[News] To Confront Rising Neofascism, the Latin American Left Must Rediscover Itself

[Anti-Imperialist News]

orinocotribune.com
<https://orinocotribune.com/to-confront-rising-neofascism-the-latin-american-left-must-rediscover-itself/>
To Confront Rising Neofascism, the Latin American Left Must Rediscover
ItselfAugust 21, 2024
------------------------------

[image: Drawing of a protest with the caption "Nobody can save themselves
alone." Photo: Instagram/@villyvillian.]

Drawing of a protest with the caption "Nobody can save themselves alone."
Photo: Instagram/@villyvillian.

By Tricontinental Institute for Social Research  –  Aug 13, 2024

*This dossier presents a broad overview of the Latin American far right’s
political, economic, and cultural programmes and how the absence of a real
left political project that secures better living conditions has thrown
different fractions of the working class into the grip of neofascism.*

*Introduction*
The new Latin American progressive wave has created great expectations
among the left, not only on the continent but across the world. Though
institutional victories over the far right in presidential elections are
important, defeating neofascism is a long and arduous journey – even after
an electoral victory. Beyond influencing governments, the ideology of the
far right has permeated much of society in an organised way, drawing a
significant part of the working class into its project of death.

This dossier provides an overview of the Latin American far right’s
political, economic, and cultural programmes based on the reflections,
research, political activity, and lived experiences of the Latin America
offices of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. The dossier
discusses the advance of neoliberalism and its impact on the material
conditions of the working class across the continent and examines the
ideological and cultural mechanisms of this economic model, which convinces
a significant part of the working class to support a project in which they
themselves are the primary victims. The proximity between the right and the
working class was forged not by the ‘traditional’ or ‘moderate’ right,
which generally operate in spaces far removed from the working class, but
during the most recent phase of neoliberalism in the form of a more radical
and populist project known as neofascism.

Thus, we are living in a historical moment of paralysis between social
forces and their primary political projects. Neither neoliberalism nor
today’s progressive wave – which in many ways lacks a revolutionary outlook
– have been able to imagine a future for the working class that does not
involve a return to the policies of the past three decades. For the
theorist and former Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera, we are
living in a ‘collective stupor, of a certain paralysis, in which time seems
to be suspended’.1
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn1>

Rather than analyse the situation from a distance, this dossier explores
concrete experiences of struggle within the current Latin American context
in order to construct a regional perspective and contemplate a collective
project to overcome the structural issues impacting the continent. As such,
it is an invitation to create new spaces for debate, education, and
continuous and integrated struggle.
[image: Hybrid Wars (2020), by Túlio Carapiá and Clara Cerqueira
(Brazil).]Hybrid
Wars (2020), by Túlio Carapiá and Clara Cerqueira (Brazil).

*Neoliberalism: From institutional politics to ideology*
The most recent electoral victories of progressive candidates in Latin
America have been characterised as a ‘second pink tide’, generating certain
expectations among the left.2
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn2>
However, in contrast to the ‘first pink tide’, which frontally challenged
US imperialism by advancing Latin American integration and geopolitical
sovereignty, this second wave of progressive electoral victories seems more
fragile. Current progressive governments have emerged in an unfavourable
international and domestic political context featuring an emboldened far
right whose strength goes far beyond the institutional level. For example,
the neofascist experience during the four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s
presidency in Brazil (2019-2022) compelled progressive forces to ally with
the left’s historical enemies in order to reduce far-right candidates’
chances of winning. In attempting to define its political project, the
second progressive wave, unable to apply the formulas of the past, thus
finds itself in a crisis. In this context, a number of factors have
inhibited the advance of progressive forces, such as:

