Bolivarian Circles, Chavez, and great folks!
Last night I went to Sharon Martinas's house to hear from several folks who've recently been to Venezuela. If you don't know the Challenging White Supremacy workshops that Sharon's run for years, check it out.
We heard from Katie-who just got back after 6 months in el barrio 23 de enero, from Betita Martinez & Daniel who were part of a 35-member US delegation to a national Encuentro, and from Eric & Julie who have been active in the Venezuela Solidarity Group since the 2002 coup.
Wow! We are under such huge media censorship & disinformation in this country wrt(with respect to--i find math abbreviations useful at times) that I was largely ignorant of what's going on in Venezuela. If you haven't seen The Revolution WIll Not Be Televised , it's definitely a good place to start. Yes, there was a coup there in 2002 that the CIA recently admitted to knowing about beforehand (when will it come out officially that they did more than turn a blind eye?)
So i went to learn. I have a lot more to learn. I'm going to try to use my blog as a place to synthesize key points/lessons/intrigue for events that I go to. Here goes:
My key questions & observations coming out of this:
sigh. it's late. i think i'll work from home tomorrow so I can do the 10;30 meeting in my jammies!
I'm excited for my friend Louise who's leaving for Venezuela soon. I can't wait for her to pass on her thoughts--always insightful & articulate to a degree that I never am. She's started a blog that I'm sure will have great commentary--Bugs Blog . It's also her birthday! Happy Birthday Louise!
and with that. i'm off to bed.
tell me what you think. tell me that you're reading this. tell me your spices if you havne't already.
:) cathy
We heard from Katie-who just got back after 6 months in el barrio 23 de enero, from Betita Martinez & Daniel who were part of a 35-member US delegation to a national Encuentro, and from Eric & Julie who have been active in the Venezuela Solidarity Group since the 2002 coup.
Wow! We are under such huge media censorship & disinformation in this country wrt(with respect to--i find math abbreviations useful at times) that I was largely ignorant of what's going on in Venezuela. If you haven't seen The Revolution WIll Not Be Televised , it's definitely a good place to start. Yes, there was a coup there in 2002 that the CIA recently admitted to knowing about beforehand (when will it come out officially that they did more than turn a blind eye?)
So i went to learn. I have a lot more to learn. I'm going to try to use my blog as a place to synthesize key points/lessons/intrigue for events that I go to. Here goes:
- It's exciting & hopeful . Betita said that visiting felt like being in Cuba 3 months after the revolution. I said "ohhhhh"--because that conveyed to me the extent to which what's happening in Venezuela is hopeful, exciting, and incredible. I had no idea.
- Bolivarian Circles. I don't quite get it, but they're a key driving force to what's going on. It sounds like they're small, mostly neighborhood based, autonomous committees that exist ALL over the place. Some start cooperatives. I don't really get what they DO. They definitely were a major force in the recent anti-Chavez referendum.
- "It's not that the people follow Chavez, it's that Chavez follows the people." said Katie. There's massive grassroots organizing on the level that we can't even conceive of here. and Chavez supports it. and government funding basically goes to the type of work that we do--not to usurp it, but to support and enhance it. people are involved all over. truly from the ground up
- OIL. Of course. The good: it's what funds the massive social programs, and it's 1/2 nationalized. The bad: many countries don't have such resources (so it's hard to duplicate the model), and the US is keenly interested in what goes on. BTW, CITGO gas is a subsidiary of a Venezuelan national oil company--we finally have a GOOD place to buy gas!
- It's not a revolution. It's still basically capitalist, with massive social programs-"Misiones" (literacy, health, etc). i'm not clear on whether there's a path from here to socialism, but it's super exciting to see an emphasis on meeting people's basic needs combined with truly grassroots autonomous organizing. It sounds like Cuba with a very different set of challenges. In the current climate, this may be a model that can more easily weather US imperialism...though I do think that they're at risk of more coups/invasion instigated by our oh-so-wonderful government.
