TALKING VENEZUELAN POLITICS

(Note: this note was written last weekend as I was traveling between Venezuela and Holland. I'm just now getting time to post it. The Jensen Seminar on Transformational Leadership here in Rotterdam has been outstanding, and very busy. More on that later. )

I sit in Miami's wonderful yet freezing airport, waiting for British Airways to bring my 747 over from Ft. Lauderdale, where they landed earlier today when thunderstorms prevented it from landing in Miami. That's fine; particularly recently, thunderstorms and crossing the Atlantic do not go well together in any passenger's mind. So we'll take a two hour delay. This gives me time to reflect on my ten days "in country" and share the unmistakable conclusion that I still really dig the place. 

Yes, it's older, more tired, and at present beset by that silliest of Latin American ideas, that of a socialist revolution. In fact, that should be an anachronism by now: what is revolutionary anymore about trying to impose a form of government that has failed in all of its forms and in every corner of the planet that it's been tried? Before anyone trots out China as a counterexample, let's remember that they have completely abandoned the purely communal economic model to embrace capitalism (heck, they're more capitalist than the Obama Administration so far), leaving only their strict control of thought and opposition as the legacy of traditional socialism (you know: "cultural revolution".

I know that in Cuba the people ("of the revolution") are so fearful of internal spies and informants that they check the windows before telling jokes about Castro, who they call La Barba: The Beard. So in deference to my friends who feel that Venezuela is on the same path, I will refer to conversations I've had with so many Venezuelans in composite. What they say, they say from the heart. Venezuelans have always been that way. They are proud, but not obstinent, and are usually the first to temper their pride with some reflection or self-critique. For example, I was discussing seeing the coastline from the air with a woman as we rode together in an airport van, and she followed her boast that Venezuela has some of the most beautiful coasts in the world with, "Of course, we have no idea how to take care of them."

To understand how Chavez has gained such a strong base of true believers, it helps me to recall a situation that always befuddled me as I worked in Caracas as a missionary in the mid 80s. I remember one particular day taking a Jeep taxi into one area in the western part of the city because the dirt roads would get so muddy after the rains that no other type of vehicle could serve those areas. We would plunge down into these ravines to visit people who lived in bare cinderblock, one-room homes with no glass in the windows and a corrugated tin roof. Plumbing was usually non-existent, the stove was a two burner portable unit connected to a propane tank, and water was hiked in by hand. On the way out, a woman got into the back of the Jeep, where we faced each other on benches, wearing a beautiful blue outfit, spotlessly clean and pressed. I recognized it as the typical professional office dress of the city, and it struck me. Everyone I knew, no matter how poor, always had two things: a TV and aerial, and a few very nice looking sets of clothes for work.

They would take these jarring Jeep rides, then hop on teeming buses, then elbow their way through the streets to work in offices for bosses and managers who most likely came from the far richer, east side of Caracas, nice neighborhoods with names like El Marques and Prados Del Este, with swimming pools, country clubs, and gated neighborhoods. Now, from looking at these sets of people in their offices, you couldn't really see any difference between them. In fact, that's the joy of being tasked with sharing the gospel: you realize that in truth, there ISN'T any difference between us. Still, it always amazed me that there could be so much disparity between the Haves and the Have Nots in such close proximity. I wondered how they kept it from exploding in frustration, if not rage. 

Apparently, they didn't, really. I just didn't know enough to see the surging problem. Between a banking crisis fueled by greed and corruption, soaring food prices that most people could never keep up with, and a coup d'etat led by an extremely ambitious colonel, the mistrust burst between the tears in Venezuela's social fabric like water bursting through the cracks in a weakened dam. Chavez, biding his time in jail for leading the coup, peppered his commentary with scripture-like references to delivering the people of Venezuela from the corruption of the failed politicians whose evil designs had sacked the country of its wealth and resources. He promised a new new beginning, a revolution. This brought two groups together: the old, embedded poor who always felt this way, and the recently poor, who thought they had a stake in the wealthy Venezuela, but who saw it disappear to inflation and institutional collapse. 

This gave Chavez what he needed: a majority vote! As soon as he was out of jail, he was on the campaign trail. And he won. Helping his cause soon thereafter was the natural disaster of 1999, barely a year into his presidency, when landslides wiped out nearly 30,000 people, cutting off entire cities from relief. He put on his army fatigues again and said in with great pomp that he would not take them off until Venezuela was whole again, and then there were reports that he had parachuted out of a plane with his troops to reach one cut off city. He promised and built housing for the displaced.

What he has done since has been reported in many ways in the media, but in essence, he went from simply criticizing homegrown, corrupt capitalists to a full blown love affair with Socialism, Fidel Castro, and the ideals of the Cuban Revolution. Internally, he has slowly but surely consolidated power. The legislature is ruled by his party. He has cowed every TV station except one to show every word he says live, and that last one is under all sorts of pressure all of a sudden. He has a weekend TV show where he rants and raves, dances and sings for up to 5 hours, live. This by the way, has led to rumors that he is a regular cocaine user. As one person put it to me, "No normal person can keep up that crap for five hours like that. He's gotta be high on something."

