The
Importance Of Hugo Chávez
By Tariq Ali
17 August, 2004
Counterpunch
The
turn-out in Venezuela last Sunday was huge. 94.9 percent of the electorate
voted in the recall referendum. Venezuela, under its new Constitution,
permitted the right of the citizens to recall a President before s/he
had completed their term of office. No Western democracy enshrines this
right in a written or unwritten constitution. Chavez' victory will have
repercussions beyond the borders of Venezuela. It is a triumph of the
poor against the rich and it is a lesson that Lula in Brazil and Kirchner
in Argentina should study closely. It was Fidel Castro, not Carter,
whose advice to go ahead with the referendum was crucial. Chavez put
his trust in the people by empowering them and they responded generously.
The opposition will only discredit itself further by challenging the
results.
The Venezuelan oligarchs
and their parties, who had opposed this Constitution in a referendum
(having earlier failed to topple Chavez via a US-backed coup and an
oil-strike led by a corrupt union bureaucracy) now utilised it to try
and get rid of the man who had enhanced Venezuelan democracy. They failed.
However loud their cries (and those of their media apologists at home
and abroad) of anguish, in reality the whole country knows what happened.
Chavez defeated his opponents democratically and for the fourth time
in a row. Democracy in Venezuela, under the banner of the Bolivarian
revolutionaries, has broken through the corrupt two-party system favoured
by the oligarchy and its friends in the West. And this has happened
despite the total hostility of the privately owned media: the two daily
newspapers, Universal and Nacional as well as Gustavo Cisneros' TV channels
and CNN made no attempt to mask their crude support for the opposition.
Some foreign correspondents
in Caracas have convinced themselves that Chavez is an oppressive caudillo
and they are desperate to translate their own fantasies into reality..
They provide no evidence of political prisoners, leave alone Guantanamo-style
detentions or the removal of TV executives and newspaper editors (which
happened without too much of a fuss in Blair's Britain).
A few weeks ago
in Caracas I had a lengthy discussion with Chavez ranging from Iraq
to the most detailed minutiae of Venezuelan history and politics and
the Bolivarian programme. It became clear to me that what Chavez is
attempting is nothing more or less than the creation of a radical, social-democracy
in Venezuela that seeks to empower the lowest strata of society. In
these times of deregulation, privatisation and the Anglo-Saxon model
of wealth subsuming politics, Chavez' aims are regarded as revolutionary,
even though the measures proposed are no different to those of the post-war
Attlee government in Britain. Some of the oil-wealth is being spent
to educate and heal the poor.
Just under a million
children from the shanty-towns and the poorest villages now obtain a
free education; 1.2 million illiterate adults have been taught to read
and write; secondary education has been made available to 250,000 children
whose social status excluded them from this privilege during the ancien
regime; three new university campuses were functioning by 2003 and six
more are due to be completed by 2006.
As far as healthcare
is concerned, the 10,000 Cuban doctors, who were sent to help the country,
have transformed the situation in the poor districts, where 11,000 neighbourhood
clinics have been established and the health budget has tripled. Add
to this the financial support provided to small businesses, the new
homes being built for the poor, an Agrarian Reform Law that was enacted
and pushed through despite the resistance, legal and violent, by the
landlords. By the end of last year 2,262,467 hectares has been distributed
to 116,899 families. The reasons for Chavez' popularity become obvious.
No previous regime had even noticed the plight of the poor.
And one can't help
but notice that it is not simply a division between the wealthy and
the poor, but also one of skin-colour. The Chavistas tend to be dark-skinned,
reflecting their slave and native ancestry. The opposition is light-skinned
and some of its more disgusting supporters denounce Chavez as a black
monkey. A puppet show to this effect with a monkey playing Chavez was
even organised at the US Embassy in Caracas. But Colin Powell was not
amused and the Ambassador was compelled to issue an apology.
The bizarre argument advanced in a hostile editorial in The Economist
this week that all this was done to win votes is extraordinary. The
opposite is the case. The coverage of Venezuela in The Economist and
Financial Times has consisted of pro-oligarchy apologetics. Rarely have
reporters in the field responded so uncritically to the needs of their
proprietors.
The Bolivarians
wanted power so that real reforms could be implemented. All the oligarchs
have to offer is more of the past and the removal of Chavez.
It is ridiculous to suggest that Venezuela is on the brink of a totalitarian
tragedy. It is the opposition that has attempted to take the country
in that direction. The Bolivarians have been incredibly restrained.
When I asked Chavez to explain his own philosophy, he replied:
'I don't believe
in the dogmatic postulates of Marxist revolution. I don't accept that
we are living in a period of proletarian revolutions. All that must
be revised. Reality is telling us that every day. Are we aiming in Venezuela
today for the abolition of private property or a classless society?
I don't think so. But if I'm told that because of that reality you can't
do anything to help the poor, the people who have made this country
rich through their labour and never forget that some of it was slave
labour, then I say 'We part company'. I will never accept that there
can be no redistribution of wealth in society. Our upper classes don't
even like paying taxes. That's one reason they hate me. We said 'You
must pay your taxes'. I believe it's better to die in battle, rather
than hold aloft a very revolutionary and very pure banner, and do nothing
... That position often strikes me as very convenient, a good excuse
... Try and make your revolution, go into combat, advance a little,
even if it's only a millimetre, in the right direction, instead of dreaming
about utopias.'
And that's why he
won.
Tariq Ali's latest
book, Bush in Babylon: The Re-colonisation of Iraq, is published by
Verso. He can be reached at: [email protected]