By: ¡UNÍOS!- Universidad Nacional Student Team

Neither laughing, nor crying, but understanding

The fatal outcome of the attack against Miguel Uribe Turbay, after two months in intensive care, has provoked multiple statements by political and social organizations, opinion leaders and influencers of digital networks. It has been inevitable that many of these statements result in radical controversies in which basic emotions predominate, an expression of the deep contradictions that divide the country. That is why there are those who have criticized the pronouncement of ¡UNÍOS! on the death of Uribe Turbay, qualifying it as “lukewarm”, or using provocative adjectives: “there is no lack of reactionaries, revisionists, reformists and counterrevolutionaries with their condolences (…) he is dead as he should!!!”.

Sow winds and you’ll reap storms

Because of the nature of the character that provokes these sentiments, we understand these comments. But as Marxist revolutionaries it is up to us to act with the fortitude and calmness proper to those of us who propose that the world working class organize itself, take power, eliminate private ownership of the means of production -and incidentally the bourgeois class that monopolizes them- and begin to build a new society without exploited or oppressed, and without exploiters or oppressors. We do not aspire to a society without conflict, but without irrational violence. In that purpose we are inflexible, unbendable and willing to go to the ultimate consequences. Our resource is the militant organization and the struggle, the class struggle. That is why we renounce personal attacks, vanguardist action or terrorism. But neither do we harbor illusions in gradual, reformist change or mere electoral activity within the restricted framework of bourgeois democracy: the democracy of the rich and their political agents. That was the field in which Miguel Uribe Turbay was acting and running as presidential candidate on behalf of the most reactionary of his class.

We share the harsh criticism of those who, since the attack against Uribe Turbay, have highlighted the misogynist statements issued by the Secretary of Government under his charge regarding the tragedy of Rosa Elvira Celis, his justification of the murder of Dylan Cruz at the hands of an ESMAD agent or the repression against the social unrest. We have no doubt about the ultra-reactionary nature of his political positions. By going to extremes in his declarations in favor of a “hard hand” he sought to unify behind his candidacy the electorate that considers the increase of common crime as the main problem to be solved. He wanted to galvanize behind him the sector of the population that supported Rodolfo Hernandez in the last presidential elections, who also presented himself as a fighter against corruption in state institutions.

But the contradictions that cross Colombia are not limited to the very serious social inequality that affects the majority of the population who live in the most degrading poverty or lack hope for the future; like the young hitman who served as an instrument for the assassination attempt against Uribe Turbay. There is a violent dispute between the very fringes of the bourgeoisie, the landowners and the transnationals or the business sectors that we can call “lumpenbourgeoisie” that profits from the drug trafficking economy, illegal mining or the depredation of natural resources such as fine woods or exotic species. Also participating in this dispute are organizations that call themselves political-military insurgency and employ methods that we repudiate, since they do not contribute to the processes of organization and struggle of the workers, the poor peasantry, the youth of the neighborhoods, or the indigenous and Afro-descendant communities. In this troubled river -a real rotten pot- Uribe Turbay has been the victim of the very forces that he was trying to prevent.

It is not yet known who the perpetrators of the assassination were; to call it “assassination” is nothing more than an elitist label. And it is probable that we will never know. The authoritarian institutions of the Colombian bourgeois state and imperialism today use all the weights and counterweights at their disposal to define “the official truth”. Both the agents of the State (from the Presidency to the last judge, investigators of the Attorney General’s Office, or the bodyguards who guarded him, and American advisors themselves) as well as the big media which the big bourgeoisie counts on know that they must respect the “rules of the game” to preserve their salary… and their life.

Fishermen’s profit

The Colombian political situation is a troubled river. And in those rivers there is “profit for fishermen”. The last year of Gustavo Petro’s government will be determined by the fishing for votes. The Colombian ultra-right has just found a “martyr” and with his symbolic image (and the surname of the prisoner of the Ubérrimo) may try to find unity around a candidate who appropriates his “legacy”. The Colombian people will be once again summoned to a false electoral polarization: “retardationists vs. progressives”. Or “left vs. right”. This smokescreen will obscure the real contradiction: workers vs. capital. It is that contradiction that we must attend to, in every protest, every mobilization, every strike, every strike.

When we revolutionary socialists say that “Our political differences with the force represented by Senator Uribe Turbay (…) do not prevent us from understanding the pain of his family, of the followers of Dr. Uribe and, again, reject the attack that caused his death and the use of such methods in the current political process of the country” we do nothing more than follow the advice of the rationalist philosopher Baruch Spinoza: “Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere” (Do not laugh, do not regret or detest, only understand). It is our obligation to “understand” (not condoling or offering condolences to our class enemies) the tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of Colombians who today are in solidarity with the Uribe Turbay family and may be dragged into the trap of the ballot box to support the political proposal he represented as a candidate.

And to those who angrily criticize us for the terms we use, we would invite them to be consistent and criticize the decision of Gustavo Petro’s government to declare a national day of mourning for the murder. If they do not do so, we can only conclude that they join the chorus of hypocrites who set the networks on fire, but do not attempt to unleash the social struggle bound by the “reformist spell” of progressivism.