This letter
from Laureano Marquez in today’s Tal Cual reflects a lot of the thoughts
that went through my mind when I first noticed the enthusiasm of some people
with the candidacy of El Conde del Guacharo. The difference is that Laureano
Marquez can express things in such an exquisite way, that I am just no match for
him. It was not easy to translate because of the idioms and slang used by
Marquez. Hope it works.
The more I
hear about El Conde’s candidacy, the less I like it, the more concerned I get. When I hear Mari Pili defending it, Chavez’
campaign Manager saying that it is the only serious opposition candidacy and
former Chavez’ supporters
saying he is going to rise to the top of the polls, I can’t help but wonder
what is behind all this. There are too many unanswered questions for my taste
and it is so easy to hide behind the words of humor when serious questions are
asked. The choice is simply brilliant. But very few answers are available despite the widespread media exposure of the novel candidate. In fact, there seem to be more questions as the days go by. I don’t believe in conspiracies in
general, but somehow I can see the following in our future:
--The
opposition primary goes reasonably well on August 13th.
--The CNE
approves the use of the fingerprint machines for the December election.
--The opposition
refuses to go to the election with fingerprint machines present.
--Presidential
elections are held in December with three candidates: Hugo Chavez, Benjamin Rausseo
and Roberto Smith.
--Chavez
either beats Rausseo or gets the CNE to do it for him and the revolution and
the next 6^n years of Chavez are legitimized. Paranoid? Stupid?
Silly? I just don’t
know, we will have to wait, in the meantime enjoy Laureano’s not so humorous
piece: Letter to Er Conde by Laureano Marquez Sorry for
this letter, but you know better than anyone that there is nothing that us
humorists like to do more that to pick on politicians.
I got quite
enthusiastic with your candidacy while I thought it was serious, like that of
Zapata at the time, but now that I see that it is just kidding, the truth is
that I am disappointed.
In any
case, this shit is not with you, Conde. I don’t question your thirst for power You have
all the right to do it. The trouble is
with ourselves. To say it in your style: this shit is a self-conflict. I thought
that after seven years, we would have assimilated some lesson of what happened
to us and, nevertheless, I see people that voted for Chavez and now hate him to
death, using the same arguments which they, at the time, used to justify him:
the old tale about the anti-politics, the outsider, the leader that. As if
politics was not a matter of projects, vital vocation, of the road traveled, of
long and extensive militancy of ideas, of profound reflection about the destiny
of man; in the end, a matter of politics. Your
candidacy has aroused the furor of the opposition world. Coño, Conde, I just had
a flashback to the 1998 movie, the same shit: That you
are the expression of dissatisfaction, that we have to give a lesson to the
leaders, that even if we lose anyway, with you we are going to have a ball. Of
the latter, I have no doubt, Conde, but in the end, the victory of Chavez will
take place in the middle of all the joking, criollo and with gusto, which will
make it easier to get along with and accept the installation of his
authoritarian political project. I think officialdom is conscious of this and
that is why they are excited about your campaign launch. “Venezuelans like to
kid around”, they say and who better than you to be their leader. When we wake
up from all the kidding around, my dear friend, when we get over the drunkenness,
an accomplice of the petrodollars we have negotiated for our destiny as a
nation, then we will see in action the only leader that truly has a clear
project. In all of
this you will end up being a sort of electoral Vaseline. The
reception that you have been given has served me well to ponder the magnitude of
what awaits us in the bosom of XXIst century socialism, because we are so
removed from the tragedy that is closing in on us. The electoral phenomenon, in which
you have turned yourself into, instills in me the certainty that this society
does not deserve getting rid of Chavez; we have earned him in the end. It is
like Moses’ journey through the Sinai, there is a generation of adorers of the golden
calf that has to disappear from the desert to see if next time around it
deserves to enter the Promised Land. Let us not lose hope, our grandchildren
will see it. I am sorry
Conde. You know that this shit is not with you. This letter is, like I said
before, a matter of self-conflict. At this
juncture, on top of that, it is not you; it is our history, our destiny, a sort
of Hegelian synthesis. That is
why the funniest of the Marx brothers, Karl, pointed out that when Hegel says
that the important events in history repeat twice, he forgot to say that the first
time is as a tragedy and the second one as a farce. Good luck
Conde, forget what has been said. Don’t get pissed at me, because I don’t want
to be the first one to be politically persecuted in your Government. If you
decide to change sides once again and go back to humor, we will be here waiting
for you with open arms. As always.
7:31:49 PM 
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