Venezuela and Hugo Chavez
Venezuela is the new Cuba, they say. Her president Hugo Chavez is the new Castro. So we are told.
I wonder. Fidel Castro is a bad man, a brutal totalitarian dictator, a thug and a murderer. Mr. Chavez misses no opportunity to remind anyone who will listen how wonderful he thinks Castro is—which is alarming—or to refer to the United States as “the Empire.” However, words are not deeds.
Consider. The political opposition in Venezuela continues to organize, to raise funds, to operate, and to contest elections, which though not entirely regular seem to be as nearly free and fair as in many democracies (contrast Belgium, another highly imperfect democracy, in which the largest party in Flanders is denied the chance to negotiate in council, then to speak frankly, then to continue to exist, then to have its leaders orate in public without being beaten by police; where election counts are probably accurate but include hundreds of thousands of Muslim votes deliberately added to dilute and counter the votes of actual Flems). The anti-Chavez press cannot broadcast on the air, but they can and do continue to print and sell newspapers, writing in them, as far as this writer is aware, anything they wish. Venezuelans access the Internet and publish on it unimpeded.
It cannot be denied that irregular paramilitary units have harassed anti-Chavez student demonstrators in the streets at times, but neither can it be denied that the demonstrations continue. Mr. Chavez recently, narrowly lost a national referendum to amend Venezuela’s constitution to boost his power; he neither falsified the result nor disputed the loss (and this in Latin America, where falsified election results are almost normal). Political prisoners there regrettably appear to be, but in the dozens as compared to Cuba’s uncounted thousands—and some among the dozens are imprisoned for participation in a failed 2002 coup, a coup easy to sympathize with but which would have gotten its plotters locked away in any country in which they had plotted it, not only in Venezuela. Venezuelans are afflicted by no secret police as far as this writer has ever heard, nor do Venezuelan fathers mysteriously disappear in the middle of the night. Venezuelans enter and leave their country as they please.
This is not the profile of a totalitarian state.
Significantly, Venezuela’s anti-Chavez, white wealthy class remain secure in their own homes. By contrast, where does Cuba’s anti-Castro, white wealthy class remain? Answer: Miami.
Mr. Chavez is, of course, a perfectly awful president and a dangerous man, and one wishes a better head of state for the unfortunate Venezuelan people. He is also an out-and-out foe of the United States. But is he a Castro?
In flamboyant image, yes. In reality, not hardly. Not yet, anyway.
“Perhaps not,” we are warned, “but Venezuela is sliding. Hugo Chavez needs only time to consolidate his power.”
Time? Really? Mr. Chavez has already had nine years. How much time do his detractors think that he needs?
It is usually a good idea to try to see things as they are, not as through some politically colored lens. The Economic Nationalist heartily disapproves of Mr. Chavez and of everything he stands for, but The Economic Nationalist is conservative, and hysteria is not supposed to be a conservative trait. This article is written not to defend Mr. Chavez but to defend sound judgment, prudence and objective truth, which regarding Venezuela these days seem to be in short supply. As conservatives you and I should beware Mr. Chavez but also beware the right-wing anti-Chavez yarn. Mr. Chavez is quite bad enough without one’s exaggerating his already considerable faults.
One can only guess why the non-Castroite Mr. Chavez so effusively, so repeatedly praises the Cutthroat of Cuba, the Hangman of Havana, Fidel Castro. Maybe Mr. Chavez is simply slightly loco. Maybe he perversely thinks that the comparison makes his strong-arm presidency look gentler than it actually is. Maybe he sees Venezuela’s relationship with Cuba in strategic, anti-American terms. If none of these, then Mr. Chavez’s reasons are unfathomable to this writer. However, unfathomability is not a sin and is not a crime, and does not in itself a Castro make. Venezuela has been supposed to turn into Cuba “real soon now” for nine years. After nine years, count me as underwhelmed.
I once bought into the hype, too, but these days I admit that I am starting to buy out. The Economic Nationalist does not recommend that Americans invest in Venezuela or take their vacations there, but, after nine years of Chavez, perspective is nonetheless warranted.
HJH