   1. the worldwide financial and environmental crises, which have created
   divisions between countries in the region about which path to follow;
   2. the United States’ reassertion of control over the region, which it
   had lost as a result of the first progressive wave, in particular to
   challenge what the US sees as China’s entry into Latin American markets.
   This includes the region’s natural and labour resources;
   3. the increasing uberisation of labour markets, which has created much
   more precarious lives for workers and negatively impacted the working
   class’s capacity for mass organisation. This has resulted in a significant
   rolling back of workers’ rights and has weakened working class power;
   4. the reconfiguration of social reproduction, which has become centred
   around public disinvestment in social welfare policies, thereby placing the
   responsibility for care in the private sphere and primarily overburdening
   women;
   5. the growth of US military power in the region as its main instrument
   of domination in response to its declining economic power;
   6. the fact that China, which has emerged as Latin America’s primary
   trading partner, has not sought to frontally challenge the US agenda to
   secure hegemony over the continent and that the region’s governments have
   been unable to drive an agenda of sovereignty by taking advantage of
   China’s economic influence and the opportunities it presents;3
   <https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn3>
   7. divisions between progressive governments and the ascension of
   neofascism in the Americas, which impede the growth of a progressive
   regional agenda, including policies for continental integration akin to
   those proposed during the first progressive wave.

Within this context, neofascism emerges as a political and social
phenomenon that appears in a very specific form on the periphery of
capitalism. As in the twentieth century, the current decline of the liberal
order as a form of capitalist domination has given rise to the world’s most
recent manifestation of fascism and its accompanying unfathomable
political, economic, and cultural regressions.

More than forty years of neoliberalism have resulted in low levels of
economic growth, increased unemployment, an unstable labour market, the
dismantling of public and social infrastructure, and increased income
inequality, with a powerful few amassing huge fortunes.4
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_ftn1> The
neoliberal development model is antagonistic to human life, creating a
permanent climate of unhappiness and suffering. It is no coincidence that
the rates of psychosomatic illness and use of antidepressants have risen
exponentially – a clear symptom of a society that incentivises
no-holds-barred competition among individuals at the cost of leisure,
culture, liberatory education, and solidarity. Under neoliberalism, the
ideas of the corporate world are imposed on all spheres of life, shaping
individuals’ subjectivity. Life is now structured around the parameters of
the private realm, emphasising individualism, consumption, and the market
as the primary characteristics of human relations.
[image: NEO_Liberalism (2020), by Alejo R. Romero (Cuba).]NEO_Liberalism
(2020), by Alejo R. Romero (Cuba).

Neoliberal ideology in Latin America and the Caribbean took advantage of a
state that had proven itself to be permanently incapable and ineffective in
meeting the needs of the majority, as evidenced by the maintenance of
historic structures of inequality. In the 1980s, Latin American countries
underwent profound fiscal crises and uncontrollable inflation. Thus, the
idea of the ‘inefficient state’ and the ‘wasteful state’ (or the *e**stado
elefantico* – ‘elephantine state’ – as they say in Argentina) began to win
hearts and minds in Latin American societies. Then, in the 1990s, a series
of neoliberal projects began to be implemented. The most common measures
included privatisation; trade, financial, and labour deregulation; and
economic policies that prioritised balanced public budgets over social
investments. However, it was from the 2007–2008 financial crisis onwards
that neoliberal discourse was radicalised and was able to win over a
significant part of the masses.

During the long-term economic crisis that began in 2007, a series of coups5
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_ftn2> and
other concerted efforts took place that sought to undermine left and
progressive governments that were committed to advancing social policies.6
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn4> These
coups were carried out by national elites and international capital – with
the participation of the US government – and were supported by the national
corporate media. After the economic crisis, with less to go around, finance
capital no longer considered it feasible for progressive governments to
remain in power and implement their social policies. Although a few
countries were able to maintain social cohesion and utilise the state to
support those most in need, the general order of the day was the further
intensification of neoliberalism and super-exploitation of labour, such as
through labour and pension reforms and the adoption of ultraliberal
economic policies.

