Armando Chaguaceda

Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro, presidents of Venezuela and Cuba.

My commitment to the revolutionary process in Venezuela began in 1999.  At that time, still at the university, I followed the debates around the new constitution and with equal enthusiasm lauded the Cuba-Venezuela agreements the following year.

During the events of the April 2002 coup, thwarted by the leading role and action of the masses, I marched along with student friends to the statue of Simon Bolivar in Old Havana (http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=9319) to the bewilderment of police trained to accompany demonstrations “directed from above” or repress the protests of political opponents.

And in an academic presentation at the University of Havana, I highlighted the potential of experiencing —for the first time in the contemporary history of the Americas— the virtues of “red pluralism” in the face of the victory of the governing party in the 2005 parliamentarian elections.

Regrettably, we’ve had little time (and few things) to celebrate since then.  In November 2007 I expressed doubts and fears (http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/venezuela-mucho-mas-reforma) in relation to the proposal for constitutional reform being pushed by the government.  This effort was seeking to limit autonomous popular leadership and action, restrict the ability to defend and promote mass participation and rights, as well as to increase the concentration of power in the hands of the president.

At that time I warned of changes in the political culture to favor loyalty and unanimity.  This was be pursued to the detriment of the deliberation and construction of consensus that must characterize any “Socialism of the 21st century,” where what had been novel was its going beyond simulated and the superficial rhetoric.

On December 2, 2007, the clear-thinking citizenry (including the decisive vote from Chavez’s bases) defeated that strategy at the polls…which has been implemented, in baby steps, from the executive office through decrees, which were always endorsed by an indulgent National Assembly.

The narrowing of power

A decade after the encouraging Bolivarian (from Simon Bolivar the Latin American liberator) dawn, authoritarianism —straight forwardly and rampantly— has been enthroned in the Venezuelan political panorama.  The arguments around “imperialistic hostility” and “media terrorism” are losing their genuine value in the face of abuse exercised to hide a totalitarian bent.

Previous calls around the need for a democratic opposition were forgotten (http://www.aporrea.org/actualidad/n4179.html) and socialist political culture became impoverished in its promotion —through the State propaganda apparatus— of the narrow identification of “the Revolution” with the persona and ideas of the “maximum leader.”

A party (the PSUV) was founded that favored disciplinary commissions over ideological debate, within which could be singled out those who differed (who were therefore branded “traitors” or “squalid” and punished with more fury than the right-wing opposition).

The consequences: distress and bewilderment among battle-proven activists and the rise of opportunists who mechanically agree to the latest whim of the president.  Domestic policies as well as foreign relations are led by staff who demonstrate, at all levels, that the relationship between their constant demonstrations of loyalty to Chavez are inversely proportional to their proven inabilities to develop planned, sustainable and professional programs and policies.

The current enemy of the government doesn’t seem to be the right wing, which is socially and morally defeated in the wake of its failed coup attempts in 2002 and 2003.  Rather, the foe appears to be the common ground of the people: the innovative 1999 constitution, which demonstrated a symbolic victory for participative democracy and the emergence of new actors.

Attempts at controlling the non-State media and information go beyond sanctions against private television stations; the tentacles are extended to alternative and the local media (formerly wooed to counteract the bourgeois press but today threatened with state interference), as well as cable TV and social networks such as the Twitter.  What is being pursued is a monopoly over the word; one capable of establishing impunity, opacity and complaisance.

Those activists who were mobilized (from parishes, unions, student movements and rights defense association) against the neoliberal politics of the Acción Democrática (AD) and the Partido Social Cristiano de Venezuela (COPEI) parties, are today are seeing their rights to participate in citizens action and protests hindered under the argument of their “playing into the game of the enemy and subversive elements” – an excuse employed in this past century by State socialist regimens and National Security dictatorships.  There doesn’t seem to be place for popular autonomy within “Bureaucratic Bolivarianism,” which needs servants…not citizens.

One Cuban view

However, it happens that these lines are being written by a Cuban, and this fact conditions my perspective.  I have mixed feelings in the face of the impact of my fellow nationals in the life of that sister nation.  I praise the work of doctors who attend to impoverished groups and endure campaigns orchestrated against them.

The notion of “Cubanization” was a scam used by the self-centered and defeated right when in fact this involved bringing health care and education to the forgotten hills of Caracas, as well as remote areas of the country and to indigenous peoples.

Today however, without detracting from the commendable work of the Creole physicians, certain accusations acquire signs of truth when one learns of the presence of Cuban advisors (agents) in the Venezuelan State Security apparatus, accreditation offices and telecommunications networks. This is a situation that should be denounced.

But while soldiers and doctors might be excused, given the nature of their responsibilities and training (some following orders and others saving lives, but none of them constructing thought and social impact), I shudder in light of the positions taken by of some of our “philosophers,” “analysts” and “educators.”

Their slanted (and irresponsible) brushes paint Cuban reality in false colors.  For reasons of self-censorship or material interests, we are deceiving the Venezuelans about our political failures.  By putting ethics in the back seat to their old frustrations and temptations (from a Bolivarian vacation in a Melia hotel), this reveals an uncomfortable truth that is, in Marxist terms, “always revolutionary.”  It is leaving a bitter a impression in the mouths of many progressive Venezuelans; they feel their sovereignty is being harmed and their future mortgaged.

I have debated these issues—as far as passion permits— with friends from Caracas, both the maracuchos and the zulianos. I always tell them I don’t regret having supported the 1999 process (whose now subversive constitution is a fence around “red” caudillo-ism), nor have I forgotten that the social insensitivity and discrediting of the “partyocracy” of the Fourth Republic, which opened the doors to the Bolivarian Revolution. However, its authoritarian drift was not defined ahead of time, and its achievements in politicalization, justice and dignity should be protected at all costs, without neoliberal or populist setbacks.

This is not about gambling on some vague “third way” that institutes social neo-liberalism in meager yields in terms of the construction of an active citizenry and universal social rights.  It is necessary to defend the left (and the socialist project) as a space for democratic construction, pluralistic and socializing rights, and enlightened values of coexistence.

What is needed is alternative that puts the breaks on the strategy of cooptation used by State and corporate forces against vehicles for civic participation and popular power so difficultly fought for. The legitimacy and sustainability of a truly emancipatory alternative depends on that.