Quico replies: Well, there's an air of sheer surrealism in seeing two gringo-educated, egghead economists trading accusations of elitism in the English-language blogosphere. (Would you rather be the pot, or the kettle?) At what point the facing-mirrors style, double inverse autorecursive faux-populist shtick transmogrifies into elitism I can't really be sure - it all gets way too "meta" for me to keep track of.
But that's about the size of it. In a way, it's a monument to the degree to which Chavez has debased our political discourse: even when obscure oppo pundits debate one another, elitism has become the ultimate disqualification, the cardinal sin of political speech.
One thing I'm sure about. Looking at some of the polling floating around, I'm under no doubt that what we have been doing has not been working. The diffuse, generalized pasón candidates like Borges, Teo and Rosales - with their grim seriousness, their stench of politico, their triple-charisma bypasses, and their deep, deep middle-classness - generate in the electorate, together with Chávez's endless pit of petrodollars, point us towards yet another election where CNE doesn't even have to cheat on the numerical count to humiliate us again.
Thing is, in this day and age, class background matters. It's Rausseo's up-by-the-bootstraps story - more, even, than his wit, or his outsider-status - that makes him an attractive candidate. Because his candidacy does not take place in a political bubble. It's happening in Venezuela, in 2006, in a society whose methods and habits of political discourse have been degraded and debased by an insiduous campaign to divide us along class lines dating back to 1998. It is in this context that we have to beat Chavez, and we need to understand what this context means for the requirements for an effective opposition discourse.
For 8 years, the leitmotif of chavista discourse has been a kind of "standpoint epistemology" where what you know, what you think and what you believe in is wholly determined by who you are, by your social background. This is why Chavez (and chavistas) incessantly attack the messenger and ignore the message: in their worldview, who says it tells you more about a message than what is said. Again and again, cogent criticisms backed by evidence has been "refuted" by generic, standpoint based disqualifications.
I remember back in 2000, when I started writing carefully researched articles showing the way the government was violating the FIEM law, I was told I was just a "widow of puntofijismo," squealing like a hog on my way to the slaughterhouse, sore about my lost privileges. At some point, gringo imperialism took over from puntofijismo as the bogeyman of choice - but the structure of the argument stayed the same: whatever we said was wrong, automatically and by definition, because of who we are, and the class interests we supposedly represented.
Now, it would be nice to think that seven years of incessant attacks, all built on variations of this personal disqualification strategy, have left no mark, that "the poor can and do understand ideas that can help solve their problems," as you put it. But to just assume this is so is to ignore what's happened in Venezuela since 1998, to ignore the strong emotional bond millions upon millions of Venezuelans have established with a leader who's wasted no opportunity to repeat that his middle-class critics are wrong not because of what they say, but because they are middle-class.
Hopefully, given time, Venezuelans can transcend the habits of mind that chavismo has worked so hard to establish. But what we can't do is deny that they exist. They are the central cultural legacy of chavismo.
In this context who says it, the social background of the messenger, matters, Katy, simply because the government has worked tirelessly and effectively for the better part of a decade to get poor people to judge the message as a function of the messenger.
Is it fair that, in such circumstances, Borges's skin color, accent and university degrees count so heavily against him? Is it right? Of course not. It's very wrong - an emblem of the intellectually bankrupt, deeply intolerant, borderline fascist habits of thought Chavez has worked so hard to establish. But is Borges's "background penalty" therefore any less real? Sadly, no.
The reality is that we need Benjamin Rausseo precisely because Chavez has convinced too many people that they must never trust people from a different class again, that the messenger trumps the message. Trust me, I'm not any happier than you that this is the case - but I'm sure that if we're going to transcend this situation, we'll need a transitional leader who looks, sounds and feels like he came from the hood.
In the end, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating: either the Rausseo Tsunami will materialize - and at that point, even you've admitted you'll end up voting for the guy - or it won't. The thirst - nay, the desperation - in the opposition heartland for a candidate who looks like he has a fighting chance against Chavez runs deep and strong, so my guess is that many, many will join me in my jolly cogolleric bandwagon.
Obviously, even then, it's an uphill slog for Rausseo - but his chances are non-zero. In fact, it's precisely the perception that his chances are non-zero that's driving the current bout of Guacharomanía, because too many people can't bear to go into Dec. 3rd backing a candidate who is tacitly aiming just to "lose honorably" and set himself up as the leader of the opposition for six years. In a marginally functional institutional atmosphere, that might be a prize worth shooting for. In the current dynamic of rapidly closing democratic spaces, it's barely worth the paper on the Smartmatic acta it'll be written on.
To close, Katy, I think what's on the agenda for Venezuela at this point is a painful process of undoing the worst excesses of Chavez's legacy on all fronts - institutional, economic, political and cultural. We need a transition president - exactly Rausseo's pitch - to bring about a situation where folks like Borges and Teodoro can be judged by the content of their ideas rather than the social class of their birth. That's where we need to go, Katy, but not where we are. And it's just imaginable that El Conde can get us there.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Class background shouldn't matter, but it does...
Monday, July 31, 2006
Desperate bloggers
“I am also concerned about poverty. That’s why, when you and I grow up and become society ladies, we’ll join a foundation to help those less fortunate. We’ll organize fund-raisers and we’ll serve chicken and turkey and pork and all that! … That way, we’ll collect money to buy the poor flour and wheat germ and spaghetti and all that other crap that they eat.”
