Reason over might

2005-06-09T21:25:00.000+02:00

Locked up, Bitburg, 2005.

Cuba's decline: By the numbers

2005-06-09T20:46:00.000+02:00

The disastrous "progress" that Cuba has experienced over the past 40-50 years, during its "pretty revolution", can be quantified. The following figures are attributed to UN, FAO, and UNESCO sources and tell it all. A catastrophic decline in living standards, productivity, healthcare, and income -- all attributable directly to the Great Leader, F. Castro himself, beloved icon of the dreaming revolutionary left (see table below).

Interestingly, there has been no tradeoff for Cubans: they have not received better living conditions in exchange for less freedom or greater freedom in exchange for worse living conditions. Instead, they have received the worst of both worlds. They suffer their ignominious, imposed poverty in conditions of oppression, in a police state that negates civil liberties, where freedom of expression and political activity are remote dreams, where an arbitrary legal system means that anything you do or say can be held against you at the whim of the dictator and his minions.

A rather obvious question following from the information is: How daft would you have to be to emulate such an economic/political model? Very daft indeed, I should say. It is simply incomprehensible to me that a leader could choose the worst role model instead of the best as an example for his country to follow. Unless, of course, that leader does not have the best interests of his fellow citizens at heart at all, but rather follows personal goals of his own, such as power, money, and recognition from revolutionary has-beens in Cuba and some European circles. I am still not decided on whether Venezuela's Chávez is malevolent or merely deluded, or perhaps a dangerous mixture of both. But about one thing there can be no doubt: He is putting Venezuela on a seriously wrong track and needs to be stopped.

Here are the figures that describe Cuba's decline:

Population in million inhabitants
1959: 6
2004: 12

Per capita income, $ per year
1959: 1200
2004: 70

Telephones per 100 inhabitants
1959: 15
2004: 3,5

Electricity consumption per capita, watts
1959: 450
2004: 75

Consumption of calories, calories per inhabitant and day
1959: 2800
2004: 1100

Meat consumption, pounds per inhabitant and year
1959: 76
2004: 12

Consumption of eggs, units per inhabitant and year
1959: 47
2004: 13

Consumption of chickens, pounds per inhabitant and year
1959: 12
2004: 5

Number of cars per 1000 inhabitants
1959: 38
2004: 10

1 city bus per ... inhabitants
1959: 300
2004: 25000

1 intercity bus per ... inhabitants
1959: 2000
2004: 35000

Number of televisions per 1000 inhabitants
1959: 66
2004: 15

Number of TV stations
1959: 7 (2 in colour)
2004: 2

1 medical doctor per ... inhabitants
1959: 950
2004: 750

1 dentist per ... inhabitants
1959: 2100
2004: 1850

Head of cattle, million
1959: 6
2004: 1,8

Rate of inflation, percent per year
1959: 1,8
2004: 25

Number of newspapers
1959: 18
2004: 2 (no dailies)

Number of tourists per year
1959: 750.000
2004: 1.200.000

Sugar harvest, million tons
1959: 7
2004: 1,8

2005-05-26T01:31:00.000+02:00

Sunset, Germany, May 2005.

When will the EU wake up?

2005-05-26T00:16:00.000+02:00

As is his wont, Castro did not play nice with EU parliamentarians who wanted to see grassroots democracy in action in Cuba. Several delegates were expelled from the ageing dictator's property. Surprisingly, the EU appeared not to have expected this to happen and is acting unhappy. I wonder for how long their ire will last?

By the by: what is even more interesting is that the Cuban's dissidents were able to hold their meeting at all. According to Castro's behaviour patterns in the past, this means that another crackdown is forthcoming. Stay tuned.

Below: Two reports by the Spiegel, taken from here and here, and translated.

Expelled parliamentarian attacks EU

CDU member of parliament Arnold Vaatz has criticised the policies of the European Union towards Cuba after being expelled from the island nation. The EU has made itself an "accomplice" of Castro's regime, he said.

The Cuban government was now exploiting the manoeuvring space that politicians such as Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and others had opened up by lifting diplomatic sanctions, Vaatz told the "Leipziger Volkszeitung". "In this way, the EU has made itself an accomplice of the regime", the CDU politician said.

Vaatz, deputy chairman of the CDU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, wanted to meet with representatives of the Cuban opposition. He was evicted from the country in Havana on Thursday, brought to the airport and put on a plane to Madrid. The [German] federal government subsequently cited the Cuban ambassador in Berlin for talks at the foreign ministry.

Vaatz said he wanted to break the contact ban with Cuban dissidents. "And that was accomplished", he emphasised. In the "Sächsische Zeitung", which is published in Dresden, he called on the EU to start inviting Cuban dissidents to events at the European embassies in Havana again.

Vaatz said he was reminded of the German Democratic Republic [former communist East Germany] while in Cuba. He was prevented from making telephone calls and was unable to make contact with the German embassy. Afterwards, he was held for five hours with the Czech delegate Karel Schwarzenberg in a small bus in an underground parking lot and then put on a plane to Madrid.

Vaatz commented that there was a wide-spread "Cuba romanticism" in Europe. This was part of a virtual Cuba that the government of that country was trying to present to the global public. "What's really terrible about this is that parts of the European public are willing to fall for this virtual Cuba. Just like they were prepared to fall for the virtual socialism in the GDR", Vaatz told the "Sächsische Zeitung".

EU condemns expelling of German parliamentarian
By Carsten Volkery

Today, the biggest congress of the Cuban opposition ever held began in Havana. CDU member of parliament Arnold Vaatz wanted to participate, but was expelled -- just like several other politicians. The head of the EU's representation in Havana told SPIEGEL ONLINE that the éclat would have diplomatic consequences.

Vaatz and a Czech senator, Prince Karel Schwarzenberg, were invited for dinner yesterday at the Czech residence in Havana. But the diplomats who were attending the event waited in vain. "We had no idea where they were", Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, head of the EU representation in Havana, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Calls of the diplomats to the Cuban government were in vain. Only investigations made with the airlines Iberia and Air France brought certainty: Vaatz and Schwarzenberg had been expelled. The Cuban police had fetched them at their hotels and brought them straight to the airport.

"At 5:45 p.m., a policeman in uniform and a plainclothes policeman entered my hotel room together with a hotel employee who translated from Spanish into English. The policemen told me that it was a passport control", Vaatz told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa). His passport and his airline ticket were taken from him. His requests to speak to the German ambassador received no response. Instead, he was driven to the airport and put on the plane to Madrid.

Expelled "in terms of Cuban law"

The crime of the two politicians: they were on the island with tourist visas and wanted to visit a congress of civil rights activists that began today. The meeting, which 500 participants were expected to attend, was the first large meeting of the Cuban opposition. It was being held in the garden of a civil rights activist where additional toilets had already been put up. Such meetings are illegal, as is taking part in them.

"Vaatz and Schwarzenberg were expelled in terms of the Cuban legal reality", Kühn von Burgsdorff explained. Four years ago, a Czech delegate was even imprisoned for three months after he had travelled to Cuba on a tourist visa and met with independent journalists.

Nonetheless, the eviction was of course "not legitimate", said Kühn von Burgsdorff. "This will definitely not make the dialogue with the EU any easier." A speaker of the EU Commission in Brussels called the eviction unacceptable. The EU will revise its policy towards Cuba in June. New sanctions against the island are a possibility.

There had recently been a rapprochement between the EU and Cuba at the initiative of Spain after the so-called "Cocktail Wars" had been resolved: several EU states, among them Germany, declined to invite dissidents to the New Year's reception at their embassies in the future. Cuba subsequently announced it was resuming diplomatic relationships, which had previously been put on ice.

"Typical behaviour of a totalitarian state"

Just before his plane departed, Schwarzenberg was able to tell an AP reporter via cellphone that "This is the typical behaviour of a totalitarian state". Vaatz, former GDR civil rights activist, spoke of a "violation of international law". He had been in Cuba since Whitmonday and had already met several dissidents, in my capacity as a "private individual", as Vaatz emphasised.

German foreign minister Joschka Fischer condemned the eviction. It was a "legitimate concern" of a German domestic politician to speak to the entire political spectrum in Cuba. This had been conveyed to the Cuban ambassador, who was cited to the Foreign Ministry.

The congress, which is taking place in a suburb of Havana, is being organised by the Cuban civil rights activists Martha Beatríz Roque, René Gómez, and Félix Bonne. Roque was one of 75 dissidents who were arrested in 2003. This occurrence had led to the freezing of relationships between Cuba and the EU. Roque was released on bail. If arrested again, she faces 20 years in prison.

Castro keeps Havel and Gorbachev at arm's length

From the start, Castro's government had prevented foreign observers from travelling to the event. According to the EU representation in Havana, it denied 43 French delegates the corresponding visas. Similarly, the Cuban government declined issuing visas to two dozen EU members of parliament. The most prominent visa denials went to former Czech civil rights activist and president Vaclav Havel and the former Soviet state president Michail Gorbachev. On Tuesday, two Polish delegates had already been expelled.

The CDU/CSU parliamentary group's spokesperson on foreign affairs, Friedbert Pflüger, sharply condemned the eviction of the policitians and demanded a more critical attitude of the [German] federal government concerning the Castro regime. "Once again, it has been shown that silence and trying to curry favour do not work", Pflüger told the "Welt" newspaper.

The SPD parliamentary group's spokesperson on Latin America, Lothar Mark, deplored the incident "fundamentally" in speaking to SPIEGEL ONLINE, but did not want to state a position as long as the report of the German ambassador in Havan was not available.

Attachés from several European embassies will participate in the congress. The EU representation is also represented with two observers.

The meeting is splitting the Cuban dissident scene. Although it will probably be the largest opposition meeting ever to be held under Castro, several of the most famous names will be staying away, among them Oswaldo Paya, speaker of the "Christian Liberation Movement". The event was a "huge fraud" because it was being supported by radical Cuban exiles from Florida and would therefore damage the reputation of the Cuban protest movement, Paya wrote in a press release.

Paya and Roque have been linked through personal dislike for a long time. Roque had sabotaged Paya's two big civil rights initiatives, the Varela Project and the National Dialogue.

Benedict XVI and Venezuela

2005-04-22T23:21:00.001+02:00

As a boy and teenager, Josef Ratzinger experienced National Socialism in Germany at first hand. Though he participated, albeit unwillingly, in the movement's youth organization, few people nowadays (with the apparent exception of some UK tabloids) would argue that he would defend Nazism or similar fascist ideologies. Quite the contrary, in fact: Venezuelan journalist Nelson Bocaranda describes the following events that seem to indicate that the new pope, like his predecessor, clearly sees totalitarian ideologies for what they are.

THE VATICAN: Five days before the conclave and the secret vote. Various cardinals and bishops were conversing in the Santa Marta residence. A German cardinal -- there were six from this country -- dropped a tough statement into the conversation to emphasise a point that was being discussed: "fascism, nazism, communism, chavism... all of this comes from the same source and uses the same tactics". He surprised everyone with his inclusion of the Venezuelan political movement, and two of the participants asked what it was. He explained it to them. Today this cardinal is more important than he was at that time...

It is good to know that the new pope is aware of what is going on in Venezuela. I hope to see him take a stand against the Miraflores petrocrat; while that wouldn't convince Chávez to do the honorable thing and resign, it would mean that an important and authoritative voice would be added to the ever-increasing international chorus clamouring for change in Venezuela. For Venezuelans, it might help give them the courage to confront their inept and malevolent government and replace it by something better.

2005-04-22T23:21:00.000+02:00

Saviour at Tibidabo, Barcelona, April 2005.

Stability vs. change: Benedict XVI's task

2005-04-20T22:44:00.000+02:00

On Tuesday, 115 old men elected one from their midst to be the leader of the world's biggest religion. The new pope will lead an amazing organisation: it is not only the world's largest, with over a billion members worldwide, but also its oldest, with an uninterrupted history dating back almost 2,000 years. Growing to such a large size and surviving for such a long time are remarkable feats. How was they accomplished?

