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News
and opinions on the situation in Venezuela
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| 28/2/05 |
Why do so many people believe in Chavez? by Oscar Heck |
www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=25968 VHeadline.com commentarist Oscar Heck writes: Several anti-Chavez people have recently asked me why so many people believe in Chavez, not only in Venezuela but abroad as well – knowing that Chavez was behind the military coup against former Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez’s (CAP’s) government in 1992? The real question is why do so many people support a leader who initially chose the path of violence rather than the “diplomatic” or “political” or “democratic” path? The question is very good – but it is difficult to answer because I believe that it has to do with certain elements that many “westerners” would have a difficult time coming to grips with. Here are some examples of what I wish to convey: Imagine getting up at 4:00 a.m. every morning to go to work. You take three buses to reach your office and it takes about two hours. However, before taking the bus, you have to walk up a steep hill from the barrio to get to the bus stop. The hill is so steep that it takes you about 20 minutes to walk it to the top where the buses are. You work from 8:00 a.m. till 6:00 p.m. and you return home via the same route – arriving at about 9 p.m. – 5 days per week. On Saturdays you work at the same job from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (it is considered a half day). You have Sunday off and only a few paid vacation days per year. So far, this doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary. But here is the catch. You are an administrative assistant and your salary is Bs.300,000 per month. This is equivalent to about US$150 at the official exchange rate and about $100 at the black market rate. Of this (say $150), you spend $3 per day in bus fare – that is, about $78 per month which leaves you with $72 – of which you spend about $2 daily in food – which leaves you with $16. You still have to pay rent which costs you $50 monthly, food for your two children which costs about $100 monthly, medicine, clothes and school books. You are in the hole now by over $200 every month – and when you ask the owner (your boss) for a raise he threatens that he will hire someone who “is willing to work” – or he tells you that he cannot afford to pay any more. You are 28 years old and have been doing this kind of work for over 5 years now. You have 40 more years of work to “look forward to.” Imagine another scenario. Imagine working as a laborer for minimum wage for 20 years at a certain factory. You work 6 days per week, 12 hours per day. Sometimes, when you come home, late at night, your wife asks, “When will the owner give you a raise?” Your reply is, “Don’t worry dear – they are good to us – they are good people – one day they will help us.” Every day, as you struggle up the mud paths to get to the main street, you work and re-work this hope in your mind – and you are certain that they will help you – and your wife and your 5 children. One day, as always, you show up to work at the usual time, just after dawn. There is a crowd outside the door – it is the other employees, hundreds of them. They are talking and appear agitated. The company’s doors are locked and chained. Eventually everyone goes home and repeats the same thing the next day. That day things are a little different, the doors are still locked and chained and the same crowd is present. The difference is that it has become known that the owners shut down the company (never to reopen again) and left the country to Spain. The last few days of wages and indemnities are never paid to you or to any of the other factory workers. How can you face your family now? What will they say? What do you do? In anguish and desperation, your heartbeat speeds up, you feel faint and fall to the ground. When you awaken you are in hospital – they tell you that you had a stroke – and two years later you are dead. You were 55 years old. Imagine that you were born partially malformed – you walk with a severe limp. You had a boyfriend once, but he died. You do not know how to read or write because there was no public school where you were brought up – and your parents did not have the money to send you to private school. The only jobs you feel comfortable doing are washing clothes, cooking and cleaning – so this is what you have been doing for the last 60 years. “Luckily,” you say to yourself, “the wealthy family who hires me (6 days per week) allows me to eat some of their food, they are kind enough to allow me to sleep in their home six days per week – and they even give me a salary of $30 per month.” They are good people you say to yourself. “I am lucky to have this job.” You are over 70 years old now – and you still do the same job – and you still cannot read or write – because you were too busy working like a slave with no time or energy left