Susanita, from the Mafalda comic strip
Quico’s main response to what I had to say can be summarized as: denying your support for Rausseo is elitist, and you should realize that elitism doesn’t work in Venezuela anymore. Here, I will argue that a) it’s Quico who is being elitist; and b) while it's true that chavismo has empowered the poor, Rausseo’s candidacy goes against the trend. In fact I will argue that Rausseo is really not an anti-politician at all, but rather more of the same in the same way that Chávez is more of the same. Get it? Bear with me.
Quico’s position reminded me of Susanita in the quote above. The fact that he accuses me of being a “señorita bien”, of the kind of “elitism” allegedly espoused by people like Alberto Barrera or Tulio Hernández, makes the situation even more absurd. It is Quico, not me, proposing a clown with no prior political judgement and no ideas on how to solve poor people’s problems. It is Quico, not me, who is proposing for the poor a candidate he would never, under normal circumstances, support.
I won’t get into a pissing match with descendants of Spanish monarchy regarding elitism. This is not a contest of which of us is more “from the ‘hood” than the other. However, the insinuation that what I am defending is some sort of elitist status quo, where only the educated are entitled to govern, is offensive and wrong. In fact, it is Quico who is pandering to the poor from his elevated viewpoint by offering them something he would never swallow himself, something he feels responds to their lower expectations, but really only responds to his very low image of what the poor care about and respond to.
Poor voters can smell a Trojan horse a mile away, even if it comes disguised in the form of a Musipán capybara. The poor have been empowered, but Quico does not understand what this means. It means that the poor will only respond when you put their concerns first. Quico sees “Caring for the poor” at the top of a list of desirable qualities in a candidate, and his first reaction is “Quick, get me someone dark-skinned, if he comes with a cogollo hat even better. And get me someone who simply won’t talk about the issues, the poor hate that kind of stuff – pronto!”
What I see is that poor voters are looking for someone who understands their issues and is able to talk to them about it. It is way too soon to simply shrug off the existing crop of candidates and look for the next best (worse?) person. The only reason I am proposing some minimal standard for an opposition candidate is precisely because I respect poor voters. The only reason I am demanding some sort of substance from Mr. Rausseo is because I believe that poor people deserve substance. Yes, it has to be delivered in a way that is approachable to them. But contrary to Quico, I believe the poor can and do understand ideas that can help solve their problems.
In fact, Rausseo’s poses are precisely the same sort of baloney that adecos used to pull in the ‘70s and chavistas are pulling today. Quico thinks it’s enough to give the poor a bottle of rum, a quick joke, or a misión check, and their vote is in the bag. Rausseo follows a long line of politicians, from CAP to Lusinchi to Chávez, that thought bread and circus were the only way to get people voting for you. In a way, candidates running the battle of ideas are the real anti-políticos. Everything is different, but everything is the same.
One of the main reasons the chavista-light (or ni-ni) vote went Chavez’s way in the Recall Referendum is that these voters did not see a plan in the opposition. It was precisely the lack of ideas from the opposition side that mobilized these voters into the Chávez camp, just like it was the lack of results to accompany the personal charm that led them away from Chávez in the months prior to the Referendum. Doesn’t this tell us something about the real concerns of these voters? Isn’t this our target audience?
Finally, regarding Rausseo’s chances in beating Chávez: so far, they are zero. His support is ephemeral, and he’s facing a very popular incumbent with limitless funds. If you think his wit alone can carry him to Miraflores, you are sadly mistaken. For him to get there, he will have to show much more than that, and the fact that four months before the election he doesn’t even have a political party says tons about the level of improvisation in his campaign. Violeta Chamorro didn’t unseat the sandinistas with her grandmotherly looks and her tres-leches recipe alone; she had the backing of a well-oiled coalition that gave the voters assurance that yes, she could handle governing. Rausseo has shown none of this.
Quico has admitted his support for Rausseo is a desperate measure. Desperation brought us Chávez, Arias Cárdenas, the march to Miraflores on April 11th, the oil strike, the guarimbas, the idea that we shouldn’t elect a leader prior to the RR, and massive abstentionism. Yes, Quico, Rausseo is indeed another desperate act.
Giving a gift horse a root canal...
Quico replies: Thank you for taking up this chance to debate, Katy. I have to say I was impressed with your opening salvo, but a little disappointed by its total absence of ad hominem attacks...whassamatta with you, you namby-pamby maracucha toff?! We have standards to uphold here!
First off, I don't understand how you can say this discussion "is not about Rausseo’s ability to potentially become an electoral phenomenon." Maybe all the petroleum fumes rising from the Lago killed too many brain-cells for you to notice, but Venezuela is in a very, very dangerous situation right now, Katy, poised on the edge of a totalitarian precipice. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I don't hide for a second that hyping El Conde is a desperate measure.
There's a time and a place for everything: the time when your house is on fire is not the time for interior decorating. The 10 minutes after a massive heart-attack are not the time for a manicure. And the time when, finally, a potential challenger arises who - unlike the alternatives - has some chance to pull the country back from the totalitarian fringe is not the time to get exquisitos about the fine-print on a non-existent government program.
Hell, I don't see where all the uncertainty is. The choice is clear enough: d'you want a kind of tropicalized messianism that tends towards totalitarian control or don't you? Rausseo says "I don't." Surely that would be an insufficient government platform if the house was not on fire! Thing is, it is, man, it is...
---
Now, I could take on board your littany of concerns - but, of course, it's easy to see what's behind them is the stereotypical lament of "señoritas bien," ruborizadas by the prospect of our first ever all-out Chabacano-on-Chabacano electoral death match. (Why is it that EVERY Opinion Duel eventually devolves into faux-populist posturing?!)
