Capitalism is death

*photo: view of M’s bathroom window

“Capitalism is hunger” and “Capitalism is death” accompanied with images of various coups, military regimes, wars and so on, is one of the current ad campaigns on the Venezuelan government channel. Better if you could see it yourself, to believe me how effective it is.
A few foreigners have commented to me lately that the government media here is very propagandistic, and its true that, in order to counter the shit put out by the private media, a lot of the government websites, radio and TV do emphasise the various government projects and achievements. But its not true that there’s no debate (in fact most of the talk shows on VTV are some kind of debate) and frankly I think the Capitalism is Death campaign is great- its full of dates and events and facts about the current world situation that other TV channels, anywhere in the world, would love us to forget and to be otherwise distracted by not funny crap like Everybody Loves Raymond or whatever.
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The technology students came again to our communal council meeting and presented their plan to deal with crime in the area. Their idea is to put cameras on every corner, which would feed back to a computer which would be monitored by the community police, or people chosen by the community or the council. I have to say I was hella sceptic, it reminds me of big brother or 1984, with the obvious big difference being that the cameras are under democratic community control, rather than some dictator dude. Still, I said we’d have to hold a community assembly as there are privacy issues, and the rest of the meeting agreed, but everyone seemed pretty convinced that people would feel combating crime is more important.
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There have been a lot of meetings…I went to an anarchist meeting on campus, and have to say I couldn’t disagree more with the main speaker. But to the credit of anarchists, he was extremely negative about everything, criticised everything, and proposed nothing. I don’t think they are all like that.
Then there was a meeting with an Argentinian feminist- about 30 people turned up (7 guys), which is not bad for little Merida and for a country with a non existing women’s movement. The woman was said quite a few interesting things, and compared the history of women’s struggle in Europe to the one here in Latin America (though I disagree with her that you can so easily generalise about LA- Bolivia and Chile and Colombia and Guatamala are world’s apart). She said that here, women still occupy the private domain, and men the public, that there is no “new man” if there aren’t new male/female relations, that when you talk about revolution you have to start with democracy in the house or family, and that gender is the cultural expression of sexual differences.
There was also a rather cool puppet show and singing night put on by Argentinians as well, the other night in the cultural centre. Awesome music and a touching show- the way the woman moved the puppet around, giving him emotions through his posture, and how this puppet-man was meant to symbolise Argentinian history… that was definitely special.
There was the book launch of a book about INVEVAL, in which a CMR worker from there talked about the Revolutionary Front of Occupied and Co-managed Companies. He had lots of great ideas, but unfortunately at the moment they are only being put into practice in a few companies around the country. In the discussion one woman said that we should be fighting for democracy in the public sector as well as the private sector workplaces. She said she has worked for years for CNE (National Electoral Council) as a contract worker. Meanwhile a friend of mine works for the government workers rights institute, and she said that daily they get complaints about bosses not implementing laws, abusing workers and so on. Clearly the revolution is radicalising workers, has seen a few occupations and many more workers protests and so on than before, but its only touching the tip of the iceberg.

The Honduran coup was personal here

I was really moved by the Venezuelan reaction to the coup in Honduras. On two levels… One was the way everyone (well obviously not everyone, there are always those who go about their shopping and drinking and soapie watching as if the world is not a bigger place..) but a lot of people were somewhat glued to their televisions, watching the events progress, and here in Merida a crowd gathered from 12pm in the plaza to protest. Eventually a large TV was set up in the government building, facing the plaza, and I remember the serious and solemn expressions on hundreds of people’s faces as they crowded around the TV, watching the ‘new president’ swear himself in (see photo above).
Clearly it brought back memories of the April 2002 coup here. But also it just felt like this coup was almost happening to us. A kind of sense that what happens anywhere in Latin America is personal. And that the possibility of future coups, here or in other places, is real.
The other moving thing is, damn the left governments here are uniting and becoming a powerful force. They’ve become a bit like a block, uniting and voting together to push through various left wing initiatives in what were previously US-controlled multilateral orgs like OAS etc. And they are all against this coup, and then how fun it was to watch the conservative governments of Panama and Mexico etc swallowing their tongues and saying, briefly, they are ‘for democracy’ (bullshit Mexico…) too. How weird too, for the US and for the UN to come out against a coup, an anti-left wing coup. Not that Zelaya is that left wing, but he’s clearly allied with Chavez in lots of way, and uses anti poverty rhetoric.
So, despite how things are looking now, for the moment I’m stoked and I hope that what comes out of this is a radicalisation of Hondurans and here as well, and even more stronger unity between the left wing governments of Latin America as they have seen how powerful they can be, working together.

I talked to some people at the protest here and noted what they said,

"Clearly US imperialism is getting scared," said Douglas Arauju

"We're here supporting the sovereignty of the people, we're counting on people waking up, we're not alone you know, we're a South American people," said Marilyn Osorio

"What happened was a coup just like the coup that happened here in April 2002, the military acted similarly in Honduras.. us as Venezuelans and having the experience of what we suffered in April 2002, we support the democratically elected president of Honduras," said Ismael Pena

"This is another coup by the oligarchy and the CIA against democracy...like what happened in Venezuela...but the people of Honduras will win. The truth will prevail," said Gladys Araque

"What happened in Honduras was a coup against democracy and the people, the armed forces and the oligarchy represented by the mainstream media conspired together," said Mauro Lamus

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Later, myself and two friends popped down to the barrio to a meeting organised by the Culture ministry, then we’d come back after to what really felt like a vigil. Today the TV is still in the plaza, and there’s a small crowd watching.

Anyway there were only about 8 people at the cultural meeting, for a variety of reasons – I guess the community is quite small, the meeting hadn’t been publicised that well, and clearly a lot of people were distracted (in a good way) by the coup.

Never the less, I was impressed. Basically the point of the meeting was to just talk about things like human development (that is, development for humans and the planet rather than for profit), values, morals and things. Nothing at all religious. But very much the sort of stuff that should be discussed more and that rarely is, in an organised way amongst communities. This community is one of the most… full on ones too, with a lot of confrontations, relative poverty, drug and violence problems and so on.
In so many third world countries, I think they don’t get around to talking about the environment, because there are always just more apparently pressing issues to talk about, like housing, food, water, access to medicine, etc. Here, the man from the ministry talked about how much water the world has, how non salty water will run out in 45 years, and this fisherman guy with few teeth and wearing rain boots got up and talked about how the future is important and that we have to look after the world for our children.
Then R, my friend from this community, a half indigenous woman with 2 children that she’s raising alone, got up and talked about the difference between morals and ethics. She was a bit nervous. But hurray that the ministry isn’t just doing all the talking, but rather encouraging new leadership and participation in the communities and getting them to give talks too.

Behind Walls

Wow I’d never been to the school of music building before. And M’s choir was performing there for Fathers’ Day, so he texted me like half an hour before the performance, asking if I wanted to come…I got dressed, ran (well, walked fast) down, and into the building…and…woa… soooo beautiful!! I had no idea, walking past it from the outside for almost 2 years now…(and damn I didn’t bring my camera- next time)
The building is based around a big square patio, with 3 floors surrounding the patio in some ancient rustic grey design, old balconies looking out down on the patio. In patio corners there are gardens- a big jacaranda tree dropping its purple flowers on the patio, other crazy trees, some with the grey green beards. From the jacaranda tree there were strings with hundreds of origami cranes, and behind the trees, on the walls around the patio area, there was awesome grafitti art- good art. So the whole place is just full of colour, its incredibly peaceful.
A group of kids – tiny little 4 year olds and things, sang, and the 50 or so parents watched and clapped (and clapped and clicked along, as the kids instructed them too), then M’s choir (called voces oscuros- dark voices) sang too. They sold some deserts and stuff after (and hot dogs- oh god how gross- pink sausage, covered in chips- the packet kind- and then mayonnaise and tomato sauce- oh well, a good fundraiser) and the money raised was to help them go to Argentina in August for a Latin America choir festival there.

