[Marxism] Venezuelans learn the write stuff

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Venezuelans learn the write stuff

 Grace Livingstone in Caracas
The Observer,  Sunday December 14, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,12716,1106757,00.html

Her hair is tied in a long black ponytail and she has a tired, lined
brown face. Luiza has 13 children. Now she walks, arms outstretched,
across the stage towards President Hugo Chávez.

 He opens his arms to her and she buries her head in his chest. The
crowd whoops. The emotional embrace was shown live on all Venezuelan TV
channels as ?Patriot? Luiza received a certificate for completing a
three-month reading and writing course. She is no longer illiterate.

 More than a million people have enrolled in Mission Robinson, a
literacy campaign launched by Chávez?s left-wing government. It is
tinged with revolutionary evangelism. Tens of thousands of
?missionaries? have been recruited to teach the ?patriots? who enrol.

 Soldiers - the ?Army of Light? - have distributed 80,000 TVs and video
recorders to makeshift classrooms across the country, from city shanty
towns to remote Indian villages.

 ?Chávez uses popular language with a certain religiosity. He uses the
symbols of the people and he taps into their hopes and beliefs. He makes
direct contact with the popular classes, something his opponents have
failed to do,? says Oscar Schémel of polling firm Hinterlaces.

 Yet Chávez, a former paratroop commander, does not preach blind faith.
Today his speech starts with a history lesson about Simon Rodríguez -
alias Robinson - who has given his name to this mission. He was an
egalitarian nineteenth-century thinker and tutor of the independence
hero Simon Bolívar.

 Chávez then lectures his audience on the importance of education. ?It
is about liberation. You are your own liberators; you are breaking the
chains of ignorance that shackled you for so long.?

 Jowarka Torrealba, 32, a mother of three, lives in a sprawling shanty
town on the steep hills of eastern Caracas. She teaches a Mission
Robinson course in her mother?s sitting room. The blue paint on the
walls is fading but the room is spotless. On top of the TV is a
silver-framed picture of Chávez in uniform and a small crucifix. Twelve
students crowd in for tonight?s lesson.

 Mission Robinson uses videos imported from Cuba. There is no
discernible propaganda in the one we watch. It has the air of a 1970s?
Open University programme; a clearly enunciating teacher is interspersed
with pan-pipe music and on-screen writing exercises. Torrealba freezes
the video at regular intervals to ask the class questions.

 Teresa Pallen, 44 and unemployed said: ?This is the best thing that has
happened round here. It keeps you down when you can?t read and write.
We?re thankful to the President.? She wants to do a computer course
next.

 Berta Dauoín, 60, grew up in the countryside. She had one year?s
schooling and went on to spend her life working as a cook and cleaner.
?If you can?t even write down a telephone number or your name, it makes
things difficult,? she said.

 Torrealba, although clearly a natural teacher, has not yet finished
secondary school herself. She has enrolled, along with 400,000 others,
in another government campaign, Mission Ribas, which gives those who
leave school early another chance to finish their baccalaureate.

 She then hopes to enrol in Mission Sucre, which helps the poor get to
university. ?I?d like to become a petrochemical engineer?, she said.
According to the government, these missions have brought more than two
million Venezuelans into classrooms, but there are critics.

 Mariano Herrera, a professor of education and director of the
think-tank CICE, says they are ?short-term and improvised?. The
government ought to improve the school system, which is in a terrible
state,? he said.

 Chávez?s popularity has soared ahead of a possible referendum on his
presidency next year. Buoyed with success, he has become even more
ambitious. His next campaign, to be launched on Christmas Day, aims to
eliminate poverty entirely. Its name? Mission Christ.

[Yikes!]



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