To my mind, though, what the Barrera Tyskaesque and Tulio Hernandezesque gripes reveal is a kind of diffuse, subconcious (and therefore, even more pernicious) elitism, a sense that "real" politics, "serious" politics - by which, of course, they mean politics as practiced by the middle class - must be defended at all costs against the corroding impact of "anti-politics" - which here becomes code for "politics carried out in a style accessible to everyone."
Barrera Tyska, in particular, is in no doubt who's to blame for all this - us! Meaning, esta gente, este pueblo, this accursed mass of that can't even sit still long enough to read a governing program. For thinkers like him, the real lesson of the last seven years is that given the kind of people we are, we need politics to be exclusive in order to protect the country for itself. I think this is the wrong lesson.
Without wanting to take the populist posturing too far, I do think it's true that the anti-Conde backlash tends to incarnate and confirm a series of standard attacks Chavismo has long leveled at us - their sense (which we too often see as senseless even while we confirm it) that what we really can't stomach is the idea that people who grew up poor and sound like it can participate in politics as equals. Seven years into the Chavez era some of us still have this residual sense that, damn it, they have no business in government, people who speak to them in words they can understand are somehow unseemly, below the dignity that is proper to a governing class. And while we would never put it in those words, isn't that what's really behind this, Katy? Isn't that, ultimately, what they mean by "anti-politics"?
Well, we're seven years into this berenjenal and the cliche is true, the country changed. There is no going back to the politics of elite accomodation. It can't happen, so it won't happen. Sadly, though, the oppo political class is the only chunk of the country that hasn't noticed. Our political class has failed to adapt to the new reality, failed to rise to the challenge of a new dynamic where voters won't even consider voting for "serious politicians" from UCAB who speak like East-Side caraqueños or use words they can't understand to talk about topics they don't care about. The political class has failed to put forward leaders able to connect with normal Venezuelans directly, face-to-face, without condescending or patronizing. They've failed, and in their failure they've left a huge open space, a true "vacuum of power" (or, at least, of representation) that has been sitting there for years, crying out for someone to come and fill it.
That, Katy, is what Benjamín Rausseo has been doing. Nothing more. That his candidacy has generated such enthusiasm so quickly is neither surprising nor creepy: it just shows how starved we have been for a new kind of opposition leader, one with the street cred and the chispa to truly enthuse people of all classes against the chavista project.
Now we've got it, but some of us seem determined to give this gift horse a root canal...
No spoon for me in this sancocho
Katy says: Before I begin this opinion duel, it would help if I specified what this discussion is not about. This discussion is not about Rausseo’s ability to potentially become an electoral phenomenon. Neither is it about Rausseo’s virtues as a comedian, businessman or his inspiring rags-to-riches story. Finally, it is not about Rausseo’s superior ability to communicate with regular folks in a language that they understand.
I accept all of the above are true, so I will not argue about them.
What this discussion is about is the immediate support that Rausseo has received from many well-informed, educated Venezuelans such as Quico. I would like to present my case that Rausseo is the wrong man at the wrong time, and that people supporting him are not thinking about this carefully enough. So far, he has shown no qualities that would make him an effective post-Chávez president. In the end of the day, I may be forced to vote for him in December if that is the only feasible choice available, but nothing I have seen so far suggests I will not have to bring a handkerchief to the voting booth.
One of the reasons Quico has been so quick to support Rausseo is that he believes voting is basically an emotional act. In that sense, Rausseo, with his instant name-recognition, his wit and his rapid-fire irreverence, becomes in Quico’s eyes the ideal opposition candidate. His logic is impeccable: if, indeed, voting is an emotional act, it is not hard to think of Rausseo as the best chance we’ve got.
His logic, though, starts from a false premise. Although there is some support for the notion of emotion driving the vote, I do not believe that the act of voting for a significant number of voters is an emotional act and nothing else. Furthermore, this election is about mobilizing the key swing voters, so-called “ni-nis” and/or chavista light voters. So far, I have seen no evidence to show that these people will be mobilized to vote for a candidate they empathize with, but that does not show much else. While some people may be driven to the polls by their “empathy” with a candidate, I believe that a candidate that is all emotion and no substance is counter-productive. And so far, Rausseo has no substance.
Rausseo does not have a known position on many of the key issues Venezuelans face. The few positions he has taken – less weapons purchases and more internal security, PDVSA concentrating on the oil business, sympathy towards free enterprise, increased government spending on infrastructure, better “misiones”, and absolute freedom of the press – are superficial and have been vaguely lifted from the playbooks of other opposition candidates. They suggest little insight, little ability to grasp the source of many of Venezuela’s ills, and little originality.
Rausseo has famously claimed that he will govern "with the best." Well, duh! Why would he govern with anyone else? I'm sure Chávez thinks he is governing with the best. Such a statement is so vague it is almost insulting, yet smart people take it as if it were a brilliant insight into the candidate's head. Furthermore, Rausseo has so far refused to say who is working with him in his candidacy, candidly stating that his campaign staff is "encapuchado." As a famous Oxford philosopher once said, WTF?
Quico’s hyping of Rausseo is not only troubling for the free pass he is willing to give a sweet-talking candidate. His attitude seems to ignore the serious setbacks that this electoral “tsunami” may have.
