The Limit

 

*La versión original de este artículo fue publicada como columna de opinión en el periódico El Nuevo Siglo, el 11 de enero de 2021. Traducción: Anne Dye

https://elnuevosiglo.com.co/articulos/01-11-2021-el-limite

 

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As if we were all watching an action film, the year 2021 surprised us with an unusual scene, the attack on the United States Capitol. On the afternoon of January 6, a group of radical Trump followers, instigated by the president himself, stormed the headquarters of Congress. What an image! Absolutely unbelievable. Extremists violently broke in and lawmakers were forced to suspend the certification process of Joe Biden's electoral victory.

These were hours of anguish. The whole world was astonished – watching live and direct – when a blow was dealt to democratic values ​​and institutions. What a strange sense of vulnerability shared by hundreds of millions of people. Everything about this act was contradictory, resulting in the feeling of perplexity that so many of us experienced.

A handful of thugs took the Capitol by force and threatened congressmen and women while haranguing in defense of democracy itself. No additional contradiction could fit into this act. The only way to defend democracy, is through democratic means. Any other attempt would be, in itself, a denial of the cause that animates it, whether it is a state action or the citizenry.

Democracy must permit participation in the entire ideological spectrum, even those views that disagree with democratic principles. But the expression of plurality has a limit, democracy itself. All positions are welcome, as long as they are expressed within constitutional order. There is no way to defend democracy without knowing the rule of law; that is why authoritarianism will never be democratic, no matter what its ideological edge or the cause that encourages it.

Above the parties, above ideologies and above differences and interests, all partners of the rule of law are bound by an irrevocable commitment to the law and constitutional order. Citizens have no political color and that is the wonder of democracy, however imperfect it may seem. It is the exercise of rights and responsibilities as citizens that makes it possible for us to find ourselves connected with a common cause, without having to renounce our convictions.

The afternoon of January 6 has now passed and after dedicating a few hours to meticulously clean this sacred enclosure, Senators and Members of Congress resumed their work. What fortitude and what conviction! More than ever, they were one and beyond their political and ideological differences they found themselves in a common cause, democracy itself.

In the early morning the next day, after a strenuous day, the United States Congress confirmed Joe Biden's victory and, above all, reaffirmed it’s commitment to constitutional order. Everyone, Democrats and Republicans, regardless of their convictions, their interests and their party affiliations, understood that the limit of democracy is democracy itself. What a lesson for the rest of the world.

@tatianaduplat