In essence, what the catholic church has managed to do is strike the right balance between flexibility and rigidity. It has adapted -- not always smoothly, of course -- to changing environmental pressures while maintaining an ideological and cultural core that has changed only very slightly over the millenia. Benedict XVI's task will be to continue maintaining the balance as best he can.

What are the main goals of the catholic church as an organisation? Contrary to what some critics may believe, maximising profits is not one of them. Instead, the church aims to maximise its membership without essentially diluting or changing its core values. In some areas of the world -- notably Europe, and to a lesser degree the USA -- there's a conflict between the two main goals. If the church refuses to modify its position on issues such as lay participation, women's rights, and sexual self-determination, it will unavoidably lose even more members. If it adapts in response to demands from members in the first world countries, it runs the risk of losing authority and identity -- which could lead to a further loss of membership.

Cardinal Ratzinger's position in this goal conflict has always been clear: he prefers a smaller, purer church to a more inclusive, but diluted one. Though I do not agree with many of the church's positions, I believe this to be a strategically sound decision. The church's greatest asset is its authority (and not its real estate, art collection, antiquities, company investments or stocks of precious metals and gemstones). This is the one asset which it must protect above all others -- even at the risk of alienating some members. And the way to protect its position of authority is to change very little, if at all; and never overtly in response to outside pressures, but only in accordance with its history and the evolving consensus of its leaders.

2005-03-31T01:09:00.000+02:00

Wondering, Germany, February 2005.

Mediocrity as government policy

2005-03-30T23:49:00.000+02:00

Miguel posted an article today on yesterday's appearance by Venezuela's two Ministers of Education (yes, they have two: one for normal and one for higher education) before the Venezuelan legislature, where they defended their proposals for reforms of the education system. The proposals have garnered sharp criticism from many sectors of Venezuelan society. One of the ministers (A. Istúriz) elaborated on a pet peeve: apparently, he believes that Venezuela has produced too many "meritocrats" in the past.

Obviously, this situation cannot be permitted to continue, so he's proposing to modify the educational system so as to stop producing them. He allegedly considers "meritocrats" to be "stateless", i.e. insufficiently loyal to Chávez's ravenous revolution; what Venezuela's government apparently needs are larger numbers of patriotic, mediocre yes-men (and yes-women, of course) who won't cause any trouble through oligarchic activities such as thinking for themselves and demanding accountability from their leaders, for instance.

Permit me some idle speculation: I presume that when Minister Istúriz submits to surgery, he chooses a meritocratic surgeon who knows what he's doing rather than a Nick Riviera without qualifications. I assume that when his car needs fixing, he seeks the help of a mechanic who has proved his mettle rather than a mediocre junkyard meddler. I assume that when he needs someone to upgrade his computer, he chooses an experienced and reliable technician rather than an unskilled party member from the boondocks.

So if he -- as I assume, though of course I have no direct proof -- chooses quality over mediocrity for issues affecting his own life, then why would he be promoting mediocrity over quality for issues affecting his country?

[ROTFL of the week: Venezuela's Attorney General, Isaias Rodriguez, has declared that the country's recent buying spree for figher aircraft, assault rifles, warships, and attack helicopters is a "message of peace". I wonder what they would have bought if they were preparing for war?]

2005-03-28T19:43:00.000+02:00

Autumn ivy, Germany, 2004.

Measurement as a tool

2005-03-28T19:02:00.000+02:00

An article on Unionradio's website caught my eye today. Though it was nothing exceptional in itself -- simply the edited opinions of a university professor specialising in public policy who believes that the Venezuelan government's social missions are inefficient -- it struck a chord.

A few years ago, a U.S. professor held a lecture at my university. He used one phrase that has stuck in my memory ever since: "If you can measure it, you can improve it." This, too, sounds like nothing special, but describes an amazingly powerful tool in almost all areas of social interaction. In the area of public administration, institutions that measure their own performance soon start improving it. It appears to be almost inevitable. As soon as individuals can see how they're doing, they try to do better (unless there are more powerful counter-incentives, of course).

Obviously, this does not just work in companies or public organizations. It also works on the level of governments. That is what makes the democratic system so successful when it is allowed to work properly: elections can be seen as a measurement instrument that gauges an government's performance in terms of how satisfied voters are. The better a government performs and the more citizens are satisfied as a consequence, the more votes it receives -- and the greater is the likelihood that it will be allowed to continue governing.

This is why tampering with the election mechanism, as was blatantly done before last year's recall referendum in Venezuela, is more than simply a disenfranchisement of voters (or, at the very least, a dilution of their votes): it is practically a guarantee for inefficiency in government. A government that is not accountable to its voters, that is as intransparent as black ink in an inkwell, that spins information and distorts facts on a permanent basis, has no incentive to perform efficiently. Corruption and squandering of resources on an immense scale are sure to follow.

This is interesting because an intransparent government provides little concrete data for factually establishing that resources are being wasted. But in spite of this, the inefficiency cannot be hidden: the intransparency itself is circumstantial, but no less incontestable proof. As shown in the article below, a lack of measurement can lead not only to resources being wasted, but even to lives being lost as resources are invested in the wrong areas.

Questioning the efficiency of the government’s social “Missions”

Marino González, an expert in public policy and professor at Simon Bolívar University, believes that the results of the government’s “Mission” programmes do not fulfil expectations because they follow political aims rather than [social] objectives such as helping citizens solve their problems.

“We are confusing measures with goals. The strategy of the Missions has much more to do with elements of an ideological or political nature than with services directed towards the communities. Barrio Adentro, for instance, has not been providing any information on its activities since January 2004. The data they do have only indicates the number of persons attended to, but does not provide any information on the types of problems solved”, said González.

One instance of the inefficiency of the policies the government is applying in the area of health, according to González, are the recent mortality rates as presented by the Ministry of Health.

“In 2003, the infant mortality rate increased in two consecutive years from 18.2 to 18.5, which is primarily a consequence of the increase of easily preventable illnesses such as lung disease, the incidence of which increased by 40 percent, and digestive disorders such as diarrhea, which increased by more than 30 percent,” he explained.

González believes that the mortality rates “confirm that in Venezuela, malnutrition is a public health problem that should be a focus of public policy, and in terms of mother-child care, the state does not dispose of any adequate services for avoiding the deaths.”

“President Chávez’s government is working towards building and extending an immense, inefficient state structure that consumes many resources and that is completely removed from the real problems of the citizens; military, political, and strategic objectives take precedence over what is happening to citizens on the street”, added the public policy expert.

He believes that it is because of this strategy that the government “cannot hide a large number of failures in companies, extending from electricity generation to any other type of production”.

In González’s opinion, Venezuelans should be worried about the perspectives offered by a country with large income on the one hand, but disproportionate expenses on the other hand. These resources, which should be directed towards areas such as health, education, social security – which is what gives us quality of life – are not being controlled or monitored.

2005-03-15T22:35:00.000+01:00

Fireworks in Caracas, December 2004.

History repeating?

2005-03-15T21:37:00.000+01:00

I'm back after a somewhat prolonged absence -- apologies to my readers! As so often happens, I was busy with events in my... other? real? physical? wetware? life. But things seem to have quietened down a bit now on that front, and I'm hoping to post more regularly in the future.

An interesting observation about the current developments in Venezuela is how often one has the impression that a low point has been reached, and that things should now begin to improve -- only to be shown time and time again how the Chávez regime manages to outdo itself once again, plumbing new depths every few months.

Events this past week have continued that trend. Two young soldiers were burnt while being held in a military confinement cell. They died of their injuries yesterday, after their conditions had reportedly started improving. It is hard to believe that this was an accident. There are presumably not that many flammable substances in a prison cell (the mattresses?), nor that many ways of lighting them (or are Venezuelan military prisoners issued with matches and petrol?). And incidents of this type are, as far as I know, not common in other parts of the world.

The agony of being caught with a fire in a confined space, with no way to escape, must be indescribable. What makes it even more terrifying, not to mention suspicious, is that this was not the first time that something like this happened. Almost exactly a year ago, on 30 March 2004, a similar incident occurred at Fuerte Mara, a military base in Zulia state. Eight soldiers, who had reportedly signed in favour of the referendum to revoke president Chávez and who were being held in a confinement cell, got burned. Two of the soldiers died, one after his condition had already been improving and he had stated to the media that the fire had originated outside the holding cell.

After the first fire, the authorities promised a complete investigation, the results of which were inconclusive, except that an army general (General Usón) was condemned to five and a half years in prison for daring to state on TV his belief that the fire could have been caused by flamethrowers. Needless to say, the authorities have again promised a complete and full investigation into the more recent burning. Odds are that they will again present no concrete findings, but will use the investigation to target anyone who dares disagree with them.

Finally, even if we assume that both of the burning incidents were accidental, would it then not behoove the government authorities to undertake steps that would prevent such a thing happening again? Of course it would. Like so many other examples, these events show that the Venezuelan government is characterised above all by an intransparent mix of criminal negligence and just plain criminality.

2005-03-01T18:33:00.000+01:00

Church in Maracaibo, Venezuela, January 2005.

Chávez and the church

2005-03-01T18:08:00.000+01:00

A German-language, catholic newspaper, Die Tagespost, has published an article on President Chávez's Venezuela and the president's relationship with the catholic church. This is a relationship increasingly fraught with difficulty, as the article shows. There is a significant potential for conflict here because the catholic church still exerts a strong influence in Venezuela, like in most Latin American countries (even though secularisation is increasing, as is the influence of the so-called evangelical churches).

Open hatred against anything spiritual
In Venezuela, a severe conflict between the church and the state is brewing – the process of cubanisation under Hugo Chávez continues
By Jürgen Liminski

As the conversation moves to the topic of politics, the bishop takes his cellular phone out of his pocket, turns it off and removes the battery. Now he can be sure that he can’t be overheard. Since the meetings between Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez and the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro over the past few years, he says he can sense the government in Caracas toughening its stance vis-à-vis the church. During the past year, the government has singled out the bishops for attacks and has been trying to incite the people against the shepherds. In public speeches, Chávez reviles the church for being corrupt and the bishops for being “pigs”, according to the cleric, and is trying to set up his own national church. He has not managed to do so yet because the people have no faith in such initiatives. But in individual cases, he has managed to “buy” some priests. Overall, there’s a climate of intimidation. Some bishops can’t travel on their own anymore, and certainly not at night.

Little is known about all this in Rome, and nothing in Europe. Here, two main aspects are known of Venezuela: It has a lot of oil and good rum. And that is enough for most politicians involved in foreign affairs. As long as elections are held some way or another, the country imports lots of goods from Europe, pays its debts and the situation appears stable overall, then only the barrel and the bottle remain in the short-term memory. A disastrous mistake. A crisis is brewing in Venezuela that will probably have negative effects on European markets as well at some point in time.

The new, old president Hugo Chávez has a masterplan. He emulates his idol, Fidel Castro, and wants to turn the country into a communist dictatorship extending across the entire region, i.e. including Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, in the name of liberation – in Latin America, this is always carried out in the name of the historical hero of independence, Simón Bolívar. The plan is to extend his vision across the entire subcontinent via the new leftist governments in Brazil and Argentina. That may seem presumptuous. But Chávez has money, lots of money. In the past year alone, Venezuela exported oil worth 24 billion dollars to North America; daily production is equivalent to three million barrels – almost as much as Saudi Arabia’s. The state-owned oil company Citgo disposes over 14,000 petrol stations in the United States and is the second-biggest supplier there. This also explains in part Washington’s patience with the ruler in Venezuela, who buys his people and is giving an international rebirth to socialism.