The undermining and toppling of progressive governments and the rise of the
Latin American far right did not always take place in exactly the same way
or at the same time. It is important to examine the circumstances of each
country in order to more fully understand the broader changes taking place
in the region. However, these changes are all related to the crisis of
neoliberal capitalism and finance capital’s response, geared toward
preserving the mechanisms of accumulation. Political representation and the
various forms of political activity within a given society are key factors
in achieving these goals. Examples of these processes include the coups
against Manuel Zelaya in Honduras in 2009, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay in
2012, Dilma Rousseff in Brazil in 2016, and Evo Morales in Bolivia in 2019;
the imprisonment of Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva in Brazil in 2018; and the
political persecution of and assassination attempt against Cristina
Kirchner in Argentina in 2022.

The broad reorganisation of the Latin American right featured many common
techniques, such as a combination of legal and illegal means, and g the
centrality of the battle of ideas – or ‘culture war’ – within its political
strategy. However, this process unfolded differently in each country and
even within the same country at different moments in time. In Brazil, for
example, the ‘moderate’ right radicalised its discourse and tactics
– especially as the right began to take hold following the 2016 coup
against then President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party. After losing
the 2014 presidential election to Rousseff, the traditional-right candidate
Aécio Neves contested the result and requested a vote recount, causing
political instability and opening the door for Rousseff’s impeachment two
years later. In other words, the traditional right planned the 2016 coup
after being defeated in four consecutive presidential elections, opening a
space for neofascism to take power with the election of Jair Bolsonaro in
2018. The consequences were devastating, and institutional progressive
forces have since had to pursue a defensive agenda, managing neoliberal
policies instead of building a comprehensive left project for the country.

All the while, the neofascist monster continues to roam across Brazil. It
is present in all spaces, from the environmental debate, with its measures
and positions that deny climate change, to the educational arena, with the
discourse of* Escola sem Partido *(‘schools without political parties’),7
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_ftn3> to
the church and the everyday life of the people. In these spaces, the far
right constructs a model of life and moral values that exalt individualism,
property, the market, and the ‘traditional family’. The poorest sectors of
the population – especially Black people, women, and LGBTQIA+ people –
continue to be the primary victims of their policies. All of these ideas,
which were already present in Brazilian society, were spread on an
unprecedented scale through (dis)information made possible (and encouraged)
by big tech companies.8
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn5>

In Argentina, the right deepened its use of the judicial branch to
persecute political opponents, especially Cristina Kirchner, following the
electoral victory of former President Mauricio Macri in 2015. The
‘moderate’ right did the dirty work of radicalising the political
environment with lies and used the state apparatus under their control to
attack progressive governments. Nevertheless, over time, this more
traditional right was delegitimised in the elections since its policies
lacked any connection to social demands. The moderate right then receded
into the background of the political scene, opening the door for far-right
figures presenting themselves as anti-establishment and champions of social
change.

One of these figures, Javier Milei, assumed the presidency at the end of
2023. Milei proclaims that he will remake Argentina with the stated goal of
‘ending populism’. Along these lines, his government’s initiatives seek to
end labour and social rights for the majority, ‘deregulate markets’ to
favour large companies – especially large foreign corporations – and reduce
the state’s overall role in the economy by privatising public entities and
dismantling virtually all social and cultural development programmes. At
the same time, as in other countries, the discourse of hate is being
promoted by the state apparatus as well as spokespeople who have a long
history of disseminating fake news. These techniques are used to attack
organisations that defend social rights and delegitimise the very ideas of
social change, such as the concepts of economic redistribution and social
justice. Furthermore, the idea of placing one’s faith in a ‘saviour’ over a
‘standard politician’ has won over a significant segment of the population.
In this way, neofascism achieves the classic fascist goal of securing the
masses’ fealty to a project that is against their own interests.

This massive backing of a project that works against the interests of the
people is part of an economic strategy and a product of the crisis that
began in 2007–2008. In general, Latin American governments were not able to
expand their social investments as they had in preceding years. Even though
the absence of regulations and the lack of a basic level of state control
were among the main factors contributing to the crisis, the narrative that
won the day was that the state and the interventionist policies of
progressive governments were the principal causes of social ills.

