Chávez leading the nation to chaos
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
www.firmaspress.com
Last Nov. 17, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela released, on a restricted basis, a schematic document titled ''The New Stage: The New Strategic Map.'' It summarized the contents of a seminar held five days earlier at Fort Tiuna, the Venezuelan armed forces' headquarters. Later, the Venezuelan columnist Asdrúbal Aguiar made a sober dissection of Chávez's words in an intelligent essay he titled, ``Toward 21st-Century Communism: The Bolivarian Revolution Exposed.''
Judging from these papers, it makes little sense to continue asking ourselves where Chávez intends to take Venezuelans, Latin Americans and the rest of the planet. We're in the presence of an integral revolutionary. A holistic revolutionary, as he likes to identify himself during his outlandish verbal outbursts. A person gallantly intent on changing the world to make it more just, egalitarian and prosperous. Chávez not only has diagnosed the ills that afflict humanity but also knows how to cure them, while clearly identifying the wicked people who cause them.
The enemies, of course, are the market, the brazen ambition of the heartless capitalists, the United States and the rest of the imperial nations. But all that will be corrected under his firm direction, using as an instrument the restructuring of the state so the existing laws may be placed at the service of a Bolivarian revolutionary project that eventually will result in the existence of a new Venezuelan citizen, selfless and hard-working, devoteed to the collective improvement of the human race.
The document, which sets out 10 major strategic objectives and lists the ''tools'' needed to achieve them, does not state how Chávez came to so many hard-and-fast conclusions, but it's obvious that the lieutenant colonel, in addition to his dazzling knowledge, has a clear idea of his immense historical weight, which explains why he is not at all daunted by the huge task ahead.
Well, then. It's clear where Chávez hopes to go. What's interesting is to predict where he will really go if he remains, let's say, one decade longer in power. There is no question that he will generate more poverty and rip the economic fabric to shreds. As a result of rising inflation, the currency will depreciate considerably. Investments will diminish until they nearly disappear, and job growth in the shrinking private sector will decline.
The exodus of qualified people and the flight of capital will increase. Violent crime and the decay of the urban environment will multiply. Shortages, widespread corruption and unpleasant social tensions will beset a polarized and embittered country that will adopt as its mantra the melancholy sentence written by Bolivar in the twilight of his life: ``The only thing one can do in America is to emigrate.''
On the international arena, the crisis with the United States and the frictions with the neighboring countries will heat up. Several ''sisterly'' nations will knock on the doors of the White House, begging ''the Americans'' to do something to halt the meddling of their unhinged neighbor but warning that their governments will have to condemn Washington's imperialist action to pacify the gallery.
Sometime during the conflict, as alternate sources of oil and good national reserves become available, and as Chávez further strengthens his ties to the nations within the axis of evil, the United States will stop buying crude, plunging Venezuela into a dangerous economic catastrophe in the hopes that the resulting chaos can be solved by the departure from power of the loquacious army officer.
The disappearance of Chávez's government, if it occurs as a consequence of the disaster ahead, will not be the end of the problem, however. His stay at Miraflores palace will leave a ruinous aftermath that will haunt Venezuelans for at least three generations. The destruction of the economic sector won't be repaired for a long time. But the most dangerous damage will be felt in the field of human relations.
Chávez will leave behind a country divided in irreconcilable groups, a country suspicious of any form of leadership, deaf to rational democratic messages and accustomed to the lethal expressions of the coarsest, most venal populism.
Like heroin addicts who plead for the drug they know will destroy them, many Venezuelans will forever remain addicted to the venom of populism, hating the country they live in and dreaming of the Utopia that allegedly was snatched away just when they were achieving it. Chávez wanted to lead them to paradise and they ended up in hell. It happens.
©2005 Firmas Press
© 2005 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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