[NYTr] Kozloff on Venezuela Preparing to Vote
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Counterpunch - Dec 2, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff12022006.html
Chavez Against Rosales:
Venezuela Prepares to Vote
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF
With the Venezuelan presidential campaign shifting into high gear in
advance of tomorrow's election, Caracas looks as polarized as ever. Recent
demonstrations have underscored the great political rift dividing Chavez
followers from the opposition.
Last week, supporters of Manuel Rosales, the opposition candidate, thronged
streets and major highways. The very next day, hundreds of thousands of
Chavistas, dressed in their trademark red clothing, turned out onto the
streets in support of the president. Some marched through Altamira, a
wealthy district in the eastern section of the city which is sympathetic to
Rosales.
While in Caracas I was struck by the changed political atmosphere which
prevailed in the city. Indeed, much had changed since I lived in the city
in 2000-2001. I had gone to Venezuela then to pursue research on my
doctoral dissertation, and spent much of my time between San Bernardino, a
hillside neighborhood where I had rented a room, and downtown, where I used
to go to do archival work.
At that time, Chavez was still consolidating his political power and had
not yet initiated controversial social and economic programs. As I recount
in my recent book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the
U.S. (St. Martin's Press), many folk in San Bernardino were beginning to
grow suspicious of Chavez. The neighborhood had once been affluent; Nelson
Rockefeller had even built a famous hotel in the area, the Hotel Avila.
In more recent years, however, poor residents had taken over a hillside
next to my landlord's condo. I was warned that the people were Colombian
and should be avoided at all cost as they were violent. After I finished my
day's work at the archive downtown, I would head to the Institute of
Advanced Business Studies (known by its Spanish acronym, IESA). The
institute had generously agreed to provide me with a work visa in Venezuela
so I could pursue my research.
The school was located a couple blocks from my apartment building, and I
frequently made use of IESA's computer room. The school, with a quiet and
tranquil atmosphere cordoned off by gates, was a refuge from polluted and
congested downtown. The students, who in general looked whiter than many
folks in the city center, used to demonize Chavez as a dangerous radical.
I left Venezuela in the summer of 2001, and judging from my discussions
with many members of the middle class, social antagonism was starting to
grow. However, Caracas still hadn't achieved the level of popular
[kozloff.jpg] mobilization that we've seen in recent years. During and
after the coup of 2002, however, that would change as the city became more
and more polarized.
One physical symbol of the growing political radicalization within Caracas
is the proliferation of street murals. Over the course of about three weeks
this summer, I had the opportunity to see a lot of the new public art. At
one point, while taking a grimy bus from the mountains down into downtown,
I saw signs on the highway reading "Let us unite and we will be
invulnerable."
The quote was attributed to Simon Bolivar, the Great Liberator and
independence hero against Spain whose profile appeared on the mural.
Throughout the city, murals depicting patriot leaders such as Antonio Jose
de Sucre are commonplace. I saw one mural of the independence fighter Felix
Ribas outside of a government sponsored cooperative. Appearing next to
Ribas was a portrait of Chavez, wearing his characteristic red beret.
Later, I went to Bolivar's Native House (Casa Natal de Bolivar) in
downtown. The staff was in the midst of restoration of the colonial
building, which had a red brick tile roof. For Chavez, Bolivar, who
liberated Venezuela from Spanish rule, carries symbolic importance. The
president has renamed Venezuela the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (the
government had to redo all the country's stationery at great expense), and
addresses his people on TV while sitting underneath an oil portrait of the
Great Liberator.
According to Mercedes Garcia, the director of Bolivar's Native House,
Chavez had been able to awaken a historical interest amongst the masses. As
a result of the president's speeches, Garcia told me, more people were
heading to Venezuelan historic sites and had undergone a psychological
shift. In the schools, children were now leaning more about Bolivar than
ever before. In her museum Garcia noted an increase in the amount of
visitors, which now amounted to 3,500 per week. Garcia added that many
soldiers were now coming to Bolivar's House and that there was greater
historical curiosity within the armed forces.
In 2000-2001, I was always careful not to linger in downtown Caracas after
hours. In San Bernardino, my landlord advised me not to go out after 7 PM.
Apparently my neighbors had similar ideas: in the evening, the streets
around IESA were deserted. At night I would like awake in bed, the silence
punctuated only by the occasional sound of distant gunshots.
During my recent trip, I cannot say that I sensed much of a drastic
improvement in Caracas. In downtown I found it difficult to breathe due to
the pollution. My eyes and throat frequently felt sore from the smog.
