Soon
after Hugo Chavez went to prison in February 1992 for his failed military
uprising, it was carnival time in Venezuela and hundreds of largely young boys
dressed up in military fatigues with a red beret as Chavitos (little Chavez) or
Chavecitos (the latter usually refers to a balancing Chavez doll), an army of
Chavez look-alikes. In one commando operation Chavez had inserted himself in
the Venezuelan popular imagination.
 |
| A Chavito |
 |
| Chavecitos | |
He
mentions this in one of his prison letters: “Those were the days of being born.
Those were the days… that children were dressed up. I remember very clearly we
were at the San Carlos barracks; it was the carnival and there we could watch
television and there was a journalist speaking with a child. It is not easy
speaking to children, but they were on the streets and the child with his
mother, the child dressed as Chavecito or Chavito. Then the journalist arrives
and comes up to the child, you know how the journalists are like, and then
tells him:
‘And
you, what’s your name and what are you dressed up as?’
“The
child with a beret tells the journalist:
‘Are you
an idiot? Don’t you see that I am Chavez?’
“And
then the journalist tells him:
‘Sure, I
know that you are in disguise. But who is Chavez?’
“The
child gives a beautiful reply:
‘Chavez
is there among the trees. He walks there and I’ll go with him.’
“Those
were the days. You know that Chavez is something more than Chavez… I’m merely a
human being of flesh and bones, no more than anyone of us. In truth, this is
what we are as individuals: dragged, pushed and impelled by the revolutionary
hurricane.”
Twenty
years later, the Chavitos are effectively in power, not the carnival children,
but a new generation of young leaders standing in for their leader absent from
Venezuela. And they have a project: creating a brotherhood of Chavez. This is
not a deduction; it has been publicly announced by Chavez’s principal heir and
chosen apostle, Nicolas Maduro, the current Vice-President.
The Brothers
 |
| Nicolas Maduro |
 |
| Diosdado Cabello |
 |
| Elias Jaua |
There
are two other men who stand alongside Maduro as the principal executors of
Chavez’s political will, activated even though he is alive. Diosdado Cabello,
speaker of the National Assembly, former soldier-mutineer and a natural expert
in psychological warfare, and Elias Jaua, brand-new Foreign Minister and
beloved of the Chavista base who also appeals to the young. There are no women
in the first rank but four of the twenty Chavista state governors are women.
The governors, two of them the last chiefs-of-staff and nine others former
soldiers, were handpicked by Chavez to develop local bases and deny the
Opposition any hinterland. They are the second rung of the leadership pool and
committed to building the brotherhood. There are a few other second-rank
leaders in the PSUV (the United Socialist Party of Venezuela), the national
government and in the armed forces who are part of this talent pool.
 |
| 'I am Chavez' |
Chavez
postponed an emergency surgery and returned to Caracas from Havana for a day on
December 8 last year and asked Venezuelans to accept Maduro as his successor if
he did not survive. He met his military high command with the sword of Bolivar
in hand, reiterated his choice of Maduro and in a symbolic moment handed the sword
to Maduro. That was the precise moment in which power was transferred, even if
temporarily, in Venezuela to the next generation. A few days later Maduro
almost broke down at a public event, fearing that Chavez was dying of
post-operation complications, and first spoke of creating the brotherhood of
Chavez, swearing an oath of loyalty “to always accompany Chavez, if necessary,
even beyond this life”. On January 10, the day Chavez was to have taken oath in
parliament but could not make it, hundreds of thousands of Chavistas arrived at
the Balcony of the People at the Miraflores presidential palace, constitution
in hand and declared, ‘We are all Chavez’. The brotherhood of Chavez was
consecrated that day.
The
brotherhood is structured on a very personal and, simultaneously, very
ideological foundation. Loyalty to Chavez, unquestioning and permanent, will
bind the brothers of the same ‘political father’. The President, Maduro said,
had changed their lives, made them “better human beings” and turned them from
idealistic young men and women to Socialists capable of handling power and
using it to construct Socialism. But Chavez is what the assassinated Colombian
leader, Jorge Gaitan, was: not just a person but also a people. The brotherhood
of Chavez has at least three clear influences: the anti-imperialism of Simon
Bolivar, Christianity and Marxism. Venezuela is dreaming the Bolivarian,
Christian and Marxist dream that seeks to create a fiercely independent nation
living on the principles of social justice based on a radical interpretation of
Christianity (Christ was the first Socialist, as Chavez has so often said) and
recognising that class struggle must lead them to social ownership of the means
of production and a just distribution of riches based on the Marxist notion of
from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Borrowing a
line from the iconic Venezuelan singer, Ali Primera, the brotherhood of Chavez
seeks to “make humanity more human”.
If
Chavez returns and lives awhile, the project will recede, only to germinate
again when he passes away. Perhaps he will have better luck with his succession
that either Lenin or Mao; perhaps it was not mere luck or chance that this has
happened; perhaps he prepared for it right from the start of his illness;
perhaps he will have more time to cement his legacy.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment