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The Rising Power of Slum Democracy

by Raúl Zibechi

Across Latin America, people are exercising a different kind of democracy
– one that changes lives but rarely hits the headlines. Leading Uruguayan
writer Raúl Zibechi tracks this ‘democracy of the future’.

‘In the classroom we are all equals,’ says
Marisel, a woman of around 40 who is already
a grandmother.

We are in the shanty town of Las Tunas, built
by its occupants on an enormous rubbish tip 40
kilometres from the centre of Buenos Aires.
Marisel is participating in a bachillerato
populare – an informal educational system
for which the literal translation is ‘popular
baccalaureate’.

spread into poor neighbourhoods and there
are now 40, some of which have gained state
recognition, with 5,000 students.
Seated in a circle, they debate the
curriculum and learning methods, and
evaluate both students and teachers. There is
radical democracy here – quite unlike official
secondary educational establishments where the
teacher has absolute power in the classroom.

Disorderly order

There are thousands of similar experiences
in Latin America today. In Brazil, a national
census of the ‘solidarity economy’ carried out
by the government found 15,000 small-scale
popular initiatives of this type. There must be
at least 5,000 in Argentina and many more
across the region.

What’s happening in these places – often
ignored by official politics, universities and
social activists – is a ‘democracy from below’
that is entering the daily lives of poor people in
cities and the countryside alike.

In general, the groups consist of 15 to
25 people. Relationships are face-to-face,
meetings are regular, without a boss or fixed
co-ordinator; and in the round, to facilitate
participation. And, because they do not abide
by any decisions other than those taken by
themselves, they are autonomous.

‘At first it was all very chaotic and I wanted
to leave,’ Marisel recalls.

But this was soon outweighed by the fact
that ‘there is a lot of respect. The teachers
sat by our side and explained until we all
understood.’

These are disorderly places, or places with a
different order, in which each participant and
their actions occupy a distinctive position.
You can find these practices among
indigenous people identified with the Zapatista
movement in Mexico, and the Mapuche people
in southern Chile. You find them among
the landless peasants of Brazil and Andean
communities resisting mining companies in
Peru. But you also find them among the urban
poor, be they the Aymara people of El Alto,
Bolivia, or homeless people in
Salvador or São Paulo, Brazil. You
find them among unemployed
Argentineans or the one million
high school and college students
of the Penguin Movement, who
took to the streets of Chile
(dressed in black and white)
demanding better education.
Indeed, you can find these
autonomous practices among
youth of whatever colour,
country or ideology.

The differences between various
collectives have started to become more
important. But all belong to the same
generation of movements, born under the
period of neoliberalism when a section of
the poor were excluded from work and their
fundamental rights. Broadly, they are groups
that ‘tend towards’ the communal: they do
not have representatives and the decisions that
they take are by consensus. Although this takes
time, they reject the trade union practice, for
example, whereby leaders or political bosses
decide for everyone.

Relations with government

This democracy from below
has impacted
on the state politics of
progressive governments
in two ways. First,
governments tend to
use language similar to
that of the movements.
In this way, Nestor and
Cristina Kirchner in
Argentina have adopted the discourse of human
rights groups. Second, social policies need to
take account of grassroots organizations in
order to reach the poor and to be effective. It is
the grassroots activists who know the needs of
their neighbours and have their trust.
It is all quite different – in both form and
content – from the approach of the neoliberal
governments of the 1990s.

However, this new politics of progressive
governments – which can be summed up as
‘more resources to combat poverty without
effecting structural changes’ – has actually
weakened social movements.

There are several reasons for this. The
labour market has improved. States are more
committed to spending money and building
infrastructure in the poorest neighbourhoods.
Many of the most prominent activists have been
co-opted and taken up positions in ministries
or NGOs.

While it is certainly true that poor families
live better today, inequality has not changed.
Yet the movements that enabled poor people to
survive the worst times of crisis are melting away.
The generation of social movements and
collectives that burst on to the Latin American
scene at the beginning of the 1990s have
completed their cycle and are now on the
defensive. Many movements have become
NGOs, whose leaders and administrators
are more interested in dealing with
international organizations and negotiating
with governments than with organizing and
politicizing the grassroots.

A new cycle is born

However, certain important events indicate that
a new cycle of social protest is being born. In
some cases they are the same movements that
were the protagonists of the previous cycle; in
others, new players are emerging, such as the
bachilleratos populares.

What’s certain is that progressive governments
in the region are having increasing difficulties
when confronted by these movements.
In June this year the Federation of
Neighbourhood Councils of El Alto
(FEJUVE) put the brakes on attempts by Evo
Morales’ MAS party to get its own people
into leadership positions, and denounced
the ‘oligarchic’ practices of the Bolivian
government. It also, for the first time, elected a
woman as president.

In Ecuador, the Confederation of
Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE) organized
uprisings, strikes and road blocks in protest at
President Rafael Correa’s decisions in favour of
mining companies and water privatization.
In Brazil, new urban movements have
emerged, bringing together hip-hop youths
and Afro-Brazilian women at ‘homeless camps’
under the name of the Urban Resistance
Front. In Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela, the new
protagonists are indigenous Amazonians who
reject the exploitation of natural resources by
multinationals. In Argentina, as well as the
bachilleratos, there are scores of assemblies
against mining companies which co-ordinate
within the Union of Citizens Assembly.
It’s not easy to find common features in
this universe of experimental organizations,
in which many small groups are taking their
first steps. But I find that they share three
characteristics. One: women and youth are the
protagonists. Two: the groups, be they rural or
urban, are rooted in the margins of the system,
in places where the state and capital have not
yet implanted themselves with such destructive
vigour. Three: they practise traditional forms of
democracy from below.

This face-to-face democracy, modelled
on consensus and taking the time to make
decisions in which all may feel represented,
has shown more presence and persistence than
anyone could have imagined.

Every year the bachilleratos populares
discuss the same issues: should students
receive grades; should all be involved in
decisions about whether a student should
move up, taking into account both scholastic
performance and economic and social context.
This is the democracy of the future, which
created a new opportunity in the 1990s and
which will open the door to changes in the
long term.