One of my most dynamic professors, when he hears me talk about political communication, interjects with the same question: which is not?
The doubt may sound suspiciously absolute, but if you listen carefully, it is difficult for a social story not to carry at least one political dimension, from the works of Leonardo da Vinci, the stories of Edgar Alan Poe, the Communist Manifesto, the Theory of Relativity, the advertisements of Revolico or the Popol Vuh. Because in all these cases and millions of others, the narrator, the context and the audience are subjects mediated by power relations.
This side of the world called “The South” is more than geographical; it is cultural, economic, the distribution of wealth, the dominance of markets or traders, and above all, resistance.
It is essential to understand the contaminating capacity of politics in order, for example, not to get lost in the high grass of the cultural and entertainment industries; not to be misinformed by “information” or end up as vassals in the fiefdoms of digital platforms.
The premises of a political communication with a Southern approach assume a critical vision and active resistance to the power structures imposed, historically, by the metropolises and their heirs: the imperialist and neoliberal States. The political dimension of the story from the South shakes the structures of the market, to replace them with those of humanity and its struggles for social justice.
Decolonization is not only cultural, but also economic, scientific, technological, ethical, communicational, it equalizes the voice of marginalized peoples so that they do not remain below those of the dominant power, and do not seem faint, mournful, but the firm voice of people who are masters of their destiny.
I heard a colleague say that Cubans are immediately recognized wherever they are, because they walk with their heads held high, their eyes straight, the gesture of those who do not recognize a boss. It is the dignity-forming effect that the Revolution transmits, although those who wear it may deny it or curse it.
Understanding power relations with a view from the South implies understanding and, therefore, rejecting the predominance of hegemonic Eurocentric narratives; those that are imposed on us to the detriment of the narratives of our peoples. In science, for example, the perspective of a counter-hegemonic understanding of reality obliges us to rise above underdevelopment or the dominant narrative that despises and denies us as creators, researchers, to demonstrate in practice the tangible value of our science.
That common graffiti on the walls of Cuba: Yes we can! Beyond the slogan, expresses that example of a humble nation, capable of manufacturing its own vaccines in a world mortally threatened, both by the virus and by the pharmaceutical corporations, or that of the workers of the thermoelectric plants who do not surrender to the darkness, nor to the silence of their irons.
A true political communication from the South puts its collective efforts in making visible the daily struggles against colonialism, be it in favor of the children massacred in Gaza, in defense of the elderly beaten in the streets of Buenos Aires, in resistance to the young people cooked by drugs -imported in military planes- that arrive in the neighborhoods of Detroit.
The inauguration of Emperor Trump, escorted by the owners of the media corporations, full members of the richest segment of the planet, was a direct statement that the millionaires would be the beneficiaries of his decisions as a statesman; but, above all, it launched a clear warning for us to understand who we are fighting against.
Therein lies the great challenge of political communication from the South: to confront the big media conglomerates, which impose their narratives from an increasingly colossal economic power, to the point of dragging humanity to a rare “past-future” that some call Technofeudalism; according to which digital network platforms function as the old fiefdoms, and users wander through them as serfs who pay an invisible tribute in metadata and traffic, for the “happiness” of living connected to the cyber-world.
Communication with a Southern approach must, inexorably, be anti-imperialist. It may seem a truism, but the logical ideological diversity, of which so much is said today, is often confused with the indispensable political unity. All too often we witness the lamentable spectacle of struggles between brothers, who have different ideas, but the same enemy. We see how they wear each other out, to be hunted down one by one by the dominant power.
At least one of the main functions of emancipatory political communication is to foster unity in the face of imperialism, demonstrating that it is, in the end, the real threat to humanity.
A quick list of some of the premises for political communication with a Southern approach: decolonization of science and power; social justice and equitable redistribution of material wealth and meaning; anti-imperialism as a principle and sovereignty as a bastion; social inclusion; political participation, dialogue and horizontal relations; ecology and justice; South-South solidarity; culture and identity as resistance; progressive, unstoppable and mandatory fostering of our alternative and counter-hegemonic media; technological sovereignty; ethics in the service of human dignity; historical memory; diversity and gender approach.
In short, political communication with a Southern approach seeks to contribute to the root transformation of political power relations, through an emancipating and militant narrative, based on the struggles and aspirations of those of us who have been excluded, more than once, from the right to exist.