Meanwhile, downtown seemed as anarchic and unsafe as ever. Indeed, I found
it difficult to walk on the street as it was taken over by the buoneros
(informal street vendors). The buoneros sell everything from CDs to arepas,
a kind of Venezuelan corn pancake. Compared to five years earlier, there
were more homeless people sleeping in the streets around Bellas Artes, a
grimy area falling to pieces.
In light of their brutal everyday struggle, it is not surprising that many
residents here have become politicized and routinely turn out for Chavez's
mass street rallies. To some, Chavez's hard core supporters are a menace.
Speaking to one well-to-do businessman in Altamira, a wealthy Caracas
neighborhood, I inquired about activists who attended Chavez's mass
rallies. "They are fanatics," he replied.
To get more perspective about growing social polarization, I traveled to
the neighborhood of Chacaito and the offices of the Venezuelan opposition
party, Primero Justicia. There, I met with Gerardo Blyde, General Secretary
of the party. Blyde was clean cut, had slicked back hair and wore a blazer.
Blyde admitted that in Caracas, there was a real discrimination in terms of
services. The poor had little access to basic infrastructure, he commented.
"In New York," he said, "the water you get in Queens or Brooklyn is as
clean as the water you receive on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. That kind of
equality in services is not evident in Caracas. Unfortunately, Caracas grew
in an amorphous manner which was disordered, adequate planning was not put
into services, and this has given rise to chaos."
To get a sense of how the other half lived, I went to Altamira. On one day
when I was there, I noticed workmen tending some flowers planted nearby.
Though still polluted, the neighborhood had a fountain in the main square
and tree lined streets. In the cafes, women flaunted jewelry, surprising to
me in light of growing kidnapping of wealthy residents in the capital.
At a nearby store, I spoke with the same businessman who belittled
anti-Chavez supporters. During the oil strike of 2002-3 [designed to shut
down the oil industry and bring down the Chavez government], he remarked,
well dressed and educated folk tried to keep his store from opening and
surrounded the premises. Finally, he had called the police. Personally, he
had just as much disdain for the elitist anti-Chavistas in Altamira as the
hard core Chavistas.
Blyde admitted that in 2002 many of the elite were paranoid about the
Chavistas coming into their homes. Since then, however, he said that the
Caracas elite, like much of the rest of the city, was not fearful of
political violence as much as everyday street crime.
"Caracas is one of the most dangerous cities in the world," he said.
"Because of the lack of employment and lack of income, the city is very
violent."
Rafael Uzcategui, media coordinator at the human rights organization
Provea, agreed with Blyde that much of the paranoia had decreased since
2002. However, he also stated that the political divide had widened once
again in advance of the election.
Five years earlier I'd met Rafael in Caracas. At that time he had been a
student at the Central University and frequently wrote for the anarchist
newspaper El Libertario. Rafael was still involved with the paper, but he
confided to me that he did not feel comfortable selling El Libertario on
the campus of the Central University of Caracas.
There, he said, there were pro-Chavez and anti-Chavez groups. His circle
was in the minority, and members of El Libertario felt pressured by both
sides. Even an elder member of the group was insulted when he attempted to
distribute materials. Rafael said that he was no longer on speaking terms
with many former friends owing to political differences.
"There are pro-Chavez zones of city and anti-Chavez areas," Rafael said.
"We have always been interested in putting on cultural events and showing
movies," he added. "When we put on activities in opposition areas, we are
accused of being pro- Chavez." But, he continued, "In a pro-Chavez barrio,
they said we were right wing imperialists."
During the April, 2002 coup, he said, members of El Libertario had received
a lot of death threats, hateful e-mail, and harassing telephone calls. The
group's Web site had been hacked and destroyed during a meeting of the
World Social Forum, and they had had to launch a new page through a more
secure server.
"We have had to put up with a low intensity civil war in this city," Rafael
commented.
Back in 2002, Rafael said, people would judge you based on the newspaper
you read. If you bought El Nacional, you were automatically perceived as
anti-Chavez. If you were seen reading Ultimas Noticias, you were assumed to
be pro-Chavez.
"In 2002," Rafael added, "If you went out with red on you could feel the
pressure of people looking at you in the metro."
For me personally, the issue of color as a political marker is one of the
most interesting facets of Caracas political life. In recent years, red has
become the official color of the Chavistas. In Catia, a poor Caracas
barrio, I visited a cooperative where women were busily sewing red T-shirts
for the state-run oil company, PdVSA. On another occasion, I witnessed
pro-Chavez followers painting over an opposition mural in front of my
Caracas hotel. They were all wearing red.
