{"id":6184,"date":"2016-05-28T08:47:43","date_gmt":"2016-05-28T16:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/?p=6184"},"modified":"2016-05-28T09:28:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T17:28:00","slug":"venezuelas-collapse-and-the-deafening-silence-of-the-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/6184\/venezuelas-collapse-and-the-deafening-silence-of-the-left\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela’s Collapse and the Deafening Silence of the Left"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The

The flag of Venezuela horizontally striped yellow-blue-red national flag with an arc of eight white stars in the center. When displayed by the government, the flag incorporates the national coat of arms in its upper hoist corner.<\/p><\/div>\n

By\u00a0Pedro Lange-Churion, <\/strong>guest contributor<\/p>\n

May 28, 2016<\/p>\n

Venezuela is nearing collapse, turning more violent by the second.<\/p>\n

Last week\u00a0President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro decreed a state of emergency and suspended\u00a0constitutional rights. He fears “the Empire” is set to strike soon. This\u00a0measure comes abruptly as the opposition demands the Venezuelan Electoral Panel\u00a0to ratify the 1.8 million signatures collected in just a few hours as a first step to constitutionally call for a referendum to remove Maduro from\u00a0power. And Maduro is looking for ways to delay this process.<\/p>\n

An article<\/a> in Counterpunch<\/em> by Eric Draitser, characterizes the\u00a0referendum as a coup orchestrated by the opposition to oust Maduro and\u00a0destroy the legacy of Ch\u00e1vez revolution. It further argues that\u00a0Venezuela\u2019s economic situation, already a humanitarian crisis, is the\u00a0product of a plot between the Venezuelan right-wing elites that control the\u00a0National Assembly and U.S. imperial interests, comparing the current\u00a0crisis in Venezuela with the overthrow of Allende in the seventies by\u00a0Nixon, Kissinger, the CIA and the Chilean elites.<\/p>\n

What Draister and others do not mention is that the referendum is a\u00a0constitutional right pursued by an opposition whose control of the National\u00a0Assembly (Venezuela’s congress) comes from a landslide electoral victory\u00a0in December 2015. \u00a0The article identifies the opposition with the\u00a0right-wing elite, when in reality the opposition is a coalition of parties\u00a0and individuals that also includes left and left-to-center ideological\u00a0orientations. The President of the Assembly, for instance, Henry Ramos\u00a0Allup, has been the Vice-President of the Socialist International. The\u00a0article also conveniently omits Maduro’s coup to the National Assembly. On\u00a0December 30, 2015 he tempestuously appointed twelve Supreme Court Justices,\u00a0all Chavistas, \u00a0as a way of invalidating any law passed by Venezuela\u2019s\u00a0elected legislative body, thus undermining the will of the Venezuelans who elected the members to the National Assembly.<\/p>\n

The left acts as if all “leftist” governments must be unconditionally\u00a0defended, no matter how authoritarian and corrupt they become. In acting\u00a0this way they hark back to the Stalinist days of unconditional allegiance\u00a0to the party, or to the Cold War years when even timid critiques to the\u00a0left\u2014even within the left–produced knee-jerk attacks and\u00a0excommunications. \u00a0The left has failed to critique the current Venezuelan\u00a0nightmare and when it has, it has done so timidly. It took Noam Chomsky ten\u00a0years to realize that Ch\u00e1vez has become a dangerous authoritarian ruler who\u00a0betrayed the grassroots movement born out of his initial emergence into the\u00a0Venezuelan political scene. Slavoj Zizek is careful to remind us that\u00a0Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and Hugo Ch\u00e1vez are authoritarian \u201ccaudillos,\u201d not be\u00a0compared with Pablo Iglesias from Podemos or Alexis Tsipras from Syiriza. But\u00a0Zizek is reluctant to use his critical acumen to shed light on how the\u00a0current Venezuelan crisis is the result of policies enacted by these authoritarian caudillos.<\/p>\n

