Safe haven in time of political crisis

By Piero Bonadeo, vice-president of Humanitas360

In a time of economic crisis, the demand for the so-called safe-haven investments rises. Individuals buy assets that are known for keeping value in time, like precious metals and real estate. Those for whom the word investment is not a real option, they face unemployment, poorer living conditions, worse education, worse health services, worse quality of life and potentially are led to panic and despair. The need for restoring social trust is imperative. According to a recent poll by Data Popular, 89% of interviewed could not refer to any persons able to cope with the economic crisis in Brazil. Pope Francis was the most mentioned amongst the 11% that actually indicated a name.

Thus it might happen that someone like Pope Francis becomes the safe haven in case of economic and political crisis as in Brazil. Forget Pope Francis. What would be needed are citizens and politicians that embody the values of the Constitution as much as the ones of the global human community. Citizens and politicians that celebrate human dignity, the dignity of individual based on the following core values: freedom and social justice. Those are timeless. Honesty and moral rigor must be core values of every citizen, public officials and the business community.

Political immorality is the consequence of politicians’ inability to rule and address real and compelling issues of citizens. Politicians who are not citizens have lost common ideals and refer only to purely abstract- lacking of no real meaning- ones: justice, law, freedom, transparency, democracy have become empty words. Reality is that politics lost values. Public debate is reduced to mere rhetoric while the common good become the exception and not the golden rule of good politicians.

We believe in restoring the golden rule through inclusive citizen empowerment.  It’s a sort of virtuous empowerment cycle: citizens are empowered by values; citizens organize grassroots movements (extended wave of strikes by teachers and public sector workers in Argentina; the huge demonstrations demanding improvements in public transportation and education in Brazil in 2013; the most recent reactions to rampant corruption cases in Guatemala and Brazil), the outcomes should be value-driven politicians who reform the political system and restore governance, while empowered citizens keep the system working, ensuring that freedom and social justice are common values, and that rhetoric becomes the exception.