Armando Chaguaceda’s Diary

Universities are essential for a democratic culture. People learn to live with ideas different from their own & exercise critical thought.

Right-wing and left-wing authoritarianisms share a preference for uniformity, united in their prejudice and punishment of the other.

For the books you read to us. For accompanying our first steps and words. For everything lived, these lines go out to you.

We are perhaps living on the brink of an era, where we slip between the avenues of a fragile democracy and the trenches of aggressive authoritarianism.

In Latin America, political support for liberal democracy has been declining systematically over the last decade.

The Cuban government has repressed civic action, just like the Iranian, Nicaraguan or Belarusian regimes did in the face of popular protests.

On a conceptual level, the democratic socialist tradition situates the issue of freedom as a central value.

Those of us with relatives and friends in Cuba know that the majority of their problems don’t stem from the restrictions of Trump or Biden.

Silence & ambiguity prevails at the main Latin American left forums which only consolidates repression in the face of crisis, as in Nicaragua

After decades of imperfect but real democratic recovery, Latin America’s main agents (elite, parties, movements) have shown a weak commitment