A significant exchange of ideas recently occurred in the comments section of an article published by Miguel Octavio about undefined topics. Miguel essentially reflected on the challenges of explaining the realities of our country to foreigners, as follows:
While talking with friends in the United States, it’s not easy to summarize the 11 years of Hugo Chávez in a brief conversation. Essentially, there are three questions everyone asks or perhaps no answer could ever satisfy their curiosity:
-How did Venezuelans allow this to happen?
-How could the system permit this?
-How can Chávez overlook inefficiencies and ignore the failing numbers that reflect his policies?
I will quote myself while answering the above questions:
Interesting answers above. I would lean more towards what Daniel said, and to some extent, Kepler, rather than the others. I’m venturing my opinion, which is actually Chávez’s:
“What my enemies don’t understand is that Chávez is not Chávez, Chávez is the people of Venezuela.”
As someone born in Venezuela to foreign parents, I can say that the previous quote largely summarizes the crux of the matter. Education isn’t the solution; we all know highly educated Venezuelans who are eager to engage in any shoddy business for personal gain, regardless of morality. Because can anyone claim that Gustavo Cisneros isn’t a cultured man? We all know that uneducated Venezuelans will behave the same way. Because can anyone say that Nicolás Maduro is a cultured man? So, for me, it’s not about education; it’s about morality. A morality that, as a collective, has never really existed. Ever: “moral and lights…” Because Cisneros and Maduro share the same ‘morality’. Rosales and Miquilena, Borges and Petkoff, Caldera and CAP, and all the previous ones with Chávez. There’s a group of opportunists out there, and the crux of the matter is that the old guard can no longer enjoy the life, abuse of power, corruption scandals, etc., they once enjoyed. That’s it. It was the same in Bolívar’s times, it was the same in Gómez’s times, it is the same today, and it will be in the future.
The Venezuelan is one of the most unprincipled people on this planet, unprincipled in the orthodox sense, as the principle that governs is “get out of the way…”, “put me where…”, “let someone solve…”, etc. There is no greater principle, no moral compass, no self-respect, as someone mentioned above. Venezuelans, in general and regardless of education levels, couldn’t care less about their country, their society, their community, their future, or their reputation.
And our problem, on this blog, as in Daniel’s, FT’s, Juan’s, etc., is thinking that we are representatives of society. We represent a tiny fraction of people. But it’s not the elitist and highly educated group that we represent, because I’ve never been elitist, nor what people would consider highly educated (not until very recently, anyway). What we represent is the minuscule number of principled Venezuelans -in the orthodox sense-. A tiny number, which I would say is at the very bottom of some percentile.
PS: in response to your questions,
-How did Venezuelans allow this to happen? Because they are Venezuelans.
-How could the system permit this? Because it’s run by Venezuelans.
-How can Chávez overlook inefficiencies and ignore the failing numbers reflecting his policies? Because he is Venezuelan.
This week, we witnessed several events reaffirming, if necessary, the amorality previously discussed. On the chavista side, four individuals working on Chávez’s hegemonic propaganda project -Vanessa Davies, Andrés Izarra, Mario Silva, and Walter Martínez, traveled to Cuba to “interview” dictator Fidel Castro about the possibilities of an international nuclear war, the meaning of 21st-century socialism, the chances of Colombia and Venezuela going to war, and the likelihood of a U.S. invasion of Venezuela… All the “questions” posed were so loaded that a specific response was expected. Unfortunately for chavismo and its supporters worldwide, dictator Castro, don’t forget someone with unmatched influence over Hugo Chávez, dismissed every question, ridiculed the ignorance of his “interviewers,” and let slip nuggets of wisdom like “21st-century socialism is just communism… there’s no possibility that Colombia, or the U.S. for that matter, would attack Venezuela…”, in short, Castro obliterated Chávez’s warmongering rhetoric and his claim that his type of socialism is somehow different from Castro’s totalitarian communism within 90 minutes. I highly recommend the undefined interview; it’s one for the ages.
Then we saw on CNN, a deranged Andrés Izarra undefined, former minister of information, now president of TELESUR, hysterically laughing about crime in Venezuela, claiming there’s no problem with crime rates, while Venezuelans from all political backgrounds, opponents, NGOs, etc., shamelessly dispute figures from his own administration, lying about poverty levels and their own credentials, in summary, yet another grand example of how completely disconnected chavista officials are from the real world. Such behavior is hard to comprehend, considering that Izarra’s own wife survived an armed robbery last February. While Andrés Izarra laughed off the misery of thousands of Venezuelans victimized by rampant crime who cannot afford a security detail, Cheuk Woon Yee Sinne, a member of the Hong Kong national baseball team, was injured by a bullet undefined during a game at Fuerte Tiuna, a heavily guarded military base in Caracas. It’s likely that by this weekend, another 30 or 40 deaths will be added to the ever-growing list of victims of crime in undefined Venezuela, which proportionally exceeds those of Colombia or Mexico.
In response to Izarra’s deranged laughter, El Nacional published a photo yesterday on its cover of the morgue in Caracas (see left). The image is not a laughing matter, because beyond its starkness, it depicts a reality that seems to have escaped many on both sides of the divide, which is that, in any normal democratic country, where moral values are highly valued by society, it would simply be unthinkable for bodies to be piled on top of one another as shown in the image. The morgue in Caracas didn’t become a grotesque spectacle because of Chávez; it was like that long before the caudillo came to power. The photo had its effects: the official reaction is to initiate legal action against El Nacional for publishing an image that could distress children and adolescents in violation of the law (LOPNA). Chavistas couldn’t care less about the 134% rise in crime rates over the past 10 years. Or about the many instances where Hugo Chávez has called for war, or to defend the revolution at all costs, or ordered military tanks to quell civilian rallies, requisitioning all TV and radio channels for that purpose, doesn’t that cause fear among Venezuelan children? But chavistas pretend to be outraged by the morgue image in Caracas. A chavista police chief, named Wilmer Flores, disagreed with the undefined image, arguing that it’s from 2006, and not from December 2009, as El Nacional claims, which suggests that chavismo has been fully aware of this situation all along and yet, after 4 years, they have been unable to fix the mess in the Caracas morgue.
Opposition voices, on the other hand, are concerned about the irresponsible editorial policy of El Nacional, which they consider disrespectful to the dead. But no one asks: how is it that Caracas’s only morgue remains in such a state? Talking about disrespect to the dead…
Also this week, Luis Tascón, one of the architects of political persecution in Venezuela, passed away undefined. Thanks to Tascón’s efforts, chavismo trampled on the human, civil, and political rights of millions of undefined Venezuelans. A minute of silence was observed in Congress for Tascón’s passing, considered a hero by many chavistas.
The image above shows the reality; it represents a society that is completely devoid of morality, an amoral society focused on the latest political scandal without worrying about the social causes.