Venezuela was news while it was good news and\u00a0while Ch\u00e1vez could be used as a banner for the left and his antics provided\u00a0comic relief. \u00a0But as soon as the country began to spiral towards ruination,\u00a0and Chavismo began to resemble another Latin American authoritarian regime,\u00a0better to turn a blind eye.<\/p>\n

The position of the Latin American left, then, has been either to suspend a\u00a0critical stance, or not to address Venezuela\u2019s situation at all. The left\u00a0media is quick to condemn the coup to Dilma Rousseff orchestrated by the\u00a0Brazilian opposition–as it should, or Macri’s neoliberal policies in\u00a0Argentina poised to undo Peronista policies that produced an undeniable\u00a0upward mobility in Argentina. But when Venezuela comes up the left\u00a0intelligentsia draws a blank and changes the topic. As if critiquing and condemning an authoritarian nightmare, disguised under a leftist rhetoric,\u00a0means condemning all leftist initiatives. At this point, a good dosage of\u00a0self-criticism would be positive and constructive to a left in peril in\u00a0Latin America. What leftist leaders and thinkers should have said and\u00a0didn’t say (with the exception of Jos\u00e9 Mujica in Uruguay, who wrote a letter\u00a0to Nicol\u00e1s Maduro pleading to cease the brutal repression of peaceful\u00a0protests), was that Venezuela cannot be an example of a successful leftist government, and it should therefore be held accountable. After all, Maduro\u00a0can do more harm in Venezuela than Mauricio Macri in Argentina. Macri\u00a0attempted to name by decree two Supreme Court Judges in mid-December and days later Judge Alejo Ramos Padilla issued an injunction blocking\u00a0Marcri\u2019s appointments. A few days later, Maduro appointed twelve Chavista judges to Venezuela\u2019s Supreme Court. His decision, of course, was\u00a0challenged by the National Assembly, but to no avail.<\/p>\n

The default position on the left is to blame Venezuela\u2019s dismal situation\u00a0on American interventionism. To be sure, the U.S. did play a role in all\u00a0of this. There was the attempted coup in 2002 led by a misguided opposition,\u00a0with the support of the Bush administration and Aznar’s government in\u00a0Spain; it didn\u2019t last more than two days in power. \u00a0But even then the U.S.did not have nearly as active a role as the hawkish U.S. interventions in\u00a0the seventies, the one in Chile being, perhaps, the most infamous.<\/p>\n

The U.S.\u00a0focus has since shifted to the Middle East. After the failed coup, the U.S. left\u00a0Venezuela pretty much to its own devices, with a relative thawing of\u00a0relations when Barack Obama came to power. Although in March 2015 Obama\u00a0declared Venezuela a national security threat, providing the U.S. with the\u00a0tools to block assets in the U.S. belonging to Venezuelan officials\u00a0involved in corruption, implicated in drug trafficking and accused of\u00a0violation of human rights. The U.S. selective justice notwithstanding, the\u00a0truth is that the U.S has been relatively indifferent to Venezuela\u2019s\u00a0maladies since 2002 and Obama\u2019s declaration has little impact in\u00a0Venezuela\u2019s internal affairs. This position is not, of course, motivated by\u00a0a genuine respect for the country\u2019s sovereignty. It has simply been more\u00a0convenient and less costly to leave things as they are, as long as\u00a0Venezuela continues to provide the U.S. with 17% of its oil production.\u00a0Ironically, beyond the anti-imperialist rhetoric, the U.S. is and has been\u00a0Venezuela\u2019s first commercial partner throughout the Chavista experience, a completely different a situation from that of Cuba, besieged by an aggressive\u00a0economic embargo.<\/p>\n

The business elites in Venezuela have been emasculated;\u00a0many have left the country as their industries have been expropriated by\u00a0the government. Since 2002 all branches of government have been impermeable\u00a0to the influence of the U.S. and opposition, since they have been\u00a0overwhelmingly made up of Chavistas.<\/p>\n