In Brazil, this ideology spread widely throughout society, including among
the most oppressed sectors of the population, opening the space for a new
round of neoliberal reforms. In 2017, the Perseu Abramo Foundation
published a study about the moral values of residents living in São Paulo’s
poorest neighbourhoods that concluded that, though these residents did not
oppose social policies, the neoliberal ideology had gained a strong
foothold amongst this segment of the population. For example, for the
majority of those interviewed, the primary conflict in society is between
individuals and the state, and not between the rich and the poor.9
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn6>

In Brazil, for instance, the government of Michel Temer, which assumed
power following the 2016 coup against Rousseff, approved labour reform laws
that rolled back workers’ rights, using the rationale that reducing labour
costs would result in job growth. Then, in 2019, the Bolsonaro government
approved pension reform laws that increased the minimum retirement age and
reduced the benefit amount that retirees would receive. Yet, this rolling
back of social rights did not result in a level of unrest that would have
paved the way for broad mobilisations against the reforms.

This complacency stems from a variety of successful strategies that the
neoliberal project has developed to convince the public of its efficacy.
For instance, as the Perseu Abramo Foundation study showed, many residents
of poor neighbourhoods aspire to be entrepreneurs due to the ‘benefits’ of
no longer having a boss, having more flexibility, increasing their income,
and being able to leave an inheritance for their family. This vision opens
political space for neoliberal governments to restructure the world of
work, primarily by rolling back social rights, without much opposition from
the working class.

What we are seeing today is the modern manifestation of twentieth-century
fascism, though with some important distinctions, which takes different
forms and goes by different names such as right-wing populism, the new
right, the far right, and the ultra right. Neofascism in Latin America can
thus be defined as a new political, economic, and cultural movement based
on four main elements:

   1. the successful implantation of a neoliberal ideology, including in a
   frustrated and resentful middle class that bases its worldview on the ideas
   of the elites and has not created its own class project;
   2. an anti-intellectualism among elites who promote a cult of action for
   action’s sake, reject reason, are opposed to the pillars of the
   Enlightenment (scientific denialism), and rely on ‘common sense’
   explanations for the most diverse and complex questions facing society as a
   whole;
   3. the production of a national identity based on a single figure – that
   of the upstanding citizen – that provides simplistic explanations for any
   situation; attempts to omit, ignore, or negate contradictions; and avoids
   critical analysis in favour of a monolithic line of reasoning expressed in
   punitive, militarist, denialist, racist, and misogynistic discourse; and
   4. the mobilisation of anti-communist ideology, which, supported by
   religious fundamentalism, fuses social conservatism and political moralism.

*Latin American progressivism and the awakening of a monster*
These new elements of Latin American neofascism are connected to
transformations in the world of work, itself part of the broader neoliberal
programme to restructure the relations of production. They lay a foundation
for fundamental changes in the forms of working-class organisation and
action, fragmenting and isolating workers whose physical separation from
the workplace and labour unions impedes them from developing a class
consciousness. This breaks up spaces of debate and political formation,
further hindering the development of a class-based identity that could lead
to a collective worldview capable of challenging neoliberal ideals.10
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn7> As
described below, Silicon Valley plays a strategic role in this process,
providing the ideological content and technological apparatuses necessary
for the mass distribution of messages. This strategy separates people into
communication bubbles and uses digital surveillance to categorise them and
their behaviours. As a result of these shifts, concrete examples of
organisation and collective activity become less common; the prospect for
change, when it appears, seems opaque and vague for most people. In this
context, progressive forces, which still rely largely on historic forms of
struggle that do not fully respond to the material conditions of the
present and yet must face workers’ fragmented sense of identity, have found
it difficult to create new forms of collective organisation. Demands, such
as for shorter work shifts, no longer resonate with workers in a system
where, for many, the more hours they work, the more they are paid. In other
words, many workers’ rights movements have not yet analysed the new world
of work, insisting instead on outdated tactics. The insistence on
grassroots work is fundamental, but it must take into account concrete
information about who the current worker is, as well as his/her subjective
and objective demands, and make use of new communication technologies.

