Venezuelan Views: Anti-imperialist Identity and Nationality

2014

June Terpstra, Ph.D.

This essay based on my experiences during a research trip to Venezuela is an exploration of anti-imperialist identity and nationality. While examining the vivid confrontations observed between the Chavistas and the US/Israeli supported opposition in Venezuela I was able to experience front and center the complex dynamics of power and contestations regarding identity within the context of national liberation movements and of those who embrace imperialism. I went to Venezuela brimming with excitement, expecting to see the revolution in progress in hopes of meeting revolutionary comrades from whom I could learn and connect with, as I did in Cuba. I was deeply disturbed when the complexities of the intense divisions of a nation undertaking the tumultuous process of a new form of socialism against aggressive imperialism hit me over the head. Many people in the USA do not understand our responsibility for the fundamental consent given in the global fight for U.S. dominance. The disastrous coups globally and the failed US-sponsored coup in Venezuela, the terrorism of US economic terrorism and state-sponsored assassinations, invasions, and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, bombing Pakistan and other nations, and the hubris and hypocrisy of US rhetoric have earned condemnation for the US populace from all and sundry around the globe.

My study of Venezuela was driven by my need for new models of liberation and community. Venezuela is not only challenging global capitalism and false claims to democracy, but it is also creating alternatives from which I longed to learn. Venezuela offers new ways of thinking and working for change as articulated in the declaration of Cumaná, authored by the member nations of ALBA—Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras, Dominica, and Nicaragua—

states, "Capitalism has caused the current environmental crisis, by submitting the necessary conditions for life in the planet to the predominance of market and profit…the global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis, and the energy crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to end life and the planet." The ALBA nations call for a global system based on "solidarity…not competition…" harmony with our mother earth and not plundering of human resources…cultural diversity and not cultural destruction, peace based on social justice and not on imperialist policies and wars." http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4390

In a speech to the Tri-continental Conference in 1966, Amilcar Cabral said that "the national liberation of a people is the regaining of the historical personality of that people, its return to history through the destruction of the imperialist domination to which it was subjected… however great the similarity between our various cases and however identical our enemies, national liberation and social revolution are not exportable commodities; they are, and increasingly so every day, the outcome of local and national elaboration, more or less influenced by external factors (be they favorable or unfavorable) but essentially determined and formed by the historical reality of each people, and carried to success by the overcoming or correct solution of the internal contradictions between the various categories characterizing this reality." (The Weapon of Theory, 1966)

Our research delegation represented a diverse group of faculty and students from Northeastern Illinois University Justice Studies program and board and staff members of the Alternative Education Research Institute which provides research and programs focused on those formerly incarcerated re-entering communities in the USA. The three research interests of the group the social and economic reforms of the Bolivarian Republic under the leadership of Hugo Chavez with a specific focus for my colleague's group in how these innovations impact the lives of indigenous African-Venezuelans.

My aims were to know more about how Venezuela’s oil profits are funding one of the most

comprehensive, high-quality and accessible systems of free health care the world has ever

excluded and oppressed sectors of the population into a participatory process of community and

national development.

I observed immediately upon leaving the USA and entering Venezuela that the only woman in our group to be detained, searched and questioned on both the US and Venezuelan checkpoints was the Muslim delegation member who wears hijab. The Venezuelan customs officer remarked to her, (I assume because she is a Latina Muslim who speaks fluent Spanish) that she must have converted to Islam when she married. The cultural war of position propagated in the so-called "War on Terror" has done a great job instilling distrust for women in hijab across the Americas.

Once we left the customs area entering Venezuela we were met by one of our translators for the trip, a Slovakian Venezuelan woman and a Venezuelan man who would be our driver for the duration of the trip. We were perfunctorily welcomed, photos were taken, and rushed off to the van because it was late at night and everyone wanted to get to the hotel. In the van, our translator/guide began to detail the itinerary for the research trip immediately excusing herself from the upcoming trips to the San Juan Festival in the barrios on the basis that she did not know how to dance like Black people, as she shook her hips and could not share the hotel room with the driver. She informed us that another translator would be joining us for the trip to Barlevento in the morning. Needless to say, this was not a good way to initiate cross-cultural alliances and later it was remarked upon as setting a negative introduction to the woman translator.