American intervention since 2002 has had little traction in Venezuela\u2019s\u00a0internal affairs. Therefore, the debacle of the country, its social\u00a0decomposition, the emergence of Venezuela as a main port in drug\u00a0trafficking, the demise of its middle class, the collapse of its economy,\u00a0its scarcity of goods, its corruption, its health care crisis, and its\u00a0alarming public safety record cannot be simply \u201cdismissed\u201d as a consequence\u00a0of American interventionism.<\/p>\n

Many historians argue that Venezuela\u2019s plight is the eternal recurrence of\u00a0countries cursed and blessed by oil riches, that Venezuela has experienced\u00a0civil unrest in the past, like \u201cEl caracazo\u201d in February 1989. True. But\u00a0never has Venezuela experienced a crisis of such proportions, never has the\u00a0country been in such a generalized humanitarian crisis, never has its public safety record and its corruption been so dismal and unfettered. And\u00a0as sound as these structural arguments are, it is important to realize that\u00a0to a large extent this is a crisis created internally and, therefore, there\u00a0are people in power who should be held accountable.<\/p>\n

Chavismo had a chance to do things differently, in ways which could have\u00a0averted this current crisis. Save the hiccup of 2002, Chavismo has been in\u00a0power for seventeen uninterrupted years, holding the reins of all\u00a0branches of civic and military power. Chavismo has also enjoyed unprecedented oil\u00a0revenues in the history of the country. Much of this wealth\u00a0was grotesquely mismanaged, fueling extravagant subsidies that peaked in\u00a0the countless and expensive elections organized to barely disguise the government\u2019s authoritarian inclinations. The acts of corruption\u00a0perpetrated by private officials and the military equals\u2019 macro-economic\u00a0cyphers: $300 billion disappeared in the last decade as the coffers of\u00a0banks in Andorra, Switzerland, and other fiscal paradises, spill over with\u00a0wealth stolen from Venezuelans. This cypher, by the way, was not provided\u00a0by the opposition, but by Chavistas themselves, who have been with the\u00a0“revolution” from its beginnings and who have played key roles in Chavez’ government. Jorge Giordani, an old communist who served as Minister of Economic Planning, was the first to blow the whistle and then other\u00a0ministers joined, like H\u00e9ctor Navarro and Ana Elisa Osorio, all in Ch\u00e1vez’\u00a0cabinet from 1999 through 2013. But nowhere does the left acknowledge these\u00a0facts as contributing to the current crisis.<\/p>\n

In his unbounded paranoia, Ch\u00e1vez made sure to arm his militias (C\u00edrculos\u00a0Bolivarianos) with sophisticated weapons. Caracas boasts the highest murder\u00a0rate in the world. Twenty-five thousand Venezuelans are killed every year\u00a0(an undeclared war) and these militias are ready to disrupt peaceful\u00a0protests with violence, or work for the interests of rising drug lords\u00a0inside and outside of government. \u00a0Wary of perceived traitors to the\u00a0revolution, Ch\u00e1vez reshuffled his increasingly smaller circle of aides to\u00a0key posts in the government. Maduro followed his mentor. Anyone critical of\u00a0his policies was expelled from his court; some were even imprisoned. \u00a0Venezuelans remember General Ra\u00fal Isa\u00edas Baduel, Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s Minister of\u00a0Defense, a die-hard Chavista instrumental in restituting Ch\u00e1vez to power\u00a0after the coup in 2002. As Ch\u00e1vez attempted to centralize more power,\u00a0Baduel criticized his authoritarian tendencies. Baduel was arrested at\u00a0gunpoint from his house and thrown in jail.<\/p>\n

