By Michael O'Callaghan Cañizares
Opinion-
On the 5th of March 2013 while walking home from work in Derry (N.Ireland) through the town centre I saw a small gathering of around 15-20 people. Two of them held up a very large Cuban flag, and as the rest listened, a third spoke into a microphone.
I stood for a moment trying to understand what was going on. The man speaking on the microphone spoke of remembering a fallen hero, a great leader who had pushed his country forward and freed his people from the shackles of poverty.
All became clear in the end, when he closed off by saying "Rest in peace Hugo Chávez".
That moment was as ridiculous to me as if they had all suddenly taken out banana cream pies and thrown them at each other. A Cuban flag to remember Chávez? How offensive, how stupid, and how fitting.
I walked away saying nothing, something I have often regretted. I was born and raised in Venezuela; I left, as did thousands of others because there was simply no future for me there. It is my home, but I may never go back. My sons will very possibly never see it for themselves and if they do it will be the shattered broken remains, hopefully healing remains of what used to be there. For all of Chávez' talk and all his promises he crippled our country into a spiral of mismanagement and corruption that will leave its mark for generations. He destroyed every aspect of our economy and for a time masked the extent of the damage with oil wealth, appeasing his followers with social programs and keeping himself and his closest allies rich well beyond the means of any honest politician. Now after his death the mask has come off under Nicolás Maduro. But we should not forget who did the damage, whose policy and memory Maduro is faithfully following. Now they cling to power by twisting the rules of law to suit them, oppressing through violence and censorship.
The people who mourned Chávez’ death and for so long defended his regime and that of his successor Nicolás Maduro often did so out of loyalty to a word: Socialism. But one thing I have learned is that words can mean very different things in different places. For example a Republican in Ireland is often thought of as someone who supports the idea of an all Ireland republic, the ideals of the political parties in Northern Ireland who mark themselves Republican are often very distantly removed from those of the GOP, for whom the word Republican is used in the US. Most people wouldn’t be confused by this.
I have found myself in a number of debates with people from my home country in defence of the word Socialism. I believe in some elements of socialism; the socialism of many European countries, the socialism of the moderate left. I want free health care, tuition free universities, a good welfare system to catch people when they fall and help them back up. I want government to care about its people more than about keeping the 1% rich and I believe that even if someone is by choice a total lazy waste of space they deserve, as a human right, to be provided access to basic standards of living. I believe in doing that within a system that also allows people the room and grants them the support to do well and achieve as much as they can, within a system that understands the realities of economics and can achieve those social programs in a way that is sustainable.
So often I have met people who agree on all those points but are disgusted by the word because in Venezuela it was stolen by Chavismo and made to mean for many the same as Authoritarianism, Cronyism, Fascism.
Similarly in Europe I meet people who agree and who despise those negative terms but who support Chavismo because it identifies as Socialist.
Words have power. We learn their meaning not just from a dictionary but also from our long experiences with them. We get to know them, and like them or dislike them as if they were people. We assume everyone’s definition of the word is or at least should be the same but they are simply not. Is Bernie Sanders the same as Chávez? No, obviously not. But a great many who agree with him won’t support him because he used the same word: Socialism.
Language and the use of these words and others must inevitably form part of any intelligent debate when discussing an issue so clouded in propaganda from all sides. For years the Venezuelan government's blatant and intentional misuse of powerful words completely shaped international debate on the basis of people assuming they knew what those words meant. For so long the Venezuelan opposition was described by most UK news media as the "Right wing opposition" or in certain cases even the "Far-right opposition". The Venezuelan opposition is composed of every political orientation that is anything other than far left and authoritarian, including several which explicitly define themselves as socialist (e.g. the MAS or “Movimiento Al Socialismo”). Those definitions of right wing and far right are the words the regime used to scare its supporters away from the opposition; and the international media swallowed it up and propagated it for them. They used the distaste many liberals or people on the left have against the idea of American imperialism or interventionism and made themselves the victims of that. They used everyone’s fear of the word fascist to demonise their enemies, when by definition they are the fascists. Many did not question their use of the words, they just swallowed it. Against a largely uneducated mass these words unchallenged were simply absorbed. Words have power. They can be misused and we must be critical when listening.
This is an important reason why those who believe themselves socialist or leftist need to quickly disavow and distance themselves from any regime that helps to corrupt the meaning of the word. Defending rational socialism doesn’t just mean fighting the far right, it means fighting the internal corrosion of regimes such as these.The Venezuelan government is not socialist.
