Spanish
Santo Domingo.- The Secretary General of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), Johnny Pujols, recalled this Friday the execution of the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, and stated that "authoritarian attitudes" still persist in the habits and customs of public servants, social actors, and political leaders.
"We cannot consider the task fulfilled with the end of the dictatorship or with the democratic advances achieved. We must dismantle authoritarian attitudes that persist in our institutions and, many times, in ourselves; in habits and customs of public servants, social actors, and political leaders," Pujols expressed.
In an article circulating for the national press, Pujols understands that the fear of disagreement, the cult of obedience, the arrogance of power without listening, are still present sometimes in a disguised way. He adds that authoritarianism is recycled: it changes its face, its discourse, its excuses and sometimes presents itself as efficiency, as order, or as a supposed need to impose justice or guarantee security.
"Trujillo was not executed forever. We must defeat him every day, refusing to accept any form of authoritarianism, even —and, above all— those that come disguised as common sense," the politician pointed out.
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Likewise, the writing indicates that democracy does not die from a single blow but with tiny daily acts that can come from anywhere, from the power, from the media or from the citizens; it dies from indifference, from comfort, from brief intolerances, from the inability to listen to ideas different from one's own.
Pujols concludes by saying that today is a fitting occasion to renew the promise to never allow fear to govern in the name of any excuse: neither order, nor peace, nor justice, nor security. That nothing justifies fear replacing our freedom. It is recalled that Pujols' expressions are given within the framework of the commemoration of "**Freedom Day**", the official provision that seeks to keep alive the historical memory and pay tribute to all those who fought for the restoration of democracy in the country with the execution on May 30, 1961 of the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina.
