Coming to terms with Hugo Chávez
He is the most popular and controversial leader to emerge from South America’s growing number of socialist democracies.
He is one of the few political figures willing to speak out against the capitalist, imperialist, and neo-liberal views that consume global politics today.
Who wouldn’t admire Hugo Chávez, a president who speaks out against the Bush administration and American foreign policies – crippling to so many developing countries – and offers viable alternatives for a more fair and sustainable world?
It seems impossible to find fair and unbiased descriptions of Venezuela’s situation under Chávez. Radio, newspapers, and television programs are – like the views of Venezuelans themselves – completely polarized in their opinions of the man.
But not all middle-class Venezuelans drive SUVs, hate the poor, and spend all their free time in Miami criticizing Chávez and lamenting the nation’s demise. And not all of Venezuela’s poor want to abolish private property and start growing their own fruits and vegetables in cooperative gardens.
The situation is laden with complexities. After spending several weeks in Venezuela, I am unable to unconditionally support Chávez. But I’m also not willing to join the opposition in criticizing his policies and actions.
A break with the past
A few days before I left for Venezuela, I learned that the only bridge between Caracas and the airport was falling apart. On the news, I heard that the condition of the bridge had been deteriorating for several years. Having been ignored by several governments – Chávez’s among them – the bridge was on the verge of collapse. Because of the long wait to cross the bridge, it could take several hours to get to Caracas – only one car was allowed to pass through at a time.
As I left the Venezuelan airport, my pro-Chávez taxi driver explained that the bridge was being closely monitored. Anything else I heard, he said, was just the “criminal” capitalist media creating rumours and lies to discredit Chávez.
Before leaving, I had read up on Venezuela’s history of political instability, social struggle, and dictatorial rule. Although Venezuela has had democratic civilian governments since the mid-1950s, I learned that this has been accompanied by corruption and slow progress in combating poverty and social injustice.
And then Hugo Chávez, a military officer from a modest background, presented himself as an alternative to the elite, fraudulent governments of the past. After leading a failed coup d’état in 1992, Chávez quickly gained popularity as a fighter for Venezuela’s marginalized poor, who are roughly 80 per cent of the country’s population. Chávez founded the left-wing party Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) and was elected president in 1998, having never held a political post, with 56 per cent of the vote.
Chávez quickly became a populist hero, creating a mass social and political Bolivarian revolution, named after his interpretation of Simon Bolivar’s vision. Driving around Caracas, I was stunned at the huge billboards lining the highways, plastered with pictures and quotes of the Caracas-born 19th-century general who liberated many South American countries from Spanish rule.
Upon arriving at the Venezuelan airport, I quickly realized that I was in Bolivarian territory. It was hard not to notice the populist politics and revolutionary rhetoric of Chávez and his Bolivarian revolution scrawled on walls, roads, banks, and buses. Slogans like, “Another world is possible,” “Venezuela now belongs to everyone,” and “Let’s all go against imperialism” set a tone of optimism and solidarity in the streets of Caracas.
But how much of this is just the mass indoctrination of Chávez propaganda? How much has actually changed for the lower class since Chávez came into power?
The power of Chávez
Chávez’s undeniable strength is his ability to address the concerns of the average, poor Venezuelan. Through Chávez-sponsored programs of over $20-billion U.S., Venezuelans are beginning to have access to business loans, basic health care, subsidized education, and discounted food.
I saw beautiful, lush mountains surrounding Venezuela’s capital. But I also saw shantytowns, or barrios – extremely poor neighbourhoods built out of any materials residents can get their hands on.
It makes for a colourful landscape – all the little houses are painted using bright blues, reds, and yellows. But poverty and crime are rampant, and this is where assistance is most deeply needed. Chávez has installed small stores in the barrios with shelves full of sugar, soap, powdered milk, and flour at significantly reduced prices. No name-brand products are sold. The food from these discount stores comes in plastic bags printed with pro-government slogans.
The image of Chávez, which you can see throughout the barrios, has become a symbol of pride and victory for the poor.
