At some point, politics is like football, a Boca - River match. The difference lies in recognizing that, on the other side, there’s someone valuable. Montiel played for River, but when it came to playing for the Argentine National Team, he was for everyone. Even the Boca fans cheered for his penalty kick. Paredes and Julián Álvarez played as a team. The objective was the same. In football, Argentines understand that you are either one or the other, but when it’s time to play for the country, the goal is the same. In politics, we still don’t cheer for the goal.
Deep down, we all want the same thing. To end inflation, poverty, unemployment, corruption, and an endless list we’ve faced for years. It’s not an easy job, but it’s not an impossible one either. We need to learn a bit from football.
We’ve tried all the options, and they didn’t manage to solve it. Now we are trying a new one. They all have something in common, in greater or lesser measure: the lack of dialogue. Politics is a game of opposites, it’s true. There are things that are non-negotiable. I’m not talking about abandoning values. They define us. If, when sitting at the same table, our politicians, instead of focusing on their differences, concentrated on their commonalities, they would reach a common point. The solution would be simpler, faster. There would be differences, but there would also be a solution. Today, there isn’t one.
Without dialogue, there is no recognition of ideas that differ from one’s own. Much less a willingness to admit one’s own mistakes. That’s our main problem, which is overshadowed by all its consequences. Without dialogue, there’s no working together, and without working together there’s a clash. And if there’s a clash, there are no solutions.
I think we’ve reached the point where we should ask ourselves: if we all want the same thing, wouldn’t it be simpler to reach a solution together?
Chantal Mouffe, a Belgian political scientist, sees politics as plurality, criticizing the idea of reaching a consensus. She explains that the objective of democracy does not imply reaching a common agreement, but providing the chance for groups with irreconcilable opinions to put them up for debate, i.e., to activate democratic confrontation through collective identities.
While she accepts that the conflict can be antagonistic, she proposes what she calls an “agonistic” struggle: two opposites that mutually recognize their legitimacy through institutions that promote a public sphere of struggle between different political-hegemonic projects. Could we apply this type of struggle in a political system as deeply divided as Argentina’s?
This seems like a utopia in societies like ours, where all spheres, even those not intrinsically political, are politicized. No one is exempt from responsibility; the conflict is the result of the sum of errors and successes of different governments and those we have elected, points we must recognize in order to learn from them.
In his book Capitalismo o pobrismo, Miguel Ángel Pichetto says: “Dialogue is the only way for two people who think differently to understand each other. Dialogue is the great instrument of politics.”
Our politics have entered an eternal child’s game, a kind of: “I like it, but because he did it, I don’t like it anymore.” The antagonism of Kirchnerism and anti-Kirchnerism, Peronism and anti-Peronism, left and right, clouded the vision of the majority, which today cannot recognize a success from the other side they want to eliminate. People don’t want dialogue, much less consensus. But what consequence does this lack bring?
I agree with Mouffe on one thing: the other should not be eliminated. Consensus is complex, but not impossible. It’s inevitable to oppose certain characters, but not the whole.
Harming the dignity of the other, disqualifying their ideas, is unacceptable; we must set aside hate speeches, anger, and ironic traces to achieve a dialogue, which will not necessarily result in a consensus, but in a harmonious and fair debate. Discrepancies will not disappear, but a more peaceful coexistence will be generated, facilitating better decision-making for a better country.
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