Status Updates From Sorron yöstä

Magnifique

In the underdeveloped countries we have seen that there was no genuine bourgeoisie but rather an acquisitive, voracious, and ambitious petty caste dominated by a small-time racketeer mentality, content with the dividends paid out by the former colonial power. This short-sighted bourgeoisie lacks vision and inventiveness. It transforms itself not into a replica of Europe but rather its caricature

The former metropolis therefore governs indirectly through both the bourgeoisie it nurtures and the national army, which is trained and supervised by its experts to transfix, immobilize, and terrorize the people

We now know that the short-sighted fascism that has triumphed for half a century in Latin America is the dialectical result of the semi-colonial state which has prevailed since independence

Favors abound, corruption triumphs, and morals decline. Today the vultures are too numerous and too greedy, considering the meagerness of the national spoils. The Party, which has become a genuine instrument of power in the hands of the bourgeoisie, reinforces the state apparatus and determines the containment and immobilization of the people. It is increasingly an instrument of coercion and clearly anti-democratic

Because it is lacking in ideas, because it is inward-looking, cut off from the people served by its congenital incapacity to evaluate issues on the basis of the nation as a whole, the national bourgeoisie assumes the role of manager for the companies of the West and turns this country virtually into a bordello for Europe

In its decadent aspect the national bourgeoisie gets considerable help from the western bourgeoisies who happen to be tourists enamored of exoticism, hunting, and casinos. The national bourgeoisie establishes holiday resorts and playgrounds for entertaining the Western bourgeoisie. This sector goes by the name of tourism and becomes a national industry for this very purpose. The ex-colonized turns party organizer.

The dynamic, pioneering aspect, the inventive, discoverer-of-new-worlds aspect common to every national bourgeoisie is here lamentably absent

The national bourgeoisie, with no misgivings and with great pride, revels in the role of agent in its dealings with the Western bourgeoisie. This lucrative role, this function as small-time racketeer, this narrow-mindedness and lack of ambition are symptomatic of the incapacity of the national bourgeoisie to fulfill its role as bourgeoisie

Independence does not bring a change of direction. The same old groundnut harvest, cocoa harvest, and olive harvest. Likewise the traffic of commodities goes unchanged. No industry is established in the country. We continue to ship raw materials, we continue to grow produce for Europe and pass for specialists of unfinished products

When these parties [bourgeois] are questioned on their economic agenda for the nation or the regime they propose to establish, they prove incapable of giving an answer because in fact they do not have a clue about the economy of their own country. This economy has always developed outside their control

This underdeveloped bourgeoisie is not geared to production, invention, creation, or work. All its energy is channeled into intermediary activities. Networking and scheming seem to be its underlying vocation; with the psychology of a businessman not that of a captain of industry. And it should go without saying that the rapacity of the colonists and the embargo system installed by colonialism hardly left any choice

The characteristic, virtually endemic weakness of the underdeveloped country's national consciousness is not only the consequence of the colonized subjects' mutilation by the colonial regime. It can also be attributed to the apathy of the national bourgeoisie, its mediocrity, and its deeply cosmopolitan mentality