Chávez has also developed agrarian land reforms, which encourage squatters to take over private land considered unproductive and underutilized. This attempt to balance the economic power structure, reduce dependence on food imports, and promote rural livelihoods in a country rampant with poverty is laudable.
But many Venezuelans I spoke to didn’t understand why Chávez chooses to alienate private landowners instead of first distributing the government-owned agricultural lands – the largest percentage of arable land in Venezuela – to peasant cooperatives and then developing a fair plan to put privately-owned unproductive land into the hands of those who most need it.
Envisioning a united South America
Chávez presents himself as the enemy of the Bush administration, and anyone with the most basic knowledge of U.S. foreign policy in the region can identify with his anti-imperialism. By opting to offer financial aid and oil to Latin American and Caribbean countries, Chávez threatens Bush’s plan for a hemisphere-wide pact, such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Such an arrangement would give rights to corporations at the expense of sovereignty and democracy and would lead to the privatization of services, a detriment to poor people across the region.
Chávez’s aim is to create an alternative to the FTAA like the Alternativa Bolivariana para las Americas (ALBA), a counter-proposal to the FTAA, and PetroAmerica, a project to consolidate energy resources such as oil, natural gas, and electricity, guaranteeing Latin America all of its energy needs.
Venezuela and Cuba have demonstrated an alternative relationship in the face of imperial states, multinational corporations, and economic governing bodies like the World Bank. The preferential prices of oil for Cuba have been exchanged for educational materials and medical services, a refreshing alternative to the competitive and exploitative nature of “free” trade.
The goals of some of the programs developed between Venezuela and Cuba include: a literacy campaign employing a Cuban video literacy program, a hemisphere-wide program dedicated to providing free eye surgery to the poor, a television network providing viewpoints and voices from the South, and a program that brings medical assistance to the poor.
Social democracy gone wrong?
How do you achieve perceptible change in a country rampant with poverty? The attempt to rid the system of the corrupt elite has resulted in what can appear to be a corrupt left. Perhaps the better of two evils, but not the ideal socialist democracy Chávez attempts to convey.
Many of those I spoke to criticized Chávez’s method of spending and distributing the country’s wealth. When Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, was elected in January, Chávez made a $30-million U.S. contribution to the country. Bolivia is arguably the poorest country in South America and the show of solidarity and support is commendable.
But, in conversation, Venezuelans tended to criticize how Chávez goes about spending public dollars.
“Chávez treats the country like his farm. He goes on television and talks about how he has decided to give money here, spend money here, and says it all in what can seem to be a highly undemocratic fashion. Especially when he suggests projects like giving discounted fuel to poor neighbourhoods in the United States,” said one taxi driver.
When I asked a Venezuelan doctor about the country’s medical situation, I was surprised to learn that Venezuela offers free public clinics to all its citizens. The doctor, however, was not optimistic. She had studied medicine in Caracas, but is now working in Madrid and pursuing her medical studies there. She explained that an internship in a public hospital in Caracas had left her traumatized.
“People arrived every day with serious wounds or illnesses and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that I could do. The hospital didn’t have any needles to give people shots – there wasn’t even enough gauze to dress a wound with. I felt completely helpless.
“And, meanwhile, I hear about all these programs developed by Chávez...when hospitals still don’t have the most basic resources to function.”
Power, I came to feel, was being given to the government, but not necessarily the public. And though Chávez does sound revolutionary, his rhetoric is of the type that can lead to dangerous populist fervour.
The World Social Forum
Unfortunately, I had to leave Caracas before the opening of the World Social Forum, an annual meeting held by members of the alternative globalization movement. But British reporter Alex Holland’s description of the Forum’s closing ceremony leaves little doubt as to Chávez’s agenda.
The event began, Holland recounts, with the recorded sound of gunfire and bombs. People appeared carrying large black banners with corporate media images on them. Suddenly, a group of dancers dressed as peasants emerged with machetes and started to attack and chop the corporate people down. A large, white banner appeared. “For peace and against war and corporate greed,” it read.