The case of Judge Mar\u00eda Lourdes Afiuni is better known internationally. In 2009, Ch\u00e1vez disagreed with one\u00a0of her rulings and sentenced her to thirty-years in prison, a glaring\u00a0violation of judiciary independence. Afiuni was placed in a prison with\u00a0convicts she had previously sentenced. Fearing for her safety – inmates tried\u00a0to burn her alive – human rights organizations lobbied for her release and<\/p>\n

Noam Chomsky finally wrote an open letter demanding her release and\u00a0distancing himself from Ch\u00e1vez. She became sick with cancer and after\u00a0emergency surgery was confined by house arrest. Evidence later emerged that\u00a0during her detention she was brutally raped by guards and officials from\u00a0the Ministry of Justice<\/p>\n

For years Venezuelans witnessed the same names play different roles in government, most of them deeply unqualified, and\u00a0many belonging to the military. \u00a0No wonder why all areas of the Venezuelan\u00a0government and Venezuelan society are in chaos.<\/p>\n

To say that these maladies are caused by American interventionism and by\u00a0oil wars in the international market, robs Venezuelans of agency and\u00a0absolves \u00a0them of the responsibility to reckon with their mistakes and the\u00a0way they shaped the country\u2019s current history. There are many oil rich\u00a0countries in the world affected by the dip in oil prices orchestrated by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, but not one of these countries is going through\u00a0the crisis that afflicts Venezuela these days. To reduce Venezuela\u2019s\u00a0situation to American interventionism ignores how the lived experience of\u00a0most Venezuelans, affected by populist, impulsive and deeply narcissistic\u00a0leaders like Ch\u00e1vez and Maduro, has become abysmal. These assertions ignore (or want to ignore) that Ch\u00e1vez expropriated close to seven thousand\u00a0productive industries now in ruins, forcing the country to import with less money many of the goods it previously produced.\u00a0 These assertions ignore\u00a0that Chavismo ruined PDVSA, Venezuela’s oil company, by appointing inept\u00a0and corrupt managers that have used the company as a platform to launder\u00a0cash; PDVSA’s productive capacity has diminished so drastically that the\u00a0country with the largest proven reserves of oil in the world has to import\u00a0oil to meet its demands; these assertions ignore that Ch\u00e1vez disregarded\u00a0repeated warnings from his own economists urging him to curb spending, not\u00a0to cap products with a price at the expense of the few producers still\u00a0remaining in the country who were reluctant to produce at a loss, to which\u00a0he arrogantly replied that oil would reach the $200\/barrel mark by 2015.\u00a0 It\u00a0is merely $38 per barrel now and production costs almost exceed revenues; these\u00a0assertions ignore that people are dying in hospitals because medicines as\u00a0basic as antibiotics cannot be found in Venezuela\u2019s pharmacies, and\u00a0hospitals and doctors have to rush through surgeries because water and\u00a0electricity might run out at any moment, as it does daily.<\/p>\n

There is a\u00a0humanitarian crisis in the country’s health systems (public and private),\u00a0but Maduro refuses humanitarian aid stating it is hard to find a country with a better healthcare system than Venezuela. These assertions ignore\u00a0that Venezuela has the most catastrophic economy in the world with a 700%\u00a0inflation rate projected to reach 1200% as the country enters default in the\u00a0third quarter of 2016. \u00a0These assertions ignore the fact that both Ch\u00e1vez\u00a0and Maduro feigned not to see how the drug business has permeated the highest spheres of power in the country, a reality now undeniable: the\u00a0first lady\u2019s nephews await trial in a New York City prison, after been\u00a0arrested in Honduras for trying to push 800 kg of cocaine into the U.S., a\u00a0cargo of cocaine that left Venezuela on a airplane that took off from the\u00a0presidential ramp in Caracas\u2019s airport. \u00a0The litany is long and can’t be\u00a0blamed on U.S. intervention alone.<\/p>\n