Meanwhile, the Latin American governments of the second progressive wave
have not been able to properly confront the neofascist monster. The balance
of forces in the world has not allowed these states to advance structural
policies that further the interests of countries in the capitalist
periphery, a weakness that has hindered large-scale projects and programmes
that directly seek to transcend the capitalist system.11
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn8> The
tempo of the class struggle in societies in the periphery does not favour
the working class and the peasantry, which is why progressive forces are
unable to drive a proper agenda when they come to power.
[image: Narco > Justice (2024), by LaBogotana (Colombia).]Narco > Justice
(2024), by LaBogotana (Colombia).

The transition from a neoliberal or neofascist to a progressive government
capable of advancing structural transformation is not possible without a
broad base of working-class support. At this time, the conjuncture does not
favour broad structural transformation. For that reason, progressive
electoral projects have had a difficult time building strong popular
support for their limited programmes. The difficulty of building a
political project of the left that can overcome the day-to-day problems of
working-class existence has unmoored many of these progressive electoral
projects from mass needs. This condition of being unmoored has led sections
of the working class and peasantry to seek refuge under the banner of
neofascism.

The drift of sections of the working class to neofascism is related to the
role of drugs and drug mafias in their communities. The grip of drug mafias
has brought fear and violence into these communities, which have begun to
determine the reality of everyday life. South America is a central part of
the chain of production, distribution, and consumption and is a laboratory
of policies that criminalise the poor and poverty.12
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_ftn4> The
primary South American drug-producing countries (Bolivia, Colombia,
Ecuador, and Peru) are integrated into a system with the distributing
countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay) in an accelerating
cycle of failed policies centred on imprisonment, policing, and the
fragmentation of urban neighbourhoods.13
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn9> This
violent social Darwinist approach interweaves Latin America with the
globalisation of contemporary capitalism through the criminal economy since
drug trafficking is linked to the arms market, weapons manufacturers, and
the financial system.

To counter the rise of drug barons, many governments in Latin America have,
by and large, adopted the US War on Drugs mentality, which means using
armed force to exercise control over working-class neighbourhoods. With few
exceptions, Latin American progressive governments have adhered to the War
on Drugs’ directives and policies as a response to growing violence in
urban areas marked by increasing inequality. These governments lack a
programme to counteract the War on Drugs and ensure public safety, a main
weak point that neofascists – such as the governments of Nayib Bukele in El
Salvador and Daniel Noboa in Ecuador – have seized upon to politicise and
expand their base. Here we find the inevitable overlap of neoliberalism
with an essential component of neofascism: militarism.

In the case of Brazil, the permeability of the state and business class has
allowed criminal organisations and militias to consolidate and expand
throughout official structures, making use of political parties and
neofascists such as the Bolsonaro family, which continues to lead the
country’s neofascist movement known as *bolsonarismo. *According to the
Brazilian Forum on Public Safety (*Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública*),
there are currently more than seventy large-scale criminal organisations
operating within the country, some with international reach, working within
a worldwide network of mafia organisations. In the past decade,
organisations acting as militias, most of whose members are directly or
indirectly linked to public safety institutions or the armed forces, have
further infiltrated the state. These organisations are also connected with
small and medium-sized private businesses that secure public contracts to
provide basic services.14
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn10> The
War on Drugs has produced armed ‘governments’ that control vast urban
territories – environments within which the working class survives and is
socialised. Managed by the aforementioned criminal organisations, these
armed ‘governments’ control and profit from economic activity and regulate
how conflicts are resolved. Especially in the case of the militias, these
entities have also increasingly secured electoral support for neofascism in
these areas. Roughly 80% of the state of Rio de Janeiro alone is controlled
by these armed ‘governments’.15
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn11>

While the right has an authoritative and punitive position on public safety
and against drug trafficking, progressive parties have become hostages of
electoral messaging, going along with the right’s discourse of
incarceration and severe punishment because it is increasingly popular with
voters. From an ideological perspective, poverty – and, primarily, the poor
– have become ever more associated with the image of an enemy to be
combatted: the young drug trafficker from the poorest neighbourhoods. Every
day, news stories bombard the country with portrayals of the ‘good guy’ and
the ‘perpetrator’, legitimising this concept of ‘the enemy’. Anyone who
resembles this constructed profile (young, Black, and poor) can be
eliminated without serious repercussions, yet there are no effective social
policies for the people that fit this image. On a practical level, this
means that the police have a license to exterminate them.