Consider, for instance, the following scenario: Rausseo indeed does become the sole opposition candidate. Elections are held and he manages to stir many abstentionists into the polling booths. Result? Chávez 54%, Rausseo 46%. Rausseo concedes the election after massive turnout, and he then retires back to his business life while Chávez can claim an enormous mandate to further deepen his revolution. The opposition is not only left defeated, it is left without a single viable political organization for the future battles against Chávez. Can anyone doubt that beating Chávez is, even for Rausseo, a near-impossible task? If we are going to lose, couldn’t we do it while at the same time giving legitimacy to a politician, a political party or a coalition with some staying power? One, say, that is the product of a competitive primary such as the one scheduled for Aug. 13? The battle goes on after December, why bet all our chips on a fighter that will retire after being knocked out?
I mentioned above that Rausseo’s rapid ascendancy could backfire. Chavista-light voters could perceive that opposition people think they are stupid by presenting them with an option that is less than serious - it may be interpreted as a show of contempt toward their needs and problems. Opposition voters may feel that Rausseo is simply a tool in JVR’s chess game. A significant chunk of voters are already considering this candidacy is a joke and is not worth supporting. Finally, voters may be turned off by Rausseo’s unwillingness to compromise with existing opposition forces.
In times of trouble, one should stick to principles. My principle tells me that I should support the candidate with beliefs closest to my own, one who has the best ideas and values to get Venezuela out of its current mess. Quico’s principles seem to be telling him that he should support the opposition candidate closest to Chávez in look, language and empathy, and damn everything else. I believe Quico is wrong in enthusiastically endorsing Rausseo so prematurely.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Francisco Toro replies: Why commission so many polls if we're just going to ignore them?!
There's no use protesting that you don't care how readers respond to vcrisis, Alek. It's almost too obvious to have to spell it out, but you're writing political content on the web - the most public forum there is. If all you needed was an escape valve, you'd have a diary, not a website. You went to all the trouble of getting it listed on Google News. You're clearly keen to attract readers. By the very nature of what you're doing, you're in the business of peddling ideas. If you refuse on principle to think through your audience, all you do is make your site less effective, that's all.
And, that's a shame, because we need sites like vcrisis to counteract the mounds of government propaganda, and we need those sites to be effective. Thing is, you only counteract propaganda if your readers believe you more than they believe the propaganda, and my point is that, often, your tone and your message are at cross-purposes with each other. It pains me to read the rhetorical own-goals in vcrisis, because all they do is undermine its effectiveness.
But I think the broader effectiveness question - the one on how to effectively counter Chavez - is what we're both most interested in, so I'll focus on that. I have to admit, with some frustration, that I'm still not exactly clear on what your basic criticism is. I think the key to it is in this bit:
You still think in terms of mounting a credible anti-shrill platform to meet an opponent in the electoral arena, I hate to break to you though; there’s no way such an option will ever overcome Chavez in an election under the current conditions. And that is precisely why I said earlier that instead of doing the morning TV shows, walking or asking for election’s postponements what the opposition needs to do is to get their hands dirty and work in the barrios to win support. Not because in 2006 it stands a chance of winning the race, but rather to be able to confront the repressive chavista apparatus when the shit hits the fan; it’s called people power. But for the people to lend their power to a given cause they need to be motivated; they need to feel strongly about something; and that you can only get by bonding with them; by showing that you care deeply for them; by doing deeds that demonstrate beyond doubt that you’re one of them, certainly not by changing your stance every other week.
What I find remarkable is that, for all the sparks, we don't really disagree that much. Roberto Smith dug more than a few ditches in Vargas, kissed more than a few doñitas and set up hundreds of meetings in normal people's homes. He is focused entirely bonding with regular folk and convincing them he cared deeply for them. He shuns the politics of the TV studio, and he is exploring new ways of reaching voters the Traditional Opposition long ago stopped talking to. Besides the unpardonable sin of going to Harvard, I don't quite get why you're not thrilled with Roberto.
For the life of me I can't figure out what your big problem with his march is. The guy is trying to get some name recognition to position himself for next year. He's being very careful to avoid the pitfalls of the TV-Studio Opposition in the process. He's deliberate about putting out a political message that will appeal to people outside the Opposition's traditional middle class base. He's spending basically all his time hanging out with normal Venezuelans, with el pueblo, bonding with them, listening to them, learning how to talk to them and connect with his concerns. Hell, Alek, if there's one thing Roberto Smith can't be accused of is TV-Studiery.
But then we get to the next bit, and here's where we really disagree:
However first of all you need to find a point of agreement and nowadays that is the deep rooted disgust towards Chavez. I hate to say it again but what happened Sunday proves that the massive support for Chavez is a fallacy, a solecism. Whether you like or dislike it or whether you perceive that to be or not the case from where you are is utterly irrelevant. Venezuelans sent a deafening message, being hearing impaired is your problem.
I don't have any idea where you get the idea that 75% abstention means 75% disgust with Chavez. Every damn opinion poll out there shows that "disgust towards Chavez" is anything but widespread. Instead, it's very, very much concentrated in, well...MY social class! Outside a fairly small upper and middle class that dominates the private media, Chavez is remarkably popular. He's far more popular than his party is, for instance, or his government, or its performance.
That's not to say that there is "massive support for Chavez." It is to say that, for the most part, normal Venezuelans - and when I say normal Venezuelans I mean poor Venezuelans - don't hate the guy. A minority positively idolize him - the ones who voted last Sunday. A larger number kind of like him but have mixed feelings - few of them probably bothered to vote in a no-contest parliamentary poll. But it's a mistake to think that, therefore, they're in any sense alligned with the opposition, because very few poor Venezuelans positively detest Chavez with anything like the intensity of the Traditional Opposition. And, by-and-large, they dislike and distrust that TV-Studio Opposition much more than they dislike and distrust Chavez.