When we got to the hotel in Caracas, Venezuela, I observed the staff as both curious and apprehensive. My thought was that the staff was thinking "what the hell is this group from the USA?" The tension in the lobby increased when my colleague who was quite anxious about accounting to our sponsoring university for the money spent on the trip asked the translator to help her with a discussion of credit for the group for meals and the translator refused and said she would have nothing to do with a discussion of money with the front desk staff and that was not her job. My colleague viewed this as more racism coming from the translator which I believe was an accurate assessment. Because three of our delegation members speak Spanish fluently the money situation was worked out. I feared that we had been viewed as "argumentative USA money obsessed Yankees" from the start of our trip at a hotel in which we would be staying for the majority of our trip.

The following morning, our first full day in Venezuela, two students and I took a short walk around the commercial area in which our hotel was situated. I am a sixty-year-old white Italian American woman who no longer is gazed or gawked at by men in the streets (a relief) and my students are two young and beautiful Mexican American women who were scrutinized by almost every man on every block. I felt slimed by these overt attentions just walking with them. The students, who had expressed concern about anti-USA sentiments in Venezuela on the plane, asked me when we returned to the lobby why they were stared at so intensely. I told them that I viewed it as the sexism and male entitlement so prevalent in all societies for young beautiful women with its own specific flavor in South America. Because the young women had never been out of Chicago much less the USA, this level of intense attention was new for them.

At 11 am we were met by the second translator-guide, a tall commanding 58-year-old light skinned Venezuelan male. I knew we were to be assigned two translators on the trip and had requested of the touring agency that they not be in the opposition camp or anti-Chavez. The guide, upon introductions, seeing that only three out of the seven of us were present at the prescribed time to leave for Barlevento informed me that I, as the senior member of the delegation, should call my colleagues and tell them to come down to the lobby and be on time for the remainder of the trip. I countered by requesting his patience advising that we were a small group and that the first day was a travel day with no appointments. Sadly, the theme of lateness by our group established a source of irritation between translators, the driver and delegation members right up to the morning we left to return to the USA.

Despite this rocky start I still had revolutionary stars in my eyes as my colleagues and I got on the van for the scenic trip to Barlevento which is a rural area along the coast about 2 hours from Caracas. I became concerned about the ideological position of this guide when after an introduction to Caracas and Venezuelan history as we were leaving the city the guide went on to tell us how he believed that the local and street crime is not attended to by the Chavez government. He told also us how he was blacklisted by the Chavez government for speaking out on a referendum. This skepticism about the Chavez government was dispersed through-out the trip in comments and derogatory non-verbal cues such as rolling eyes, frowns, and hand gestures. I informed him that I was a supporter of Chavez and the revolution to which he responded that he was a moderate and independent thinker and all would be well. He was smart at alleviating and exciting tensions when he wanted to.

The topic of discussion that the guide emphasized repeatedly on the trip concerned the increase of violence in Venezuela which the guide attributed to the Chavez government as opposed to centuries of colonial and neo-liberal oppression. With dire warnings to us of being careful and sticking together with him and the driver through-out the tour, he expressed his dislike for the new reforms that he believed would be too "soft" on criminals who should be thrown in jail.

Because I had just read about these reforms I explained to him the restorative justice models from when these reforms generate. He backed off of the discussion after he explained that he had a law degree but no longer practiced law and a short discussion about philosophy and law. Yet, The one concrete gang-type event I saw in ten days in Venezuela was when a funeral group forced led by youth on motor cycles forced everyone to move their cars as they turned around in the middle of the highway because an accident was stopping traffic. Given that Chicago has one of the highest murder rates world-wide, I was undeterred by these discussions. Getting into the hotel in Barlevento after a  traffic jammed four-hour trip was a relief. This time the guide helped my colleague with the translations about money and credit for the group with no hesitation and we were able to settle into our rooms.

Barlevento

Barlovento is populated by Venezuelans whose ancestors were brought from Africa as slaves for the cacao plantations.