*The Neofascist International?*
Another subject of debate is whether neofascist organisation and activity
is coordinated at the international level. In contrast to Europe, where
these groups are organised through the structures of older fascist parties,
in Latin America neofascism is organised through think thanks and backed by
similar organisations in the US and Spain. In Brazil, for instance, Eduardo
Bolsonaro, a member of the Chamber of Deputies16
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_ftn5> and
one of Jair Bolsonaro’s children, created a Brazilian version of the US
Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and has organised five
meetings with forty-three Latin American and eighty-two US neofascist
leaders since his father’s 2022 electoral defeat.17
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn12>

The anti-communist tradition and reactivation of old international networks
have contributed to the rise of neofascism, unifying far-right actors
across multiple countries around an ideological discourse used to mobilise
and develop a political programme.
[image: Fake News and the Battle of Ideas (2020), by Gabrielle Sodré
(Brazil).]Fake News and the Battle of Ideas, 2020, by Gabrielle Sodré
(Brazil).

Silicon Valley plays a key role in manufacturing consent for neofascism, as
in the case of Elon Musk, tech baron and one of the world’s richest people.
Over the past decade, social media has become a powerful tool in the battle
over hearts and minds. It is now possible to collect individualised data on
the feelings and perceptions of a large part of the population – above all
the working class – concerning a broad range of issues. Brazil, for
instance, is the largest consumer of social media in the Americas and the
third largest in the world.18
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn13> In
this sphere, where the business model favours a discourse of hate, social
media content largely reinforces a neoliberal ideology, making use of
religious fundamentalism, the theology of prosperity, and punitivism.
Social media is a key battleground in a culture war spurred on by
neofascism and site for efforts to bring together diverse neofascist groups
from across the world. This culture war is not the spontaneous outcome of
resentment and outrage from neoliberalism’s victims: it is organised,
centralised, and extremely well-funded.

*Neofascism and ‘Cultural Marxism’*
Though the language of neofascism may be more refined and the culture war
techniques more sophisticated than those of traditional fascism, the
objective remains the same: to fragment the working class and demobilise
the class struggle. The battle of ideas and emotions is waged in everyday
life through the creation of values that resonate with the people in
concrete ways. Despite numerous institutional victories for progressive
forces in Latin America, neofascism has been able to capitalise on the
uncertain future of the working class, securing it a prominent role in the
public debate.

Without a doubt, religion has been a key arena in the battle to win over
the hearts and minds of the working class. If in the past religion was the
driving force behind Latin American liberatory movements, today, in its
conservative garb, it has become an indispensable weapon in the right’s
efforts to reach the working class in everyday life. The neoliberal project
has used Christian religious fundamentalism to entrench itself throughout
Latin America, occupying institutional spaces and building a presence in
the day-to-day life of the population. While religious narratives fill the
world with the theology of prosperity, in which wealth and well-being are
the fruits of individual and rational faith (replacing social justice with
personal success), the Latin American right promotes the same vision, also
offering entrepreneurship as the only escape from the problems that exist
in the world of work. Individual entrepreneurship is associated with the
vision that only the strong survive, sacrifice is the means to achieve a
dignified life, and social rights are not rights but perks given to a
parasitic group. In this economic, sociocultural, and political context,
large corporations like the multinational transportation company Uber and
the Brazilian food delivery company iFood find fertile ground for
recruiting workers to their digital platforms, where labour rights are
largely absent and pay is based exclusively on results.