It is Chavista and that word is theirs to define, and to corrupt.
I stood for a moment trying to understand what was going on. The man speaking on the microphone spoke of remembering a fallen hero, a great leader who had pushed his country forward and freed his people from the shackles of poverty.
All became clear in the end, when he closed off by saying "Rest in peace Hugo Chávez".
That moment was as ridiculous to me as if they had all suddenly taken out banana cream pies and thrown them at each other. A Cuban flag to remember Chávez? How offensive, how stupid, and how fitting.
I walked away saying nothing, something I have often regretted. I was born and raised in Venezuela; I left, as did thousands of others because there was simply no future for me there. It is my home, but I may never go back. My sons will very possibly never see it for themselves and if they do it will be the shattered broken remains, hopefully healing remains of what used to be there. For all of Chávez' talk and all his promises he crippled our country into a spiral of mismanagement and corruption that will leave its mark for generations. He destroyed every aspect of our economy and for a time masked the extent of the damage with oil wealth, appeasing his followers with social programs and keeping himself and his closest allies rich well beyond the means of any honest politician. Now after his death the mask has come off under Nicolás Maduro. But we should not forget who did the damage, whose policy and memory Maduro is faithfully following. Now they cling to power by twisting the rules of law to suit them, oppressing through violence and censorship.
The people who mourned Chávez’ death and for so long defended his regime and that of his successor Nicolás Maduro often did so out of loyalty to a word: Socialism. But one thing I have learned is that words can mean very different things in different places. For example a Republican in Ireland is often thought of as someone who supports the idea of an all Ireland republic, the ideals of the political parties in Northern Ireland who mark themselves Republican are often very distantly removed from those of the GOP, for whom the word Republican is used in the US. Most people wouldn’t be confused by this.
I have found myself in a number of debates with people from my home country in defence of the word Socialism. I believe in some elements of socialism; the socialism of many European countries, the socialism of the moderate left. I want free health care, tuition free universities, a good welfare system to catch people when they fall and help them back up. I want government to care about its people more than about keeping the 1% rich and I believe that even if someone is by choice a total lazy waste of space they deserve, as a human right, to be provided access to basic standards of living. I believe in doing that within a system that also allows people the room and grants them the support to do well and achieve as much as they can, within a system that understands the realities of economics and can achieve those social programs in a way that is sustainable.
So often I have met people who agree on all those points but are disgusted by the word because in Venezuela it was stolen by Chavismo and made to mean for many the same as Authoritarianism, Cronyism, Fascism.
Similarly in Europe I meet people who agree and who despise those negative terms but who support Chavismo because it identifies as Socialist.
Words have power. We learn their meaning not just from a dictionary but also from our long experiences with them. We get to know them, and like them or dislike them as if they were people. We assume everyone’s definition of the word is or at least should be the same but they are simply not. Is Bernie Sanders the same as Chávez? No, obviously not. But a great many who agree with him won’t support him because he used the same word: Socialism.
Language and the use of these words and others must inevitably form part of any intelligent debate when discussing an issue so clouded in propaganda from all sides. For years the Venezuelan government's blatant and intentional misuse of powerful words completely shaped international debate on the basis of people assuming they knew what those words meant. For so long the Venezuelan opposition was described by most UK news media as the "Right wing opposition" or in certain cases even the "Far-right opposition". The Venezuelan opposition is composed of every political orientation that is anything other than far left and authoritarian, including several which explicitly define themselves as socialist (e.g. the MAS or “Movimiento Al Socialismo”). Those definitions of right wing and far right are the words the regime used to scare its supporters away from the opposition; and the international media swallowed it up and propagated it for them. They used the distaste many liberals or people on the left have against the idea of American imperialism or interventionism and made themselves the victims of that. They used everyone’s fear of the word fascist to demonise their enemies, when by definition they are the fascists. Many did not question their use of the words, they just swallowed it. Against a largely uneducated mass these words unchallenged were simply absorbed. Words have power. They can be misused and we must be critical when listening.
This is an important reason why those who believe themselves socialist or leftist need to quickly disavow and distance themselves from any regime that helps to corrupt the meaning of the word. Defending rational socialism doesn’t just mean fighting the far right, it means fighting the internal corrosion of regimes such as these.The Venezuelan government is not socialist.
It is Chavista and that word is theirs to define, and to corrupt.
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