Pepe is a spanish peasant who works his land with effort and is earning a living with it. Revolutionists arrive at his village and help Pepe and his neighbours to defeat Franco’s troops so they can take control of the village. Once they accomplish this they have an assembly in which they discuss what to do with the lands. Most of them think that all the lands (both, the ones of the villagers and the ones of the landlords) must be unified and collectivized so they can increase food production and feed the comrades who are fighting at the front. But Pepe –it seems he is the only one who thinks like this- doesn’t want to give his land to collectivization. He alleges that he devoted a lot of work and effort on his land (that’s why he is succesful) and that not everybody knows how to work the soil.
I do not want to discuss who is right or who is not. I want to focus on the attitude taken by the revolutionists at the meeting. They all think they should collectivize the lands regardless personal interests or individual needs like the ones of Pepe, even if the latter does not want to or his land represents only a little farm. Instead of ignoring and leaving with his lonely little piece of land the leflists pass over, vote and oblige him to give it to collectivization, in a new edition of the tyranny of the masses. You could say that this is correct, in a context of a war for revolution against fascism you should not consider individual aspects. What still surprise me is that this kind of attitude can be found nowadays in many left activists when the presence of the left movement is not precisely hegemonic. And what is more: some of their proposals are extremely pompous like nationalizing the bank, what kind of analysis allows them to reach such a conclusion that they have the power to do so?
To bring more and more consensus to the left movement I think it would be better to leave exceptional cases like Pepe’s on their own because if we are right they are going to realize –sooner or later- that they have to join us. And if they don’t they will remain as a minority group and will not make the difference. In the present conditions forcing people to obey is not the right choice because in a democracy you have to convince with arguments not compelling people to think the way you want them to do.
‘Land and freedom’ (Ken Loach, 1995).
Freedom
I have recently seen ‘La libertad’ of Lisandro Alonso and while I was watching the movie it reminded me of something I had read on Eric Hobsbawm’s On the edge of the new century (The New Press, 2000). In this work, an interview conducted by the italian journalist and politician Antonio Polito, Hobsbawm praises the progress and development free-market capitalism has brought to almost all countries in the world. Even considering enormous catastrophes like world wars, the problem with highly unequal distribution or a few exceptions of the present (like some African countries or Russia) the English historian highlights the overall growth of wealth experienced by our societies along the twentieth century as comparised to any time in the past, from the increase of population to the assurance of health and education services, from the accesibility of culture to the enhancement of the power of choice due to the countless variety of goods and services we can pick from.
That is what you see in ‘La libertad’ . Misael is a lumberjack who works in a solitudinous area, probably in some part of the Argentina’s littoral, in a savage way of living, sleeping in a tent full of holes and eating what he hunts in the forest. But whenever he feels like he can drive the foreman’s pickup truck to the nearest road, make a stop at the gas station and, with the money he earns from the lumbers, buy the goods he needs (cigarettes and Fanta). Moreover: despite his solitary condition he keeps in touch with his mother as he can phone to a neighbour and ask him to send her his regards. Or he can get some amusement by listening to pop music on the radio (or to the news if he wants).
Likewise we have not considered the development and innovation in technologies of the present time. If that were the case -and Alonso wanted to film a lumberjack like Misael again- he might use a cell phone with internet connection.
somewhereovertheweb 