Revolution according to the “proven” Cuban pattern

The pattern for the “Bolivarian Revolution” is also well-known. Chávez knows it from his brother, who gave him extra lessons in Marxism and is now the ambassador in Cuba. First, you ensure the population’s basic needs are met – food, health, education – then you restrict the liberties and finally you export the revolution from the basis of a solid dictatorship. This is how it’s happening: Chávez is buying his people with interest-free credits for cars, furniture, consumer goods. A taxi driver, for instance, is satisfied with the Chávez government. It has financed his car. The street sweeper is also satisfied: he is picked up in the morning, given a uniform, taken to his place of work and brought back home in the evening. He gets eighty dollars a month, enough to live on, because electricity and water are free of charge and he has food to eat during the day. The fact that he and many other Venezuelans are not engaged in any investment activities and that the economy is dependent on oil revenues, i.e. that the country is hardly producing, but instead only consuming and thereby not creating any wealth, is not apparent to him. But he does see that Chávez has removed the old, corrupt clique from the leadership of the nation. The fact that Chávez has installed himself with a different clique does not bother him.

Cuban experts, above all medical personnel, distribute medicines in first-aid stations and are now also beginning to indoctrinate people engaged in education; more than a thousand Venezuelan teachers have already completed courses in Cuba. The next step could be strangling or confiscating the catholic schools. TV and radio are mostly synchronized with the regime. The only opposition comes from parts of the press and the catholic church. Its credibility is a thorn in the eye of the regime. Leading bishops are electronically bugged and shadowed. Anonymous threats and open insults are no longer a rarity either. Officials stoke open hatred against anything spiritual. Up to now, only the Adenauer Foundation and the international aid organization “Kirche in Not” (Church in Need) have reacted to the Cubanisation and stealthily increasing dictatorship in Venezuela. The foreign policy establishment in Brussels, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and London, on the other hand, is sleeping the sleep of the just. It is like at the times of the “Speckpater” (Bacon Priest): There’s a church in need and “Church in Need” sees it and goes there.

A dangerous mix of oil, drugs, and terrorism

The revolution is being exported via the existing guerilla infrastructure in Colombia. When the Colombian government, which is supported by the United States in its war on terrorists and the drug mafia, recently had a guerilla leader kidnapped in Venezuela, the result was a diplomatic crisis. It became known that Venezuela serves as a safe haven for narco-terrorists, from where they plan and execute operations. Washington is restraining itself – up to now. But the connection between petrodollars, drugs, terror, and ideology has attracted its attention. It contains a potentially explosive effect on the oil markets, and on the oil price. This makes caution a necessity. But looking away is not a solution. And least of all an appeasement policy such as that practiced by Spain regarding Cuba.

Europe, and Germany especially, holds great prestige in Latin America. This should be thrown in the balance to contain Chávez, the revolutionary -- before it’s too late and the laments about the oil price and the rebirth of socialism from this corner of the world again drown out everything else.

2005-02-17T21:17:00.000+01:00

Conspiratorial cafe scene, Barcelona (Spain), August 2002.

Satire in Cuba

2005-02-17T20:41:00.000+01:00

I've just been sent a report published in Spanish on BBC Mundo about an (illegal) DVD making the rounds in Cuba; it parodies the Cuban situation and gives its oppressed inhabitants something to laugh about. Freedom to express one's opinion is a great thing, and I hope the Cubans get more of it in the future. Satire as used in the clip is a highly effective tool to highlight the absurdity of a situation, though it is inevitably tinged with bitterness.

Secret video causes stir in Cuba
by Fernando Ravsberg -- BBC Mundo, Havana

A video clip, "Monte Rouge", is secretly making the rounds on the island, with the satirical script by Eduardo del Llano and the acting by Luis Alberto García, Néstor Jiménez and del Llano himself provoking laughter in Cubans.

"Good day, my name is Rodríguez, this is my colleague Segura, we've come to install the microphones." This is the sentence two officials of State Security use to introduce themselves after knocking on the door of citizen Nicanor O'Donell.

For 15 minutes, Nicanor tries to understand the new policy, in terms of which he is asked to continue criticising the government, but, from now on, preferably within the room in which the microphones are being installed.

All of this is seasoned with many elements of everyday Cuban life, from the gasoline that Nicanor steals at work to the offer by one of the Security agents to sell him illegal equipment.

"Our mission is to install some microphones in your house in order to overhear your anti-government comments directly", explains one of the two agents to the astonished citizen, Nicanor O'Donell.

Nicanor progresses from surprise to indignation, stating that now "they no longer even try to hide it", to which one of the agent responds that "customers are impossible to understand, before this they complained because we didn't show our faces".

Finally, Nicanor gives in to the menacing stares and lets them enter, offering them a typical Cuban coffee and working together with the two agents to identify the best location for the microphones in his house.

One of the officials asks him directly: "Where do you usually criticise the government, in which part of the house?" To which Nicanor responds that "in every part, here, in the room, in the kitchen, in the kitchen!"

The agents tell Nicanor that he was chosen to have microphones installed because his criticism is "really insightful", and furthermore because his house is nearby and they had no car available.

They explain to him that he should be happy: "You live alone and the State has assigned two microphones for your needs", says Rodríguez and adds that there are families with ten people where not even a single microphone has been installed so far.

When they ask him to do a soundcheck, the State Security official suggests that he say "something subversive to warm up with", and citizen O'Donell shouts: "I'd really love to have a satellite dish".

At the end of the clip, one of the agents offers to sell him one of the satellite dishes, which are prohibited in Cuba, "but this has to remain between you and me because this guy is a bit square", he says, referring to the other policeman.

The video clip is being passed around Cuba on DVD and is viewed on personal computers, most of which are also illegal as their sale to Cubans is prohibited.

Naturally, nobody who has seen the clip or passed it on to others wants their name to be mentioned, but in general all of the opinions gathered by the BBC were positive, regarding both the script and the realisation.

"I don't know how they dared to do something like this, but it's great, it's an excellent satire", said a manager and added that "I've seen it lots of times and every time I have to laugh more and see new details".

"No doubt about it, it recreates our reality with a fantastic ironic humour", a university student told the BBC.

"Now we'll have to see what happens to the people who made it and who acted in the clip", she added.

2005-02-12T10:39:00.000+01:00

Mugabe and Chávez on friendly terms in Venezuela, 2004.

Zimbabweans in exile start new newspaper

2005-02-12T00:07:00.000+01:00

I've just read on a blog linked to the UK Guardian newspaper that Zimbabweans living in exile have started a new newspaper to spread the news they've been prohibited from distributing in their own country. Mazel tov on their initiative -- you go, guys! Shine the light of publicity in all the darkest corners!

A voice for the voiceless

The first issue of a new newspaper compiled by Zimbabwean journalists in exile hit the streets today. The Zimbabwean is compiled by more than 50 refugees who have given their services free of charge to get the venture started. It is edited by Wilf Mbanga, the founder of the publishers of The Daily News, which was closed down by Robert Mugabe's regime in 2003. The weekly tabloid, which will be printed in Britain and South Africa, also has a website, although this is still very much in its infancy and will not be fully up and running until mid-March.

The paper's stated intention is to give a voice to the three million Zimbabweans - some 25% of the country's population - living in exile. An estimated one million live in Britain and two million in southern Africa, mainly in Botswana and South Africa.

On its website, The Zimbabwean promises to be "a newspaper dedicated to freedom of expression and access to information for all the peoples of Zimbabwe, founded on the sacred principles of journalism - fairness and honesty", and aims to "play a role in opposing everything offensive to basic human decency and hostile to peace, in order that Zimbabwe may return to the path of wisdom and sanity, and become once again an honourable nation, governed by honourable people with due respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law".

2005-02-10T13:40:00.000+01:00

Lake Maracaibo containment wall, December 2004.

Chávez with China and the Mullahs

2005-02-10T13:24:00.000+01:00

Leading German news magazine Der Spiegel (No. 6/2005) ran a short article on Chávez's plans for his oil exports. As is so often the case, Chávez has set the cat among the pigeons with his intentions. I wonder whether he will stay in power long enough to see his plans come to fruition; I suspect he won't. (Keeping in mind that in many other areas, notably generating wealth and increasing civil liberties, his grandiose announcements have come to nought -- not even after six years of concentrating power in his own hands.)

Oil for China's Refineries

Leftist populist President Hugo Chávez wants to reduce his dependency on oil experts to the USA with the help of the mullah regime in Teheran. Iranian experts are to assist sales staff of Venezuelas state oil company, PDVSA, in opening up new markets in Asia -- currently, far more than half of all deliveries goes to the United States. Chávez main focus lies on increasing the exports to China. Last week, he sealed an agreement with Beijing that will allow the People's Republic to develop gas and oil reserves in Venezuela. For the moment, the plan to increase the exports is being scuppered by technical problems: Venezuelan oil is very heavy, and China does not dispose of the necessary refineries. Furthermore, Venezuela has no access to the Pacific. Caracas is therefore negotiating with Panama and Colombia about building pipelines to their maritime ports -- thereby greatly irritating Washington. U.S. oil companies that have invested in Venezuela are worried that the "Chávez effect" could affect their sales. Caracas has already announced its intention to stop its exports to the USA should Washington interfere in the "internal affairs" of Venezuela because of the oil trade. Three years ago, the USA had already approved of an attempted coup against Chávez.

2005-02-08T14:34:00.000+01:00

Dodge Ram pickup truck -- before enlargement.

Is this progress?

2005-02-08T13:29:00.000+01:00

The New York Times has an article today on the growing popularity of large pickup trucks, which appear to be supplanting SUVs as the braggards' wheels of choice. I find this to be an amazing development, as it goes against the trends towards increasing urbanisation (and hence, a lesser need for individual trucks), miniaturisation, the growth in the services sector, and growing awareness of the need to use limited resources more efficiently. Here's an excerpt from the article (italics are mine):

The average pickup truck has become 40 percent heavier in the last two decades and 11 percent less fuel-efficient, according to estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Big pickup trucks are an even more formidable threat to people in cars than the largest S.U.V.'s, according to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Fatality rates for the occupants of large pickup trucks are modestly higher than those for other family vehicles like large cars and minivans because of the trucks' increased rollover risk, a government crash study in 2003 indicated.

On Wednesday at the Chicago Auto Show, DaimlerChrysler is planning to introduce one of the largest passenger cabs yet as an option on its full-size pickup truck, the Dodge Ram. The new cabin, to be called the Mega Cab, is 20 inches longer than the largest Ram passenger cab now.

Weighing in at more than three tons unloaded, the Ram Mega Cab seats six and joins a group of new passenger trucks that are so heavy that they fall outside federal fuel economy regulations for most other passenger vehicles. The makers are not even required to post mileage figures on a window sticker.

Unlike some more exotic giant pickups, like the new 18-wheeler-size CXT from International Truck and Engine, the Dodge Ram Mega Cab will be positioned as a mass-market product. Chrysler executives estimate that they can sell 50,000 to 100,000 of them a year, according to a person close to the company's planning.

[...]

Full-size pickup trucks rose to 14.8 percent of the nearly 17 million cars and trucks sold in the United States last year, from 14.1 percent a year earlier and 8.4 percent at the beginning of the 1990's, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank. By contrast, the market share of compact pickups has been cut in half over the last decade.

Last year, middle- and large-size S.U.V.'s fell to 15.9 percent of the auto market, down from 16.5 percent a year earlier, according to Ward's, while smaller models continued to grow sharply.

Perhaps U.S. cars are getting bigger because their drivers are getting bigger? The prevalence of obesity among U.S. adults increased by an astonishing 61 percent between 1991 and 2001.

The trend towards bigger and more wasteful cars is increasing the United States' reliance on foreign oil producers, which is an important factor in worldwide political destabilisation (witness the wars on Iraq and perhaps soon Iran, the unrest in Nigeria, as well as the availability of greater resources to petro-autocrats such as President Chávez in Venezuela and President Mbasogo in Equatorial Guinea).

I do hope that more U.S. citizens become aware of the impact their personal choices have on their own country and on the rest of the world. At the moment, the USA makes up less than one twentieth of the world's population, yet it produces a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions! It is by far the world's biggest polluter, and its cars should be becoming more fuel efficient, not less. The trend described above is not progress, guys! (I'm assuming most of the pickup drivers are men.)