As Chávez launched into one of his notoriously long speeches, the night became surreal.
“For a European like me, all of this was extremely strange and maybe magically real. It was also a bit disturbing at times. The setting, the numbers and the focus reminded me at times of some of the worst elements of my continent’s past,” recounts Holland.
Between dogmatism and heroism
Though Chávez wants to sponsor a revolution across the region, downtown Caracas hosts some of the world’s worst poverty and crime.
A few days before I left Caracas, I realized that I had still not seen the downtown inner-core. After numerous warnings about the danger, I decided to visit during the middle of the day. I was shocked at how many Venezuelans were squeezed into such a small area – penniless vendors selling shoe strings or nail polish, fruit stands selling overly ripe oranges and avocados.
Young children sold knickknacks, or sat on the filthy sidewalks begging for money. Attempting to find creative ways to make a few cents, some juggled at main intersections during the red lights.
When Venezuelans living in this downtown squalor, or in the barrios, unemployed and poor, learn that Chávez is trying to subsidize fuel for people in Chicago and New York, they are filled with confusion and frustration.
After studying the issues intensely and having direct contact with Venezuelan people and media, I still find it difficult to understand the subtleties of the situation, and continue to raise questions and concerns that unfortunately do not have simple answers. I find it exasperating that many foreigners unconditionally support the Chávez government merely because he presents himself as an alternative. Activists, intellectuals, and anyone concerned with social justice and global inequalities must come to understand the intricacy of the country’s complex situation before making value judgments.
The day before I left Venezuela, the bridge between Caracas and the airport was closed, having been deemed too dangerous to use. Along with everyone else, the chavistas, who had accused the capitalists of inventing criticisms to discredit the government, now had to endure the hours of traffic through the small, winding secondary road.
Although I admire Chávez’s ability to criticize the Bush administration, speak openly against poverty and social injustice, and his attempts to create a united South America, the violent vocabulary that permeates his speeches, his often dogmatic behaviour toward the running of government and spending of public money, as well as his alienation of many Venezuelan people, leaves me unable to express unreserved support.
He is one of the few political figures willing to speak out against the capitalist, imperialist, and neo-liberal views that consume global politics today.
Who wouldn’t admire Hugo Chávez, a president who speaks out against the Bush administration and American foreign policies – crippling to so many developing countries – and offers viable alternatives for a more fair and sustainable world?
It seems impossible to find fair and unbiased descriptions of Venezuela’s situation under Chávez. Radio, newspapers, and television programs are – like the views of Venezuelans themselves – completely polarized in their opinions of the man.
But not all middle-class Venezuelans drive SUVs, hate the poor, and spend all their free time in Miami criticizing Chávez and lamenting the nation’s demise. And not all of Venezuela’s poor want to abolish private property and start growing their own fruits and vegetables in cooperative gardens.
The situation is laden with complexities. After spending several weeks in Venezuela, I am unable to unconditionally support Chávez. But I’m also not willing to join the opposition in criticizing his policies and actions.
A break with the past
A few days before I left for Venezuela, I learned that the only bridge between Caracas and the airport was falling apart. On the news, I heard that the condition of the bridge had been deteriorating for several years. Having been ignored by several governments – Chávez’s among them – the bridge was on the verge of collapse. Because of the long wait to cross the bridge, it could take several hours to get to Caracas – only one car was allowed to pass through at a time.
As I left the Venezuelan airport, my pro-Chávez taxi driver explained that the bridge was being closely monitored. Anything else I heard, he said, was just the “criminal” capitalist media creating rumours and lies to discredit Chávez.
Before leaving, I had read up on Venezuela’s history of political instability, social struggle, and dictatorial rule. Although Venezuela has had democratic civilian governments since the mid-1950s, I learned that this has been accompanied by corruption and slow progress in combating poverty and social injustice.