It was here that large plantations filled the Venezuelan countryside and worked countless Africans, stolen from their homes and brought to Venezuela via Cuba. Life is different in Barlovento. You can feel it as you roll down the highway, lush vegetation hanging off the hills and mountainsides, small eateries, warm dark smiles. The town of Curiepe was

founded in the early 1700s, by a group of freed and liberated slaves, led by a man named Juan del Rosario Blanco. Curiepe still only has a population of 10 to 15,000, but the history and the fame have lent Curiepe international attention and the centerpiece of the yearly San Juan Festival, which may not always be a good thing. http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1809

Here too, our delegation drew the stares and curiosity of men, women, and children. Word got out of our visit and an elder teacher (maestro) introduced himself and led us to the home of honor where the statue of the cult of San Juan Bautista is kept before the ceremony where men carry him on their shoulders to the church for the mass the next day. The family generously welcomed us into their home with smiles and invitations to pray to San Juan at this special time. With sounding of a conch horn and the drums moving through town we left the home and followed the crowd to the initial drumming and dancing opening the festival. Later, an inebriated elder from Curiepe told me many times about the importance of the dancing and the drums once the dancing had begun. When I would not comply with his request to go away with him he danced with me and some others in our delegation instead.

Later, my colleague told me that this first morning was very emotional for her as she felt completely at home in the town but was upset by the poverty and drunkenness while longing for African cultural traditions that were not preserved nor practiced in the USA. She said in tears, "why wherever I go in the world is the state of my people in such poverty and despair?" My responding embrace felt shallow indeed given the reality of her insight.

Our next stop that day was the women’s organic agricultural collective, Casa Central de Madres, an NGO sponsored by Prout Assembly. The two-story, 160 square-meter Community Center is located on three and a half hectares of agricultural land. The project began in the year 2000 putting Prout into practice. A two-hour drive from Caracas, this model "Master Unit" (interesting colonial master/slave language is indicative of the NGO relationship to people through-out the world) serves the five nearest rural villages of Barlovento, which are very impoverished, through education, health, agriculture, and cooperatives. We had purposely wanted to include an NGO in our analysis of programs in Venezuela in addition to government programs. For me it is part of my ongoing research into the nature of the relationships between imperialist NGO’s and those countries resisting imperialism.

After a scenic trip through small towns and a stop at a corner shop to sample a national food, Arepas, the Venezuelan corn bread stuffed with cheese, chicken, or beef, that we savored in the van we arrived at the lush organic farm of Casa Central de Madres. We met with Didi Ananda Sadhana, Director, Centro Madre, a Dutch woman who became a nun within the Prout tradition, had been managing the collective along with her Board President and Vice President, two local woman, who were generously giving their time to visit with us on somewhat short notice that had been arranged between myself and Didi over email in which we had agreed to hold a general question and answer discussion together. Once seated in a circle after introductions, my colleague announced that before we conducted the tour of the farm, she would like individuals to interview the women separately. We had not talked about this prior to the visit so I became concerned immediately that we were making demands of the women’s time that had not been agreed upon. Not being brutta Americana (an ugly American) is a constant concern for me on any trip out of the USA but specifically here where people from the USA are very suspect because of the long list of USA/CIA sponsored troubles and the coup of 2002. I understood my colleagues need for the women to be interviewed separately by other African-American women but had not expected to feel as excluded and marginalized as I felt from that point on in our trip.

She explained Centro Madre’s vision to offer the local people, particularly the population of the five nearest rural villages, a variety of activities, projects, and opportunities for personal growth, economic development, and social and spiritual growth so they can better defend themselves against economic exploitation, racism, etc.

The women we met with agreed to the proposed individual interviews and after brief introductions all around in which our interpreter had to insert his own personal stories as the women told theirs. This assumption of male entitlement was irritating to me and I noticed that the group tolerated his narrative with smiles all around the circle with the exception of few eye rolls from the local women. The women told us of their experiences in poverty and the lack of education available before the Chavez government and before the agricultural project which combines organic farming with other projects such as self-help groups. The two events combined during the same 10 year period meant that both of them could go to college and get jobs in teaching and social work. When asked about funding the director explained that despite the Chavez government’s green agenda the help they received was from the government-sponsored Cuban exchange program where Cuban agricultural experts came in and transformed the land into the lush farm that we could see all around us. We spent approximately four hours at the farm. I interviewed the director and the board president together but did not have time to interview the vice president as she had to leave after her interview with my colleague and her group.