Neofascism uses religion in several ways, such as to attack sexual and
reproductive rights through the discursive war that condemns all that is
not heterosexual and promotes a heteronormative concept of family. Any
questioning of this limited way of existing in the world is framed as
‘gender ideology’, provoking moral panic. Neofascists attack, condemn, and
criticise as abnormal diverse models of the family. These actors promote a
discourse of hate and call on society to rectify what they consider to be
deviant attitudes, resulting in escalating violence against the LGBTQIA+
population. In one such example, a man set fire to a Buenos Aires hotel
room where four lesbians were living together while they were inside and
stopped them from escaping in a hate-motivated attack in May 2024. Three of
them died.

Defending the model of the traditional heterosexual family also perpetuates
the prevailing public policy in which women are reduced to procreators,
primary caregivers, and those responsible for children, the sick, and the
elderly. In other words, care continues to be a responsibility within the
private realm of women while they are sentenced to the fires of
condemnation, blamed for the violence they suffer, and deprived of the
right to decide what to do about an undesired pregnancy, for example.19
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn14>

In March 2024, a Datafolha survey announced alarming statistics about how
Brazilian society views abortion rights, which are a fundamental issue for
the feminist movements in Latin America. Only 6% of the Brazilian
population supports the legalisation of abortion in any situation (this
percentage is also very low among women, at 7%), and more than half of the
population (52%) believes that women who abort, under any circumstance,
should be jailed.20
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn15> Most
women have either already had an abortion or know another woman close to
them who has. In other words, despite being intimately familiar with the
specific situations of women who chose to interrupt their pregnancy, a
significant portion of women support the criminalisation of abortion. In
this context, the role of religion, by promoting a limited,
cis-heteronormative view of the family, plays a significant role in
transforming diverse family models into a crime while challenging the
secular state.
[image: ‘Unintentional’ Rape (2020), by Luciléia da Silva Vieira
(Brazil).]‘Unintentional’
Rape (2020), by Luciléia da Silva Vieira (Brazil).

Another new trend in recent decades has been the right organising massive
street demonstrations around so-called ‘moral issues’ in some countries,
such as Peru or Brazil, thereby occupying a traditional mobilisation space
of the left.21
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn16>
Provoking
moral panic has been used as a campaign strategy in elections, such as
associating the defence of abortion with support for murder while ignoring
the profound and complex questions of race, class, and gender that the
issue encompasses. Religious groups, together with Latin American elite
conservatism, have developed shared strategies against the legalisation of
abortion. The alliance between religious and political conservatives
utilises the same discourse and aesthetic in various countries, creating
organised movements on social media, in churches, and in the streets that
primarily attract young people and women. The intervention of religious
fundamentalists in legislative debates has often put a stop to important
and widely discussed progressive proposals that challenge the system of
patriarchy.

The ‘Don’t Mess with My Kids’ (*Con mis hijos no te metas*) campaign, a
movement to stop the lure of ‘gender ideology’ in schools, took place not
just in the streets, but also in the debate over school curricula,
beginning in Peru and spreading its message across Latin America, Europe,
and elsewhere. Though evangelicals have carried out the most conservative
actions, fundamentalist Catholics have also taken legal actions. In
Venezuela, Catholics are the main social force opposing abortion rights. In
Ecuador, diverse religious currents participated in street protests that
presented themselves as secular while nonetheless adhering to the
fundamentalist playbook in their arguments and discourse. The ‘defence of
life’ against the legalisation of abortion is also prevalent within
academic circles across various countries in Latin America, using the
supposed scientific ‘data’ to assert when a fetus should be classified as a
life.22
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn17>

Neofascism also uses religion in its constant mobilisation against a
conjured ‘enemy’. This method is complementary to the attack on sexual and
reproductive rights described above. The concept of the enemy is central to
fundamentalist discourses, such as dominion theology,23
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_ftn6> and
is closely linked to the idea of ‘spiritual battle’ (the struggle against
an ever-present enemy). In this discourse, the historical enemy of the
continent’s right wing, which continues to be arbitrarily used, is
communism. Anti-communism assumes various forms, reflecting its
pluralistic, fantastical, and multifaceted nature. Different periods and
contexts have seen the rise of right-wing political and social fronts
unified in opposition to communism as a common enemy. Their demands revolve
around the absolute reverence of private property, family cohesion – based
on a unitary family model – and the order and defence of a worldview
centred on Christian principles.

