The idealistic left
By J. | Reason Over Might
22.12.04 | Here is something that provokes puzzlement in many Venezuelans, and
that also troubles me: what is it with the love affair between French
intellectuals and nominally socialist Latin American autocrats like
Chávez? There seems to be a certain kind of blindness, a willingness to
let oneself be led astray by romantically tinged images of
revolutionary heroes struggling manfully against the hegemonial
Übermacht of the big Satan, the USA.
I
do not want to detract from the flaws of the U.S., of which there are
many: in the past, its support for Latin American dictators (provided
they were not socialist or communist, like Castro) such as Pinochet;
its militaristic jingoism; its recent unilateralism, not only in terms
of leading war, but also in environmental and social issues; during the
past few years, its troubling disregard for norms of international
discourse such as the Geneva Convention (Guantánamo) and the principles
derived from the Peace Treaty of Westphalia (pre-emptive declarations
of war); and its overall double standards and hypocrisy regarding
"interventions" in other countries.
However, that is a different
discussion, and one that is, of course, missing the entire proverbial
other side of the story, namely all the positive contributions the
country has made to the global community. Let us leave the USA out of
the analysis for the moment and focus on some of the regimes that the
international Left is so fond of defending: Castro's Cuba and Chávez's
Venezuela.
Cuba is a de facto dictatorship. Fidel Castro has
been in power for over four decades, and there appears to be no
possibility of any change in leadership before Castro's death. Any
dissidence is prohibited. There is no freedom of expression. The courts
of law are not independent, nor is the legislative. Opposition members
are jailed for long periods of time. Private enterprise is suppressed.
Social advancement without membership in the party is well-nigh
impossible. The secret police monitors the population with the help of
informants. Citizens are prohibited from leaving the island except
under extremely restrictive terms. Children are wards of the state, not
of their parents. Political indoctrination is pervasive, and starts in
kindergarten.
Has the lack of personal freedoms been
compensated, for instance through economic advancement? No. Cuba's
economic situation is catastrophic. The population is forced to
scrounge for even the most basic articles of clothing and hygiene.
Women (and men) have to prostitute themselves to get by. And blaming
the USA and its trade embargo of Cuba is overly simplistic. The roots
of the misery lie in Castro's economic policy of state planning, the
suppression of entrepreneurship, and the loss of economic support from
the once-powerful Soviet Union, which used the island as an outpost
usefully close to its arch-enemy, the USA.
Apologists for
Castro's authoritarianism would be likely to mention the Cuban health
system at this point. This is akin to mentioning Hitler's Autobahns to
place him in a more favourable economic perspective. Providing free
medical care of questionable quality to a population with no other
recourse cannot justify oppressing people. Cubans are voting with their
feet against this deal, by trying to leave the island by any means
possible and at great risk to their lives.
These are obviously
not the actions of happy citizens. Free medical care is clearly not
enough. Castro has caused untold suffering and pain to two generations.
He has brought equality at the lowest possible level to "his" citizens.
So why do otherwise bright individuals such as left-leaning
intellectuals persist in defending Castro? Is this the same mindset
that made prominent intellectuals defend Stalin's Russia in the 1930s
and Pol Pot's Cambodia in the 1970s?
In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez
is obviously not yet in the same league as Castro; but that is exactly
what he is aiming for. His actions and his words match: the model he is
working towards is Cuban. One of his campaign slogans during the first
elections, posted on billboards around Caracas, was "Navegando hacia la
mar de la felicidad Cubana" (sailing towards the sea of Cuban
happiness). He meets often with the Cuban leader, who seems to have
adopted him as his protegé. Chávez won his election on the promises of
more equality, less corruption, and more democracy in Venezuela. What
has become of these promises?
Corruption is worse than ever, so
much so that Chávez himself mentioned the need to fight it after
supposedly winning the referendum in August. What will become of this
objective? I predict it will fizzle like a wet fuse. More democracy? It
certainly doesn't seem that way. Anybody who followed the runup to the
referendum could see how democracy was being manipulated to ensure the
Colonel's re-election. The referendum was as crooked as the recent
elections in Ukraine, and for many of the same reasons. A
"participative democracy" -- a favourite term of Chávez's -- seems to
be a democracy in which only those participate who support him. It's a
bit like Henry Ford's choices for the Model T: you can have it in any
colour you like, as long as it's black. What choice? This pattern is
also repeated in Chávez's attitude towards coups d'état: his own putsch
in 1992 was good (he celebrates it every year), and all others are bad
(he leaves out no opportunity to indiscriminately brand all those
opposing him "golpistas").
Economically, Venezuela has had the
good fortune during the past few years of an increase in world oil
prices. The high prices have meant a cash bonanza for the country, with
a total income of about 200 billion dollars -- a staggering amount of
money. It is absolutely astounding to see the effect of this windfall
on the Venezuelan economy: it is zero, zilch, nothing. Economic
activity is lower than it has been in 15 years. A large chunk of the
middle class is now poor, and the poor classes are worse off than ever
before. The economy has actually shrunk during several years of
Chávez's government. The existing infrastructure is decaying, and there
are few signs of any new projects. Consumer demand is low. There is
little economic investment (except for the oil industry, where the
investing is being done by foreign firms), and still the state is
increasing its levels of debt.
A part of the money is being used
to fund social projects such as low-price markets and pharmacies as
well as basic medical and educational measures. However, these measures
are stopgap: they only address short-term symptoms, and not very well
either (their success is not being measured, so there is no way of
knowing whether the resources could have been put to better use). There
is no investment in building a productive base for Venezuela that can
substitute oil income once prices fall. What the Bolivarian government
is creating is a populace dependent on state largesse -- and with it,
the conditions for pain and suffering when the largesse is reduced, as
it will have to be. What is happening here is not redistribution, but
the use of state resources to increase the state's control of the
population.
Other parts of the government budget go into buying
50 figher jets from Russia, into buying a license for manufacturing
Kalashnikov assault rifles in Venezuela, into financing an average
presidential spending rate of $60,000 a day (in a country were the yearly minimum wage is about $3,000), into
paying for lobbying groups in the USA and propaganda in international
media, and into supporting leftist movements in Latin America (oil for
Castro, dollars for Morales, support for the FARC). And a large part of
the money simply disappears into private hands. For instance, between 2
and 4 billion dollars went missing from the state's fund for
macroeconomic stabilisation, and nobody knows where they are.
This
is not the kind of state that deserves support from intellectuals. A
different world is possible, but it should certainly be as different as
possible from Castro's and Chávez's egomanical conceptions.
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