In Latin America, full of socialist revolutionary events influenced by the Cuban Revolution, guerrilla warfare, and numerous coups d’état, Christian democratic forces in the twentieth century were distinguished by revolutionary and even socialist rhetoric.

Christian democratic parties in this region take a more radical position on agrarian reform, nationalization of property, struggle for the expansion of the state’s social policy and raising the level of education of the population. The programs of the Christian parties in this region are heavily influenced by the “theology of liberation” and the ideas of left-wing populism.

This was also facilitated by the poor results of reforms by Latin American Christian democratic governments, which often emphasized their respect for Christian morality but did little to reduce the influence of local capitalist oligarchies.

For Latin American Christian democrats, the positions of Christian socialism are quite close, while European Christian democrats have basically abandoned the concept of finding a middle “third way” (between capitalism and socialism). Latin American Christian Democrats were greatly influenced by the ideas of liberation theology, which was a synthesis of socialist and biblical postulates for the sake of social justice. One of the symbols of liberation theology was the image of Jesus Christ with a Kalashnikov rifle, a weapon that Moscow brought to the poor and long-suffering region in large quantities. Guided by the slogans of the rebellious church, many Christians and priests supported social change, participated in the guerrilla movement, formed left-wing Christian democratic groups, and radicalized Christian trade unions.

Against the backdrop of total poverty, misery, and corruption of local governments, societies were rooted in the belief that human liberation begins with the development of economic infrastructure, the creation of new jobs, and social stability. Liberation theology appealed to the figure of Jesus Christ as a fighter for the rights of the oppressed. A popular biblical story of liberation theology was the Book of Exodus, which creates an analogy from the story of the liberation of the Jews from Egyptian slavery and extrapolates the need for social liberation to the present. However, the combination of communist leftism and Christianity contradicted the tenets of the Church, which soon condemned and criticized liberation theology. Although the latter managed to leave a certain “socialist imprint” among Latin American Christian democrats.

However, in the twenty-first century, leftist influence in the Latin American Christian democratic movement has been significantly marginalized, and forces that use leftist guidelines occupy very minor positions. This was facilitated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which supported socialist movements in the region, and the socio-economic failures of socialist governments in Cuba and Venezuela, which, having put socialist slogans into practice, plunged their people into the abyss of poverty and misery. At the same time, Christian democrats in Europe have evolved toward conservatism. As a result, today there is a rather definite ideological difference between Latin American and European Christian democracy.

Author: Valeriy Maydanyuk

There are a lot of stereotypes about conservatism today, and even people who are conservative by conviction consider conservatism to be a kind of bourgeois anachronism of Victorian England, with the atmosphere of manners of respectable aristocrats.

Conservatism was like that a hundred years ago, when the classics of liberalism were homophobes, racists, and fanatical Christians. Today, however, conservatism has little to do with the mannerisms of aristocrats like Winston Churchill. Conservatism stands for the preservation of existing values, traditions, and models of society, but this is precisely why many citizens mistakenly believe that it means a return to some archaic traditions.

Just as conservatism does not seek to preserve the existing corrupt system or imperfect bureaucratic-oligarchic structure. In institutional terms, conservatives support progress more than political forces that call themselves “progressives.” But under the rule of these “progressives,” billionaires have become many times richer, while their corporations’ employees have become poorer. Many Americans, including reputable economists, note that in the 1980s (during the presidency of conservative Republican Ronald Reagan), a person who had a job could live decently with his family on his salary, and today, a worker with three jobs is not enough to pay the bills.

Modern conservatism is primarily about preserving familiar, traditional, and supported by the majority of citizens models of family, inter-sex relations, national values, etc. If you don’t think the look of this year’s Eurovision winners is progressive and you think that more traditional participants would have been better, this is conservatism. Preservation of traditional ideas about beauty, aesthetics, culture, art, social relations, etc. If you are concerned about the Olympic boxing match between Algeria and Italy and think that something is wrong here, this is also conservatism – the preservation of the norms that are familiar to society. Ultra-liberal and leftist environments are trying to prove that norms and normalcy do not exist-that all these are artificial constructs invented for the purpose of discrimination, etc. Conservatives believe that normality, as a set of useful and generally accepted rules and regulations, exists and should exist for the public good. If you believe that normality exists, this is modern conservatism. Of course, there are constant cultural changes in history, but some social norms have remained unchanged not only for millennia, but throughout the entire written history of mankind.

Conservatism opposes the destruction by aggressive minorities of natural, rational and supported by the majority of citizens norms. Moreover, conservatives today are the main defenders of democracy and freedom of speech. After all, in its true sense, democracy is the power of the people and has always been understood as the predominance of the majority opinion. Instead, the predominance of a minority, or several different minorities, over the majority has always been condemned by supporters of democracy as a phenomenon that necessarily leads to dictatorship. In contrast to those who want to force the majority of citizens to obey the will of the minority, conservatives call for preserving the traditional model of democracy with equality for all and no privileges for certain categories.

Many Ukrainians do not realize that their views on most social topics are conservative. Not outdated, as it is often mistakenly perceived, but based on the norm and social rationalism.

Author: Valeriy Maydanyuk