The left in Latin America has failed to criticize Chavismo, but the right\u00a0has jumped to the opportunity. Right-wing politicians love to use\u00a0Venezuela in their electoral campaigns or in their attempts to impeach\u00a0leftist leaders, as a convenient example of what countries need to avoid.\u00a0Why hasn\u2019t the left exercised a sensible measure of self-criticism and\u00a0offer a candid reflection on the Venezuelan case as a way of countering\u00a0right-wing opportunism?<\/p>\n

In 2014, I attended the march celebrating Martin Luther King Day in\u00a0Oakland. I met an old white American donning a cowboy hat and a t-shirt\u00a0with a portrait of a radiant Chavez in the middle of the t-shirt and the\u00a0PSUV logo (United Socialist Party of Venezuela). I asked him if he had been\u00a0to Venezuela, he said no. He told me he was eighty-four years old. I told\u00a0him I am Venezuelan and he mumbled with his thick American accent: \u201cEl\u00a0pueblo unido jam\u00e1s ser\u00e1 vencido.\u201d I asked him what he thought of Ch\u00e1vez. He\u00a0said: \u201cHe tells it like it is\u201d and referred with admiration of Chavez\u2019\u00a0performance in 2006 at the United Nations where Ch\u00e1vez mockingly compared\u00a0Bush to the devil. To me that was one more display of demagoguery from a\u00a0man with a penchant for histrionics. It troubled me then that such\u00a0performance would draw international support from people on the left. It was almost too easy. \u00a0People seemed to relish in a South American leader\u00a0who \u201ctells is it like it is\u201d (this is, by the way, what Trump supporters\u00a0say of their candidate: \u201cTrump tells it like it is\u201d).<\/p>\n

What troubles me even\u00a0more, in the face of Venezuela\u2019s hopeless present, is that such uncritical\u00a0sympathy for Ch\u00e1vez casts a veil over the fact that Venezuela\u2019s current\u00a0ruination is in large measure the consequence of his policies and his\u00a0political solipsism. Sympathizers all over the world still try to redeem him and exonerate him from responsibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaduro is not Ch\u00e1vez\u201d I tire of\u00a0hearing. And it is true, Maduro is not Ch\u00e1vez; he lacks Ch\u00e1vez\u2019 charisma\u00a0and political capital. But Maduro, in a more substantial way, is Ch\u00e1vez.\u00a0Maduro has been in power for three years and what we reap right now in\u00a0Venezuela was sown by Ch\u00e1vez\u2019 policies during his fourteen years in power. \u00a0Ch\u00e1vez was just lucky and died at the right moment. We shouldn\u2019t forget\u00a0that Ch\u00e1vez ran an election aware he was going to die – lying to Venezuelans\u00a0about his health condition – and just before he left for Cuba as newly\u00a0elected President, he pleaded with supporters to elect Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in\u00a0case he didn\u2019t come back. And there you have it: Maduro is Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s most\u00a0tangible legacy as everything dissolves into violence and ruination.<\/p>\n

In the famous opening of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte<\/em> (1852),\u00a0Marx quotes Hegel\u2019s affirmation, according to which historical events are\u00a0first tragedy and then farce. I believe, in the carnival-esque logic of\u00a0Venezuelan politics, the chapter written by Chavismo is simultaneously\u00a0tragedy and farce.<\/p>\n

Pedro Lange Churi\u00f3n<\/a> is a professor at the University of San Francisco, California, where he teaches comparative literature, film and urban studies, with an emphasis on critical theory.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venezuela is nearing collapse – turning more violent by the second – yet there is scant critical analysis of the country’s demise from the left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8867,"featured_media":6186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,19,17],"tags":[2814,2813,2812,2811],"class_list":["post-6184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-opinion","category-politics","tag-economic-collapse","tag-hugo-chavez","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-venezuela"],"yoast_head":"\nVenezuela's Collapse and the Deafening Silence of the Left - Fog City Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/6184\/venezuelas-collapse-and-the-deafening-silence-of-the-left\/\" 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