Voices of Participatory Democracy in Venezuela: A Review of Venezuela Speaks! Voices from the Grassroots
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By Hans Bennett
Upside Down World
Saturday, Jan 23, 2010
(Scroll down for video of interview with Carlos Martinez, co-author) There
are many different ways that the corporate media continues to
misrepresent the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. Many critics of
this biased media coverage have directly challenged the demonization of
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but very few critics, if any, have
exposed the media’s virtual erasure of the vibrant and growing
participatory democracy in Venezuela. Alas, the new book entitled Venezuela Speaks! Voices from the Grassroots(PM
Press, 2010) offers a powerful correction to this misrepresentation by
spotlighting a wide range of people and movements that are actively
governing themselves with official governmental structures created
since the 1998 election of President Chavez, and the growing
non-governmental social movements that have existed for several decades.
Venezuela Speaks
embodies this non-hierarchical philosophy by presenting the voices of
the people themselves in interviews from practically every sector of
society, including community organizers, educators, journalists,
cultural workers, farmers, women, students, and Indigenous &
Afro-Venezuelans. Co-authors Carlos Martinez, Michael Fox, and JoJo
Farrell argue persuasively that this untold story of democracy from the
bottom-up is key to understanding the complexity of the present-day
political situation in Venezuela. They write that “by failing to see
beyond Chavez and the government’s anti-neoliberal policies, one of the
most significant political dynamics in Venezuela has gone ignored and
underappreciated—the dynamic between a government that has committed
itself to a discourse of grassroots political participation, and the
response of ordinary Venezuelans to this call, often in ways that go
beyond the expectations of the government, occasionally even
challenging it.”
Authors
Martinez, Fox, and Farrell explain that “the idea of participatory
democracy, as opposed to representative democracy has been a pillar of
Chavez’s political movement since his successful run for office in
1998.” The most well-known example of participatory democracy in
Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution is the system of communal councils,
which have “provided Venezuelans with a legal mechanism to locally
organize themselves into democratic structures of between 200-400
families, with the greater goal of determining the way that government
funds get used for development and infrastructure projects in their
communities.”
However,
the authors argue that the community councils are just the “tip of the
iceberg of the construction of popular power in Venezuela. Over the
course of the Bolivarian Revolution, Venezuelans have created
cooperatives; taken over factories; occupied urban and rural lands;
launched community radio and television stations; built centers for
culture and popular education; participated in creating national
legislation and found numerous other ways of bringing the government’s
discourse of popular power into reality. Many of these actions have
been motivated by the words of President Chavez or have been
facilitated by government initiatives. Meanwhile, many people behind
these actions continue to pressure the government in order to survive
or succeed.”
While
the revolution has opened up new possibilities for popular
participation, many of the participants interviewed explain how they
are actively pressuring the governmental bureaucracy to follow through
on the revolution’s goals. Looking at this tension between social
movements and the state, the authors write that “while much of the
blame has been attributed to corrupt or right-wing elements still
functioning within the government’s bureaucracy, many social movements
also argue that an overly ‘institutionalized’ approach to revolutionary
change has not taken their independent initiatives sufficiently into
account.” Indeed, “many social movements recognize the reality that
although government leadership may have changed, radical transformation
will often still demand confrontation with those in political power.”
The
authors recognize the interviewees “conflict and frustration” with the
government, but they argue that “rather than let their criticisms of
Venezuela’s political process fill us with disillusionment, these
testimonies should provide us with inspiration in knowing that so many
people are actively engaged in constructing their new society,
regardless of setbacks.” This point is clearly the dominant theme
throughout the book, with the authors boldly asserting that “beyond the
social programs, economic projects, and anti-neoliberal policies
promoted by the national government, truly profound change will only
come from the active debate and dialogue between organized peoples and
the government. It is this debate and dialogue that has set Venezuela
apart from many national liberation struggles of the past, and if
Venezuela is to succeed where others have failed, then it must continue
to strengthen this relationship.”
Yanahir Reyes Joins Book Tour
Marking
the release of Venezuela Speaks, co-authors Michael Fox and Carlos
Martinez are joining photographer Sylvia Leindecker on a book tour
around the US. The tour began in San Francisco’s Mission District on
January 14 and on the East Coast on January 20, in Arlington, Virginia.
For
the East Coast segment, they will also be joined by Yanahir Reyes, who
works with Women’s First Steps Civil Association and is the founder of
Millennium Women’s Word, a feminist radio program broadcasted on a
community radio station in her neighborhood of Caricuao. The 28-year
old Reyes is featured in Venezuela Speaks, as part of the
chapter focusing on women and sexual diversity movements. Her powerful
account is just one of the many interviews featured, but it shows the
complexity of how the Bolivarian Revolution has impacted women’s
liberation.
Reyes
explains that her earliest feminist consciousness came from home, as
she saw that her father, a former member of a leftist guerrilla
movement, “could go out and do whatever he wanted. He was freer, while
my mother stayed at home, taking care of us—the girls—ironing, washing,
scrubbing, and cleaning the house.” After discovering that he was
having an extra-marital affair, she saw her father as “a coward, a
chauvinist,” who “had the power to dominate the situation.” According
to Reyes, this type of sexual inequality is compounded by the poverty
because “housing is very hard to come by in Caracas and sadly some
women are forced to remain in demeaning situations because of it…I want
to have my own apartment, alone. I want to travel, to do a lot of
things without depending on a man.”
Reyes talks about her involvement in the local ludoteca,
which serves as an educational, family, and community center that is
flexible and “responds to the needs of the people…the ludotecas are
different from traditional schools, because they can take place
anywhere in a community…under a mango tree, a room in a barrio,
on a closed-off street. The ludoteca isn’t managed by the teacher or an
institution, it’s managed by the people. Mothers and fathers
participate in the space,” and it “has the objective of strengthening
the emotional bonds within the family and using play as a means of
education—but an education for transformation.”
Along
with working towards a healthy family, the ludoteca has been an
important tool for women’s education. As mothers brought their children
in, they would gradually become more involved with their children’s
education by volunteering at the ludoteca. Reyes explains that “the
women were not trained in workshops or anything like that. They began
by observing what [co-worker] Milda and I did. But when the women began
to participate as volunteers, they started learning children’s songs,
how to play the children’s games, how to work with pregnant women. It
wasn’t about us teaching the mothers. They learned through practice.”
Even further, “the school pushes the community to organize, to solve
serious human rights issues, like the right to water, education,
security, recreation, nutrition, and other necessities. The ludoteca
functions as a safe space, preventing the violence generated by the
nature of survival and the vicious cycle of patriarchy and capitalism.”
Illustrating
the Bolivarian Revolution’s contradictions and tensions, their ludoteca
had trouble getting financial support from the government’s Ministry of
Education, which Reyes attributes to The Ministry’s “conservative and
bourgeois education policies.” However, “we were able to receive
support from Fundayacucho, which is a foundation under the
Ministry of Education. These are the contradictions we have in the
government. The people inside Fundayacucho understand this project, but
the people working directly in the Ministry don’t.”
Reyes
concludes her interview by arguing that the Bolivarian Revolution has
opened doors for women, but “our concern goes beyond the language of
gender inclusion and the political participation of women. The larger
struggle is to change the culture.” Reyes cites several important
government initiatives for women, including the National Women’s
Institute and the 2007 Law on the Right of Women to a Life Free of
Violence, which “actually examined the different forms of violence
established by patriarchy and machismo as a cultural and ideological
system. The creation of The Ministry of Women and Gender Equality in
March of 2009 was another very significant step. But I have to say that
the bureaucracy swallows good intentions. I think it is a mistake to
keep strengthening the institutions. The communities are ready to make
the changes. The struggle continues to be the divide between
institutions and popular power.”
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