[Marxism] An Engaged Political Culture in Venezuela

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ZNet Commentary
An Engaged Political Culture in Venezuela 
September 14, 2007
By Cynthia Peters 

At a little stand off an uneven road switchbacking its way up and
down the Andean mountains, we stopped for a thick, syrupy sweet
cafecito. It comes in a tiny, two-swallow sized cup, providing just
the right hit of caffeine to keep us alert on the blind curves, which
paradoxically are as numbingly repetitive as they are perilous. The
two Venezuelans we met there, also on a coffee break, struck up a
conversation. We talked amiably for a few minutes about their work
bringing potable water to nearby villages, their thoughts about the
Chavez government, and the role of grassroots advisory boards
("consejos comunales") in determining what projects the government
will pursue in which communities.

"What about Chavez's push towards socialism?" I asked them.

"Socialism is about sharing," one of them answered. "If I have three
shirts, and you have none, I should at least give you one of mine."

By Venezuelan standards, it wasn't a particularly remarkable
conversation. We had many others like them - some quite favorable
toward the country's revolutionary turn, and others less so. But for
those of us accustomed to U.S. political culture, where so many
citizens are so fatalistic about being able to play a meaningful role
in society, the conversation was indeed remarkable.

It's not that people in the U.S. don't care about their communities
and imagine ways to share what they have. My uncle, a conservative,
church-going North Carolinian with a portrait of George Bush on his
fridge and a son-in-law in Falujah, has made himself personally
responsible for a stretch of highway near his home. Every few days,
he walks the length of it picking up trash. "Mostly it's cigarette
butts," he says, and he can't believe the never-ending supply of
them. But he doesn't mind. He wants to do his part. He's happy to do
his part. "You got something else in mind?" he asks me. "You think
there's something else I could do to make a difference - especially
when you've got all those corporations keeping the politicians in
their pockets?" Collecting cigarette butts may not exactly be
engaging work, but apparently it is no where near as coma-inducing as
attempting to parse yet another sound bite from another candidate
that sounded just like the previous one from the other candidate from
the other party!

That's the U.S. political culture in a nutshell. It feels more
engaging to free a stretch of highway from tiny bits of litter than
it does to participate in the political process. Not so in Venezuela.
"One thing you can say about Chavez," said one middle class
Venezuelan named Ramon, "is that he's got everyone thinking about
politics."

"But I don't like him," he added. "I voted for him at the beginning
because I wanted to get rid of the old regime, but now he's gone too
far. He's scaring away the middle class. He wants to take away our
property. We've worked hard for what we have."

We met this man, who runs his own business distributing fly and
mosquito repellent, at a restaurant in the beach town, El Playon,
filled with Venezuelan tourists enjoying one of the last weeks of
vacation. During an hour-long conversation, he let us know that he
agrees in principle with socialism. He feels grateful that Chavez is
a strong international voice against the Bush agenda. But he feels
Chavez has become a dictator. His ministers wear Rolexes and drive
fancy cars. And, besides, if the poor would just work harder, they
could enjoy all the same privileges as the middle class.

It should not, objectively, be easier for a poor man to give up one
of his three shirts than it is for a wealthy man to give up a portion
of his much larger economic cushion. But the wealthy man has worked
very hard to justify his unequal access to comforts. He'd rather
construct an elaborate ethic that helps him feel that he deserves
what he has, rather than acknowledging the insecurity that goes with
luck.

This was perhaps the most significant lesson for my two daughters,
who traveled with their dad and me to Venezuela during the last week
of August - the pure dumb luck that makes them comfortable while so
many others in the world are left without even the most meager
comforts. They were acquainted with statistics about income
inequality. They had heard that the vast majority of the people on
the planet live on the equivalent of one or two dollars a day. But
they had never seen mile after mile of shanty towns, built out of mud
and brick and pieces of bill board scavenged from the side of the
highway. It's challenging to hold the cruel facts of it in your mind
without succumbing to some ideology that says all is the way it
should be.

"It's too bad the middle class is so alienated," says a street market
vendor named Adriana whom I met in Merida. "They have a lot to gain
from this process because they have some education, they're used to
expressing themselves and being heard. They could bring their ideas
to the "consejos comunales."

"Consejos comunales" translates as "communal advice." Adriana
explained it to me this way: "Before, the government would come into
our communities with their own agenda. They might come and repair the
road, for example. The bigger problem in that community might be
access to potable water, but there was no way to express that to the
government. With consejos comunales, we have a way to get together
and determine our priorities at the local level and then communicate
those priorities to the government."

On the two Sundays that we were in the country, we tuned into
Chavez's afternoon-long radio show, which he seems to use to build
momentum for his policies, and during which he reveals himself to be
part motivational speaker, part preacher, and part popular educator.
Whatever you think of his views, he comes across as smart, energetic,
anxious to learn, and confident enough to truly interact with people.
I'm sure there are plenty of background people orchestrating the
show, but there are a lot of unpolished moments, and there is a clear
absence of "handlers." Unlike most U.S. politicians, Chavez puts
himself in front of the public without a script.