2005-02-07T22:49:00.000+01:00

Rubbish collection notice, Caracas, 2005.

The revolution? Pretty, it ain't.

2005-02-07T19:08:00.000+01:00

During a speech on 23 January 2005, President Chávez addressed some remarks to Condoleezza Rice, who had referred to him as "a negative influence" for the region during her Senate confirmation hearings for the post of U.S. Secretary of State. Repeating earlier statements, he called her "illiterate"; on this occasion, he elaborated further by speculating that her statements about him were motivated by sexual frustration. He suggested that some of his minions could provide Dr. Rice with some relief, as he himself was too busy and was in any case unwilling to "make the sacrifice" for his country.

Here are some excerpts from Chávez's speech in translation (source: transcription on the homepage of the Venezuelan Ministry for Propaganda, Minci). Note the rambling nature of the diatribe (which was edited in this case); Chávez's speeches typically go on for hours without going anywhere.

"First she [Rice] said that she was very irritated, a few days ago, by Chávez, by the tyrant Chávez, the caudillo, that he was a threat to the people of the world and of America. Afterwards, the next day, they asked her again, seems like she's dreaming about me.

[...]

Well, even if she's the foreign minister of that imperialist government and it's doctor Alí Rodríguez's [the Venezuelan chancellor, or foreign minister] turn to meet her, I'm capable of inviting her to a meeting to find out, well, what's this thing that you've got with me? We're going to arrange this, let's see. Do you [the audience] want me to invite her? I'll do what you tell me to. A short while ago, someone suggested to me: 'Look, why don't you ask her to marry you to see if this will sort itself out?' Should I propose marriage to her? [Audience: Nooo.] What bad luck this lady has! You said no. Well, but really she first said she was very irritated, the next day she changed, it would be good for a good psychiatrist to analyze this, because the next day they asked her again and what she said was that she was not irritated, no, but that now she was sad. Oh daddy! She was very sad and depressed because of Chávez, because of this tyrant. Afterwards she went on to say that Chávez is a bad influence on the continent.

[...]

Mister Bush, now accompanied by a new Secretary of State, the Mr. Condolencia Rice [sic], Condolencia Rice. I am sorry not to have sent her Fidel, send me, please, the method "Yo si puedo" [a basic reading course] to send it in English to Condolencia Rice, I forgot to send it to her again, one has so much to do, because she is showing a complete illiteracy with regards to what's happening in Venezuela and to what's happening in the world and to what's happening in Latin America.

[...]

I can't marry Condolencia because I have a lot of work to do, she'll have to look for some other options, she should forget about me for a while. Alí Rodríguez could do it, Cristóbal Jiménez is there, available; well, Juan Barreto is single; somebody else should make this sacrifice for the fatherland, you can ask me to do anything, but don't ask me to do this. Nicolás Maduro, Pedro Carreño."

The following text by sociologist Tulio Hernández sums up pretty well what Chávez's statements reveal about his sexist and chauvinist mindset.

Rural Machismo as a Political Problem
by Tulio Hernández

I ask the reader to imagine for a moment what would have happened if President Chávez, instead of targeting his rage -- disguised as a taunt -- against the person of Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State of the United States government, had aimed it at President Bush. Let's picture for a moment what would have been the outcome if the Venezuelan president, with his [guachamaronería] as always, had developed a sequence with the following tone in front of the hypnotised multitudes that venerate him, like they once venerated Perón, as they still do with Fidel in Cuba, as they did with Hitler: "Ooooh baby, Dubya, you've really got it in for me, you don't like anything I do, perhaps it's because you want me to give you what's coming to you? But I won't sacrifice myself, let Juan Barreto do it; he's single".

We can imagine it, but we know that this would never have happened and is never going to happen. Because President Chávez, as he has shown during his six long years in government, does not consider the qualities or defects inherent in the male condition to interfere with the work or behaviour of rulers. Those of the female condition, on the other hand, do.

When the Venezuelan president -- with this unmistakable culture of a rural adolescent who has not managed to understand the progress the democratic world has made in this area with regard to differences, be they of gender, politics, nationalities, ethnicity or sexual preferences -- plays with irony based on the hypothesis that Condoleezza Rice is in love with him and begins with her verbal harassment when her love is not returned, he is sending a very concrete message. He is saying, with the ancestry, the authority and the persuasiveness that his condition of being president and exalted communicator confer on him, that Doctor Rice is acting not because she is a high-level government official, because she has a high capacity for discernment, or because she is employing her personal analytical ability based on her beliefs. No, Condoleezza Rice is acting like a woman, and therefore, her motivation is neither political nor intellectual: it is rather derived from an eager and unsatisfied vagina that is waiting for a tropical "bull" and third-world man like himself to give her the satisfaction she needs. You don't have to be Roland Barthes to understand that this is the message being transmitted.

But this is not the first time that the president has acted out his mysoginist sexual exhibitionism in front of the spellbound faces of his numerous followers. A long time ago, when he was just beginning his period of government, he surprised the country by announcing, live and on national TV, to his wife, the then Mrs. Marisabel de Chávez, that that same night, upon returning to La Casona, he would "give her what she had coming to her" ("darle lo suyo"). In popular Venezuelan speech, darle lo suyo, just in case we have any foreign readers, is a typically macho phrase that refers to the sexual act, understood as an offer of satisfaction that the man makes to the woman to calm her yearnings. Therefore, if one wants to denigrate the behaviour of a woman who, for instance, is very demanding at work, one would say: "What she needs it someone to give her what she's got coming to her!" (“¡A esa lo que le hace falta es que le den lo suyo!”), or, a bit more crudely, "to give it to her where she needs it" (“que le den por donde es”). There is, conversely, no equivalent disqualification that could be used to attribute the same motivation to a male behaviour.

What the president has not realised -- on the whole, his life has been very much centered on political conspiracy and military discipline -- is that there are countries where a person could be sued or even jailed for offending someone publically on the basis of their personal traits deriving from gender, race or sexual preference, and that rude remarks like the ones he has been aiming successively at Doctor Rice -- calling her an illiterate, firstly, disqualifying her actions based on the supposed condition of being a besotted woman, secondly, and thirdly, adding an ambiguous and contemptuous suspicion ("let someone else sacrifice himself"), thereby referring -- one can't be too sure -- to her supposed ugliness, her condition of being Afro-American, or simply to her being an agent of imperialism -- could come at a high price in legal terms in the United States or Europe, where the offense of sexual harassment includes verbal harassment.

All this is without even mentioning that in any decent country gestures such as this would not provoke knowing little laughs and applause, as we saw on the part of his ministers and mayors on Sunday, including some female ministers; instead it would produce embarassment in all social and political sectors in response to such a testimony to backwardness, vulgarity, and immaturity on the part of the authority that offered them publically.

That's why I believe we should not take the incident as a joke. Nor should we belittle it, as was tried by certain common ignorants, who used the argument that the offended party is a very powerful woman, a figure of imperialism and savage neoliberalism, and that therefore it is acceptable to insult her, because in the end, she can defend herself. The militant machismo, the public display of bad manners and the emotional outbursts of the president, which are comparable only with those of Governor Acosta Carlez (king of the burp)*, should be treated as a political problem that muddies the relationship between the president and those opposing him as well as with the governments and authorities of befriended countries.

In his private and personal life, Hugo Chávez as an individual has the right to express himself as he pleases regarding women and those opposing him. But as President of the Republic, he has a duty to maintain a minimum of decorum and respect for others, because when he took on these functions he stopped being free; he cannot act according to his personal judgment because he holds an office that obliges him to place the national interest and collective respect above what he does and says in public. At the end of the day, he is the spokesperson for all Venezuelans on the international stage, and that is how he should behave.

You might ask yourself what's the use of such a display of the virtues of the Ley Resorte (media gag law) for protecting children from the pernicious effects of television, when it is the President of the Republic himself who, on national TV and during children's hour, takes it upon himself to communicate three types of values that more advanced society nowadays are trying to banish forever: hate between human beings, contempt for and underestimating the female condition, and machismo as the foremost principle governing the relationship between men and women.

There is definitely a ghost haunting Venezuela: the ghost of backsliding and regression to the myths, the ethics and aesthetics characteristic of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th, to the times of rural caudillos who based their power on the enormous size of their testicles.

* During the 2002 national strike, then General Acosta Carlez led an army unit to secure the strategically important Coca Cola deposits at that company's plant. Live on camera, the General took a swig from a bottle of Coca Cola, looked into the camera and offered a long and resounding burp. Since that day, he has been associated by all parties with burping; even Chávez himself calls him the general of the burp. Acosta Carlez was rewarded with the governorship of Carabobo state for carrying out this brave and dangerous mission.

A Venezuelan journalist, Carlos Alberto Montaner, described the scene as follows:

We thought that Venezuelans were hungry, but it wasn't true: they were thirsty. And so it came that colonel Chávez sent his best men to occupy the Coca-Cola and beer depots by military force in order to mitigate this terrible scourge. Rum will probably be the next objective. What could be more patriotic for a Bolivarian government than handing out Cubalibres to the thirsty and starving masses?

At the head of the hardened anti-Coca-Cola troops there marched a young general, Acosta Carlez, tall and haughty, notably portly, who opened a bottle, bravely swallowed its contents without even bothering to measure its content of carbohydrates -- the chavista soldiers don't know the meaning of fear -- turned his gaze to the television cameras and launched a prolonged and devastating burp that sent tremors through the precinct. "A terrible spectacle", said analyst Joaquín Pérez later. "It could have been worse", responded the brilliant writer Carlo Raúl Hernández laconically. "Imagine what would happen if he raided a avocado or black bean warehouse..."

2005-02-06T14:07:00.000+01:00

The Man Who Would Be King.

German Liberals criticise Chávez

2005-02-06T13:59:00.000+01:00

German MP Dr. Karl Addicks issued a press statement on 31 January 2005 criticising Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez for his disastrous policies as well as his statements at the World Social Forum. Mr. Addicks is a member of the FDP, the German liberal party, which is a minor party currently in the opposition. (The FDP is a natural coalition partner of the CDU/CSU, the main right of center party. A left of center coalition of the SPD and the Greens currently holds the majority in parliament and forms the government under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.)

Here is the original text of the press statement, translated into English:

FDP criticises statements made by Hugo Chávez at the World Social Forum

Only a few years after many nations shook off the communist yoke, statements by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who said that it is necessary to overcome capitalism and strive for socialism with a human face, were enthusiastically celebrated by participants at the World Social Forum. In response, Karl Addicks said:

There has never been any such thing as socialism with a human face. Mr. Chávez does not waste any thoughts on democracy. He is in the process of leading his country towards the abyss of civil war. He wants to remain president until 2021.

He is investing the wealth of the country, its oil revenues, in expanding his electoral basis with gifts -- instead of investing in the infrastructure of the country and driving sustainable development. Individual initiative, entrepreneurship, accountability to the parliament are words that don't exist in his vocabulary.

Anyone who has been obliged -- in accordance with or against their will -- to follow his radio and TV broadcasts, synchronised on all channels and lasting for hours, anyone who sees how the capital, Caracas, once a flowering metropolis, is descending into murder and mayhem, anyone who sees his planned expropriations, anyone who experiences how this man is polarising his country just to maintain his grip on power, can in no way celebrate such an individual.

The global community would be well advised to identify this man as what he is: a dangerous agitator who is leading his country into chaos using populistic measures. Anyone who cannot distance themselves from this process or does not want to do so should at least get ready to confront the next crisis region in Latin America.

Critics of globalisation, with their recipes from the old collection of socialist relicts, will not reduce poverty in the world.

Mr. Addicks is obviously someone who does not let anyone pull the wool over his eyes. I just hope he doesn't suffer Cassandra's fate of predicting the future accurately -- and not being believed. Predictably, the loony left are all abuzz about Addick's statement, accusing him of malicious agitation ("üble Hetze"). When will they update their vocabulary, I wonder?