I’m still utterly impressed with my communal council. We meet yesterday even though it was raining and even though it was a national holiday (Anniversary of the Battle of Carabobo).
Our community put security as the number one local priority, so we have to talk about it and try to look at solutions. Unfortunately, I think its one really hard problem to solve with short term methods. One guy, an engineering student, came to the meeting with a proposal for security cameras. Well that would help to the extent that the robbers and so on might go somewhere else, but it would also be extremely costly. So we are going to talk other nearby councils and see what they are doing and see if we can’t do something with them (they have money, we still don’t have a council bank).
We also talked a lot about housing. It seems the government is building a block of flats nearby- with 2500 units (so more than a block I guess, more like a whole development). At the moment it seems they want half of these to be private, and the other half will be fully or partially subsidised housing for those who most need it. The communal councils will play a big role in working out who does need housing (as we generally know our community and have done door to door calls a number of times over different things), so we had a long discussion about how to get the information out and how to organise it all. Some people do have it pretty tough, even in the fairly middle class area where our council is- one woman was renting out just a room (I mean a room only) and was living there with her two children. Other places do that on a mass basis- one place has 10 bedrooms and just one bathroom. I doubt they get access to the kitchen (its rare here, when you are renting a room, that you get full access to the house). Hard. Also it seems that anyone applying for these units would basically have to be married. They (private or government builders in Venezuela) pretty much don’t even build housing or units for single people, despite how many single mothers there are. The dominant culture is (and I say dominant but its by no means everyone) that you live with your family and then you get married and live with your spouse. Its quite hard to live here without some kind of family.
So we decided a tonne of things…. we’re going to make a community notice board and a mural, so today I went down to INJUVEM (Merida Government Youth organisation) and asked about how we can get some paint. The guy there said they will actually come and help us paint the mural, all we have to do is decide on a date. Wow. Lets see how that goes..

What is Radio?

“What is history?” was the theme of the ULA history students’ first show on Ecos radio.

“…it’s important to know who’s telling it…”

“…History is alive. It’s now.”

“…People use the past to justify the present. The past is very important.”

“…History is who we are, where we’ve come from..”

…They said and debated, and people texted in other comments which spurred the debate on further.

Radio shows are really not that hard. Later, some media and communication students talked to the group and asked me what I thought of it all. At the time my brain went blank (as it does when I’m asked to suddenly give my opinion, in Spanish, to a camera…) but later I compared the whole thing to Australia- or any other country really, where media- TV, radio, newspaper etc are very much seen as something you *receive*.

You receive entertainment, “news”, documentaries like you receive presents and I don’t think it occurs to many people to participate in media (beyond calling up to talk shows or to send out love and birthday messages).

Here, such forms of media still dominate, but the alternative and community media are becoming more and more accessible and popular and respected I think (slowly). The idea is that media is for the community to use to communicate with the rest of the community. To express opinions, announce events, and something that is accessible to everyone- not just people with “radio voices” and careers and connections. So the history students just decided they wanted to have a show and they talked to the guys at Ecos, and now every Saturday for 2 hours they question Venezuela and South America’s history and how it’s talked about and perceived. And as I said, its realllly easy to do. Why should such a powerful medium be limited to so few people?

As we waited for a few others to arrive, M talked to the Ecos guy and asked to learn how to use the controls. It took about 5 minutes to explain. There are these switches that turn on the various microphones, the phone, and the computer. There’s the computer program where you line up ahead various songs or community announcements. Similar to any winamp play list. So R sat in that room, and put on a song occasionally to break up all the talking, and we all sat in the other room around a table, where there were 5 microphones. And then, like that, you just have a discussion.

J got there at 11 and sat down to join in. He sells sweets and chips from a tray in the pubs until late at night, so was still tired. Half way through the discussion I went out into the other room to listen to it via the radio, and came back to tell them they were talking to close to the microphones. Then went back to other room and fiddled with a guitar. A girl walked in and sat down watching me, as if I had the vaguest idea of what I was doing. “Teach me to sing?” she asked. (Anyone who knows me knows how I really can’t sing :).

The communal council stuff is chugging along. We have so many things we need to do. We want to use some empty land to be like the community space- make it into a library and meeting area for whatever groups, things like that. Then the school needs food and cutlery and stuff. And we want to paint a wall with a mural and put up a community notice board. And to get these reading circles started. And then there’s the new community council law which we want to study together first, then organise some kind of social day or something where we can inform everyone of what we’re working on, encourage more people to get involved- at least in a committee or something, and talk about or debate the new law (which, I have to say worries me a bit- you need 20 or 30% - I forget- attendance to make a decision. Wow so in a community of 600 you need 120-180 people to come! Wo.)

Still, I was impressed. Wednesday it rained, but everyone actually came to the meeting! But then some people from the school came, and we ended up spending the whole meeting talking about creating links between the school and the community, and didn’t get on to anything else. So then we had an extra meeting on Saturday. And then on Sunday a few of us- the cultural spokesperson, the education spokesperson and myself met to talk about how to get reading circle promoters. We’ll stick up some signs, and the education spokesperson will write a letter to the school to see if any teachers can volunteer, and we’ll try to get people along to sign up before next Wednesday’s meeting.

Meanwhile, the very centre of Merida organised their communal council elections for last Saturday. A hard task given how opposition the area is and the lack of sense of community because the area is mostly shops. They held their elections in the cultural centre- had some photos stuck up of the people running, and a electoral register for people to vote. I think in total 120 people (community size- 650) turned up to vote, so that’s…well, not that bad. A lot of the people from my PSUV branch were running. They’ve decided to put their time into the communal council as the branch hasn’t met since last year, and beyond a core of 4or 5 of us, noone ever comes to the meetings.

Community reading

About 20 people sat on chairs in a makeshift circle down by the plaza, and many more watched on from under trees and leaning against walls nearby. People walked past, stopped to listen for a while, stayed, or walked on. After a day of cultural activities organised by the ministry for culture (circus, forums, puppets, book stalls), now it was open mike time, and people talked about the media war. It started to get dark. Some kids performed a dance not very well, but got a lot of support from the crowd. Then everyone picked up their chairs and moved over a bit to where an outdoors cinema was set up. The TV collective showed a documentary they’d made based on an interview they did with Manu Chao.

The next day the ministry set up a mobile library in the same spot (basically a big van with shelves on the sides, mostly with children’s books), a tent and chairs, and throughout the day kids came along and had a bit of a read.
There’s something real sweet about reading outside. Also, it’s important to remember that public libraries are very much a first world thing. In Venezuela there isn’t much of a culture of reading, which is why I think they are emphasising reading for children, and you can see the advantage of reading in public like that.

In the same spot they also handed out this DVD with Venezuela’s real history (as opposed to the imperialist version of it), newspapers, magazines- also about Venezuela’s history, and these beautiful little boxes with ten small children’s books. They are so pretty, even though they’re for kids I want to read them.