On a recent trip to Coral Gables, Florida, I had the opportunity to discuss
these questions with Dr. Steve Stein, an old mentor of mine who is
currently the director of the Latin American Studies Program at University
of Miami.
"The Sandinistas had red and black and they really used those colors a
lot," Stein said. "In the nineteenth century political parties had colors
in Argentina; the liberal and conservatives had light blue and red. Under
Rosas's authoritarian regime in Argentina you had to wear something red.
So, color as a means of political identification has been a longtime
fixture of Latin American politics." [for those interested in reading the
rest of this interview, see the upcoming December edition of the Brooklyn
Rail which will shortly be available online].
The name of the game in Caracas has been winning the allegiance of the
middle class. According to Blyde, the vast majority of the middle class
voted for Chavez in 1998.
"But," he said, "that middle class is accustomed to getting the kinds of
services that are common in today's world. They're not rich, they're not
multimillionaires from Manhattan, they're who have studied, who have worked
hard to get their car, their apartment, their house. These people felt
threatened by speeches made by Chavez: he was going against what they had
built up over the past twenty or thirty years."
"Thirty years ago," Blyde continued, "there was no middle class. There were
some rich people and a few families. The rest were poor, like the typical
division in Latin America. They felt threatened by Chavez's rhetoric
stressing 'Socialism for the Twenty First Century.' They thought they were
going to have their standard of living taken away. Chavez then lost the
middle class."
Once, while eating in a Tasca (Spanish style restaurant) near to my hotel,
I fell into discussion with a middle aged couple. The woman, who was of
Spanish descent, said that if Chavez won again she would leave the country.
Her husband owned a print making shop, which had done well economically.
But, the two of them were fearful of Chavez's intentions and believed that
the Venezuelan president might impose communism.
Speaking to the amiable night watchman in my hotel, I asked him about
growing political tensions in Caracas. He said that he was a Chavista, as
was his family, but that he was not a fanatic. He disliked Chavez's
program, Alo, Presidente!, but occasionally watched the other state
channel, Vive TV.
As a whole, he said, the middle class was divided. Some were with Chavez,
others were against, and some comprised the so-called "ni, ni" bloc
(neither with the opposition nor with the Chavistas). He personally
believed that the middle class had not become very anti-U.S. as a result of
Chavez4s speeches.
"People are just as consumerist as before," he said, "perhaps more as the
economy is now doing better." Some middle class, he said, had sold their
property after the coup and moved abroad. But then, he said, they found
that life wasn4t so easy and had to return to Venezuela.
Currently local and state authorities as well as government ministries fund
public murals in Caracas. My favorite was a huge piece near the Bellas
Artes metro station not far from San Bernardino. The piece is comprised of
several panels, each of which is perhaps one storey tall. The mural depicts
Venezuelan history from the colonial period to the present. In the first
panel, the mural shows prosperous owners of great cocoa plantations and
black slaves rising in revolt. Another panel depicts Venezuela's experience
with oil in the twentieth century. Sitting on top of a big barrel of oil
was none other than Juan Vicente Gomez, a dictator who ruled the country
from 1908 to 1935. Gomez, who was installed in a U.S.-supported coup
d'etat, developed a strategic alliance with American oil companies.
Simultaneously, Gomez presided over the country through a repressive spy
and police network. In the mural, next to Gomez, we see a prisoner holding
on to the iron bars of a jail cell. The Gomez era was notorious for its
horrible prisons, such as the terrible dungeon known as La Rotunda.
In supporting such public art, the Chavez authorities are clearly trying to
compete with materialistic, U.S.-style billboards and advertising all over
the city. In downtown Caracas, the desk clerk at my hotel remarked that in
his view, the murals had not made much of an impact on public
consciousness. I put some of these questions to Steve Stein.
"If we look back on the Mexican Revolution, which was probably the
beginnings of this kind of political mural art," Stein said, "there was not
a lot of subtlety in the great Diego Rivera or Orozco murals either. Did
they actually indoctrinate people towards a certain ideology? And the
answer is probably not. My sense is that after a while, you don't even see
them anymore."
As for Caracas, Stein added, we need to pose crucial questions about the
overall impact of the murals. "Is the murals effect greater than the
products of an international, globalized consumer society. I don't know if
I have the answer to that question."
[Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the
Challenge to the U.S. (St. Martin's Press).]
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