Added later: I strongly recommend reading Zuckerman's editorial in the online version of U.S. News and World Report. The editorial backs up Addicks's statement with further detail and reflects an increasing awareness of Chávez's intentions in the USA.

2005-02-05T23:26:00.000+01:00

Seller of an unregulated product, Caracas, January 2005.

Capital flight eliminated!

2005-02-05T22:27:00.000+01:00

At last I am back at my own computer and able to write ad libitum again. I've been waiting for this moment for quite some time now: home sweet home! A lot has happened during the past few weeks, both in Venezuela and abroad, and I will try to catch up with the news by and by. As a warm-up exercise, have a look at the following. This is the kind of news item that drives me batty:

"'The country's [i.e. Venezuela's] economy will never again suffer from capital flight, as a result of which the Nation will be developed, and employment and wealth created for the people', assured the vice-minister for Endogenous Development and president of the Economic and Social Development Bank (Bandes), Edgar Hernández Behrens." [Source]

The statement is irritating on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin. First, and this may seem a minor gripe, what exactly does Hernández mean when he says "never"? Until 2021? Until the death of the Great Leader, Chávez? Until eternity? Is he making a normative or an empirical statement here? Either way, how does he suppose that it could be true?

Secondly, how and why does he suppose that limiting capital mobility will lead to development, employment, and wealth? Hernández's statement implies that stopping capital flight is a cure-all for Venezuela's economic problems. That is, of course, sheer chicanery; economic problems are always the result of a myriad of factors, and no single measure will ever address, much less solve, all of them. (In fact, if stopping capital flight were enough to cause development, employment, and wealth, then there would be a huge number of economists and government officials suddenly without work -- thereby causing more unemployment.) (Just kidding!)

Thirdly, by limiting capital mobility, Hernández is introducing a (further) disincentive for foreign investment. Who would want to invest in a country where repatriating profits could be made difficult to impossible by categorizing such an action as capital flight? And without foreign investment, local development becomes a lot more difficult (just consider the difficulties encountered by countries experimenting with autarchy -- North Korea, for instance).

Fourthly, Hernández is acting in an expectedly short-sighted fashion by trying to treat only a symptom perceived as evil (capital flight = bad) without addressing the underlying factors. He should be asking himself: why are Venezuelans desperate to get their money out of the country? Answers: a lack of faith in the legal system, devaluation of the currency (already happening, and more to come soon), preparation for emigration because of doubts about the way the country is heading, the questioning of the right to private property (viz. the recent land invasions, condoned by the government), and so on.

All too often, politicians think that they can make the laws of economics go away by combating them through legal laws -- in effect, simply ordering things to be different. Of course, that never works. An example: price controls on products may appear to make them cheaper, but in actual fact simply make them scarcer. The typical consequence is a) unsatisfied demand, expressed for instance as empty shelves in shops or long lines of people waiting to get a certain product and b) the generation of black markets.

This is easy to observe in the case of the Venezuelan currency. The government has introduced exchange controls and fixed the exchange rate at roughly 2.000 Bolívares to the dollar (Bs./$). As a consequence, a) Venezuelans are desperate to get their hands on stable foreign currency (also because they can thereby protect their monetary assets from devaluing) and b) there is a flourishing black market on which the exchange rate is approximately 2.800 Bs./$. What the government has therefore created, in effect, is a lot of dissatisfied Venezuelans plus an intransparent and inefficient currency market. Individuals and businesses suffer, as does the Venezuelan economy as a whole - this looks like a counterproductive outcome to me.

2005-01-23T15:58:00.000+01:00

Sunset in the tropics, Lake Maracaibo, 2005.

Transparency first

2005-01-23T01:15:00.000+01:00

I've been reflecting on my time spent in Venezuela and feel that the despondency prevalent at the beginning of my stay (November/December) is slowly lifting, with the government's unwitting help. Its recent blunders and scandals provide fabulous opportunities for the opposition to regroup -- this is what I am most curious and most anxious to see. Perhaps tomorrow's march in Caracas will be the beginning of the process.

I've also spent a lot of time thinking about how a democratic opposition could or should go about helping the Chávez regime dismantle itself. I think there are quite a lot of things that can be done, and they all have to do with transparency and communication. This should actually be the terrain of the political opposition, but is instead done primarily by bloggers. In this sense, their role is of the utmost importance.

The opposition needs to make use of the opportunity offered by transparency. One of its greatest weaknesses is that it is continuously on the defensive, allowing Chávez to take all important initiatives and permitting him to frame the terms of the national debate. One has to admit that he is masterful at this: the way he has split society and created completely new divisions has been all to his benefit. The opposition needs to turn the situation around and find ways to place Chávez on his back foot. Take the initiative and force him to react instead of the other way around.

Here's my recommendation to the opposition: use the concept of framing. Employ linguistics (i.e., use of the right terms and expressions) to show how Chávez is bad for the country and bad for its citizens. Above all, exploit the regime's blunders for all they are worth. Shine the light of transparency on the endless scandals, corruption and unkept promises, and never let up. Repeat it a thousand times if necessary. Take the Chávez administration to task for each street child left abandoned, each terrorist offered a safe harbour, for the money disappearing from public and private institutions, for the rubbish in Caracas, for the fact that Vargas is still a mess, for the endless violations of Chávez's own made-to-measure laws.

There is an endlessly bubbling fountain of material there for the opposition to make use of, and it never once has to invent anything -- just use what is on offer. It should demand transparency -- nothing more, nothing less. This is a playing field on which I can't see Chávez winning. Transparency is something he wants to have nothing to do with: if he denies it, he loses support. If he grants it, he also loses support. The opposition wins either way. The opposition should be scrupulously transparent about its internal workings (finances, meetings, decisions) and demand the same from the government.

It should use powerful imagery such as that of clear water or purifying fire as its symbols. When protesting, instead of banging pots and pans, citizens could carry candles at night -- to show that they want the darkness to lift. During the day, wear white clothing (colour of purity) and carry a glass of water -- anything that is transparent. Also, while maintaining the highest respect for Simon Bolívar, make it clear that we are living in the 21st century, not the 19th. Let the opposition take the lead towards the future and progress, and show that Chávez's view is backward looking, towards the past (not only Bolívar -- also Marxism, communism, Castro...).

Finally, the opposition needs to offer a credible alternative to Chávez's ideas of state and governance -- a concept based on freedom, transparency (which goes along with accountability), and wealth creation. Chávez is weak on all three fronts. Show a future that is better and brighter than that represented by Chávez, which can be seen real-time and in 3D in Cuba. And finally: ensure that the message gets through consistently to all parts of society, to the hard-core opposition as much as to the die-hard Chávez supporters. Democracy is about inclusion, not exclusion as practised by Chávez.

2005-01-22T14:37:00.000+01:00

FARC leader Granda being escorted by Colombian guard (photo taken from El Universal's online edition).

A safe harbour for terrorists

2005-01-22T04:24:00.000+01:00

On 13 December 2004, Venezuelan operatives, acting against the policy of their government and presumably motivated by a substantial bounty, captured one of the FARC's top leaders outside a Caracas café, took him to a town on the Colombian side of the border and handed him over to Colombian authorities. The FARC leader, Rodrigo Granda, was known as the Chancellor of the FARC and acted as a kind of international public relations agent and liaison to terrorist movements in other countries. (The FARC's official propaganda website can be viewed here.)

The Venezuelan government has been left with egg all over its face: not only was Granda comfortably resident in Venezuela, living in a pleasant house near Maracay with his family as well as in an apartment in Caracas, but he was also naturalized as a Venezuelan citizen, registered to vote in last year's referendum and state elections, and attended a revolutionary congress staged by the government at the end of the year. The government has been twisting itself into knots trying to get out of the predicament in which it finds itself. It has tried both defensive and offensive tactics.

In its defense, it has variously claimed that there was no information about Granda having entered the country, or that if he was indeed in Venezuela, he must have entered the country illegaly (Minister for Justice and the Interior Jesse Chacon, 28 December 2004), then, once it became apparent that he had been naturalized, that he must have been naturalized using false documents. The Miraflores autocrat personally declared Granda's citizenship null and void in an attempt to distance himself from the terrorist, but the problem appears to be stickier than that. The government has not yet seen fit to launch an investigation into those who naturalized him; I suspect it is because it was done with the knowledge and consent of the authorities. In one of the most comical moments in the world's legal history, the best that Granda's lawyer, Miguel Gonzalez, could come up with in his defense was that Granda, a top member of Latin America's primary kidnapping ring, had been kidnapped, that this was a crime against humanity, and that his client would seek to be returned to the country of his citizenship, i.e. Venezuela, for trial.

The Venezuelan government has found it impossible to justify the terrorist kingpin's presence in the country, and has moved on to the offensive: they first accused the Colombian government of "violating Venezuelan sovereignty" until it became clear that Colombian security forces did not actually act on Venezuelan territory (the issue still appears to be somewhat in doubt). They then redefined bounty ("recompensa") as bribery ("soborno") and continue to accuse the Colombian government of violating Venezuelan sovereignty by bribing its officials, which is curious because the Venezuelan government has also placed bounties on (non-terrorist!) opponents' heads in the past. The Colombian government acted with admirable restraint and issued terse communiqués in response to Venezuela's increasingly emotional demands. Venezuela overreacted by recalling its ambassador from Bogotá, freezing all trade and binational treaties with Colombia, hindering cross-border traffic, and demanding that the Colombian government publicly apologise for its evil deeds. The government is obviously highly flustered.

Venezuela claims that Colombia should have used the extradition agreement between the two countries as a basis for requesting that Granda be handed over, but presumably Colombia knew that this was going to be an unpromising route (they'd determined that empirically in two similar cases in the recent past, those of Vladimiro Montesinos-Peru and José María Ballestas-Colombia), so they'd decided to act on their own. Consciously or unconsciously, this might have been a masterly move: Colombia has now provided Venezuela with detailed information about another 7 top terrorists living in Venezuela, and the Chávez government is caught in a quandary: either it delivers the terrorists to prove that the Colombians should have used the extradition route to get their hands on Granda (thereby alienating the left wing within the party, as well as ideological allies abroad), or it keeps them in Venezuela, which will make it even more difficult to deny charges of offering a safe harbour for terrorists. Either way, Uribe's government scores points and Chávez loses face. (Today, he's been trying to distract from his humiliation by demanding that Colombia deliver some Venezuelan dissidents who are living as political refugees in Colombia -- dissidents who are not members of an organisation like the FARC, which employs bombings, killings, landmines, kidnapping, extortion, hijacking, as well as guerrilla and conventional military action and uses the drug trade to finance its operations).

Internationally, the consequences of the Granda scandal are also unwelcome for the Venezuelan Führer: either he has to break rank with the international revolutionary movements by distancing himself from movements such as the FARC, or he risks being labeled a helper of terrorists in the eyes of the USA, an unpalatable future considering that country's recent appetite for unilateral action against terrorists. In any case, the scandal means that some of the world's attention is back on Venezuela and that another bit of the true face of the Chávez revolution is being exposed. Chávez is losing some of the ill-gotten credit he received for being confirmed in August's referendum, and can feel himself slowly drifting back into the crosshairs of U.S. foreign policy. From the perspective of ordinary Venezuelans, this is a good thing because Il Capo tends to be conciliatory when he feels watched. It will be interesting to see how events continue to unfold on this story. Together with the investigation into the Anderson extorsion ring, which appeared to have links into the top echelons of the Venezuelan government, and the brewing BBVA scandal over secret accounts currently being investigated by Spanish star prosecutor Báltasar Garzon, the pressure on Chávez is currently mounting from several sides. Let us hope the opposition takes heart and revives to make the most of this opportunity.

2005-01-18T03:23:00.000+01:00

Mangos on security spikes, Maracaibo, January 2005.

Dulce et decorum est?

