CNN just published a story titled, “Critics denounce their government as a dictatorship. But these people say they’ve never felt so free.” I recommend following the link to read the story, as my comments are based on it.
Here is a good and thoughtful story. El Salvador was dying. Its people were leaving. MS-13 had even begun subsidiary gangs in the USA. The country was falling apart to the point that as recently as 2016, the country was nicknamed the “murder capital of the world,” averaging a murder an hour. Note that this was not the death rate; it was simply the murder rate that did not include death by accident, old age, illness, etc.
The country was ripe for a strongman to take over. A strongman did not take over, but one was elected. Various judicial norms were suspended. People were arrested, sometimes on a simple anonymous report. The country built a particular prison just for the gang members, and those who are sent there are sent there for life with no hope of parole. Various procedural safeguards were weakened.
But, instead of a repressive dictatorship, El Salvador has emerged as a reasonably safe place again. Some of its people are returning. Some civil rights have been weakened, making it easier to be arrested. But, as the article points out, the country and its people are happy. There are no imposed ideological or intellectual lines per se. There is reasonable freedom of speech. Most of all, there is freedom to live again, to go to the neighborhood park again, etc.
For those of us who have lived either under a right-wing or a left-wing dictatorship, there is an anxious feeling in the back of our minds that this is temporary and that power corrupts. However, the power of the gangs had corrupted the country utterly and brought it to the edge of extinction as a functional entity.
So, here are the difficult questions. What are the limits of freedom? What are the limits of a desire for security? When there is an apparent conflict between the two, how does a country decide where the limits belong? Honestly, I do not have a good answer. I hope you do.
Leave a Reply