Later, walking back home I saw an icecream seller, perhaps 14 years old, who had stopped work to read one of the little books. I took a photo, and it reminded me a bit of a photo I have of a policeman leaning against a wall, mesmerised by a novel in Cuba. Bugger work, bugger money, lets read : )

Anyway, I’m really excited about Chavez’s call for reading circles. I admit when I first read about it I was a bit sceptical, Chavez has a lot of cool ideas and sometimes he’s a bit ahead of everyone else with the things he calls for. But here they are, materialising. The ministries of culture and education are organising them, and I’m so happy to be one of the ones assigned to getting the reading circles set up in my communal council. We need to have at least 4 teacher kind of people signed up to being involved. Once we hand in the documentation for that, one of the ministries will send someone out to teach us how to go about the rest- how to set up the circles, what to do, how to get books etc.
Chatting to a culture ministry worker at the stall, he said that one of the reasons behind the reading circles was that despite all the books that have been given out- from children’s books, to novels, to books about history and political theory- most people just put them on their shelves and don’t read them. Doing it collectively like this I think will encourage some people to read the books and also maximise what we all get out of the reading.

Last night we were going to talk about getting the other 3 reading circle teachers at the communal council meeting but unfortunately the mother of one of the spokespeople died, so we went to the ‘salida’ (exit, literally) instead. I protested that I don’t know the person- the spokesperson hasn’t been to meetings in ages so I haven’t met her, but the other members said the point was to go as the communal council.
There was like 120 people or something there. It was a kind of service in the woman’s house, with an open casket inside, and a young woman led some praying.
Boy Venezuelans I think, at least outwardly, are quite different about death. They all walked past the open casket as if …I guess as if it wasn’t that big a deal. I’d be freaking out to see the dead body of a friend. They dress casually, they stand outside smoking or chatting in groups, kids run around playing, and although the mood was solemn, no one was really crying or particularly upset. It was similar at another salida I went to at the end of last year.

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And how could I forget the symphony concert? It was the Merida youth symphony orchestra and choirs, and they performed in the cultural centre on Friday night. I was on my way to a forum about the media war in the same building, but then couldn’t resist the crowds and the ambience…literally a good 3000 people were waiting and queuing outside for what was a free concert. I loved it because it’s rare to see people that excited about classical music (including me) but the founder of the national program that teaches kids in the barrios to play musical instruments- Abreu – was there, and the theatre- packed with people sitting in the aisles and squeezing in doorways etc- all roared and cheered when he came out to speak. And then they did the same for all the songs. It felt like a rock concert, people were that excited- except it wasn’t, it was very brilliant classical music.
Including, a deaf kids choir- who sang in sign language- with white gloves on their hands. And a conductor who had cerebral pausy and the crowd just loved him and he had a ball too.
With all this going on in the main concert hall of the cultural centre, there were still people in the downstairs café learning salsa, and old men playing chess in the entrance area, and kids learning contemporary dance in the side bit…

Super cheap milk, boring opposition students, dance, and frailejones

Photos from top: Super cheap Mercal milk, people queuing up to register or re-register in the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), clouds and frailejones in La Culata, street theatre in the main plaza.

Mercal- the government subsidised grocery store- is always an adventure. It seems to me that (at least the one near me, they do vary a bit) it mostly sells stuff at the same prices as everywhere else (since 11 basic foods are regulated) but then it always has a couple of surprise things super subsidised. It usually has the government sugar, and a few weeks ago it was selling jelly powder by the kilo. Today I got chocolate pudding powder by the kilo and a kilo of milk for BsF4.7. The regulated price is 13BsF, just down from 16BsF, although the supermarket up the road would always try to sell it for 17. Usually the deal is you have to buy at least one other mercal product, and its only one (one packet of sugar or of milk etc) per person, to prevent businesses buying it up cheap and using it for profit I guess.

I don’t buy fresh milk any more…its so expensive here (Bs2.4/litre – also a regulated price) and goes off all the time, where as the powdered stuff doesn’t, and a kilo makes 9 litres.

You can see in the picture that the milk is covered in government information/propaganda- the law on a people’s right to food, and it says in big text that it’s only for consumption in Venezuela- again people buy it up or are corrupt and leak it out and sell this sort of thing for a profit in Colombia.

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Ah what a crazy place the university is …for the last few days the right wing have been burning tires and blocking one of the main city roads that goes past the university- yet again. They never do or say anything. No placards with messages. Its up to one to guess and listen to rumours to know whether they want early holidays or are complaining about something more profound, such as the supposed government attacks on the right wing TV channel, globovision (verbal attacks that is). It- the tire burning, blocking streets and making things generally inconvenient – is getting boring now.
Although, I read in the local paper today that they also kidnapped 16 people- 14 of which were taxi drivers, wanting to exchange them for two fellow students who are in prison.

I’ve been trying to see if I can study at the university- its meant to be possible, there’s a system for ‘free students’- that is, students who pay a fee and study individual courses as they like rather than a whole degree, but no one seems to know how to actually do this and I’ve been sent from one office to another, to another, back to the first one, back to another one etc... I asked when semester dates are- September till January, the woman said vaguely. When in September? Oh… It just depends if there are disturbances or not.
Wow life at ULA is laid back, students (to perhaps over generalise) don’t seem too worried about passing and studying and they don’t seem to get a lot of assignments (based on the students I know). Plus teachers decide not to come half the time and it also sounds like a lot of them are pretty shocking, and when they don’t come, the students are just like ‘oh great, no class’.

In other uni related news- the left kicked ass in the recent elections, with the most ring wing, most violent group- m13- not winning any positions. Beats me where that came from.

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I decided to chill a bit last weekend. Saturday night I went with friends to a contemporary dance performance. There were two things that I loved about it- the first was everyone’s familiarity and the audience support. Afterwards, half the audience stayed back to talk to the dancers (of various ages), congratulate them etc. The second thing was the dancing itself- there were a few boring traditional dances (girls- for they were about 12-16- in pretty, short dresses and frozen smiles) but the contemporary dancing was just amazing. Images in the background, sometimes voiced over poetry, and intense symbolism….around themes such as the struggle of the planet, how urbanism kills gentle beauty, or other things that were more abstract, like this one woman who danced alone and you could just see how liberated she felt, doing it.
The next day I went with a friend up the mountain to ‘La Culata’- a popular walking track lined with the Andean plant –frailejones- see picture. They are not THAT pretty, but they are really really soft to touch and there’s a mild amount of local pride over them. It was really peaceful.

The streets are flooding and blocked and the priests are a preaching…

photo: view of the main (wet) plaza from the women's centre

It rained so much the other day that the roads were turned into racing rivers, and I walked around with my friend’s umbrella, wading in water at times up to just below my knees, bombarded by splashes from cars and water rebounding off roofs and bursting out pipes, it was great fun. But one woman died apparently, in the east of the state, and in Caracas there were earthquakes.
In the foreground to all this were left and right student battles with police. It seems to me that these come every 3 months, people stay at home, the schools are closed, there are traffic jams because roads are blocks, and then it all goes back to normal within a day or two. This time though, it wasn’t just the right wing causing disturbances, making a fuss over nothing, with no particular demands or aims. This time the left were involved in well. A student leader of the PSUV was killed by police the day before and so the right marched against budget cuts on the same day the far left got angry and burned some tires, trucks, blocked streets, wrote grafitti, and later burned Macdonalds. Ha, honestly, the burning of Macdonalds doesn’t bother me. The company stinks, and the actually restaurant, on the corner of the plaza, physically stinks. False hamburger smell, or something, plus a daily reminder of life back home, perhaps (the bits of it I didn’t like). However the left tactics disappointed me. I can understand their anger- their comrade was killed by police- the old police that still haven’t been reformed yet. Yet the movement must be more democratically organised and with a bit more a plan than plain adrenalin based destruction. Still, the police and national guard fired back- with rubber bullets that burn and hurt but usually don’t kill. The reform of the police is urgent, utterly long over due- although I’d rather a complete elimination of them and making of a new, different kind.