- It's different from a lot of other revolutionary struggles. They have oil. It's not a civil war. It's not all socialist & not all leftists are part of the Bolivarian circles. Chavez comes from the military, which isn't as hierarchical/anti-democratic as most (someone said this--I don't understand it at all)
My key questions & observations coming out of this:
- What's the bad? What are the downsides, challenges, to this rosy picture?
- What can we in the US do to prevent our country from destroying the "Bolivarian Revolution"?
- What will it take for US activists to embrace Venezuelan solidarity? Will I prioritize it? Should I? From where do I/we take our leadership about where to put my/our energy? At what point does this become a critical struggle? does it? should it? how does it get there? As I begin my journey to think about the bigger picture of how we get to a just world, I'm faced with many choices about where to put my energy--and I'm stuck for how to figure that out. Part of it is about my interests & skills, but part of it needs to be strategic--about figuring out where the crucial dominoes are where the whole line will fall. Is Venezuela one of those dominos? I don't know.
- my desire to leave the country this year is strengthened. I appreciated hearing fromthese folks, and was reminded how hard it is to really *get* what's going on without seeing it or experiencing it yourself. Having been to Cuba helped me understand some of what I heard last night. But I really don't get the bolivarian circles or feel the passion myself, though I was inspired. Why is it that we have to feel/see something to really GET it? What does this mean for the ways that we build bridges & solidarity--across borders, but also across race/class/gender/etc lines? I've been thinking about this in terms of the Tsunami victims, my own class & race privilege balanced with my gender & queer oppression--where I have direct experience or people I love have direct experience, the way in which I feel compelled to act is different, as much as I don't want it to be. So a)how do we increase those personal connections and b) how do we find ways to support struggles that we don't fully understand or experience?
- HOPE. I was bummin' over the holidays about the state of the world in a way that I haven't in a really long time. Even though I don't believe in Jesus as messiah or messiahs in general, I found myself wishing I believed in the "second coming", or for some charismatic leader. It's a hard time to be hopeful. And last night gave me hope. Inspiration that there's a new model that's exciting & vibrant and solidly & massively grassroots. I need that hope right now.
sigh. it's late. i think i'll work from home tomorrow so I can do the 10;30 meeting in my jammies!
I'm excited for my friend Louise who's leaving for Venezuela soon. I can't wait for her to pass on her thoughts--always insightful & articulate to a degree that I never am. She's started a blog that I'm sure will have great commentary--Bugs Blog . It's also her birthday! Happy Birthday Louise!
and with that. i'm off to bed.
tell me what you think. tell me that you're reading this. tell me your spices if you havne't already.
:) cathy
posted by Cathy at 1:31 a. m.
1 Comments:
I recently saw a documentary on Bolivia (not _The Revolution Will Not Be Televised_, about which I've heard great things but haven't seen), and honestly, much of it turned me off because it was so fawning toward Chavez. And that's one of the things that makes me cautious about much of what I hear about Venezuela--there is a LOT of hero worsship of Chavez, a head of state from the military. Cath, when you write that someone said something vague about the Venezuelan military being less hierarchical than many militaries, part of me is curious about that, but part of me says, "Wow, somebody's going to lengths to make excuses!" Sort of like my reaction when I hear lefties defending the use of hte death penalty in Cuba. I know that one can learn a lot on a solidarity trip to a country, but one can also get a lot of state propagnada. Many smart people tour DC and come away talking about the US's beautiful democracy.
Venezuela is clearly something of a bright spot in the hemisphere. I don't dispute that. And the US enmity toward him and likely involvement in the 2002 coup is important for us to oppose. One thing the movie I saw also drove home is that Venezuela's tradition of resistance goes back earlier than Chavez, which is also important. But I hope that the left supports the Venezuelan people's work for justice and democracy rather than uncritically fawning over Chavez and his government. To do the latter doesn't build our credibility here, and it isn'taccountable to the people of Venezuela.
What can I say--the state makes me grumpy. -matt
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