Un mosaico imperfecto
SUMMARIES

«The World and the Presidential Elections in Brazil»
EMIR SHADER

The author analyzes the geopolitical international context just before the Brazilian elections, which gave the victory, as expected as overwhelming, to Luiz Inàcio da Silva, Lula, from the Workers Party. After the terrorist act of September 11th, the United States changed the slogan of free trade and economical and financial deregulation, for that of the fight against terrorism, without any commitment for any type of legality or international institution. If Brazil, as well as other Latin American countries experiences the consequences of the stability of the exchange rate of the levels of monetary stability conquered, with an attraction of the speculative capitals, depending on them and with a brutal increase of the levels of indebtedness and precariousness of the Brazilians´ work. Lula's victory can cause a political new panorama in Latin America; the most important task for the left wing is the construction of strategic projects beyond the elections and the plebiscite of ALCA, taking up again the projects of MERCOSUR, as well as other international projects.

«Porto Alegre: Meaning and Challenges»
LEIRE PAJÍN

A different world is possible, that is the conclusion of the Forum of Porto Alegre, very different to the ideas that came out of the Forum of Davos. Celebrated both events almost simultaneously, the author explains the great activity of the participants and tacticals in Porto Alegre, exceeding the labels of “movement anti-globalization” and explains that she is not against globalization, but of a special model, the neoliberal model. Likewise, the author proposes to reject all type of violent political action, that would suppose a greater social acceptance and also satisfy the expectations generated as a political and social movement .As a representative of a political party with a social democratic tradition insists in exceeding the reasons that separate politics and citizenship, that explain certain adverse results in the left European wing.
The ideological challenges are objectives of the political action, as is the right to the truth, to clear information and to the knowledge and the efforts in the work’s environment, eradicating blots and deficit, as well as the relation among technological innovation and destruction of the employment, as well as the adequate processing of the migratory phenomenon.

«The imperfect mosaic»
PEDRO TIERRA

The Twentieth Century ended like it began: in war. That is to say, breeding utopias. Pedro Tierra, born Hamilton Pereira analyzes from the Brazilian perspective of the PT -the political party winner of the recent elections in that country- the stones of that imperfect mosaic, talking to them. It formulates the need of a daily construction of the unthinkable. And he points out that the World Social Forum takes place, not by coincidence, in a city as Porto Alegre based on an original experience of the Brazilian’s PT. Opens the perception of new themes from the point of view of a plurality that the logic of the globalization throws to the left wings, and 7 new perspectives of positioning, with the participative budgets, in relation to larger questions from the point of view of the socially-excluded and of the revolutionary cultural action, in which the paper of the Foundation Perseu Abramo has had important experiences. In a world in which the “radical” word has been abolished of the dictionaries of politics, the left wing must look for ways back to radicalism, re-establishing in the agenda of the world’s debate another set of values that bring out different perspectives for human development, bringing the vocation of the different, of the libertarian thing, the vocation of the human, rejecting the white order of Davos and its symbols and institutions. Solidarity is the air that feeds the hopes: blacks, whites, yellows, reds, greens, blue … the fragile possibility that another world is possible.

«Cultural politics and social development. Some notes to review concepts»
GERARDO CAETANO

It is an analysis of the bonds and multiple interrelations between the topics of culture and social development. A first debatable concept is that of globalization, a concept frequently used on a wrong way, for this, we’ll review the works of Renato Ortiz, Martín Hopenhaym, Néstor García Canclini, Latin-American authors that present the necessary distinction among globalization of the culture and the globalization of the economy.
We live in societies where the social valuation of time has changed, a new culture of the “moment”, where the notion of the public thing in the framework of “societies of distrust” has been deeply damaged, whether at the school, the business, the neighborhood, the political party, the nation and many other spaces that contributed to confidence.
Cultural politics are a variable of the development and is good to talk about that on an antipolitical context, whether in Uruguay or in any other Latin American country. To talk again about what State is the most rich for cultural matters and how to confront the notion about the national cultural patrimony and the question of financing, the cultural industries and the economic medium that need.
Most real diagnosis is needed in the cultural area, with active cultural politics and boost for new reforms and the need to wager for the questions of knowledge, of innovation, of human resources, to turn professional the issue of cultural management, and to avoid imported experiences.

«Notes for a phylosophical-materialistic focus of the globalization»
PABLO HUERGA MELCÓN

It is proposed, the basis for a philosophical-materialistic theory that organizes the different philosophical approaches that must be faced against the problem of globalization.
A criticism to the cosmic and idealistic alternatives that understand globalization as something out of plans and programs that some parts of the world apply upon the others. With that, it is sought to understand the
material limits of globalization, against the idealistic doctrines of the collision of civilizations, and against the theory of the end of the history.