In my interview with the women of Casa, I learned that the country has made outstanding progress in reducing gender disparities in recent decades. Women obtained the right to vote in 1946. The Law of Equal Opportunities for Women was enacted in 1993, and the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution prohibits gender-based discrimination. In adjudicating rural land the Land Law of 2001 gives preference to women who are heads of households and new houses are put in the names of the women. Women are guaranteed a food subsidy during pregnancy and after childbirth. Several institutions have been created to assist women. They include the Ministry of Popular Power for Women, the Development Bank for Women and the National Prosecutor for Women’s Rights. In addition, a Basic Law on the Right of Women to a Life Free of Violence was passed in 2006. Even with these laws, I was told that domestic violence is still a major problem that many of the women of the Casa have experienced.

It was explained that domestic violence was never spoken about before the revolution. Women were forced to keep it a secret because the communities would talk about them if they said anything. Since Chávez, there are organizations that will help women when they are in a situation of domestic violence. She also said that women now have access to an education. I got a mixed response to my question of whether or not the men in the local villages are supportive of the women and because I asked this question while our male translator was present the women may not have felt comfortable speaking freely.

Our tour of the gardens included the medicinal garden, composting and the organic trade project. The farm also has 80 chickens, a fish pond, and beehives which experts from Cuba helped develop and who were there advising Venezuelans about how to grow more food. (Chavez and Castro worked out a deal where they are trading oil for expertise. Didi also told us that they grow a little tobacco, which mixed with noni juice and neem leaves from the garden acts as a biological deterrent against pests and fungus, which are quite persistent in this hot, humid climate. The aim is to create a regular source of income from a wide variety of agricultural products and to educate the local community about the principles and practices of small-scale organic agriculture. However, during the course of our interviews, we learned of two violent attacks at the Casa. Didi said that four young masked men with guns broke into the house after sunset. She was alone with her play daughter, Melkys, who was12 years old at the time and ordered to lie down and cover their heads. The young men then proceeded to steal everything of value, including two laptops and agriculture and construction machines and tools. At the end, they tied Didi and Melkys up and drove off in Didi’s car. The robbers abandoned the car down the road, which they later recovered. The material loss was around US$15,000.The president of the organization expressed to me that she and many of the locals believe that the opposition party

is arming the youth to create problems using the classic tactic in which the imperialist always does—that is to get the poor to kill each other and blame the violence on the enemy.

My colleague wanted to interview the African exchange student formally and the police allowed her to so in their station. I wanted to sit close to hear the interview and was attempting to ask one of the police officers if it was ok to move my chair near the interview when one of the delegates (former military but now a pacifist) authoritatively motioned for me not to move closer to hear the interview by pointing and shaking her head, no, in what I assumed was fear of blocking a police exit. Determined instead to improvise by conducting my own walkabout and observational research for the next hour I watched the San Juan processional from a park and a community center in which a temporary police station was set up to prevent the kind of violence and shoot-outs that had occurred in previous years at festivals. There were a community radio station and a computer center (they have 167 computers), as a place for kids to do homework, and as a place to teach arts and crafts. The Chavista movement’s headquarters was decorated with vivid posters: anti- Israeli, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Allende.

We returned to our Van, hot and weary, which was parked close to a brightly colored school for children in the community. Here, they teach classes both to students and members of the community. The program was created by the national government to give technology to marginalized sectors that never had access. At the computer room, the students do research and help each other with their homework. Education, they said, is used as a tool of inclusion. It was clear to me that the AfroVenezuelan community is not done with their push to be recognized as significant members of Venezuela 's population in the process of revolution in which many previously ignored groups within society are finally gaining recognition. Later, I learned at the Bolivarian universities Afro-Venezuelan studies program that while progress has been made, Afro-Venezuelans still feel as though they deserve to be more included in the process- the same struggle that marginalized groups everywhere are also still going through.