Where do I get this heretical notion? From all the public opinion research out there. You can ask Datanalisis, Interlaces, Datos, anyone you like. Hell, all you need to do to confirm it is spend one afternoon hanging out in any of the little towns Roberto Smith is passing on his walk or in any barrio anywhere in the country. Or to use basic common sense: Alek, if disgust toward Chavez was anywhere near as extensive as the TV-Studio Opposition likes to make out, the guy wouldn't have lasted anywhere near as long as he has.
The problem is that we have an elite that hates Chavez with such enormous rage it can't accept that its own feelings may be different from normal Venezuelans' feelings. That opposition keeps on ranting against the guy, and the more it rants, the more it looses touch with the broad electoral center, with the millions of normal Venezuelans who aren't hardcore chavistas but have a bit of a soft-spot for the guy and get turned off when they see rich people call him names on TV.
Roberto's point is that we need to connect with that broad center. We need to develop a new language, a fresh message, and a renewed style to reach them. We can't do it by ranting against Chavez; we've been trying that for seven years and it doesn't get us beyond our core constituency.
Because if we can't connect with normal Venezuelans, if we can't build a genuine multiclass majority against Chavez, there is no way in hell we can mount a credible challenge to him. There's no people-power without people, and right now, what the opposition doesn't have is people. If the TV-Studio Opposition wasn't so pigheaded about believing its own hype, it would've gotten that long ago.
Anyway, like I said, I'm a bit frustrated that four days into an Opinion Duel I'm still not clear on what your basic disagreement is. I really don't see what rose-tinted glasses or my natal oral silver-spoon have to do with it. For me, it's simple and eminently pragmatic: we've tried one thing for seven years and results have been disappointing, but public opinion research gives us some clues as to why it hasn't worked, so maybe we should take on some of that research to build a more effective alternative. That's not comeflorismo, that's just common sense.
Alek Boyd replies on effectiveness in opposing Hugo Chavez
Thanks for engaging in this debate, FT. In my view the issue at hand goes beyond which one of us is out of touch. Rather whether whatever you or I think is the way to mount an opposition to Chavez in order to win the hearts and minds of Venezuelans. To that end I do think is tremendously relevant to distinguish from what sort of backgrounds are each of us coming from so that readers can better understand I say what I say about you and vice versa.
I am glad to see that you are keen to openly admit that you’ve gotten many things wrong in the past. Furthermore, I do believe that you’re still in the past, in the sense that you keep missing the point. Iconoclastic isn’t the adjective I would use to define your position, clueless is more suiting. And when talking about not having to toe anyone’s line, I reckon that, without having the academic credentials that you’ve got/about to get, we’re on the same boat.
Nothing but praise I have for your attempt to separate feelings from rational criticism, what is more I have to admit that I haven’t been able to achieve such state. More often than not, mine is a muse in a constant state of outrage. It could be because I was once a believer in the goodness of humanity or as my old man used to tell me “todos son Buena gente hasta que demuestren lo contrario.” For reasons beyond me I’ve been through a lot, which in some ways is good and in many others not so. This is where our old debate about comeflorismo comes into play, for it’s evident to me that you see things through a rose-coloured glass whereas mine is dark grey.
Vcrisis is the result of an outrage. After having been denied entry to a International Human Rights Seminar in Oxford University and having seen how biased the international MSM were with respect to our country’s situation, I took my outrage with me and went to Oxford to give Chavez and the university a cacerolazo. Other Venezuelans, who happened to be as upset as I was, took the same decision and on the train back to London with one of them, still incensed, I took his offer of help and Vcrisis came to be. To be perfectly frank, back in the days, I couldn’t have cared less about who my audience was going to be, the purpose of the exercise was simply to counteract the propaganda and create a space where I could say whatever I wish regarding the crisis in Venezuela. I felt, I still do, that my dignity was being trampled upon and that provided enough fuel to keep me going, regardless of what the site’s readership may or may not think.
About my remark about Pinochet I have only this much to say; there are very many influential people in civilized societies that openly praise Fidel Castro. Facts besides, these people don’t have a problem by publicly stating how wonderful the Cuban dictator truly is. The same goes for Hugo Chavez in whose watch thousands have lost their lives due to crime, that he was going to tackle, and a whole lot of others are suffering from all sorts of human rights abuses. Cuba, after 46 years of Castro rule and thousands of assassinations, is by any standard a failed nation. Venezuela is fast approaching that status. Chile on the other hand, having maintained the agenda set by Pinochet, boasts the best indexes of the region. The standard of living and wellbeing of its citizens is a far cry from those of its neighbours. You once said that you were a pragmatist, I consider myself to be one. I rest my case.
I did not start this enterprise to win people over FT and it doesn’t bother me whether they think that Chavez has a point, for my actions need nobody’s approval. I do what I do because I feel is the right thing to do. Stats show that the number of people empathizing with my predicament is ever augmenting and your opinion about the correct way of making friends and influence people is entirely irrelevant. Whose opposition voices would I be marginalizing: the ones of Chavez’s admirers? Those of American or European armchair revolutionaries? I’ll leave the caring about what people think to you.
What you call “strident tone, virulent anti-leftism and insults” I take as linguistic confidence. You’re absolutely right however in my anti-leftism and without qualms I can affirm that if whatever Chavez represents is considered to be the left, then I couldn’t be further to the right. For it is precisely the point to factually prove that I am on the right.