2005-01-17T18:36:00.000+01:00

Here in Venezuela, the effects of Chávez's new censorship laws are being felt not only in the mainstream media, but also in the blogsphere. Regarding the MSM (an abbreviation I saw for the first time yesterday -- I wonder whether it will catch on), reporting on TV and radio stations has become extremely cautious, and criticism of the government has become muted. This is obviously what the Miraflores autocrat wanted, but it is clearly detrimental to freedom of expression as well as the efficiency of government in Venezuela. The media play an important role in society's by placing government's activities under scrutiny, thereby functioning as a anticipatory behavioural corrective. When they are chained or threatened, as is happening here, society suffers.

Bloggers' writings have not yet been addressed by Venezuelan media laws, but the revised penal code severely sanctions criticism of public officials and other forms of dissent by private individuals. Bloggers living in Venezuela are beginning to ask themselves how freely they can write, and how much they need to censor themselves in order to ensure that they will not suffer the consequences of an injust law applied arbitrarily by partisan courts.

Here's a suggestion to such bloggers, whose work I admire and support. Your writings contain two components. On the one hand, you collate information from numerous news sources and make it available in English. On the other hand, you provide in-depth analysis and opinion. Both components are indispensable and should not be given up. But you might want to consider posting to two separate blogs: one in which you post under your own name, and another where you use a pseudonym. Run the first as a fact blog, in which you bring together all the key information on what's going on in Venezuela. Back up your statements by quoting your sources in each case (as you've already been doing). This should keep you safe from prosecution, though in this country it's hard to be sure. In the second blog, vent your opinions and analyse the news for all it's worth, but keep your identity secret in order to ensure you stay out of the chavista's hands.

Is it dishonourable to post using a pseudonym? I certainly don't think so. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori may be a noble sentiment, but it is also an asinine concept. You can do far more for your country alive (or out of prison) than dead (or in prison), so don't sacrifice your life to a cause. Rather live to fight another day. Do whatever is necessary to keep on writing. Post anonymously if that is what's required at the moment, and then make your identity known once reason returns to Venezuela.

2005-01-03T17:20:00.000+01:00

Fireworks in Caracas, December 2004.

Still on holiday

2005-01-03T17:04:00.000+01:00

Dear readers, I hope you enjoyed great Christmas and New Year's celebrations -- I know I did (though overshadowed by the Asian tragedy). During the last few weeks and until mid-January, my access to computers and the Internet was and is sporadic. I'll be back with fresh postings at the end of January at the latest. Hamba kahle (go well), as we say in South Africa, and may 2005 bring you all that you wish for!

2004-12-22T15:03:00.000+01:00

Green lizard in Maracaibo, Venezuela, December 2004.

Hoist with his own petard

2004-12-22T14:35:00.000+01:00

In a normal country, this would be an example of someone shooting themselves in the foot. Article 29.1 of Venezuela's new media gag law states:

Los prestadores de servicios de radio y televisión serán sancionados con
1. Suspensión hasta por setenta y dos horas continuas, cuando los mensajes difundidos [...] promuevan, hagan apología o inciten a alteraciones del orden público [...].
2. Revocatoria de la habilitación, hasta por cinco años y revocatoria de la concesión, cuando haya reincidencia en la sanción del numeral 1 de este artículo, dentro de los cinco años siguientes de haber ocurrido la primera sanción.

In other words, any radio or TV broadcasters found to be spreading messages promoting, justifying or inciting to changes of the public order can be taken off the air for 72 hours, or for five years upon being found guilty of the same offence within five years.

This makes me wonder: what is the single word that most clearly describes a "change of the public order"? Let me tell you: it's revolution! In a normal society where the rule of law prevails and the judiciary is independent, what I would be looking for now is a state TV or radio broadcaster being taken off the air for transmitting one of President Chávez's interminable speeches in which he sings the glories of the Bolivarian revolution, asking for it to be strengthened, praised, exalted, sped up, sanctified, and so on.

Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen in Venezuela. But it does highlight the ludicrousness of the Venezuelan situation, where the government pretends that it is running a normal state in which everybody has equal access to the law, but where laws are effectively made and interpreted to benefit those in power. The article quoted above is a perfect example: it is formulated so vaguely that it can be applied to any broadcaster that falls out of favour with the government. It is what would be called a "Gummiparagraph" in German, a legal article made of rubber.

In the new year, expect the gag law to be applied at least once to scare the other stations into self-censorship. If they aren't cowed, the law can still be liberally applied as the revolution sees fit. Let us hope the media will at least get some support from the political opposition and that there is some resistance from the population.

2004-12-21T18:54:00.000+01:00

Green bus in Caracas, November 2004.

Revolutionary methodology: history repeating?

2004-12-21T17:31:00.000+01:00

Since 1992, when Hugo Chávez unsuccessfully tried to putsch his way to power, he has come a long way; he has become more calculating and less impulsive, though he is still reputed to suffer from uncontrollable outbursts of fury. Some believe that his success in consolidating his power during the last six years can be attributed in no small measure to the mentorship of Fidel Castro, who has displayed the ability to hold on to his power no matter what. Any lessons he may have taught Hugo Chávez are sure to have stood him in good stead.

As is immediately apparent to anyone reading this blog, I am no fan of Chávez's; yet I have to tip my hat to the way he has entrenched himself in power. This has caused incalculable damage to the country's society and democratic system, but has been extraordinarily fructiferous for the president as a person and as an office-bearer. How did he do it? Here's my take on his methodology. I will point out some interesting parallels to Adolf Hitler's ascent to power.

The first step was to get a foot in office. After his 1992 putsch attempt, Chávez was jailed for conspiracy. Apparently he used the time in prison to read widely and refine his thinking. He received a presidential pardon before completing his term, which made him eligible to campaign for the presidency (without the pardon, he would have had a previous conviction that would have made him ineligible). Adolf Hitler similarly led an abortive putsch (the Beer Hall Putsch) in 1923, was imprisoned, used the time to read, think, and write Mein Kampf, and was released after less than a year in prison after receiving an amnesty. Both men glorified the military, though Chávez did not progress beyond being a colonel, and Hitler beyond being a corporal.

Once out of prison, Chávez and Hitler began slowly building up support by creating or taking control of political parties representing themselves as popular movements (Movimiento Quinta Republica in Venezuela, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in Germany). Both men based their second attempt to gain power on elections rather than putsches. They attempted to build support in the respective populations by campaigning on platforms that identified enemies and emotional issues within the country as targets to be addressed through revolutionary methods once in power. In the case of Venezuela, the enemies and issues were the "oligarchs" and the rich, old-style politics according to the Pact of Punto Fijo (which had enabled Venezuelan democracy to function, though not flawlessly, for over 40 years), so-called "neo-liberalist" economic policies, the influence of the USA, racism, and the lacking integration of ethnic minorities. In Germany, Hitler identified democracy, Jews, capitalists and communists (!), the Weimar Republic and its politicians, the conditions of the Versailles Peace Treaty, and a supposed lack of land ("Lebensraum") as issues.

Both politicians relied on techniques satirised perfectly in George Orwell's novel Animal Farm: creating a revolutionary ideology supposedly based on equality and social advancement (Animal Farm: "Animalism", Germany: "National Socialism", Venezuela: "Bolivarian Revolution"); leadership through demagoguery and idolization of a single individual (AF: Napoleon, GE: Hitler, VE: Chávez); far-reaching political promises that remain unfulfilled (AF: equality and self-determination of animals; GE: pride and self-determination of Germans; VE: pride and self-determination of Venezuelans); the identification of internal and external enemies as a justification for the infringement of liberties (AF: Snowball and the humans, GE: Jews and any country that resisted Germany´s expansionism, VE: "oligarchs" and the USA).

In Venezuela, Chávez's campaign platform created the illusion that he would improve conditions significantly in the country (eliminate corruption and poverty, for instance); voters responded by giving him an overwhelming majority upon electing him to office in 1999. Hitler also gained ever-increasing support in the elections he contested with the NSDAP after 1930, but never managed to win more than 50% of votes in any election; however, his party became the largest and he was able to set conditions that paved his way to power.

The development of the revolutions in Germany and Venezuela diverges somewhat after this point. Whereas Hitler acted very quickly to consolidate his power (by eliminating any opposition, concentrating all state power in his person and his party, taking control of the media as well as the legislative and judiciary systems), Chávez has been taking a much longer time; nonetheless, it appears that his goal is the same, and appears to be ever closer in his reach. The opposition is currently in tatters, Chávez controls most of the state's power directly or indirectly, and is strenthening his grip on the media as well as parliament and the courts.

However, whereas Hitler actually enjoyed increasing support from German society, it appears that Chávez's is declining. This may be because Chávez is not delivering on his promises of eliminating corruption and poverty, which have been increasing rather than being reduced. Hitler, on the other hand, through a massive expansion in state involvement in the economy as well as the military-industrial complex, did reduce unemployment and achieve growth.

Hitler and Chávez both delight in all things military, but fortunately, Chávez does not have the werewithal to convert Venezuela into a military superpower as Hitler did with Germany. Still, he is spending a large part of his budget on military hardware; to which aim is anybody's guess. Venezuela has no neighbours threatening its territorial integrity. And if Chávez believes, as some have said, that the United States will be invading Venezuela, then he is off dreaming in cloud-cuckooland. More probably, the purchase serves to improve relations with a powerful potential benefactor, Russia; and machine guns are always a useful thing to have on hand when exporting revolutions or strengthening them within the own country, for instance if the people are not as keen on them as their leaders.

Finally, an important difference between the two leaders is that while Hitler is universally reviled by thinking people around the world (though he is reputed to still be liked by some Arab extremists), Chávez still divides public opinion and has some supporters. However, if his story continues to follow the pattern set by other revolutions, history is not likely to judge him favourably.

2004-12-18T03:50:00.000+01:00

1970s model car crossing intersection in downtown Caracas, December 2004.

The sounds of Venezuela

2004-12-18T03:49:00.000+01:00

When you go travelling, visual impressions are probably the ones that cause the greatest impact. You also tend to remember them for the longest time, not least because you can refresh them with photos if you remembered to bring your camera. I do take a lot of photos, but I like to supplement my memories of travels with souvenirs from the other senses: the taste and smell of foreign food, the feeling of warm sunshine and salt on my skin during a beach vacation. But what I really enjoy registering and trying to remember are the sounds I hear. For those who have been to Venezuela before, here are some descriptions of the sounds of the place to bring your mind back here; and for those who have not yet had the pleasure, here's a selection of what awaits you if you listen closely:

If you're staying in the central parts of Caracas and are up around sunrise, you're likely to hear parakeets screeching as they circle the city while greeting the dawn. If you prefer sleeping in, you probably won't, because the parakeets will wake you. There's a corresponding night-time sound, which is the whine of mosquitoes. It has often kept me awake at night, and I generally found no rest before having murdered each of the buggers individually. Continuing in the animal world, there's a tiny species of frog -- no larger than a thumbnail -- that comes alive as soon as the sun sets here in Maracaibo. Their sound is commensurate with their size: they sound like badly-oiled bicycle wheels squeaking their way around the track. They are rather cute, though.

Frogs love water and in the cities, water for human consumption is taken from large, transparent glass or plastic bottles which are bought in shops or delivered by the corresponding companies. They are usually fitted with a plastic siphon for drawing the water out of the bottle and into a jug or glass, and do not contain any frogs. The siphon consists of a tube that reaches into the bottle, a long, thin nozzle from which the water issues, and a concertina-shaped pump at the top which has a little pressure-equalisation hole cut in the middle. When you pump to get the water out, you hear a characteristic sound that I've not heard anywhere else that I've been: a characteristic kind of wheeze and whistle alternating with the swoosh caused by the gushes of water pouring out of the nozzle. I enjoy it every time I hear it.