Later after the first day of violence (it lasted for about 4 days), I went to my communal council meeting. But the rain was already loca (crazy) and only one person came. So until that person arrived I sat chatting to the night guard, door opening person.
He said that when he went to church the priest encouraged everyone to go on the opposition march, during the service. Omigod! Well we all know how the church is, along with the universities, one of the main institutions supporting the opposition, but gosh I thought they did it more subtly than that! The guard guy continued, “If the priest takes off his uniform and wants to go into the street and do politics as a citizen, that’s ok. But not in church.”

In the fortnightly meeting of the women formation group, we talked about the church too actually- or specifically, women and religion. One woman said, “Priests direct everything here.” And I liked one woman’s comment that, “they are against abortion, but meanwhile the poor don’t seem to have the same right to life.” And I’d add- they seem to have no problem gorging on dead animals. Their position against abortion so obviously has nothing to do with being ‘pro-life’.

Anyway, last night’s communal council meeting was good. A couple of Mission Sucre students came to talk about doing some information collecting about people’s food needs, two other women dropped in to ask about what is being done to help the homeless people and about one crossing in our area where there are always crashes. It really beats me how people manage to have crashes in the centre of Merida, given how slow all the traffic moves. There are no traffic lights and the blocks are small and the roads are narrow, so cars and buses move one block at a time. We discussed putting a speed bump in (which is called ‘policia acostado – lying down police person- in Spanish. Hilarious.), but apparently they aren’t legal, and frankly I think the problem more boils down to awareness of safety practices.
We talked about a bunch of things last night, from petty stuff like a dog that constantly barks because it isn’t fed properly (petty yes but omigod that dog sounds horrible and barks at 6 in the morning) to bigger projects like converting some land into a house for old people etc.

Finally, for the last month or so there have been long queues going right past my house, which is on the same block as ONIDEX- the Venezuelan immigration/passport organisation. The government has started speeding up handing out passports, so that now these queues are a daily thing, to the point where two new shops have opened up a few houses down from us, plus a new photocopy place across the road, and another juice place diagonally opposite.

Free food and community control

photo: the food house

University dinning areas

I went with M to the university dining area for dinner, where he used his student card and his mum’s student card to get us both the free meal. Dinner that night was two bread rolls, a kind of porridge type soup (atol its called), an apple, jelly, cooked sweet plantain, cheese, and lettuce type salad. All uni students can eat lunch and dinner for free during week days at these dinning rooms.
Suddenly everyone was banging their forks on the metal trays and yelling out. Apparently it’s some uni tradition- when someone drops a fork everyone else (well not everyone) yells out ‘Nuevo!’ (newbie!) and makes a massive racket.
After this M asked me what dinning areas are like in Australian universities.
“There aren’t any.”
“Are all the universities private?” he asked, surprised.
Ha, well the ULA in Merida is an autonomous university- its funded by the government but makes decisions about how to use that funding independently (and in this case the opposition rectors of the university buy cars and things). So you can’t really say the dinning areas are a result of the socialist government, since I think they even date back before Chavez. You also can’t use the excluse- well Venezuela has oil. Australia is hardly poor! Dinning areas are fairly common and expected here- and the government here has set up a lot of Bolivarian schools where the kids get breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack for free. That, though, is a result of the Chavez government.
After dinner M went around to all the tables collecting the breadrolls left by other students. He would use them for him and his mum for breakfast over the weekend. He called it ‘bread recycling’ which I thought so adorable : ).

Communal councils

My communal council meets in one of these Bolivarian primary schools, two blocks down from where I live (and everyone in the council just 2-3 blocks away). These schools are so cute, always covered in murals with various values painted on them- this one had various drawings and inside them ‘life is like music- its listened to better without drugs’ and a food pyramid, and then a chess board with various values like solidarity, respect etc. The school was either built or renovated by the government in 2005. A friend of mine- an ex student who studied to be a teacher through the mission sucre (free government university level education with an emphasis on community) is now teaching there.
I introduced myself to the other council members (actually all of them were spokespeople for various committees, who had been elected in a community assembly not long ago) and we all chatted as we waited for people to turn up. The topic was the law against violence on women, and I was really impressed with how much everyone new about the law and how the men talked in admiration that the law considered insults a form of violence. It was clear within minutes that this was a non opposition run communal council- I don’t say chavista because that’s a limiting word. A friend of mine in this council is a revolutionary who’s extremely critical of Chavez, to the point of not joining the PSUV, for example. Also, this council is quite new. The one just to the left of it is two years old now (and its come out that the opposition is trying to take that one over, as elections are run every two years, the opposition is trying to stack the assembly meetings to get control). But ours has just been formed, and is now legal, and all the spokespeople for the various committees are also considered legal representatives in the various fields (culture, food, housing, education, sport, auditing etc). However, we don’t have a communal bank yet.
The first item was a complaint by one of the community members. A mother and her around 30 year old son came to the council to talk about a dispute they have with a neighbour, whose house is joined to theirs (as most houses here are- all joined together) and whose water from the bathroom is causing their wall to rot. Now, the communal councils are the first step to dealing with any situations like this. Ideally, simply discussing it out will resolve the problem, sometimes the community can decide (once it has a bank) to contribute money to the repairs. But the spokespeople at this meeting were clear- they aren’t authorities who can go about forcing people to do things, they are simply community reps. If things aren’t resolved in the council, a representative will help the neighbour take the problem to the next level- usually the mayor.
In the community assemblies which set up this council, they had approved a list of norms of co-living. All communities create their own such norms, as it helps create a sense of community and it also means they can tailor the norms to their own different needs. As everyone lives so nearby to each other, most people know eachother- either by name or by appearance ‘the man in the shop’, ‘the house with the black car out the front’ etc. Also before the assembly was held, the council promoters had done a census of the community, so they know who lives where, what their main needs are etc- and this information proved to be useful in this case, as the neighbour with the leaking bathroom refused to talk to the other neighbour- we were able to send a rep from the housing committee down to have a look at the place.
After this item, I introduced myself and said that I thought the communal councils are an important way for communities to resolve their own problems and to take active control over their collective lives and that I’d like to help out anyway I can. The fact that I was a foreigner was nothing more than a curious fact- they were all extremely welcoming and said I could join the culture committee. I suggested the idea of setting up a women’s committee, which they loved- but I said perhaps it was something more for the future, once a few other things like the bank have been sorted out.
We are looking at calling another community assembly- to inform and discuss with the community various issues like the food house, a sport/cultural area and so on, and that will be an opportunity to elect a women’s committee (as these things can’t just be set up, they must be elected).
A range of other issues were discussed- some public work that has been stopped and we don’t know why, getting a bank account, another meeting one of the reps went to about water etc, and I was just so impressed with how much everyone know about the laws and which organisation to go to about what (for the number of organisations, funds, levels of administration, ministries etc in Venezuela is quite a minefield).
The last item saw a few people getting a bit emotional, one of the reps had been physically assaulted by someone outside the food house (a house which provides free food to homeless people, drug addicts, orphans, single mothers, ex prisoners etc) and she also claimed that the place was selling food on the side to non-needy people to get some extra pocket money. It was agreed to convoke the head guy of the place to the next meeting to talk about the issue.