The following day in Caracas we went on a historic tour of the city which was introduced by the woman guide with the "Columbus discovered Venezuela myth to which many of us responded reminding her that the indigenous Venezuelans were there and not "discovered". This set off the

tensions in the van once again for me. Ou trip that day included the house where Simon Bolivar was born and the museum dedicated to his life and death. At the museum, we were able to see portraits, clothes, letters and medals all belonging to Simon Bolivar. We learned about the six countries (Venezuela, Bolivia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia) that Bolivar liberated during his career as a general. We also saw delightful groups of children on school field trips to the museum.

Our next visit that day was to the Venezuelan Museum of African Art.  My overall assessment of this museum is as a space that emphasizes African culture as an aesthetic resource while guided by neo-liberal rationalities of acquisition and appropriation. Upon entering the Museum the first works of art are the racist ethnic effigies that Basquiat created to educate about racism in the USA. I had no idea that I was walking into the collection

and appropriation of African art by the wealthy philanthropist, Nelson Sanchez. Nelson Sanchez Chapellín, introduced us to his museum explaining that he was inspired to open the museum in honor of one of his wives who was Afro-Venezuelan. He funded the project through the foundation that bears his name. After travel, research and procurement of works, he said that the museum has the world’s largest collection of African art, all of which he procured in his travels and now "owns" including the 5,000 pieces that make up the current collection.

Mr. Sanchez is a perfect example of the elite’s opposition against Chavez who organize from Miami where he told me he has a home in addition to homes in Venezuela. His account of art history displayed at the museum makes no apologies for the failures of colonialism or the racism of the Venezuelan political system prior to Chavez. While calling himself a socialist Mr. Sanchez clearly expressed the belief that Venezuela is on an unsustainable path, and that the inflationary economy will catch up with Chavez eventually.

Like our translators, Mr. Sanchez also did not like that the Chavez government changed the name and constitution abolishing term limits on the office of the president making it possible for Chavez to serve for as long as people voted for him. These changes to the constitution have political and economic dimensions that were raising his and many people’s fears about the future. As a harsh critic, he would not concede that anyone has benefited from the Bolivarian revolution. Mr. Sanchez was vehement in his dislike for Chavez’s initiative in redefining the constitutional definition of and protections for "property, changing how property is defined was provoking the greatest anxiety.

From the outside, it’s easy to criticize Venezuela. Inflation is high, the economy is in a difficult place, although growing, and relations with countries such as Russia, China and Iran are often painful for foreigners to comprehend…While it’s true that there is awful inflation in Venezuela, much of it has been caused by business owners, large-scale private distributors and producers, import-exporters and the economic elite that seek to destabilize and overthrow the Chavez administration.

They sell dollars on the black market at pumped-up rates and speculate and hike the prices of regular consumer products to provoke panic and desperation among the public, all with the goal of forcing Chavez’s ouster. And despite ongoing economic sabotage, the economy has still grown substantially in comparison to other nations in the region. In fact, according to the neoliberal International Monetary Fund (IMF), Venezuela is the only South American nation to forecast economic growth this year.

Eva Golinger http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5384

Our collective sensibility as a diverse group of women researchers from the USA each bringing distinctive social consciousness about the social structures at home and abroad meant that we also had our own interpretations of what we heard and saw in Venezuela. I felt this vividly in the Museum and the next days at the universities in Caracas. Our identities run along a continuum of ideological and religious repertoires of contestation in each place we visited and the Museum was no exception in this regard. While in the USA we are programmed to view identity along racial, class and ethnic lines we found in Venezuela that the understandings of race are more fluid where notions of the identity function more as a means of articulating a sense of shared marginality or class distinctions. Yet the racism against Afro-Americans, be they from the USA or Venezuela was distinct everywhere we went.

On my final day traveling with our delegation, we visited two universities. At the start of the day, we met with a government representative, a male faculty law professor from the Bolivarian University who would accompany us to both universities. These meetings had been arranged with the tour agency with the express intent of comparing the two universities. Our first visit was at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. In his introduction, the translator said: "this university is the good one, the open one, the free one, the other one; Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela is the radical one with the closed minds". In actuality, the Universidad Central de Venezuela is the central location where the opposition to Chavez is organized, many who say, with help from USA/CIA. This type of negative commentary about the Chavez government was ongoing every day. Thankfully, the faculty of Bolivariana put his claim to rest as they explained all that has actually been implemented at Bolivariana compared to centuries of oppression through unfair and elitist systems of higher education.