to study. But you accept it, even though you feel like dirt, even though you feel small, even though you have lost your dignity – but you are proud and do not show the pain, to anyone except your boyfriend, but he is dead now. So – when people ask me why do so many people believe in Chavez rather than supporting the typical upper-class, “educated,” paler-skinned, Latin American politico – I have a difficult time explaining. The typical Venezuelan politician is the one who hires maids and allows them to sleep and eat at their home for 6 days of the week – and who is “kind” enough to pay her a stipend as a token of humanitarian gesture. The typical Venezuelan politician is the one who promises to help his factory workers and then shuts down the factory and runs off to live in Miami, Aruba, Costa Rica or Spain, unfettered – without paying the factory workers their due wages and indemnities. The typical Venezuelan politician is the boss who threatens to replace you with someone who “is willing to work” or who tells you that he cannot afford paying you a better wage – while he takes extensive family vacations in Miami and lives in a ten-room, five-bathroom home. Do you see the connection? Do you feel the pain? Do you hear the truth? So – what is it that instigated Chavez to carry out the coup against CAP? As far as I understand, it all stemmed from the El Caracazo – in late February through early March 1989 – when CAP’s government decreed a set of severe fiscal and economic measures which led to the mass hoarding of basic food stocks by manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and the wealthy – which led to mass-ransacking of food outlets, stores, warehouses and industry by poorer Venezuelans who needed to eat – which led to CAP suspending most constitutional guarantees and setting curfew – which led to CAP ordering the police and military to arbitrarily shoot people on the streets (mostly in Caracas and some other major cities). “Everybody” in Venezuela knows that poorer Venezuelans (the 80%) have traditionally lived day to day to barely survive – unable to purchase food for future emergencies or needs. The wealthy (the 20%) can do it, and they do it on a regular basis. They can afford to buy provisions for several weeks or months – – and “everybody” in Venezuela knows this – and so did CAP. When the mass hoarding began, some of the 80% began to panic (as should have been expected) – which led to the ransacking – which led to thousands of innocent people being cruelly assassinated under CAP’s orders. The estimates range from 2-3 thousand to 10 thousand dead, but nobody knows the real figures – especially because CAP’s government and the complicit, without-shame, co-collaborating “corporate” media covered up reality by stating “everything is normal.” Chavez was in the military at the time – and he refused to participate in the mass slaughter. This event propelled Chavez to where he is today, coup included. So who is right? CAP and Carols Ortega (and many others) who have been calling for the use of violence, assassination (and US military intervention) to get rid of Chavez? – or Chavez, who has regularly apologized and asked for forgiveness in public for his use of violence in the 1992 coup against CAP? So who is right? The wealthy Venezuelan (who is almost certainly anti-Chavez) who was able to afford to stock up on basic foodstuff in 1989? – or the poorer Venezuelan who had nothing to eat and had to “steal” to survive? So who is right? My dear friend who has suffered silently for years since the stroke-provoked death of her 55-year-old husband? or my dear friend who is in debt for $200 every month? or my 70-plus year-old lady friend who continues to work as a maid for $30 per month? or the person who hires my dear friends for slave-like wages? In the event that I have not been able to express myself (and my feelings) to the desired degree, I highly suggest that readers rent (or buy) the movie called “Romero.” This excellent movie carries the same type of message – and it is done in a superb and very real fashion. It will make you cry. Watch the film – and then ask the question once again: “Why do so many people believe in Chavez?” Oscar
Heck www.vheadline.com/heck More VHeadline.com commentaries by Oscar Heck Addendum: As we speak, and as surely as we breath the air, the US government is attempting to pass new legislation called the Conventional Arms Treaty Reduction, CATRA. It would create an office within the US State Department for the purpose of eliminating small arms throughout the world (except for the US, I suppose), particularly in Latin America. This move by the US government is clear evidence of the US government’s criminality – of its intent at world domination, militarily, economically and geographically. For readers who are interested in knowing more about the US government’s plans at world domination, www.newamericancentury.org/ I refer you to the PNAC website. Note the signatures at the bottom of the page. |
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