The 21st century brought with it electoral phenomena all over the world, in which the radicalization of positions, the denouncement and misinformation, virulence and harassment, have formed toxic atmospheres that have given a footing for the rise of new nationalisms and ultra-right movements. The referendum for peace in Colombia, Brexit in the United Kingdom, the triumph of Macri in Argentina, Donald Trump in the United States or Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, the creation of ultra-right parties such as Vox in Spain or the exponential growth in Parliamentary representation of the Marine Le Pen party in France, neo-Nazis in Germany, totalitarian regimes in Turkey or the Philippines, xenophobic radicals in Hungary and Poland or the triumph of the Five Star Movement in Italy, are just a few examples of them.
The world seems to have fractured and embedded in irreconcilable narratives that bring opposite versions of reality. The alienation and ostracism of the respective spheres have created echo chambers practically inaccessible to everything that is contrary to the inbred dogmas of each environment. Exercises such as empathy or bonding are increasingly difficult to observe. In many ways it seems as if the dream of liberal capitalism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher has reached its ultimate state and societies have imploded.
The last presidential elections brought to Mexico the inertia of this dynamic. On social media, fake news, screaming matches and aggression spread above all else.
In that context the movement El Día Después was born, whose original intention was to launch a campaign that promoted a message as simple as it is ignored in contemporary democracies: the electoral exercise is a referendum of a political and citizen disposition that is exercised daily. The fact that the citizenship is understood as a mere choreographic exercise that occurs every 3 or 6 years, plays into the of the inhabitants of the bureaucratic monolith of the party. The calling of El Día Después had to do with the day after the elections and the next one and the day after: with the full understanding that the territory is a space of tensions and dynamics where politics, laws and ultimately the State, must act as arbitrators of the differences, and not as its promoters.
Over time the movement became a platform for action. Aware that in the different trenches where the sieges of the most vulnerable populations occur, teams that resist the devastating power of the hegemonic forces are at work, El Día Después changed its orientation towards establishing a bridge between people concerned with the social, political, economic, environmental and human catastrophe in our country and the organizations which almost clandestinely struggle with the few resources they have.
Diego Luna founded this movement and has built its guidelines and its development. He set up a work team that he has prepared from directories of civil organizations that fight for human rights, to job boards and volunteer lists (which today have connected 120 professionals with organizations), produced documentaries about enforced disappearances and femicides and summoned hundreds of calls to action to bring together, out of civil society, a counterweight to the economic, illegal and governmental powers that have the country with the boot on its neck.
Luna talked with journalist Gaby Wood about his role as an activist and about the need to connect people with each other, and with organizations, to combat the destruction of collective efforts, which serves both the barons of capital and power.