows has to be done , but for some strange
reason no one does", which in our case is ceasing in the search and enjoyment
of personal power and glory , and embracing a genuine service mission .
Brazil which was a global laughing stock for being permanently "the
country of the future" was not only transformed by that outstanding labor
leader Lula, with only 6 years of primary school education but rather those who
succeeded him have continued to implement his program of government and making
that country an example of the changes that can take place when their rulers
consider their first task to devote themselves to the service of their people.
Faced
and successfully resolved this first challenge , the second and most important challenge
is to order the many and troublesome issues of the national agenda, which today- for the long neglect of our leaders- are
struggling for supremacy and priority: public safety, changing the national culture regarding
corruption and respect for the law, the drug traffic and its penetration into
the high levels of government, our tourism infrastructure, the neglected national
agricultural and food security , overpopulation and the Haitian issue, a quality public education, health , public debt , the power generation deficit , the
regulation of elections and parties, a long and never ending list that, because
of our limited resources, should become a National Plan with the support and
consensus of the majority, a roadmap to be used and respected by future governments. This ambitious long-term task, if carried out, could become one of the greatest achievements of present and future Dominicans.
As
far as the future is concerned, being the Dominican Republic - for better or
worse - a dependent small country, just a tiny part of this globalized and dysfunctional world in which we
live, where the rules and conditions of the game change every day, its most important challenge is to monitor the socioeconomic
daily storms of the planet and consequently adjust its policies and decisions
to these changing gusts, knowing that the global village is just a complicated
chessboard whose pieces are constantly changing in form and function, where
the rich country of today becomes in the morning a broken country, which needs
to be rescued by Community support, caused by greed and fortuitous circumstances and fueled by the
almighty power of world markets and new technologies.
Rafael
Martínez Céspedes
Published originally on:
June
15, 2012 .
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