I listened in on this great argument between two immediate family members: 

"Oh, you believe all that crap because all you watch is Globovision. It's all lies."
"Oh really? More lies than the TV stations controlled by the government? If THAT'S all true, then why do they have to control what's said?" You even KNOW it's controlled and you STILL believe it." 

He also has this nasty habit of "nationalizing" companies, a long Latin American tradition in which the interests of foreign companies are simply taken over by the local government to keep the profits in-country. Pretty cool idea, except that it usually ends up that the local government has no idea how to run it, then it fails, then you have to bring in the foreigners to put it back together again. So you can nationalize again later, I guess. 

Hugo has one company that is easily under his political control and do this for him: PDVSA, the oil company, which now runs the steel industry and soon natural gas. Oh, and I forgot: food. PDVAL is a government food distributor, run by the oil company. There are plenty of private sector competitors, but PDVAL keeps the big open market on Margarita at Los Conejeros in Empanada and arepa flour. This came about because, after Chavez controlled food prices, he found Venezuelan company exporting all their food because if they sold it within, at the controlled prices, they'd lose money. So they sold it abroad at a fair market price (oooh, I'm getting business-professor-y here!). Chavez called this illegal and so put it under government control. Okay, actually he threatened to have the army hijack food trucks at the boarder and throw open the rear doors for the people, but someone came along later and came up with this cleaner plan.

He has also found a valuable straw man in the Great Satan to the north. When all else fails, he claim that the CIA is out to assassinate him. To vex that Great Satan, Chavez has befriended tyrants in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. With oil prices over $100, he had plenty of money to throw at their causes. Seeing international banks as simply tentacles of U.S. control of the hemisphere, he has put up his own money from Venezuela's rich oil revenues to take on his own neighbors' debt. He meddled in elections in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Peru. Venezuela, even if in annoying way, was suddenly a world player. 

(I have to board now. I've just rambled on. Sorry. I think I had a more clear idea of what to say when I started. I think. )

So now what? Ironically, the U.S. economic crisis has hit Venezuela hard in that the slacking world price for oil has reeled Chavez in some (they also call it "La Crisis" here). What little he did spend on infrastructure here and subsidies is all but dried up. Many resent the amount of money he has spent abroad, which has committed him to debt that he can no longer pay. And he is no longer universally loved. His pictures are omnipresent in the Metro stations and trains, usually hugging small children or old people, ALWAYS smiling kindly. But some of these posters have been vandalized by someone with a sharp object, X-ing out the President's face. Also, remember the pro-Chavez images in airport international arrivals? Well, none of that is to be seen on the domestic terminal. Not even a snapshot.

Also, of the 17 states of Venezuela, four are now governed by politicians from outside his ruling party, the United Socialist Party. They are the state of the capital, caracas, the oil producing state in the southern jungles, a border state with Colombia. and the free port state that includes Margarita Island. That is to say, all the states that have seen up close and personal the negative effects of his policies. 

Whether this will lead to a loss of power, counter revolution or coup, I certainly can't say. I can say that it seems like no one outside of of Chavez's own chattering class really buys into the hatred for America stuff. Truly, there are no anti-American demonstrations, no flag burning, none of that silly stuff. Just a guy who liked to call President Bush silly names. And we have plenty of those in our own country. 

The Venezuelan people are no enemy of the United States, and have no desire to be an enemy of the United States. Most of them love their country, and can recall happier days in the relationship with the US.

Remember, the real Bolivarian Dream was that Bolivar would be able to unite all of the nations of South America into a "Great Columbia" similar to the alliance of states that made up the United Sates. Bolivar was an admirer of the early US, probably in part because of his love for a woman from Philadelphia. He gave his life to freeing the upper and western parts of the continent (note some time the similarities in the flags of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia; Peru also owes a debt for their liberty from Spain to Bolivar). For a brief time. Venezuela even printed coinage emblazoned with "Los Estados Unidos De Venezuela": the United States of Venezuela. 

Sadly, Bolivar's death came in sorrow as he saw others betray this dream of unity, and never again was Latin America able to dream of such unity. 

So will this new character, with his own talk of a Bolivarian Dream - albeit a socialist one - be able to unite Venezuelans behind a cause, even an angry, misdirected one? Only the future will tell. But from what I saw in Venezuela, the strongman wants to go one way, but many, many more conscientious citizens want to go another. 

My one worry is this: seemed to notice a change in the people I was in the street, in the places of work, in the stores. Venezuela's people were always a rambunctious lot: lots of loud music on the buses, people singing along; lots of yelling and joking and cajoling and being boisterous. I didn't see that this time. There seemed to be a, oh, I don't know, a quieter aspect to them. Almost an American calm, a seriousness, a quietness in public that I don't remember being part of their nature before. There is only one other time I can recall feeling this sort of resigned public quiet, among a people who were warm and open when in private. That was in the Soviet Union in 1990, less than a year before its disintegration. 

It made me wonder. And worry a little.