«The crisis in the region. Between the individualism and the distrust»
GONZALO CARÁMBULA

Since the experience and practice of the citizenship´s cultural management in the city of Montevideo, the author explains that we all don´t always speak of the same thing when we refer to the factors linked to a crisis situation. Culture is a very important issue in the public´s debate, although still seems marginal in the alternative political projects that are developed in the region.
At Montevideo, its cultural life, its cosmopolitan composition thanks to the port, is its mark. If pretends to be an open city, a port of cultures, a social policy thanks to a cultural policy, needs to forget the idea of “profitability”. Culture seems to have entered the great global agenda. It is pointed out, in relation to the crisis in Argentina and other countries of the area, that a key problem is the lack of confidence of and in the society, determinant factor and mediator of the level of capital stock accumulated. This opaque period, between individualism and distrust, can find ways out in the cultural diversity of its roots, with its chiaroscuros and contradictions, with the potential of its symbols and the strength of its hopes.

«Project Colombia: gasoline to the fire»
HÉCTOR MONDRAGÓN

The Project Colombia has more important objectives than just selling helicopters; the most important one is the oil. The USA has different plans to the supposed “war against drugs” that is a farce, because takes the land off the hands of the peasants and with the concept of “narcoguerrilla” tries to justify the intervention in the internal Colombian conflict and in the Latin America’s policy. The transnational strategy, the paper of the oil, the electricity, the illegal plantations, the violence, the land and genocide is treated in this paper in the context of what he calls “gamonalismo” as the ruling class, and that is one of the essential elements to understand the crisis of Colombia. The Project Colombia, Andean Initiative, the Plan Pueblo Panama, the paramilitary, the speculation of large estates, the social and political genocide is Gasoline to the fire of a war, that has been going on for the last 52 years and that threatens with contaminate all Latin America.

«North to south: interterritorial expansion and work in global industries of Mexico»
MARÍA EUGENIA DE LA O

It is a matter of analyzing the impact of the bonded assembly plant industry in the structure and organization of the labor force. The expansion of this phenomenon, in the last forty years in Mexico, of the bonded assembly plants is shown identifying at least three regions. In the north, northeast and northwest of this North American country. The influence of the territorial expansion of the bonded assembly plants is exposed. An expansion that generates a polarization of the labor by kinds, sectors and categories of occupation of the three regions analyzed where there is a great relation of territorial mobility of the bonded assembly plants, and that of the traditional female cyclical work among the ascending border regions and the interior regions in disadvantage. Apparently, the expansion of the bonded assembly plants tends to spread more precarious labor conditions. Finally, the moments of rise and concentration of the bonded assembly plants are discussed, and also how it has influenced in the union and labor behavior, with a clear loss of the power of regional negotiation of the unions in the 80s. The present stage is one of trade union absence, something that increases the vulnerability for the workers of these industries.

«World wars and globalization»
JOSE MARÍA LASO PRIETO

The professor José María Weary Prieto analyzes the paper of the World Wars in the development of the phenomenon called globalization, using the Marxists ideas presented by the thesis of Marx and Engels, as well as those of Lenin, about the expansive need of development of the capitalist model, that has like inevitable consequences, the current economic model of globalization, caused in great measure by the militaristic actions, that along with other processes, have put to work the capitalists societies from the XIX century to the present time. The author analyzes also, diverse definitions of the phenomenon of globalization and carries out a severe criticism to this single system of values that at the end justifies the actual phenomenon of globalization, not as result of this policy of expansion of the capitalist imperialism, but as a necessary process, irreversible and unable to be modified. All of it, under the point of view of the Historical Materialism.

VIRGINIA YOLDI

Alain de Botton is a versatile writer. Taking as a reference three of his works, the author concludes that his usual thesis consists on taking out some problem of the routine life close to the reader as well as to the author, and focus it from a positive perspective of reflection, based on what other authors more or less classical, have been able to teach us upon it. The readings of Botton can result stimulating for the students of philosophy because they transmit the desire to reflect, to know, to ask and the vision of philosophy as a practical discipline for the life.

«The americane expression of Lezama Lima»
DANIUSKA GONZÁLEZ

To name the fragmentary action and the subjectivity of the confusion, perhaps can be the mold for the construction of the essay in the modern times, more when this type of genre appeals to the image always reformist and plural of Latin America.
The American expression, of José Lezama Lima: essays where the conjectural, the unknown, and the image, present the transformation of the present from the past, and foresee the future, because for the author, time and the cultural ages become one exchanging themselves in that space that he called “Gnostic”, and that represents the Latin-American identity.