Chavez - Saint or Sinner?

Wednesday 21^st September was International day of Peace. It was marked by candid, anti-imperialist fighting talk from Evo Morales, President of Bolivia. Bravo. TeleSur in Venezuela, an al-Jazera type station for Latin America, created by Chavez, gave much coverage to the Morales speech. It also covered an ecumenical service at Riverside Church for the health of Chavez, who has returned to Cuba for another bout of chemotherapy. Despite being in Cuba for treatment, Chavez joined the worshippers and spoke to them for several minutes via satellite link up. He called for peace and for the world to speak up against imperialist attacks on sovereign states.

The pulpit at Riverside displayed quite an amazing portrait of Chavez, the pioneer of 21^st century socialism, in the icon Mother Teresa and Dalai Lama, hands in prayer in front of the face pose. Was there a subliminal message here? Is Chavez a saint or a sinner, does he feel his immortality close at hand? 21^st century socialism, Chavez style, has issues with the church but not with religion. We should pray for his recovery.

Although my Spanish remains rudimentary, I attempt to read newspapers and notice that in papers of a certain hue, el imperio, is used to refer to the United States. Chavez has taken a stance against el imperio on a regular basis but clearly the ante is being upped. Following Venezuela's supply of an oil product to Iran earlier this year, the US imposed sanctions against several Venezuelan oil companies/subsidiaries. Since the government owns the oil company this was seen as an attack on the government. What the US did not impose however, was sanctions on the sale of oil to the US from the very same companies. The hypocrisy of this is self-evident. And while Chavez and Morales highlight the way in which the US and other Western powers play games with sovereign states – think Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, they must also fear for themselves as promoters of a different political and social ideology. One which capitalist powers, for all their claims to democracy, seem unwilling to let flourish, either inside or outside their own borders. Chavez is right to feel threatened but he's coming out fighting and if that means invoking 'great' leaders such as the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa, I won't complain.

And one more thing, price controls on meat came in to effect in Venezuela this past week. It caused chaos in supermarkets in Disneyland! But more on that next time.