A different kind of enjoyment derives from the automotive sounds, which are quite distinct from those in Europe. There seem to be two types of passenger car in use: one type consists of what I would call "normal", small to medium cars between two and five years old. The sound they produce is nothing out of the ordinary. The second class of vehicle consists of enormous cars of U.S. manufacture dating back to the 1970s, when the oil price boom apparently permitted everyone and his brother to own a luxury limousine. These cars usually have huge engines -- 3.5 litres would be considered small -- that sound a low, growling grumble. Of course, they have awful fuel consumption figures and are terrible for the environment, but hey, petrol costs two to four dollars to fill up an empty tank, and where else can you be made to feel like you're in a Starsky & Hutch movie? Traffic sounds are further characterized by liberal and remarkably rhythmical hooting, which substitutes for indicator and braking lights at many intersections.

Shopping centres have another distinctive sound, which you can hear if you survive the traffic to get there. In the first place, around Christmas time you will hardly ever hear lullabye-like songs like "Silent Night", but you will hardly ever not hear gaita. This is a style of music that originated in Maracaibo, as any Zuliano will be quick to point out, and that is, to my ears at least, as frenetic as a squirrel playing hide and seek with a packet of exploding firecrackers, and not really conducive to a contemplative state of mind. Horses for courses, I say. The other thing about shopping centres is that the noise levels are quite amazing -- the din is so loud that you can hardly converse with somebody standing next to you. This is quite different from sepulchral German shopping centres, where everyone is well-mannered and you can hear a pin drop from the other side of the mall.

Finally, another typical aspect of Christmas time is that you can never be quite sure whether a revolution has broken out again or not yet. People start launching fireworks from the beginning of December, and I'm not talking about tom-thumbs and Christmas crackers here, but rather about artillery-issue, earth-shaking munition devices that probably fell off the back of an Army truck. Venezuelans take it all in stride and with perfect equanimity. Central Europeans should be advised to start taking their medication early and plug their ears: really, friends, it is not the outbreak of the Third World War.

If you have any sounds from Venezuela (or elsewhere) to share, post your description in the comments. I am curious to hear about your favourites. Thanks and cheers!

p.s.: Of course, Venezuelan music is another type of sound to look out for -- but that deserves to be a different topic altogether.

2004-12-16T18:22:00.000+01:00

Orchid, Venezuela, December 2004.

Magical realism

2004-12-16T17:53:00.000+01:00

Latin American authors have enriched world literature with their contributions to a genre named magical realism, which, as the name suggests, is characterised by the intermingling of realistic and magical elements.

A few days ago, I had an experience that seemed magically real to me. A friend took us to visit an old lady who lives at the top of a mountain. She's 87 years old, fluent in four languages, breeds orchids and walks up the hill and down the dale so nimbly that I, a fit 30-year-old, had trouble keeping up. With the help of two assistants, she has converted her mountain retreat into a breathtaking paradise that obviously helps to keep her young. The old lady and her eyrie had an otherworldly quality that left its mark on me.

Why do I write about her? Because it is important to keep in mind what an incredibly lovely country Venezuela is and that not all the news from here is bad. It has breathtaking variety to offer in so many fields and should enjoy stellar fame as a premier tourist destination. In the long view, I am sure that the country will fulfil its potential, and the Chávez episode will fade into insignificance like a short, bad dream.

2004-12-13T20:08:00.000+01:00

A "Bolivarian" pharmacy, Venezuela, December 2004.

The idealistic left

2004-12-13T18:34:00.000+01:00

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.

2004-12-09T22:15:00.000+01:00

Shopping centre in a middle-class Caracas neighbourhood, 2004.

Self-censorship

2004-12-09T20:46:00.000+01:00

It's official: the Venezuelan president has, as was expected, signed the gag law (official title: "Ley de Responsabilidad Social en Radio y Televisión") into effect. What's it all about? Under the guise of caring for more "socially responsible" TV and radio programming, the government formulated and passed a law defining in great detail which sorts of transmission are to be allowed and which will not be tolerated.

For instance, with few exceptions, all programmes must be transmitted in the Spanish language; advertising for alcohol, tobacco products, drugs, and games of chance (except for charity) is prohibited; images and sounds depicting violence or sexual content are regulated; every broadcaster has to make available 10 minutes of programming per day to the state; every unencrypted broadcaster must dedicate 1.5 hours of educational programming per day to children, plus 1.5 hours to adolescents; 60% of prime-time programming has to be produced within Venezuela, as must all advertising; radio stations that play music have to play at least 3 hours of Venezuelan music plus 1 hour of Latin American music per day; all stations must play the Venezuelan national anthem daily, and must mention the authors, melody, and lyrics.

The new law provides for savage sanctions against broadcasters found in violation of its articles. This is the case especially for article 29, which is the scorpion's tail: an all-purpose paragraph that can be applied almost at will by a partisan regulator. It determines that any broadcaster promoting, apologising for or inciting to war, changes in the public order or crimes; threatening the security of the state; or broadcasting anonymous messages can be taken off the air for 72 hours. High fines are also imposed and the broadcasting license can be revoked for up to five years. Obviously, Chávez and his pack will have few qualms about interpreting any criticism of their conduct as threatening the security of the state.

As was to be expected, Venezuelan media have begun censoring themselves rather than run the risk of simply being eliminated. Miguel Octavio, in his excellent blog The Devil's Excrement, describes how this process became visible yesterday: Globovision, which to date has been the premier source of live news for many Venezuelans, did not broadcast violent unrest in the centre of Caracas that left several people injured as street vendors confronted the police. Obviously, the news images would have shown violence, which is prohibited between 5:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m.; so rather than risk the wrath of the powers that be, Globovision kept mum. (The news still spread through the Internet and newspapers, though, which are not regulated by the new law. Any bets on how long it will take before this loophole is closed?)

Obviously, what is happening here is very serious indeed. International organizations ranging from Human Rights Watch ("This legislation severely threatens press freedom in Venezuela," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "Its vaguely worded restrictions and heavy penalties are a recipe for self-censorship by the press and arbitrariness by government authorities.") to the Inter American Press Association ("What is under discussion is the right of all citizens to be duly informed and not only about what the government wants them to know, as happens in Cuba.") to Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Without Borders said it was "extremely concerned" by a "vaguely-termed" new law about the "social responsibility" of the Venezuelan media that "might be used against those that did not agree with the government.") have criticised the new law, as has Spain's foreign minister Moratinos.

The situation is not pretty. At the moment Venezuelans' hopes rest on the Internet (those that have access to it) and newspapers (as long as they remain relatively free -- we'll ignore threats against and attacks on journalists for the moment). I predict a strong resurge of irony in the months ahead, something like the church service scene in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life".

2004-12-08T20:33:00.000+01:00

Taxi in front of grey high-rise housing, Caracas, early December 2004.

View from Venezuela

2004-12-08T16:09:00.000+01:00

Change of scene: I am now in Venezuela, where I will be spending Christmas with my in-laws. This will be a good opportunity to share my observations on the situation in the country.

We arrived in Caracas two weeks ago. The decay of public infrastructure is unmistakable, as is the increase in the number of extremely poor people on the street. But what struck me most is the mood in the streets: it is chillingly somber, not at all what I saw and learned to love the first time I came here in 1996. I asked a Caracas taxi driver how things were in the city, and he replied: "Tristes, muy tristes." (Sad, very sad.) A real-time TV survey carried out a few days ago asked whether people felt a festive spirit as Christmas approaches: the result was 100.0% No, 0.0% Yes. Sales of antidepressants are through the roof. Psychologists go so far as to diagnose a general psychological malaise of the Venezuelan people.

Reasons for the bleak mood? There are more than enough. People are having to struggle to get by economically, and ever more of them don't manage: poverty is becoming endemic in a country which just a few years ago had a substantial middle class (though no-one would dispute that it would have been desirable for the middle class to be even bigger). The government has taken control of all public institutions and is curtailing personal freedoms ever more. The chances of a change in government policy (or in government) seem ever more remote. And this is what may be the most important reason for the national depression: the feeling of impotence, of not being able to detain the long slide into hopelessness.

For this reason, I do hope that the opposition revives in the New Year. The time has come to act. The streets need to be filled with protest marches, as they were two years ago. The opposition needs to formulate a strategic plan for the next two years (presidential elections are scheduled for 2006), sending out a more inclusive message, presenting a more unified front, becoming more belligerent and steadfast in its attitude towards a bullying government. The courts should be inundated with lawsuits against the government's mismanagement, corruption and injustice. The lawsuits will of course not be accepted, but the Chavista needs to be put on the backfoot, it needs to be challenged, to be put to work and not be allowed to come to rest. The opposition needs to find its balls again (as implied in a recent cartoon by Rayma), and not just roll over and let itself be kicked into submission.

Here's an excellent article by Gustavo Coronel, which summarizes the economic situation of the country succinctly (quoted by permission of the author):

Venezuela: Financial Chaos Leading to Social
Collapse
By Gustavo Coronel
December 4, 2004

What international investors often read in foreign, sanitized analyses of the Venezuelan economic situation is that the country has over $20 billion in international reserves, that oil prices are very high and that the like- hood of default on the debts of the country is low. This is all true and it sounds great.

If so, what seems the problem? Well, there are plenty of problems and if potential investors do not properly take them into account, their reading of Venezuela as a country in the path to economic progress could be totally wrong.

The sad truth is that Venezuela is in almost total political, social and financial chaos. Let us start with a brief political overview.

From a promise of democratic change to a totalitarian society.

Six years ago the elected president Hugo Chávez had the clear support of the majority of Venezuelans. He had promised to eradicate corruption, to generate employment, to solve the acute tragedy of abandoned children in the streets, to fight poverty. Today, after six years of his presidency, government corruption is at an all time high, employment at an all time low, abandoned children more numerous than ever and poverty and misery are rampant in the cities and the rural areas of Venezuela. And this comes after $200 billion have entered the coffers of the government, via oil income or new national debt, which has doubled during the period. What started to be a creditable exercise in democracy turned out to be an increasingly totalitarian regime. Today, the political profile of Venezuela is much closer to those of Libya and Cuba than to those of Costa Rica or Chile. Rigid exchange controls, curtailed freedom of expression, systematic abuses of power, illegal use of public resources and persecution of the opposition clearly prevail over the customary checks and balances and the political tolerance and respect for dissidence which are typical of democratic governments.

Venezuelan society is mostly in ruins.

During the period 1999 to 2004, Venezuelan society has gone into a free fall. The middle class, that essential ingredient of progressive societies, has been decimated. Today, we are poorer, more prone to being killed by common criminals or by government thugs, deprived of our civic rights and the victims of a climate of hate created by political leaders. Empty words by the current caudillo have replaced required deeds in education and health. Physical infrastructure is rotting away. In every corner of Venezuelan cities there are beggars asking for handouts or criminals trying to take your money or your life. Venezuelans can no longer recognize this country as their own. Human dignity is being subordinated to human survival.

Financial chaos.

The enormous petroleum income coming to Venezuela during the last two years has been handled by a very mediocre and incompetent political and administrative system. The members of this system had never managed resources of any significant size. They have been suddenly faced with financial surpluses of a magnitude never experienced. Some, the more honest, have tried to apply these monies to ill-planned social programs, trying to reach the very poor. Most have seen in this immense bath of gold the opportunity of their lives to become rich, after a lifetime of poverty. Corruption in the current government of Venezuela is now approaching astronomical levels. Although corruption is difficult to prove, it is usually diagnosed on the basis of the enormous difference between income and what is done with this income. The country has received $200 billion during the presidency of Hugo Chávez, an amount that is not even remotely represented in public works or in real social improvement. The inescapable conclusion is that most of this money has been wasted and/or pilfered and/or stolen. For all practical purposes the impact on the nation is identical: lack of progress, more poverty, and more frustration.

In spite of the windfall oil income of the last years and of the obscene new indebtedness, the administration of Hugo Chávez has systematically shown huge fiscal deficits in their year-to-year budgets. For 2005 the fiscal deficit could run to almost 6% of the GDP. In addition to this deficit, the nation will have to face increasing payments of the national debt, which will bring this deficit to 8% of the GDP. How will the deficit be covered? Amazingly enough, with more debt! According to economist Miguel Angel Santos, from IESA (the best Venezuelan business school), borrowing will be dedicated not only to cover old debt but also to finance current expenditure. This will increase net national debt by an additional 4% of GDP.