I came out of the meeting utterly inspired. There were 12 people at the meeting, representing a community of about 1000 people or less, and they were extremely able, active and intelligent people. If you can generalise that across Venezuela, that’s 260,000 hard core quality community leaders. I also loved how serious they were about what they were doing, and how real it all was- community control- and how real they were seen by the woman who came in with the complaint. I also learnt a tonne about the few blocks I’m surrounded by that I hadn’t known.

We all walked out together, said goodbye as we passed each person’s house, and one woman invited me to pop into her shop- just a few houses down from where I live, to get a drink some time.
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The meeting the next week started off with the food house issue. The woman re-told her version of what had happened, then the director of the food house told his side, and also described how the whole place works.

This particular food house is linked to a lot of organisations. It gets some support from a church, whilst the government mercal provides food and pays the bills, but not the rent. There’s no rehabilitation centre in Merida so the house also sometimes pays for transports, and accompanies people to centres nearby.

The place makes 155 meals, and has 7 workers who receive the benefit of the food and a small scholarship from the government of 350BsF/month (about $160US).

In the discussion after the guy had gone, we decided it was important that there be some kind of security and vigilance of the place, ensuring that only needy people eat there, not paying workers, that the council monitoring committee and the food committee should monitor the place, that people who ‘disturb the peace’- in violent ways that is, should be sanctioned from eating there, but we also need to be conscious that the work done in the food house is hard work, important work, and we should get involved and help, and before any accusations or anything are made, we should work on facts, not rumours and so a monitoring plan is necessary.

Later there was also discussion of a range of other issues, such as the creation of a culture and sport space jointly with architecture students, and a few other things I’ve mentioned above already.

Free health care IS life or death to some

Today (now yesterday) I am in my room working- sitting at the desk or sitting up in bed, typing about Manuel Rosales that worm of a man… And outside I can hear the traditional Chavez songs being played over a loudspeaker- perhaps its in a plaza or perhaps its one of those roaming trucks. It is the anniversary of the counter coup, the 13th of April that beat the coup of 11th of April, an inspiring symbol that for ever defeat of theirs against us we will jump up again- 2 days later or 100 years later, and take it back and make it better. I hope.

Other than that, it has been semana santa (Easter- from last Thursday till Sunday, but many having that whole week off) and its all been a bit- light. Light on news, few meetings, everyone out with their family, and nothing open but churches during the official Easter bit. A good time to get sick- I’ve felt like a wee hypochondriac these days. Tooth aches and headaches and sneezing all over the place and then a funny routine of pill taking. Sheesh.

So first I went to the local barrio adentro- a doctors surgery in what used to be a house, and perhaps still is upstairs, 2 blocks from my house, with a Cuban woman working mornings and a Venezuelan man in the afternoons (this set up is becoming quite common I think, as more and more Venezuelans start to work in the barrio adentros). I walked right in, sat down, and told the doctor about my sneezing (feeling like a fool cos it’s just sneezing! But it’s all the time and keeping me awake, for 2 weeks now) and he was heaps friendly, we chatted about stuff, and he gave me some medicine and wrote me a script with instructions about how often to take it. The script is in the photo- it says at the top… ‘homeland, socialism or death, we will win…popular medical centre, milla-central’ and at the bottom ‘the greatest amount of happiness for the people’. Love it!

A few days later I went down to the CDI- integral diagnostic centre, which I think is barrio adentro 2- second stage of health care. It has more equipment, an emergency centre, xrays, rehabilitation etc, and a dentist. The system with the dentist is you go down there at either 7am or 1pm, and the first 20 people get a number or get written down on a list (but don’t worry, there usually aren’t 20 people). I got there at 1, was written down as the 5th person on the list, and after 2 hours got to see the dentist. We got along instantly, I guess I was in a good mood and also often bond with the Cubans because we’re both doing the foreigner-living-in-Venezuela thing. She checked my teeth, told me the usual stuff, and said I should get one of my back teeth, a wisdom tooth, I guess, removed. I knew that, I should have got it taken out ages ago but dentists are so expensive in Australia and I don’t trust them either- all private, they tell you that you need all sorts of things that you don’t. I asked her- so what do I do to get the tooth removed? And she said, well just come back when you have some time off work.. Me: “Well how about now?” Her..”Ok.”
Ah shoot! I am one hell of a coward. Never had a tooth removed or any kind of operation in my life. Sat there squirming and not wanting to open my mouth. Oh well I eventually let her stick a few needles in then wiggle and pull my tooth out and it was over in 2 minutes. She gave me some anti biotics and told me to keep my mouth closed for half an hour- and done. No swelling or pain – well not much pain. Can’t believe I put that off for so long. But it was of course all free, including the antibiotics. Its massive when you think about it- about some people who have to go into debt in other countries because of their tooth problems, or in other countries, who just have mouths only half full of teeth, because dentists are not part of their world. In Aus I think you can see a dentist for free if you get treated by a Sydney University student, but I know from experience that the waiting list is 6-12 months. Made my wait of 2 hours not seem like much at all.

Community meeting in the plaza

Photo: the 5 promoters at the communal council assembly

It was really sweet the way one of the communal council leaders stood in the plaza and using a loud speaker system, called on the people around him- sitting under the trees, standing in shop doors, walking past- to join the community assembly.

It was a full weekend- the Socialist Front had their annual two day conference with various debates, group discussions and plenaries, and the communal council of Belen (the sector just a few blocks from my house) also tried to call a community assembly- necessary to elect commissions etc of the communal council, and which requires a minimum of 10% (in this case 100 people out of the community of 1000) to be legitimate.

“Attend the meeting of the community! The assembly is where we can solve all our problems! It’s not for politics!” the guy said over the loud speakers.

They had set up chairs in the plaza, a white board, the speakers, and had enough copies of the community council laws, as well as a map of the sector that corresponds to Belen, to hand out to everyone. I thought it was great, because everyone could really see what was going on, and the plaza is so beautiful, and is the general meeting place of the area, so there was a nice atmosphere. People from shops who didn’t join the meeting, stood in their doorways and watched, while a few other people looked on from their balconies.

While we waited I talked with the loud speaker guy (J..) and he was really emphatic that everyone should participate, and should join one of the committees (sport, culture, education etc) but also that communal councils are not political, that it doesn’t matter whether you are ‘yellow or white or red’ (politically speaking) the most important thing is that you are committed to the community. Of course I agree and disagree- the councils are an initiative of the Chavez government, you can’t just forget that, but it’s also true that if by politics he meant *electoral* politics- that the PSUV (or whichever political party or organisation) is the place for that.

The meeting was the second assembly called so far. According to the law, if you don’t get quorum at the first assembly, you can call another, and if there isn’t enough at that you can call another, and that third assembly is legitimate despite the numbers.