This is indeed a very interesting development though, for, before engaging in these activities, I never gave a second thought to what it truly meant to be on either side of the political divide. As time elapses and I get deeper into political dynamics my apprehension towards the left grows. In my book the left represents communism, socialism, controlled means of production hence productivity, absence of personal rights, suppression of dissent, lack of competition, heavy taxation to maintain useless parasites, propaganda through mass media, bureaucracy, rotten education systems, hypocrisy, centralized government, disrespect to private property, and above all slavery both physical and mental. “Left” has an implicit negative connotation; “por la izquierda” is a standard way for Colombian drug dealers to imply that a given thing could be done illegally. I also associate the term with whatever is wrong in this planet. For example Greenpeace, Amnesty International, BBC, Liberals, Labour, unions, Oxfam, oil-for-food, the UN, the EU… In sum utter failure and that I don’t want for my country. Talking to someone the other day I said that it was amazing how united the leftists were in comparison with right wing people. He replied calmly by stating “of course the left spouses egalitarianism…” Es decir, to level the playing field so that everybody is equally fucked or as Orwell rightly stated “some animals are more equal than others.”
And yes you can count me among the reactionary against Chavez. Unhinged? That depends on the crystal…
You wrote, "Fact is, Alek, you come on way, way too strong." Indeed I come too strong and, you know what, I like it that way. Bizarrely out of touch? Yes, with the chavistas and comeflores, I guess I can live with that.
Now then let us talk about effectiveness. You still haven’t addressed the effectiveness of taking rosy-comeflor political babble for a thousand kilometers walk. You still think in terms of mounting a credible anti-shrill platform to meet an opponent in the electoral arena, I hate to break to you though; there’s no way such an option will ever overcome Chavez in an election under the current conditions. And that is precisely why I said earlier that instead of doing the morning TV shows, walking or asking for election’s postponements what the opposition needs to do is to get their hands dirty and work in the barrios to win support. Not because in 2006 it stands a chance of winning the race, but rather to be able to confront the repressive chavista apparatus when the shit hits the fan; it’s called people power. But for the people to lend their power to a given cause they need to be motivated; they need to feel strongly about something; and that you can only get by bonding with them; by showing that you care deeply for them; by doing deeds that demonstrate beyond doubt that you’re one of them, certainly not by changing your stance every other week. However first of all you need to find a point of agreement and nowadays that is the deep rooted disgust towards Chavez. I hate to say it again but what happened Sunday proves that the massive support for Chavez is a fallacy, a solecism. Whether you like or dislike it or whether you perceive that to be or not the case from where you are is utterly irrelevant. Venezuelans sent a deafening message, being hearing impaired is your problem.
To conclude I would like to go back to our respective backgrounds. Our views and life concepts couldn’t be more different simply because our experiences are very different. I do believe, perhaps wrongly, that there is the predisposition among people of orthodox upbringing to upheld the maxim “todo el mundo es Buena gente hasta que se demuestre lo contrario.” Educated people of certain background also tend to spend much time analyzing things, weighing the consequences before actually engaging in action.
I’ll tell you a little story. Once upon a time there was a child hanged from his head about to fell of balcony in a seventh floor. People congregated to see the outcome; the more intrepid decided to call the firemen and the police. Watching how paralyzed everyone was I decided to climb from the sixth to the seventh floor to sit the poor kid on my lap and wait for the cavalry to arrive. You know what everyone yelled at me when I was about to climb? NO, DON’T DO IT!! Perhaps I’m incurring into wild hypotheses here, but I can imagine you seeing the whole thing and thinking, quite rationally “well logic says if I try to climb there’s a strong possibility of falling; let’s wait for the firemen, that’s the appropriate thing to do…”
Venezuela, my dear and noble friend, is about to fall, everyone’s watching but as in the first instance I’m not expecting the result of your analysis to conclude that, indeed, I can climb safely unassisted to try and save it.
You seem to believe that there is something to be gained by talking to thugs like Chavez; by trying to negotiate with them or simply by playing nice. Your feelings probably stem from the intrinsic belief that everyone acts sort of in the same way you would when faced with the same set of conditions. It escapes you that there are some out there whose only purpose is to do wrong, to screw others to get ahead. My take is pragmatic and driven by instinct: Chavez and his Hobbesian nature can only be confronted with Rousseauan tactics.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Francisco Toro Replies: The Armadillo Calling the Turtle Shelly*
At issue: Is Francisco Toro bizarrely out of touch these days?
I apologize for not replying sooner, Alek, but frankly I've read your opening post several times and I'm still not sure what your point is. As far as I can make out, you think that because my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was a Marqués del Toro, it's impossible for me to get anything about Venezuelan politics right. Oligarca temblando! If that's what it is, well, there's no sense having an Opinion Duel with me: whatever I respond, it can't be right.
Honestly, though, it's the sort of argument I expect from chavistas, not from our side.
I suspect you're just incensed over the iconoclastic line Caracas Chronicles has been taking. Fair enough. Why have I taken it? Well, partly because I've decided that one of the few fringe benefits of being a grad student is that I don't have to toe anyone's line, partly because I've gotten too many things wrong in the past by sticking to the resonance-chamber anti-Chavez line. No more.
Mostly, though, it's that I'm trying to separate my own feelings of outrage and disgust at the regime from my attempts to analyze what's happening in the country. Obviously, this is not the way you approach vcrisis, which is probably I can't shake the feeling that the subject of this opinion duel is a serious case of turtles and armadillos.
How to put this? Vcrisis is written mostly in English, so you must have a non-Venezuelan audience in mind. Problem is, you don't seem to have really thought through that audience at all. Instead, it's like you're determined to confirm every over-the-top attack the government tosses our way. "Holy crap," readers must think, "Chavez keeps saying his opponents are rabid reactionary lunatics and, look here, one of the big anti-Chavez websites openly pines for a Venezuelan Pinochet!"