And then Hugo Chávez, a military officer from a modest background, presented himself as an alternative to the elite, fraudulent governments of the past. After leading a failed coup d’état in 1992, Chávez quickly gained popularity as a fighter for Venezuela’s marginalized poor, who are roughly 80 per cent of the country’s population. Chávez founded the left-wing party Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) and was elected president in 1998, having never held a political post, with 56 per cent of the vote.
Chávez quickly became a populist hero, creating a mass social and political Bolivarian revolution, named after his interpretation of Simon Bolivar’s vision. Driving around Caracas, I was stunned at the huge billboards lining the highways, plastered with pictures and quotes of the Caracas-born 19th-century general who liberated many South American countries from Spanish rule.
Upon arriving at the Venezuelan airport, I quickly realized that I was in Bolivarian territory. It was hard not to notice the populist politics and revolutionary rhetoric of Chávez and his Bolivarian revolution scrawled on walls, roads, banks, and buses. Slogans like, “Another world is possible,” “Venezuela now belongs to everyone,” and “Let’s all go against imperialism” set a tone of optimism and solidarity in the streets of Caracas.
But how much of this is just the mass indoctrination of Chávez propaganda? How much has actually changed for the lower class since Chávez came into power?
The power of Chávez
Chávez’s undeniable strength is his ability to address the concerns of the average, poor Venezuelan. Through Chávez-sponsored programs of over $20-billion U.S., Venezuelans are beginning to have access to business loans, basic health care, subsidized education, and discounted food.
I saw beautiful, lush mountains surrounding Venezuela’s capital. But I also saw shantytowns, or barrios – extremely poor neighbourhoods built out of any materials residents can get their hands on.
It makes for a colourful landscape – all the little houses are painted using bright blues, reds, and yellows. But poverty and crime are rampant, and this is where assistance is most deeply needed. Chávez has installed small stores in the barrios with shelves full of sugar, soap, powdered milk, and flour at significantly reduced prices. No name-brand products are sold. The food from these discount stores comes in plastic bags printed with pro-government slogans.
The image of Chávez, which you can see throughout the barrios, has become a symbol of pride and victory for the poor.
Chávez has also developed agrarian land reforms, which encourage squatters to take over private land considered unproductive and underutilized. This attempt to balance the economic power structure, reduce dependence on food imports, and promote rural livelihoods in a country rampant with poverty is laudable.
But many Venezuelans I spoke to didn’t understand why Chávez chooses to alienate private landowners instead of first distributing the government-owned agricultural lands – the largest percentage of arable land in Venezuela – to peasant cooperatives and then developing a fair plan to put privately-owned unproductive land into the hands of those who most need it.
Envisioning a united South America
Chávez presents himself as the enemy of the Bush administration, and anyone with the most basic knowledge of U.S. foreign policy in the region can identify with his anti-imperialism. By opting to offer financial aid and oil to Latin American and Caribbean countries, Chávez threatens Bush’s plan for a hemisphere-wide pact, such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Such an arrangement would give rights to corporations at the expense of sovereignty and democracy and would lead to the privatization of services, a detriment to poor people across the region.
Chávez’s aim is to create an alternative to the FTAA like the Alternativa Bolivariana para las Americas (ALBA), a counter-proposal to the FTAA, and PetroAmerica, a project to consolidate energy resources such as oil, natural gas, and electricity, guaranteeing Latin America all of its energy needs.
Venezuela and Cuba have demonstrated an alternative relationship in the face of imperial states, multinational corporations, and economic governing bodies like the World Bank. The preferential prices of oil for Cuba have been exchanged for educational materials and medical services, a refreshing alternative to the competitive and exploitative nature of “free” trade.
The goals of some of the programs developed between Venezuela and Cuba include: a literacy campaign employing a Cuban video literacy program, a hemisphere-wide program dedicated to providing free eye surgery to the poor, a television network providing viewpoints and voices from the South, and a program that brings medical assistance to the poor.
Social democracy gone wrong?
How do you achieve perceptible change in a country rampant with poverty? The attempt to rid the system of the corrupt elite has resulted in what can appear to be a corrupt left. Perhaps the better of two evils, but not the ideal socialist democracy Chávez attempts to convey.
