CONSIDER THESE considers: CHAVEZ.
They called him defiant and a
populist.
He had enough petrodollars available
to practice oil diplomacy abroad seeking independence for Venezuela and other
Latin America countries and he helped launch Banco del Sur, a development bank
funded and run by Latin American countries as an affordable, a source of aid alternative
to the unpopular measures required by the IMF and the World Bank to become
fully operational by April 2013 (1)
He was called defiant.
He had enough petrodollars to fund health-care for millions
of slum dwellers, education for the thousands of illiterate people of the rural
and urban population and job training programs in his oil-wealthy country where
61% of the people survived on a few dollars a day, many without running water. His
“missions” acted as a parallel government and were controlled by him. They
provided hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans with monthly stipends to learn
everything from reading and writing where to setting up cooperative farms. (He
also started a program to sell cheaper heating oil to low-income households in Boston, Mas. USA in 2005 – yes, as in Boston,
Mas, USA
(2)
He was called a populist.
He borrowed the term ‘endogenization” from economics: a
process from within the economy with products from within for the people within
and applied it in his own version as opposed to changes brought by
globalization that was for the investors, not by globalization for the people.
And he discouraged consumerism of foreign products in favor of local food (3) -
in a very difficult effort to beat the powerful hegemonies in the market.
Were the programs costly? Yes. Were millions of people given
an opportunity to live better for the first time? Yes. Did he manage to capture
the trust not only of the poor but of the middle class as well? Yes again. The
last election percentages were 55% for Chavez, 48% for the opposition.
It would require a more extended article to refer to the
evaluations of the economic ups and downs of applied “Chavism” and the degree
of democracy Chavez governed at. But democracy versions are way more than one
as are the versions of political culture and socio-economic circumstances.
Because he didn’t stay in – and return to - power by
accident, Chavez’s legacy will indeed be there even if his opponent Capriles who
favors Brazil’s
centrist mix of free-market economics with strong welfare policies were to become
his heir instead of Maduro, named successor by him.
In the meantime – and even beyond- the question however could
be: when is the populist a patriot, when is independence a synonym for
defiance?
You may not like the “Chavez” doctrine or you may simply
hate it for very good reasons – yet Greeks used to say: “Αλλ’απ’εχθρόν δητα πολλά μανθάνουσιν οι σοφοί» (Aristophanes)
“The wise learn many things from their enemies”.
Now that could be a helpful statement.
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/oct/12/venezuela.banking
- http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a3i7Jw3mxo8c
- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110384192022808595,00.html
- Elena Spilioti