Sure, a small sliver of hard-right readers will eat it up with mustard, but a far larger number of people we could win over to our side will just conclude "hmm, I guess Chavez has a point."
This, Alek, is not the way to make friends and influence people. This is the way to marginalize opposition voices, to destroy our own credibility before we've even engaged in a proper debate.
Whether you're right on the substance is ultimately beside the point: the strident tone, the virulent anti-leftism, and the insults meted out willy-nilly to anyone who disagrees with you play directly into Chavez's portrayal of the opposition as unhinged and reactionary. Frankly, I find myself cringing a lot when I read your stuff these days.
Fact is, you come on way, way too strong. Piling on the invective doesn't actually make our case more convincing or more compelling. You don't earn readers' confidence by assaulting them head-on with streams of anti-government vitriol, you just manage to come across as...well, bizarrely out of touch.
I refuse to go down that road, for the simple reason that I don't want foreign readers to write me off as a fanatic within 15 seconds of stumbling on my blog.
Having gotten that off my chest - hey, you started it - I'll add this:
The public opinion research I've seen shows that normal Venezuelans - those without fancy foreign educations and multilingual websites - aren't so different from our foreign readers. They're singularly unimpressed with the old, worn-out, politics of shrill anti-Chavez invective.
So I do find it particularly galling to be called "out of touch" by the web's premiere outlet of the sort of rhetoric that has alienated Venezuela's broad political center from the anti-Chavez movement.
Who's out of touch here? And, more importantly, who's out of touch with what? Surely I'm increasingly out of touch with the radical opposition - something I wear as a badge of pride. But the radical opposition has lost all touch with Venezuela's broad electoral center. It's locked itself into a never ending game of quién-es-más-antichavista? that certifiably turns off huge numbers of Venezuelans, and that's much much worse.
Because we may hate it, it may make our blood boil, but the political reality is that most Venezuelans don't hate Chavez, and most Venezuelans distrust those who would build a political message entirely around anti-Chavez attacks.
The irony here is that you call me an typical exemplar of the East Side Caracas opposition, but you're the one busy putting out a message that resonates exclusively between La Florida and Sebucán! Outside the East Side bubble, people just roll their eyes at the attack politics that dominate vcrisis. I'm not any happier about that than you are, but that's the reality, and there's no sense in picking a fight with reality.
So what I want to ask you is this: when, exactly, does the time come to take stock and accept that what we've been doing hasn't been working? When do we take a deep breath and accept that we can't badger people into agreeing with us?
And if that point never comes, if you insist on making the same point again and again in stronger and stronger terms because, damnit, it's right, and nothing else matter, then who is it who's the one who's out of touch?
Thing is, Alek, arrechera is a feeling, not a tactic. In the end, it really doesn't matter how well-justified our anger may be, because politics is not about being right, it's about being effective.
*Venezuelan for the pot calling the kettle black
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Alek Boyd: Francisco Toro is Bizarrely Out of Touch
Second Venezuela Opinion Duel: Alek Boyd vs. Francisco Toro
The rules:
On the proposition that Francisco Toro's writing is bizarrely out of touch these days.
23.11.05 | Some time ago I saw an interview of Julio Borges, leader and founder of the party Primero Justicia (PJ). Borges gave a detailed account on how the party had formed, what sort of political and ideological reasons underpinned the formation of the party and, filled with pride, stated how his party had achieved national presence. “It all started in 1992” he said, when a group of students from Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Caracas joined informally. It is fair to say that in Venezuela and due to the sanguinity bonds that some PJ members have with the old political establishment, it was sort of easy for them to achieve, to a degree, notoriety. PJ members are a bunch of callous, clean faced, young yuppies. Most of them have impressive resumes and were educated, both in the country and abroad, in some of the best schools/universities.
Simultaneous to PJ formation, Hugo Chavez, a rather brutish, uneducated and unpolished military man from the province, led a coup d’etat that, ipso facto, catapulted him to stardom.
I remember commenting to my wife, after having seen the Borges interview on TV “here we have, on one side, the best and brightest of Venezuela’s elitist, sophisticated class, 12 years after, completely unknown outside the country’s borders; on the other a bad mannered, poorly educated, failed coupster who has achieved, pretty much on his own, worldwide recognition in the same timeframe…”
One of the most accurate remarks I have ever read, was said in fact by Chavez, who once claimed “what people fail to understand is that Hugo Chavez is not Hugo Chavez, rather Chavez is the people of Venezuela.” And right he is as far as his apolitical persona is concerned. Should one consider an individual belonging to the most numerous social strata of a country as being the typical representation of the said country’s idiosyncratic frame, then Chavez is indeed true and loyal representative of Venezuelans. Borges and his ilk do not represent accurately the reality that conforms the country’s societal fabric.
Borges, as well as Roberto Smith and others, will never be able to bond with Venezuelans, at the emotional level Chavez does, simply because they do not understand, nor, it seems, they are willing to learn, that Chavez’s connection to the people can not be robbed by appearing and ranting in TV shows; or by arguing that Chavez’s social policies are unsustainable; or by trying to define, in strict academic terms, whether the President is fascist or communist or socialist.
And this is where I take issue with fellow blogger Francisco Toro; by all measures a fine exponent of the Borges class. In a previous debate with Gustavo Coronel, Francisco argued that in order to win an election the opposition must woo that unassailable political class known as ninis. He keeps repeating that, given the high percentage of Venezuelans that form that group (53% according to some polls), the opposition leadership has to change the message and tactics and adapt to a new and unknown reality of generalised disgust towards them.
Francisco sympathies have swung from parasite undefined Elias Santana to leftist and repented guerrilla T. Petkoff to also former lefty cum communications impresario Roberto Smith. The attempt by the latter to break away from traditional way of doing politics has been, in Francisco’s view, a masterstroke. Smith’s “unifying and positive message” has been acclaimed by Francisco very often and the former’s decision to walk a 1000Kms –from Merida to La Guaira (in Vargas state were he ran for governor) is a shrewd way to convince people, according to Francisco, that he does care and is trying his hardest to bond with ordinary Venezuelans.
La Guaira was nearly destroyed during the mudslides of 1999. Chavez, always the promisor, toured the affected areas some time after the disaster assuring displaced people that he would reconstruct the whole thing and would turn it into a tourism mecca. Alas as often happens with promises from charlatans that have no qualms in betraying the hopes of ‘his people’, six years later reconstruction has not even begun. Smith, whose motto is “Venezuela de Primera”, considers more fitting to take his babble to a thousand kilometre walk rather than focusing that energy in clearing creeks in barrios, for instance. Instead of forming small community groups and jointly carry out such simple tasks, in the constituency he was trying to appeal, he goes on tour eyeing the ever priced trophy, i.e. Venezuela’s presidency.
Nothing wrong with that according to Francisco, who keeps writing feverishly about Smith, the wunderkind.
Ergo going back to the original question of whether he is bizarrely out of touch, I would cite a Venezuelan saying to describe his reading of the political situation “meando afuera del perol sin siquiera salpicar p’adentro”.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Is Francisco Toro bizarrely out of touch?
Second Venezuela Opinion Duel: Alek Boyd vs. Francisco Toro
The rules:
On the proposition that Francisco Toro's writing is bizarrely out of touch these days.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Gustavo Coronel: Running in parallel tracks
First Venezuela Opinion Duel: Francisco Toro vs. Gustavo Coronel
The rules:
At issue: Seven years into the Chavez era, half of the Venezuelan electorate remains politically non-alligned - the so-called NiNis. Why? And how does this phenomenon influence the outcome of political life in the country?
Day four: Gustavo Coronel replies to Francisco Toro's counterrebuttal :
Francisco’s second post flirts with the bizarre, starting with the convoluted example he gives in his opening paragraphs and following with some of the assumptions he makes about my position on this issue. There is no need for highly theoretical thought experiments, as he proposes, to understand the problem Venezuela has with Ni-Nis.
I say this because Venezuelans have faced similar situations in real life, and yet have taken a position. According to Francisco, if you have a mixture of good, less good and bad citizens in a group of leaders, this group has to be fully rejected. If this was true no one should have ever voted for AD or COPEI or the Communist Party because these parties always had good, less good and bad leaders. When Betancourt was president he was accompanied by excellent citizens and surely by many crooks and the same can be said of Caldera, Leoni and Herrera. But Betancourt was an accepted leader and his performance in power was clearly positive for the nation. As leadership became more mediocre and corrupt (Perez, Herrera, Lusinchi, Caldera II) and characterized the Venezuela of 1980 to 1998, Venezuelans did not all become political and social autist but started to look for alternatives. I was one of those looking and never thought that I should become a Ni-Ni, retreating in disgust from political and social activism. I kept calling for a radical change in the manner of conducting the affairs of the nation but never retreated into a Ni-Ni attitude, to wait for all the “bad” ones to die or to be sent to another planet. I took side with one of the most promising messengers of change. In those years of the late 1990’s the promises of radical change were represented by Salas Romer and by Chavez, one through his past performance in Carabobo, where he had shown what could be done with creativity and good management, the other with a strong rhetoric against the past. At the end Salas was given the kiss of death by AD and COPEI and lost because he also became identified with the undesirable past. A very high level of abstention, no doubt led by the Ni-Nis, put Chavez in power. Now, after seven years of disasters, Ni-Nis refrain from an all out protest against the ruinous and undemocratic regime and therefore contribute to keeping him in power. Any political group will always have its Tascones and its Brewer Carias. What has to be done is to choose the group with the most of good specimens and the least of bad specimens and progressively weed out the bad specimens. If we wait for a chemically pure group of leaders to follow, we are in for a very long wait.
Francisco says: “What you don’t seem to realize is that Ni-Nis, as a rule, dislike the old regime with the same virulent disgust you reject chavismo”. Of course I realize it, for a very simple reason: I do too! This does not prevent me from acting against a real, tangible disaster called Hugo Chavez for fear of falling into the same old hands.
Since you like “thought experiments”, consider this one: Tell patients with arthritis to stop taking Celebrex or Vioxx because they might suffer a heart attack. They will tell you that they prefer to take the risk of a heart attack and free themselves from the agonies of constant pain, especially if there are ways, as there are, to minimize the risks of heart problems.
You say: “Where I really disagree with you, Gustavo is in your harsh assessment of the Ni-Nis”. To this I say: we can only judge others on the basis of our own experience. It is not a matter of trying to be “holier than thou” but a simpler matter of asking our fellow citizens to exercise not only their civic rights but also their civic duties. By telling Ni-Nis that, with their attitude they are helping to cement a tragic political and social regime in Venezuela, I am simply stating my sincere belief. Probably the tactics are wrong.
I close with an anecdote that might illustrate my point. Many years ago, in the Club of our oil company, a member dropped his pants while dancing. As a member of the board I proposed to expel him. The majority of the board decided to name him member of the Committee on Discipline, “to motivate him”. They gave him honey and not vinegar!