Their first assembly only had 6 people. This one ended up having 32 people- not quorum but a big improvement and still impressive I think. The ‘promoters’ (a temporary committee of 5 set up simply to get the council going, once its elected the promoters dissolve) encouraged everyone at the meeting to be ‘multipliers’ (a common term these days in Ven politics) so that the third assembly would have quorum.

I was happy with the attendance- that is there was about half half gender wise, and a good range of ages- young, old, middle aged.

I was also impressed with how serious they were about following the communal council laws- diligently getting all attendees to sign in, checking that they were within the sector’s area, outlining all the responsibilities of the promoters, how elections work etc.

As it turns out, despite only living two blocks away, I’m technically part of a different communal council, but they still said it was cool if I come to the next assembly (which will be in 2 weeks) to observe, and later I talked to one of the leader's of my actual council and she's keen to get me involved in that.

Setting up women's committees in the councils

Pic: (from the internet) Mothers of the Barrio Mission – a mission that recognises the value of women’s work in the home, recognising that many often do the work of two parents, and struggle in poverty. The mission is meant to help these women by linking them into other missions – health, culture, food and education etc and also gives economic help to the applicable families. The women are also meant to meet, creating solidarity between them and organising the implementation of the program- that is, helping themselves.

Thanks to J for suggesting we go to IMMFA (Merida Institute for Women and the Family) to see what the folks there are up to. Apparently they were pretty cool when they were first set up then there was a new ‘team’ and they started to just focus on domestic violence, and now there’s a new team again and some of the original team and they are getting more into the structural side of things, the active side of things.
At the moment the big thing is setting up women’s committees in the communal councils. We both said that we wanted to set up one in our communal council- and a woman gave us the information and documentation necessary, which we can then take back to the councils for them to discuss (finally my communal council in Belen is starting to meet- there’s a meeting on Saturday, lets see how it goes..).
The women’s committees should, according to the woman at IMMFA, organise workshops on self esteem, and have a social focus, create consciousness and ideology, not just be anti-violence. At least 5 women are needed to form the committee, which then elects a spokesperson, who becomes the committee’s link to IMMFA. But the committees are also supported by Banmujer (Women’s bank) and Mothers of the Barrio. Committee members must be “committed to the revolution and have human sensibility,” – that is, care about the community they’re involved in.
This is interesting, because mostly the communal councils have been quite apolitical – dominated by opposition or by Chavista but mostly organising things like local fairs and lighting and stuff, and I guess the fact that the Chavistas control the ministries, is a way to inject politics into them.
IMMFA also offered to send people to the councils to help with the setting up of the committees. The procedure is roughly- convoke an assembly (which needs a certain percentage of the community to attend in order for it to be legit- attendance should be taken), someone from IMMFA can address it and talk about the law of women and about the purpose of the committees because “the women need to know why the committee is necessary”, and I guess from there, elect the committee.
IMMFA is also in the process of making a new women’s shelter- good, there are very few of those.
I asked the women we talked to what socialism was for her (hehe my cheeky method for trying to gauge where a person or institution “is at” politically) and she said “it’s equality, quality of life.”
Later we talked to the president, and I asked her all sorts of bizarre questions (why is ‘family’ in the title of the institution, how do you feel about gay rights etc’) trying to put my finger on what was ‘not radical enough’ about the organisation for me.
On gay rights, she was clear that there should be no discrimination and that gay people shouldn’t be excluded but she made some weird comments about some of them being a bit wild and undisciplined in their sexual behaviour or unfaithful or something like that, which is a silly stereotype and has nothing to do with being gay or straight, and really promiscuity, if there’s no deception, is really not that bad a thing. It’s just taste. Basically though she said it all came down to culture, which to me is possibly true- just like sexism- but also a bit too wishy washy and dismissive. ‘Culture’ can so often be an excuse not to challenge things, kind of like saying ‘look that’s how we are’.
Oh well the law on equality should be passed soon, that will be awesome, lets see what affect that has. It deals with gay rights, right to marriage (wow) and there’s also the Law about the Right of Women to a Life Free of Violence which has some pretty full on stuff about violence against women- 18months to 6 years in prison for ‘psychological violence’ and a whole gammit of other classifications of violence.
As to the family part of the title, she said that was to “prevent aggressive minds” – the aggression that is passed on through generations and so on, rather than women’s so called main role in society being the family. Good.
She was also pretty cool on the whole beauty contest stuff, saying she was against it as it didn’t treat women has thinkers.
Lastly, she said that all the ‘first’ ladies of all the mayors were going to get together to do some campaigning and organise municipal based committees. Again, better than nothing, but it’s a bit strange, choosing people based on who they are married to, assuming that they are political because their husband is.

Coming back

It was a 40 hour Sunday…yee gods, and I’m still jet lagged, after being back three days- waking up at funny hours and falling asleep at the drop of a hat in the middle of the day…

I spent a night in Buenos Aires on the way back. Not long enough to have an opinion right? But still, its so different to Venezuela. For a starters, almost everyone (in the city) is white(ish), and they sound like they are talking French and use funny words like vos and tenes. There was a cool street full of bookshops though. I was there Sunday night and most stuff was closed, but I wanted to get some political books you can’t get here, and had the name of an editorial. Although that was closed, the hostel guy suggested I got to Corrientes street, which had second hand and discount book shops, one after the other, full with classics, Marxist books, history of Argentinean struggle, anarchism etc. Mega cheap too. Pity I’m not a super human (in terms of carrying it all back to Merida), I would have bought heaps.

Arriving back in Merida was a relief. Not just because I’d spent the last 3 days/nights on planes and buses and not sleeping so good, but the amount of politics just hits you. The taxi driver from the Bus terminal was listening to revolutionary radio, then I went to stock up on vegies and had a che shirt on and the women there asked me about that and kinda wouldn’t let me leave, hehe. So much has happened in the last two weeks, in Ven news and local news, political life is so busy and I’m so excited to get back into it, although as usual it’s a bit overwhelming as well.

There isn’t much else to tell as I’ve mostly just been sleeping and trying not to sleep, washing clothes, seeing M again (mmmm : ) etc… but I did see my friend Z in Caracas, and to steal her story…she told me she’d been in the Mercal, where they had whole chickens for 5Bs ($2.5) and another woman in the queue chucked a tantrum because it turned out you had to buy a chicken AND something else and she said stuff about being oppressed like in Cuba etc.

Really shows how people can see things through the perspective they’ve already decided to have. Because of course the same woman wouldn’t scream about capitalist oppression if she went to a shop where there was a two-for-one sale (ie you *have* to buy two things to get the discount). Sheesh, and as Z said, its not like she *had* to buy the cheap chicken, she could have gone to a private butcher and paid more if she wanted!

Journies

Photo: Bellas Artes, Caracas

It was holiday time....for me.. and for uni students, so me and M could take some time off
and spend a few days travelling around Venezuela. We went to sleepy and hot Coro, where it
seems that everyone is Chavista (even wearing election tshirts *after* elections, badges, hats and things, the bus and taxi drivers tuned into left radio station etc) and where it is too hot to walk fast. There are plazas every two blocks (as M commented, incredulous) and full of seats with people sitting and taking it easy, and I felt it too- the heat literally slows you down.