During one segment, Chavez used an extensive interview with fishermen
and workers in a fish processing plant as a way to explain how
socialism works. His technique was to get the fisherman talking about
what aspects of their work were socialist. He skillfully wove their
comments into his own elaboration of the meaning of socialism,
sometimes sounding like a patient teacher, other times lapsing into
the cadence of a preacher.

During another segment, he devoted the time to talking about corn. He
waxed poetic talking about the nutritional properties of corn, the
fact that it has been sown in Latin American since hundreds of years
before Christ, and noting the role of human beings in the planting
and harvesting of this staple crop. He interviewed farmers,
consumers, workers in a corn processing plant. He wanted to know
about where they got their seeds, how many varieties they planted,
and what they had learned from their decades of experience. He seemed
genuinely interested in integrating their knowledge with his. It's a
common outcome of human conversation - that two people or a group
should exchange perspectives and come out more knowledgeable and more
conscious than they were before. But between a president and a corn
farmer, this type of exchange is unheard of (at least in my
experience).

He spoke at length with a manager about why a certain plant was
functioning at only an 80% capacity. And he didn't accept easy
answers. At one point, it was clear he had a pencil and paper out. He
was calculating the plant's volume in tons and figuring out percents
and posing questions about the impact an increase in functionality
would have - not a trivial question in a country where so many people
are hungry.

As radio, it wasn't superb. (You could hear paper being sorted and
you could imagine the calculations happening.) But for a North
American like me, working to tune in to the political culture, it was
stunning. A president was having a seemingly unscripted moment during
which he prompted a plant manager to actually think on his feet -
about something that mattered to the least privileged in the country.

He also brought onto the show a boys baseball team that was heading
into a championship game. He spoke with each child about the position
he played and encouraged them to play their best. At other moments,
he reminisced about learning how to plant corn from his grandmother.
"See, my hands still know how to do it," he said to the live audience
as he demonstrated his grandmother's technique. Again, not good radio
by U.S. standards, but he doesn't seem concerned about filling the
airtime as much as he does about communicating with people on
multiple levels.

There is a subtle but key quality in this style of communicating.
That is, it involves listening. Chavez has clear ideas about what he
wants for his country. But his vision includes popular participation,
and his style on the radio show modeled a dynamic between "leaders"
and "citizens" that assumes the populace to be part of the process -
not an obstacle to the process.

Granted, there is such a thing as paternalistic listening, where the
listener adopts the proper posture and nods a lot and then proceeds
to do exactly as he had planned beforehand. And Chavez did not
exactly include opponents or debaters in his show. I would have been
interested in hearing how he dealt with those exchanges, but the
country is not exactly deprived of opposition opinion given that
every day, the mainstream media features anti-Chavez headlines,
parodies, and attacks.

It's risky to romanticize any leader. Leaders are prone to
corruption. But it's also important to keep some perspective.
Preaching about socialism while flaunting expensive watches and fancy
cars (assuming what Ramon said is true), is hypocritical, but it is
corruption on an entirely different scale than what you see in the
U.S. Here we have a president who claims to be fighting for democracy
in Iraq, when in fact, he is occupying the country illegally while he
enriches defense contractors (who destroy the place) and construction
contractors (who get paid to rebuild it). That is hypocrisy on a
scale that is almost too difficult to grasp (unlike the Rolex, which
ironically causes more ire by virtue of the fact that it is
comprehensible).

Meanwhile, what do I hear from Bush upon our return to the U.S.?
"We're kicking ass in Iraq," he is quoted in the Boston Globe as
saying to the Australian prime minister. Not only is it a blatant
lie, it is inexcusable macho posturing in the face of an all-out
tragedy for the Iraqi people, as well as many Americans, whose lives
have been destroyed by the war.

Back in Miami at the end of our trip, we talked about how we would
miss the lively culture of political participation we had learned
about in Venezuela. We would miss the president who eschewed sound
bites and talked and listened deeply about things that matter. We
would miss the thoughtful political discussions you could have with
workers at the roadside coffee stand.

As if on cue, my 11-year old noticed a key way we create community
and share ideas in the U.S. She pointed at her Starbucks cup, which
had a David Copperfield quote on it about how the most important
thing in life is to stop saying "I wish," and to start saying "I
will."

Back in the states, with a president who acts like a drunk fraternity
brother, directives about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps
coming at us from the sides of to-go coffee cups, and an uncle who
makes his presence felt on the shoulder of a lonely North Carolina
highway, we'll remember the existence of another model in Venezuela.


================================
WALTER LIPPMANN
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
writer - photographer - activist
http://www.walterlippmann.com
================================

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