I have written about these two universities in a separate article but will summarize the Bolivarian University of Venezuela (UBV) because in many ways it is the university I have desired to develop in the USA. UBV is a state university in Venezuela which the government founded in 2003 in the aftermath of the oil strike–indeed locating it in the oil company’s headquarters. It has locations in 9 other locales around Venezuela. The UBV is a part of the Chávez government's "Mission Sucre" social programs, which aim to provide free higher education to the poor. Consequently, enrollment at the UBV is free and open to all, regardless of academic

qualifications, prior education or even nationality. The UBV was created to break the paradigm of the elite universities and almost 70% of the graduates are women. According to Zulia’s largest daily, Panorama, Chavez’ daughter, Maria Gabriela, was among the over one thousand graduates. There are already 21 publicly funded universities in Venezuela, including Bolivarian University of Venezuela

"This is very significant and I have always said it: capitalism is machista and to a large extent excludes women, that’s why, with the new socialism, girls, you can fly free," said Chavez at the first graduation ceremony, "I give my life for you, children of the homeland, because you are the standards with which the struggle against academic exclusion in this country began."

The UBV seeks not only an education for all but an education that challenges traditional frameworks in non-exclusionary and non-selective enrollment. Students are encouraged to be critical, reflective, and to participate in and lead classroom activities using the methods of popular education taught by Paolo Freire. The university has a responsibility to provide services and work for the wider community’s benefit. Thus, students of Architecture design projects to meet the huge housing needs for those who live in precarious barrios. The health centre, library and cultural spaces at the UBV are open to the community. In addition, students conduct a project which will benefit their local community, rather than simply writing a dissertation. In an interview, Maria Ejilda Castellano, the rector of the Bolivarian University of Venezuela said:

While the visit to UVB presented a challenge to the group as we were directed to not speak English and not to tell people we were from the USA, I found the experience instructive. Through-out history the indigenous and immigrants have to be silent and hide the information from whence they come and who they are. I thought this an important learning experience for those of us coming from the imperialist country that had recently tried to over throw Chavez. This university represents a front in the war of imperialism and we were visitors from the belly of the beast. There were too many times on the visit to Venezuela that the anti-Chavez rhetoric dispirited my revolutionary heart as I saw how difficult it is to transform a country from the capitalist greed model to a new model of socialism for social justice. Bless Chavez for caring about the poor and oppressed and working to create this amazing university. He has even worked with the indigenous people through the Bolivariana Indigenous Studies program to frame their own constitutions in their own lands, the pueblos.

CONCLUSION

The transition to socialism has intensified the class struggle while appreciably increasing the level of the economic, social and cultural life of the people in Venezuela. The influences and effects of imperialist and anti-imperialist actions on the social structures and historical processes of the people are critical for those who want to transition out of imperialist structures in our countries. A clear understanding on the part of our delegation of the revolutionary possibilities in the process of reducing the isolation of human groups based on race, class, and gender within Venezuela by the Chavez government may have produced the very revolutionary results in reducing isolation and exclusion that we seek. Given that imperialism has fulfilled its historical mission in increasing the differentiation between the classes using race, gender, age, creed, greed, and orientation in the development of the bourgeoisie across the globe it was important to see how efforts to undo these divisions were working in Venezuela.

Is there a curtain of silence that has fallen on covering the ongoing covert operations to destroy all that Chavez has accomplished in Venezuela by mass media? It appears to me based on my experiences in Venezuela that if you stand with the Chavez revolution against capitalism and imperialism you will be silenced, vilified, and marginalized. My presence in Venezuela was itself a condemnation of imperialism and a proof of solidarity with all people who want to banish imperialism from their countries. In returning from Venezuela I am taking Eva Golinger’s advice to take off the rose-colored glasses and see revolution for what it is: the trying, alluring, arduous, demanding and thrilling task of forging a just humanity. Most certainly, that is the Venezuela that I saw in the barrios, the festivals, the agricultural collectives, and the Bolivarian University. On my return, I remain grounded in my anti-imperialist position and in solidarity with those comrades in this common struggle who further develop and remain faithful to the ethics and practices necessary for liberation.