In Brazil, these forces have associated the Workers’ Party (PT) with
communism, even though the PT has always been a moderate, progressive party
more focused on conciliation than on radical breaks with the prevailing
political and/or economic systems. A study published in March 2023 by
Intelligence in Research and Strategic Consulting (*Inteligência em
Pesquisa e Consultoria Estratégica*, or IPEC), a public opinion research
institute, noted that 44% of those polled agree completely (31%) or in part
(13%) with the statement that Brazil could become a communist country with
Lula in the presidency.24
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn18> In
recent years, anti-communism and anti-Workers’ Party sentiment in the
country have become increasingly interconnected, largely spurred by
Christian fundamentalist sectors. These efforts have created the fantasy
that having the Workers’ Party in power will mean an attack on Christian
churches, on morality, and on the notion of respectable behaviour.

The debate over social rights and any sign of a strengthened state also
fuels this anti-communist imaginary. There is a vision, greatly influenced
by the United States, that state involvement in strengthening social rights
is part of a communist agenda and, consequently, the state as the guarantor
of rights is an enemy to be fought.

The construction of the ‘enemy’ is by no means a new phenomenon. Across the
continent, Latin America underwent arduous years of dictatorships in the
second half of the twentieth century that left a profound mark on its
history. This period left open wounds that often continue to bleed. One of
these struggles was the fight for freedom in a context in which books were
burned, songs were censored, and silence was often the only possible
defence against persecution and death. The neofascist clamour for what they
call freedom of expression today obscures a bloody past. In this context,
the word ‘freedom’ has become a cornerstone of the right’s jargon, centred
around ideas such as ‘God, Country, Family’. This appropriation of the
concept of freedom makes for a painful irony given the continent’s history
of repression and allows crimes to be committed with impunity, aided by
social media under the control of big tech companies. Yet, neofascists
persist in their claims that the left is the enemy of freedom and accuse it
of being authoritarian for curtailing one’s freedom to speak their mind. In
so doing, the Latin American conservative and reactionary camp shamelessly
co-opt a fundamental concept of the people’s struggle for justice in order
to justify its atrocities.

*Antifascism and a new utopian future*
Even in countries where Latin American governments act with the support of
a progressive or moderate majority and neofascists make up a noisy
minority, the far right is still strongly present in multiple arenas such
as legislatures, political parties, and civil society groups. Defeating the
right will not be an easy task, nor will it be confined to the electoral
sphere. The actions of organised social movements, whose collective values
of solidarity oppose neoliberal ideology, and of governments that
prioritise the strengthening of rights and policies that advance the
people’s well-being, are critical to winning this struggle.

Part of what must be done is to reconnect politics with the people’s needs,
pains, and desires. But, above all, in order to challenge the violence and
criminality of the right-wing groups spreading across the continent, it is
necessary to take back our streets and our neighbourhoods through
mobilisations and social organisation, which are currently in a weakened
state. Miguel Stédile, coordinator of the Tricontinental office in Brazil,
warns that ‘to confront the monsters of fascism, the left needs to
rediscover itself. In the face of today’s structural problems – the climate
catastrophe, the migration catastrophe, armed conflicts – the left must
dare to propose equally structural solutions. Moderation and crisis
management […] is not enough to make real changes’.25
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/#_edn19>
Sharpening the connection between theory and workers’ concrete realities
through creativity and the collective construction of new utopias is an
urgent task that must be undertaken every day.

(Tricontinental
<https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-neofascism-latin-america/>)
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