Hugo Chavez: How couldn’t he refrain
from smashing Venezuela?
by Karen Cancinos *
Why are you so surprised at the sight or the knowing of an elephant eating some more peanuts? I certainly don’t intend to offend elephants, but Hugo Chávez’ unmistakable red shirt and his always-out-of-hate speech, are now as familiar to me as the friendly elephant at the Guatemala City Zoo I loved to go visit when I was a child, mostly for its perennial eating of peanuts.
Poor Venezuelans: it was a very bad hour when Chávez got the Presidential seat, and I say this for those who revile him as well as for those who acclaim such a madman. The first will probably have, in a near future, to look for a life out of their country: usually it is a sad experience that of the exiled. The second will have to endure —although they don’t know it yet— the consequences of their current enthusiastic cheering of a so-and-so who promises them all of it and heaven too.
I wonder, and I worry, at how easy it can become to let someone get his own way. Let me try to make myself clear. Most people tend to place public space, that is, politics, in others’ hands. “It is politicians’ business”, they’ll say “everything related to education, health, economy, public policies…” (You name it). “I mind my own business”, they’ll continue as if saying mantras “and that is my house, my car, my job, my entertainment…” Meanwhile, people like Chávez take advantage of the laziness and, yes, cowardice, of their fellow countrymen. That way they pile up more and more power for themselves.
I am no way suggesting a contemporary sort of a direct democracy nor insinuating that most people should take part in political parties and dynamics. Actually I think that politics shouldn’t have the preeminence it is characterized by today, especially in Latin America. What I’m pointing at is the eagerness we Latin people show toward conferring others power over our lives. Take for instance all those women who squeal asking governments for contraceptives, schools for their children, food stamps, or shelters to refuge in when battered by the abusive husbands they gladly chose for themselves (for when it comes to exercising rights nobody claims the intervention of any government).
And that’s only an example. Imagine how it feels for someone with a vocation to dictatorship, to gaze at a crowd asking for a million things. It is just a matter of putting together a populist speech and a disposition to violate any sense of decency or respect for legitimate norms. They way from that point to the presidency: piece of cake. That path is exactly the one that Chávez walked.
How couldn’t any dictator become one if he observes that people are not precisely eager to carry on their own lives and desperately want to be told that someone out of themselves will solve all of their problems? How couldn’t he if it is evident that parents are unwilling to go through what it takes to raise a functional family, that is, getting and staying married, and having children only when they can face up to that great responsibility, and are, on the contrary, looking for a “big brother” to support their families and themselves? How couldn’t he when youth are being bombed by messages that tell them they deserve it all and that values, such as making with effort a place for oneself in the world, suck?
How couldn’t he? No way, just as my dear elephant at Guatemala City Zoo couldn’t refrain from serving herself with another big bunch of peanuts… if let.
* Karen Cancinos is a political scientist from Guatemala. She works in academia and publishing in the areas of political philosophy and political journalism. E-mail her: karencancinos@yahoo.com
(C) Hispanic American Center for Economic Research
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