According to Santos the 2005 budget will increase fiscal fragility, will promote more indebtness, stimulate inflation and inhibit growth. The State will essentially be the only sector investing, although 80% of the national budget will be dedicated to covering the costs of the increasing bureaucracy.

In the six years under this government the Venezuelan GDP has decreased to the levels of almost 15 years ago. Accumulated inflation is over 200%. 7.6 million Venezuelans are either unemployed or under-employed (working as street peddlers). Foreign exchange has moved from Bolivar's 565 to the dollar in 1998 to a controlled Bolivar's 1920 to the dollar in 2004 (although the black market is at Bolivar's 2500 to the dollar). This represents a devaluation of 250% to 400% depending on which exchange rate is considered.

Financial collapse equals social collapse.

This collapse in economic conditions has produced a social collapse The studies conducted by the Andres Bello Catholic University have established that, in 1978, poverty affected 23% of the population but that today poverty includes more than 70% of the population. Abandoned street children in 1992 numbered 2500 according to UNICEF, the United Nations Fund for Infancy. Today this organization reports four times as many Venezuelan children as beggars. Our own institutions dealing with children (INAM) report more than 200,000 Venezuelan street children engaged in thievery and prostitution and more than one million children as street peddlers. The Economic Commission for Latin America, ECLAC, reports that Venezuela was the only Latin American country in which hunger increased, findings also reinforced by the UNDP. A recent report by the Venezuelan chapter of the Club of Rome indicates that new housing built by the government has decreased from 61,000 units in 1998 to less than 15,000 in 2002. Four times more Venezuelans were murdered in 2003, as compared to 1998. One hundred cars are stolen everyday in the streets of the country.

Lost Generations.

The Venezuelan political, social and financial chaos generated during the last six years has produced and is producing the loss of entire generations. Certainly two, possibly three Venezuelan generations will be sacrificed to the political experiment known as the "bolivarian revolution." This is a crime without parallel in Venezuelan history, coming at a time in which the whole region is trying to push forward and leave behind many years of inferiority complexes and obsolete political ideologies. It is precisely at this moment when a militaristic regime has taken over political power in our country and is forcing the country backwards.

This regime should be isolated.

In fact, it is being isolated. Although it has immense financial resources at its disposal to buy temporary loyalties and, although it has been able to recruit a group of foreign fellow travelers, from Saramago to Ramonet, who sing its praises mostly because it opposes the U. S., the Venezuelan militaristic regime is progressively losing the battle of international public opinion. Hugo Chávez is now seen as the new and richest member of a club of political outcasts, from Castro to Gahdaffi, from Hussein to Mugabe. His clumsy attempts at diplomatic strategy have promoted chaos wherever he goes. He is now considered a visitor to be avoided at all costs, although oil money is still coveted by those who laugh at him behind his back.

The people of Venezuela are suffering greatly under the inept and populist regime of Hugo Chávez. Our Venezuelan tragedy might not be as spectacular as the ones in Sudan or Palestine tragedies but is no less real. It is equally dramatic, since it involves the destruction of a country that was, only two decades ago, in the threshold of becoming a member of the first world.

[Source: http://venezuelatoday.net/gustavocoronel.html]

2004-11-26T03:26:00.000+01:00

Autumn leaves in Germany, 2004.

Deinstitutionalisation

2004-11-26T02:47:00.000+01:00

I've just been reading in Groves' contribution to Leemans' "The Management of Change in Government" (1976) and came across the following statement (page 102):

On the whole, leader-dominant, personalistic regimes have not contributed much to political development as we have defined it. Whether one talks of a Sukarno, Nasser, Peron or Nkrumah there is little to suggest that this type of regime has been very conducive to the establishment of vigorous political institutions. In Huntington's view this is explained by the tendency of dominant leaders to view institutionalisation as a potential threat. They distrust institutions for they consider them to be inhibiting on personal prerogative and discretion, a rival (at least in potential) to their personal control. Such leaders sometimes urge the creation of new political structures but characteristically remain suspicious of their intentions. As such they generally turn later to frustrating their development or irradicating even the slightest evidence of independence.

This observation makes perfect sense when applied to Venezuela. The government there is undoubtedly "leader-dominant, personalistic"; so much so that its supporting political movement is not named by its goals or ideals, but rather referred to through its leader: chavismo, chavistas, chavista. And just as the above excerpt predicts, Chávez is deeply suspicious of all state institutions and has subverted them to his own ends: by packing the courts (including the Supreme Court) with his followers, by installing an obedient Electoral Commission that manipulates voting left, right, and centre, by taking control of the state oil company PDVSA through an instant firing of 14,000 employees (Daniel's excellent blog defines this as a new meaning of the expression "privatisation": PDVSA is now Chávez's private property, grim, but true cum grano salis), and by gagging the media by means of a new law that was passed today and that has already been criticised by Human Rights Watch for its potential to curtail freedom of expression in Venezuela.

The damage that Chávez's consolidation of institutional powers is causing in Venezuela is incalculable; it corresponds in type to Hitler's "Gleichschaltung" of all state institutions after his taking power in 1933. The fact that Chávez is buying new fighter aircraft and wants to start producing Kalashnikovs in Venezuela does not exactly inspire confidence under these circumstances. Exactly as George Orwell described in "Animal Farm", Chávez has sought and will continue to seek or invent internal or external enemies in order to justify his repression of dissidence and to consolidate his supporters. The increasing polarisation of society unfortunately also reduces the likelihood of finding a non-violent solution to the conflict. The fact that the Venezuelan nation will outlive Chávez and his nightmarish efforts provides only slim comfort for those who have to live with the consequences in the short to medium term.

2004-11-25T01:15:00.000+01:00

View of a German village in autumn 2004.

Boa constrictor

2004-11-24T20:44:00.000+01:00

The way the Venezuelan situation is developing surprises time and time again: every time we think that things cannot possibly get any worse, they deteriorate further. Which president of a democratic country would be proud to accept the Gaddafi Human Rights Prize, for Christ's sake? Chávez, that's who (he was nominated on 10 October 2004). Michael Rowan paints the picture in Tuesday's El Universal (see below, reproduced with the author's permission).

What President Chávez and his "revolución bonita" are doing to Venezuelan civil society can be likened to the action of a boa constrictor: it wraps around its victim and doesn't press too hard; it simply waits for the victim to exhale, as sooner or later it must, then tightens its grip and maintains the pressure; every time the victim gasps for breath, the boa pulls the noose a little bit tighter, until the victim suffocates. There is no respite.

Persons who have saved themselves from a boa attack have done so by biting the snake to death, savaging it with their teeth. I fervently hope that this is not the only option left to Venezuelans.

FREEDOM
by Michael Rowan
Special for El Universal

The pattern is unmistakable. Independent institutions from the courts to the congress, from PDVSA to the Central Bank, from governors to mayors, and in both public and private sectors, have been shackled, confined or suborned. Independent elections have been centralized, tabulated in secret, and reported as fact with the arrogance befitting a king. The freedoms of assembly and association have been impugned or prosecuted as a crime against the people. Free speech is under attack, and free speakers are charged with crimes with long prison terms for saying things the government does not like. Independent thinking is viewed as a threat to the political correctness of revolutionary dialectic, the litmus test for full citizenship and human rights that derive from government blessing, not human nature.

Freedom is ravaged in the name of freedom. Democracy is vandalized in the name of democracy. Justice is denied in the name of justice. Peace is sacrificed to violence and insecurity, and in the name of peace. Poverty increases in the name of its extirpation. The models to be idolized in the politically correct schools are Carlos the Jackal for justice, Muammar Qadafi for human rights, Robert Mugabe for democracy, and above all, Fidel Castro for all three. It is not that Venezuela is upside down, it is precisely the opposite, as has been publicly claimed. The world needs to realize it is not free, and that only Venezuela is free, sailing on a sleek sailboat in the glorious sea of happiness. As the new dialectic says, this is a truth which Bolivar or Christ would assert, were they to rise from the grave or descend from heaven to convince the doubting Thomas.

All this is possible with the price of an oil barrel at $50. Money backed by sheer power can pay for just about anything in this world. When people are hungry and insecure, and when there is only one source for work, income, shelter and the basics of life, people will go along with all kinds of talk in order to survive. This has happened in the distant past and in modern times. It happened on the plantations of Venezuela two hundred years ago, in Germany in the 1930s, in Vichy France a little later, and in slave societies from time immemorial. Whether freedom will be sacrificed when the oil price drops is a question for Venezuelans, with the exception of those who already believe what Aesop wrote 26 centuries ago, "Better starve free than be a fat slave."

2004-11-22T21:21:00.000+01:00

Spring flowers in Germany.

An obvious truth

2004-11-22T20:41:00.000+01:00

This is a topic I will be returning to often. Here's a teaser to get us going: why do creationists suppose that bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?

This is evolution in action: we start off with a population of happy organisms in a lovely environment (for instance, a person infected with tuberculosis). Suddenly, the environment turns nasty: the person has received an antibiotic. The antibiotic kills off almost all of the tuberculosis bacteria, but some survive; they are slightly different from their companions and are not much bothered by the antibiotic. The survivors multiply joyfully. The infected person still has tuberculosis, but now the original antibiotic no longer makes any difference. (See the Wikipedia article for a more detailed explanation).

Why were some of the bacteria slightly different? Because they are mutated, meaning that their genetic information is slightly different to that of their forebears. What causes mutations? They can be caused by transcription errors during cell division or by exposure to radiation, certain chemicals, and viruses.

All of the basic processes underlying evolution -- variation, selection, and reproduction -- are well-understood and backed up by mountains of evidence. There is no simpler, more elegant, or more complete explanation of phenomena such as bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics. So why do creationists persist in denying an obvious truth?

2004-11-21T22:45:00.000+01:00

The vault under the cathedral in Trier, Autumn 2004.

Self-referential "truth"

2004-11-21T22:22:00.000+01:00

When I was in Miami, I met some fundamentalist Christians who believed in the literal truth of the bible. They tried very hard to convert me, but to no avail; I was much happier at the Book Fair the next day speaking to the South Florida Atheists.

Here's one of the things that really made my hackles stand up when I was being subjected to the high-pressure proselytising: the reason these neo-medieval literalists believe the bible to be true is because they consider it the word of God. How do they know that it really is the word of God? Because it says so: in the bible. In other words, these people know that it's true because it's true, which is, of course, no reason at all, but simply a philosophical merry-go-round with no "off" button.

Another word for this closed thinking loop is "blind faith". And another word for "blind faith", I'd say, is "shutdown of the brain". That's what's saddest about fundamentalists: they declare whole portions of their reality no-go zones that they will no longer explore with their (God-given!) intelligence and senses, but simply believe, even in the face of evidence. Hark the bible! "Blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear." (MT 13:16)

p.s.: By the way, this applies to all types of fundamentalists, not just the Christian ones. (I would not want to be seen playing favourites here!)

2004-11-21T01:10:00.000+01:00

Medieval house in autumn, Germany, 2004.

Where it all begins

2004-11-20T22:17:00.000+01:00

So, is this what blogging's all about: making one's inner monologue available for the world to see? We shall see what comes of this venture over the next few months, or perhaps years. It is a voyage of discovery for me and for you, esteemed reader; let us see where it takes us.

Recently, my inner monologue has often been adamant, exasperated, and indignant; there are a lot of developments in the world that do not reflect favourably on the learning ability of our species, and something needs to be done about these issues. Naming and understanding them is a first step.

This blog will be my outlet for my thoughts on these issues and anything else that tickles my fancy. Topics to look out for: international relations, above all between EMEA and the Americas; the art of thinking things through to their conclusions; developments in Venezuela; the unfortunate backsliding to pre-enlightenment faith in the USA; women's rights; the role of progress and economic liberty; and a bit of commentary on books and music to keep us amused.

So, let's huddle around the fire and listen to some stories...