Tomás Hirsch in Portugal and France: the youth need more space
Categorie: Tomas Hirsch, France, Portugal
From Portugal and France, hundreds of people have filled the halls where Tomás Hirsch talked about the Chilean process and the unity of the extra-parliamentary Left through the pact – Juntos Podemos.
Juntos Podemos, a model that dazzles the Portuguese
Tomás Hirsch arrived on the 4th April in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, where a meeting was held with the political party Communist Renovation. In this meeting the ex presidential candidate spoke about the proposal of Podemos that “is centred on valuing diversity, bringing together the virtues of each one into the construction of the project”.
“Podemos is an agreement that was open to diverse social institutions and political parties that came together in the struggle against the neoliberal model and the need to build an alternative”, he underlined.
For the leaders of Communist Renovation, the process that Podemos carried out in Chile was very interesting and they were surprised to see the way in which the coalition operated, where the accent was not put in an organic unity but
rather there was autonomy and tactical freedom.
After the meeting with the communists, Tomás attended the “Latin American House” together with the Latin community, who filled the place to be able to listen to Hirsch speak about the process that the Latin American Left and in particular the Chilean Left is going through.
France: Youth need more space
After his time in Lisbon, Tomas Hirsch set off for France. Here he met with a hundred students, professors and academics that filled the Institute of Political Sciences.
In this occasion Tomás went further into the image that is being sold about Chile by the big financial groups and the Concertación (the governing coalition).
“What is happening is that it is neither social organizations, nor Human Rights organizations, nor the Mapuche people who go around the world talking about Chile. There is a propaganda exercise, on behalf of the big financial groups and the government, to project an image that doesn’t correspond to Chile”, Tomás indicated.
For Tomás Hirsh, the problem of the image of Chile overseas is down to the fact that the macroeconomics of the country are being praised, but “Chilean families live on a micro economy that can be a very low salary or pension”.
Due to the social strife that France is going through, Tomás, on repeated occasions was asked about youth participation. With his usual humour, he responded,
“Youth don’t trust in politics and this is because politics doesn’t trust the youth. They, of course, are interested in what needs to be done in society, only they cannot find a place where to develop it.”
Lastly, Tomás referred to the difficulty of talking about the Dictatorship in Chile and how, in other words, people search for ways to drop the tone in an historic moment that the country is going through. “This is called semantic banditry”, the Humanist leader added.