After a few days there (doing NO work at all, just cooking up amazing pasta sauce (hehe if I say so myself), reading in hamocks, checking out a waterfall, and sleeping...) we went to Caracas to see a few friends. We got lost straight away, Caracas doesn't have the convenient street numbering that Merida does and its so big... urg. Next day we went to Bellas Artes to meet Z, and it really does defy the stereotypes about Caracas. First you do not feel in danger there, unless you have been so affected by all the media that you just feel fear whereever you go.. Secondly, its quite beautiful. Murals really intricately done with awesome political messages, some even made out of mozaic. The road to the art museum lined with artesan sellers and secand hand and record sellers. The circle shaped plaza area infront of the museum full of jugglers, skaters, kids playing soccer, buskers, dudes doing tricks etc. Oh the night before was the 20th anniversay of the Caracazo, there were fireworks that echoed off the tall buildings around us and a movie about it on TV.

Then I was off to the airport to go back to aus-landia for a few weeks. Urg a 135B exit tax, shoot that was a surprise. A conversation on the way to Argentina with an opposition woman who works in admin for the government primary education system, and who says that chavez gives guns and motor bikes to criminals and the stats about poverty decreasing are "rubbish" and things are "worse than ever". Really, how can you be so stupid, really literally, swalling the right wing propaganda, and with passion.

Here in Australia, after about 1 year 8 months away, I didn't get the kind of culture shock I expected but a lot of things I was used to before I came to Venezuela did surprise me. I walk
around Sydney now with my eyes wide open, noticing everything...down to how everyone waits at crossings before crossing and how everyone has prams! I hadn't noticed until now that noone
has prams in Venezuela. It seems like such a luxury.

The most striking thing has been the consumerism, which I'm always grumbling about as being really strong in Venezuela (and it is) but here its kind of like you can't do anything at all without spending money- socialising must involve going to a cafe and buying food. The way people are all dressed up in the most unpractical and artistic (in the style sense not in the sense of expressing anything) clothing just to walk around in the street, making me feel relatively dirty or something in my casual and comfortable clothing.

Of course you notice the internationalism- there are different colours in Ven but everyone is pretty much Venezuelan in some way, or if not, from Colombia or something. In Aus, I guess being a developed country, it attracts people from mostly Asia plus other countries and walking around in UTS (University of Technology Sydney) you really notice that and its pretty cool, but we should always remember why... its not like Australia is some how better, its just that England fucked over a bunch of other countries, got rich, sent its criminals here, killed the indigenous, but with its wealth was able to build a country with somewhat better infrastructure and less poverty than the countries it stole the wealth from, so of course now lots of people want to come here.

Guys don't stare at you. It is much harder (and further) to find a free doctor. Chemists however, are much more helpful. But despite all the cleanliness and orderliness here in Sydney, despite all the wealth, there's this apathy and a feeling of anger (guy swearing to himself in the medical centre waiting room) that you do not find much in Venezuela.

The final main thing I've noticed that is different is marching. I went on the International Women's Day march today, and I felt like we had so much more of an impact, with all the people we passed staring at us in a kind of mixture of curiousity, shock, etc that never happens in Venezuela- for two main reasons I think- marches happen so often they aren't a big spectacle or surprise, and the content of marches is generally electoral rather than issue based. I imagine if a bunch of women marched down the streets of Merida, demanding to be listened to with the same kind of respect that men are, abortion rights and so on, there'd be a bit of gaping too. Oh and I guess the other thing is that marches in Venezuela are generally kind of celebratory- we've sort of won you know. Where as in Australia there's a demand, an anger, a breaking with the norm etc.

Or maybe I'm just too impatient :)

Like when three bad things happen in a row and you call it a bad day, or two good things happen and you feel that things are looking up, lately I’ve been feeling that the Venezuelan left is too laid back and lacks a sense of urgency (and a sense of what this process means for activists in other countries).
Of course it’s not true, like any country or group it’s a broad range of people with various levels of commitment and seriousness.
What lead me to that conclusion though were two main events…
One was an anti-bull fighting protest. Every year in February, as I’ve mentioned before, is the ‘Sun fair/ Feria del sol’ with its two main features- the beauty queen contest and the bull fighting. People pop up all over the place selling (or wearing) those cow oy hats, and there’s a parade and lots of tourists and lots of shops and lots of spending of money, and a concert that was so loud I could hear the shouting at 3am from about 7 blocks away..
The whole bull thing is pretty gross- I don’t remember all the gory details but basically the bulls are given a bunch of drugs which makes them easier, I think, to chase and kill, but also disorientated and angry I think. Then they are killed and it’s a slow death and people drink and cheer.
(seriously, bulls are male cows right, as in cows...those peaceful, boring, all day-grass eating things, hardly natural fighters?)
So likewise, every year there are protests against it, although it sounds a bit like the women’s day protests- once a year, rather than an ongoing campaign (for animal rights or against consumerism or against the Spanish-isation of Meridenian culture etc). Leaflets are handed out, articles are written, grafitti is done, murals are made sometimes, and there was the march.
It was advertised to start at 9. Being used to Venezuela but not wanting to miss anything, I got there at 9.30. There was no one there, so I texted M, and he got me to go to his place where some people were still making placards. At like, 11.30 they/we left his place and went back to the plaza. There, ORCA- an animal rights group, had put out a bunch of banners along the path- which I thought was cool, people were stopping to read them. There were people dressed up as bulls (horns, black cape, colourful dagger things in their back) and radio Ecos – alternative radio- was being played over loud speakers, talking about the bullfights, how they are harmful to children and so on. I didn’t stay for long (had things to do) but M says they marched at about 12.30.
I’m not sure what annoyed me really- perhaps it was the time in general (not accessible for workers) and that people didn’t seem worried about being 2 hours late. In the end of course it doesn’t matter if you are late but it was the attitude, the laid back-ness off it all.
(which, I feel like repeating, isn’t at all generalised, there are people here who go to the extent of not allowing themselves a social life because they are so busy with activist stuff).

Then, later in the week, there was an anti-feria concert. It was organised by the anarchists but supported by ORCA and a few other groups like the CLAN (student far left collective). It took place in the courts in the barrio near the main city bridge thing, and it was a cool idea- its important to take back culture space in this way, and it was fairly visible to the public going past over the bridge, so it was making a public statement as well. The anarchists made vegie burgers and sold them to raise a bit of money, but the actual concert was free. There were some anti-feria newsletters and at the start the various groups gave short speeches.
The thing is, most of the audience- hmm I dunno what you’d call them- not Goths, but people dressed in black. Piecings... (And the clowns : ). That is they are clowns by day, busking in the plaza sometimes, and they were hanging out at the concert, doing amazing things with skateboards just for fun as people waited for the bands to set up). But the people in black are supposedly anti-system, anti fashion for example, yet they are as dressed up as anyone, just in a different colour- women in revealing clothes and things. (I’m not against revealing clothes in general but if you want people to notice more than your body and you’re against the objectification of women..).
At both events there was little effort to get people involved- organised in some kind of organisation, no matter what it be, but to get them to go beyond *attending* marches or concerts.
Finally, I was reading an anarchist newspaper- 'el libertario' and it got me angry too- because it was ONLY criticising the government. That is, it wasn't a mixture of constructive criticism and noting positive things, nor was it a mixture of criticism of the government and capitalism and the opposition. So for this reason, it sounded more like the opposition to me, to the point where I got suspicious and asked M where it gets its money from. It refers to the 'boliburgesa' (ie the Bolivarian revolution bourgeoisie ) and lied, frankly, about alot of the positive sides of this process- saying that there's so much crime because the government isn't fighting poverty, for example.
It's an ongoing struggle, one a bunch of us talked about last night- how to get a useful balance of healthy, constructive criticism but not romanticise this rather imperfect process/revolution either.