Many of those I spoke to criticized Chávez’s method of spending and distributing the country’s wealth. When Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, was elected in January, Chávez made a $30-million U.S. contribution to the country. Bolivia is arguably the poorest country in South America and the show of solidarity and support is commendable.
But, in conversation, Venezuelans tended to criticize how Chávez goes about spending public dollars.
“Chávez treats the country like his farm. He goes on television and talks about how he has decided to give money here, spend money here, and says it all in what can seem to be a highly undemocratic fashion. Especially when he suggests projects like giving discounted fuel to poor neighbourhoods in the United States,” said one taxi driver.
When I asked a Venezuelan doctor about the country’s medical situation, I was surprised to learn that Venezuela offers free public clinics to all its citizens. The doctor, however, was not optimistic. She had studied medicine in Caracas, but is now working in Madrid and pursuing her medical studies there. She explained that an internship in a public hospital in Caracas had left her traumatized.
“People arrived every day with serious wounds or illnesses and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that I could do. The hospital didn’t have any needles to give people shots – there wasn’t even enough gauze to dress a wound with. I felt completely helpless.
“And, meanwhile, I hear about all these programs developed by Chávez...when hospitals still don’t have the most basic resources to function.”
Power, I came to feel, was being given to the government, but not necessarily the public. And though Chávez does sound revolutionary, his rhetoric is of the type that can lead to dangerous populist fervour.
The World Social Forum
Unfortunately, I had to leave Caracas before the opening of the World Social Forum, an annual meeting held by members of the alternative globalization movement. But British reporter Alex Holland’s description of the Forum’s closing ceremony leaves little doubt as to Chávez’s agenda.
The event began, Holland recounts, with the recorded sound of gunfire and bombs. People appeared carrying large black banners with corporate media images on them. Suddenly, a group of dancers dressed as peasants emerged with machetes and started to attack and chop the corporate people down. A large, white banner appeared. “For peace and against war and corporate greed,” it read.
As Chávez launched into one of his notoriously long speeches, the night became surreal.
“For a European like me, all of this was extremely strange and maybe magically real. It was also a bit disturbing at times. The setting, the numbers and the focus reminded me at times of some of the worst elements of my continent’s past,” recounts Holland.
Between dogmatism and heroism
Though Chávez wants to sponsor a revolution across the region, downtown Caracas hosts some of the world’s worst poverty and crime.
A few days before I left Caracas, I realized that I had still not seen the downtown inner-core. After numerous warnings about the danger, I decided to visit during the middle of the day. I was shocked at how many Venezuelans were squeezed into such a small area – penniless vendors selling shoe strings or nail polish, fruit stands selling overly ripe oranges and avocados.
Young children sold knickknacks, or sat on the filthy sidewalks begging for money. Attempting to find creative ways to make a few cents, some juggled at main intersections during the red lights.
When Venezuelans living in this downtown squalor, or in the barrios, unemployed and poor, learn that Chávez is trying to subsidize fuel for people in Chicago and New York, they are filled with confusion and frustration.
After studying the issues intensely and having direct contact with Venezuelan people and media, I still find it difficult to understand the subtleties of the situation, and continue to raise questions and concerns that unfortunately do not have simple answers. I find it exasperating that many foreigners unconditionally support the Chávez government merely because he presents himself as an alternative. Activists, intellectuals, and anyone concerned with social justice and global inequalities must come to understand the intricacy of the country’s complex situation before making value judgments.
The day before I left Venezuela, the bridge between Caracas and the airport was closed, having been deemed too dangerous to use. Along with everyone else, the chavistas, who had accused the capitalists of inventing criticisms to discredit the government, now had to endure the hours of traffic through the small, winding secondary road.
Although I admire Chávez’s ability to criticize the Bush administration, speak openly against poverty and social injustice, and his attempts to create a united South America, the violent vocabulary that permeates his speeches, his often dogmatic behaviour toward the running of government and spending of public money, as well as his alienation of many Venezuelan people, leaves me unable to express unreserved support.
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