Reading
yesterday’s paper was quite depressing due to the large number of articles in
which it was clear that this country is being led by the blind, not only away
from democratic principles, but away from the drive of individual into a no
man’s land of brainwashing and a wishy washy socialism that has yet to be
defined.
Unfortunately,
I picked up El Nacional first. I started with an interview with one of the
“theorists” of the robolution, a Spaniard by the name of Monedero, who has
found in Chavez a fantastic utter to suck on to finance his life and his
research. I may be actually exaggerating by calling it research, as Mr.
Monedero over and over shows that he knows very little about Venezuela. He
seems to be a theorist of left wing ideas and models, which he wants to apply
in countries different than his, just in case it all fails, let someone else
suffer the consequences. Daniel has discussed him extensively, thus I will not
bother you with it, but I would like to emphasize that Monedero does not seem
to have read or learned much about Venezuela’s recent history and the dismal
failure of Governments, which is being repeated by Chavez’ but this time on
steroids, in managing utilities and social programs. Thus, one has to wonder
how a Government that cannot manage one program can somehow take under its wing
all sorts of programs, using on top of that, only the loyalists that surround
the autocrat.
But the
scariest part of the article is that after eight years of this fake revolution,
one of its main theorists says that they have yet to “invent” exactly what the
model is for this virtual or imaginary destructive XXIst. Century Socialism
that Chávez is imposing. While the models are being invented, Chávez takes over
more and more without a clue as to what to do with it, which guarantees that
nothing will run in the end.
Thus, Mr.
Monedero was apparently hired because he is a proven leftists and admirer of
the robolution, but not because he had any specific knowledge and/or proposal
in mind. Just a good cheerleader who is a foreigner, and thus better than any
Venezuelan to the robolutionaries. Hopefully, given his curriculum he may come
up with some good ideas if he takes the time to learn how Venezuela works and
if they fail, he can try some different ones or we may look for a new theorist
from Argentina, Zimbabwe or North Korea, countries that love to experiment but
have had no success, after all, we do want our socialism to be different than
those that have succeeded elsewhere…like…like…like…well, I guess I don’t have
the knowledge to tell you which one.
I then
proceeded to the interview with the Minister of Higher Education Luis Acuña,
someone I am acquainted with, but will not tell you what I think of him from
that fairly extensive contact. Instead, all I could think reading him was that
I did not know he had such a fascist and cynical streak in him. Or maybe
I did, since I initiated a more recent interaction with him about a year ago,
when he was just a Deputy, which was discontinued by him when I asked how he
could support a Government in a good conscience, which had such little
disregard for human rights.
Besides
his statement about the universities here having kidnapped autonomy, Acuña
proceeds to say essentially that things have to change at the universities so
that discussion can be eliminated and only one school of thought taught in
order to create the new Venezuelan man or woman. I was planning to write more
about this today, but then someone sent me a letter by Amalio Belmonte, a
Sociology Professor from Universidad Central de Venezuela whom I never met.
Since he covers much of what I was planning to say and does it well, I simply
translate some excerpts:
“Minister
Acuña insists in the official purpose of creating “revolutionary consciences”
to form the men and women needed by the revolution. This makes it indispensable
to reeducate the country to have a general will imposed by the canons of XXIst.
Century Socialism, so that it generates a subservient conscience, proper of
those regimes that are dominated by authoritarian and totalitarian regimes”
“The
Minister proposes to constitute the State-Ideology from the universities,
because they can not be absent from the changes and he says: “Nothing has
happened at the universities”. He regrets that we have not obsequiotiusly gone
to surrender to the discourse of the new creator of the country and he demands
that we join submissively in front of the revolutionary leaders. Only in this
manner will the high functionary of Higher Education recognize that we are not
a conservative institution.”
“Professor
Acuña avoids a retrospective reflection so as not to see himself as Dean of the
University of Oriente, elected by the same peers that he now accuses of being
elitist and closed. When you hold power, visits by your conscience provoke
internal conflicts. Because power, with its terrible logic, upsets positions
and principles. He wants us to accompany him in the destruction of the most
expensive principles that the university has, which makes academic environments
spaces appropriate for thinking and questioning the established premises and
submit them to the corresponding critical analysis, opened to the multiple
forms of seeing reality that prepares human beings for freedom, because the
production of knowledge and culture is an activity that demands, without
excuses and limitations, a spirit inclined to democratic controversy, far from
absolute conclusions. Without any doubt, these premises are contrary to those
of States which have one dimensional ideologies.”
“Acuña
adds that the conditions to become e University President have to be “revised”
to adapt them to their attributions and pertinence to the context of the higher
education the country demands and that allow for the materialization of an
efficient state signed by socialist ethic. The authorities he says: “Can not
place their academic merits above these new conceptions of autonomy with
protagonist participation “He also thinks equally that “he would not put in a
position someone with a capitalist vision”. He requires that the Rectors “share
the power”, because he considers it suspicious any authority which is not
controlled by the Government. His Ministry will be in charge of granting
ideological indulgences and reward those that repent from being free and
autonomous.
“This form
of conceiving academia and of governing has precedents that do not make the
Minister look good, if he cared. The Nazi regime also required Aryan science,
culture and art opposed to the Jewish physique and the decadent bourgeois art.
President Truman equally, in the early days of the cold war, ordered that
education promote values, which would create loyalties to confront communism.
Similar efforts were made by Stalin and the leaders of the Chinese Cultural
Revolution. In all of these cases they imposed from the position of power the
idea of good and evil. With which people and institutions were evaluated in
order to defined those that were convinced and the enemies of the State.
How the
Minister reached this point is hard for me to fathom. How power can corrupt
someone so fast and easy is even more incredible. A well educated man ( He has
a Ph.D. in Physics) forgets the basic principles of being open to new ideas and
discussion. Even worse, he seems to have forgotten, besides those that elected
him Dean, the same system that gave him his education, without asking him why
or what, as well as the research funding into his not so very
"pertinent" research, which he now seems to be so critical about. Who
is the real Luis Acuña? This one or that one? We may never know.
What we do
know is that these pseudo-academics are now backing the autocrat and what he
stands for, simply to get power and/or money. However, with their backing and
tacit acceptance, they are helping in destroying Venezuela in the name of an
undefined project, which all that it seems to be asking is that we be
submissive to the wishes and desires of the autocrat. While we do that, they
may be able to luckily "find" the model they are searching for, or
cause more pain and destruction to the "people" they claim to love.
Wouldn't
it have been better to at least Search for someone with a model or
proposal? We could have at least saved some time that way, rather that wasting
eight years in this existential search and who knows how many wasted more years
and billions of dollars are in front of us.
9:42:52 PM 
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