"WE WONNNNN" they screamed as they hugged eachother

(photos: they aren't great quality, its hard to photograph moving red flags at night without strong lights, and the other one: I just love the look of the woman's face as we heard the results annouced- few could fit in the small room where the TV was, and she had climbed the window bars to see it better)

“And the yes option, with 6 million votes…” and all the people who had raced inside the headquarters of the PSUV office, including media, SQUEEZING inside, and outside, and hanging from the window bars, let off a cheer, quickly shushed by everyone…hence we didn’t hear the percentage, but we did hear that the opposition got 5 million votes and the whole crowd moved out onto the road to set off fire works and chant and chant and then a spontaneous singing of the first verse and chorus of the national anthem, fists in the air… and then I found myself on a motorbike…
But going back to the beginning... I had woken up at 5.30 (I WOKE up at 3 to the sound of the Diana, and went back to sleep). The Diana was still being played off the back of a truck at 5.30 and then at 7. I wanted to get photos of people voting as the sun comes up- the booths are meant to open at 5.30 though it depends when the booth workers (who are ‘conscripted’ in the same way jury workers are in Australia) get there. Unfortunately it seems the sun rises real quick, so I didn’t manage to, but I still saw people lining up at 6.30, at various booths, and going into vote.
I went back down to one booth at 3 and there were no queues outside. I think it was that experience (thinking that voter turn out was less, even though I knew it was simply that voting was much quicker) – and hearing that Caracas- where there are more Chavez supporters, had good voter turn out, which made me think we’d probably won. Later I heard some unofficial results, and at around 8, walked outside, and had to walk all the way to the PSUV building (about 20 blocks) cos there weren’t any buses, and unlike in the November elections, it was just cars and bikes with red flags going around the streets honking… and I just knew we’d won.
Even though I haven’t been that excited about this election campaign- in my opinion there are so many other things we need to be doing with our time- I still felt like running all the way to the PSUV. I guess it was the symbolism of it. Revolution victory over crazy, selfish opposition. And the fact that we haven’t had a victory like that in a while, and we so needed it.
The regional election was a mixed victory, and we lost the referendum in 2007. So boy were people proud and happy, and as I walked down the road people yelled at me ‘how did you vote?” and I said ‘for yes’ (a white lie, easier than stopping to explain that I can’t vote) and they cheered, and even taxis had red flags, and security guards up late working were cheering at the cars, like no one was afraid last night to come out again, politically, and say ‘yep I feel strongly about that, and we won!’.
A small crowd, perhaps a hundred or so had already gathered in the plaza and were watching the screen for the results, and chanting and whistling and high-fiving the honking cars that were going past.
I walked down some more, to one of the main booths, the one that had been empty at 3. Wow. I walked through people in red tshirts and people with red flags and people just all beaming and happy and chatting then suddenly I was in a different crowd, no red, no smiles. And I realised that the Chavez supporters were standing on one side, waiting for the results, and the opposition on the other. Boy did they look dejected.
The red side were trying to get some music going, and put a mobile phone with a revolutionary song on it to the megaphone. Then they gave up on that and just chanted and chanted and the opposition were so quiet. At one point a small group of them chanted, for like, 10 seconds, ‘No is No’ and I felt like saying sarcastically, boy how deep, you guys really have thought about all the problems in the world. Sheesh.
The red side started to move closer and closer to the booth, and it was a real physical example of how the results (still not announced) had given us confidence, to just take back our space. A lot of the opposition people left.
Then, finally, I did actually run down to the PSUV office. Because I felt like it- it’s nice to run on empty roads at night- and because I knew the announcement would be made soon.

From the PSUV office, after the announcement, a friend put me on the back of someone’s motorbike, as there were calls to go back to the plaza, where people were playing drums and dancing.
Motorbike guy honked all the way up there, literally, and we got mixed up with all the cars heading to the plaza, blocking up the road for like 10 blocks up. By now (about 10) there were a good thousand or so people in the plaza (that’s A LOT, for Merida, at least double the amount celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Chavez government, and it was just people living nearby, others went to their closest plazas to celebrate), red flags galore, the drums, ska music off the back of a truck and people dancing, people hugging (including strangers). Bloody awesome night (and not a drop of alcohol to be seen. Who needs alcohol when you have the sort of victory that they say in every other country, is impossible…)

Poor pride parade

Two of our mates followed us on a motorbike to watch out for cops, and the four us (women, one older) drove around and stopping at various tempting smooth walls to spray ‘We exist to change the world not for the pleasure of men!’ and ‘Our bodies are not for profit’ and ‘objectification is the first step to rape’ and ‘Ferisol=machismo’ etc. Ha that was so fun. We did it in response to the annual Sun Fair (Feria del Sol= Ferisol) here in Merida which also involves a beauty queen competition.
Hopefully it was noticed in amongst all the other graffiti, one thing I love about Venezuela. The opposition writing ‘no means no’ all over the place and amendment supporters writing ‘si va’ which I can’t work out how to translate literally, I guess it means ‘yep the amendment will pass!’.
Gosh we’ve received so much opposition propaganda about the amendment- under our door. Some of it is so crazy;
-Cuba is the only country in Latin America where indefinite presidential elections exist (pictures of Fidel looking crazy and evil – a picture of him in 1959 and in 2009, stupid people he’s not even president anymore)-In Cuba the youth only have one exit: the sea
-do you think that the concentration of power in the hands of only one person is best for a democratic country (ie a bunch of arguments trying to say that getting rid of term limits=dictatorship. Funny, we have that – no term limits- in Australia, and unlike Venezuela we DON’T have the ability to recall)
-do you think its good for Venezuela that private property is eliminated
-Would you have voted for Chavez in 1998 if you had known he’d take us to Communism (I wish!! But not yet..)
-Do you think citizen security has been a priority of the Chavez government?
-Do you think the hate that this government has encouraged is good for Venezuela (dude they are the negative ones..)
Meanwhile, the PSUV hasn’t been so good with putting leaflets under doors, but they have had even more red tents than the elections last November, going all out handing out leaflets from those.
The closing motorcade yesterday made me happy. Cars and trucks full of people in red with flags and ‘si’ stickers and posters plastered all over their cars went past the plaza, and kept going and kept going, and I stood there for an hour taking photos and talking to people, and left to make a phone call and walked home and the cars were still going past, there were that many.
There were old and young and social mission people and I just love it that they were all SO HAPPY and blowing whistles and raising their fists and just so proud to be red, to be socialist, to be pro-Chavez. Proud of their politics. What it felt like at the time--- and I wrote in my diary, ‘Pride parade of the previously poor.’
Then Marcos Diaz (governor of the state of Merida) rode past on his bike, and he’s a big man so you notice him, but he was just riding along with everyone else, it was cool. I’m not too happy with the guy right now cos he’s supporting the Sun festival (and the consumerism, imperialism- Spanish culture- torture of animals (bulls) and sexism that it represents) but it was an awesome moment. The woman who walks around the plaza with a tray of rice pudding in little cups, selling them, just beamed when he rode past. “What a guy!”.
He gets around and everyone knows him and his politics are a bit wrong in my opinion but I also think he’s genuine and a good guy.