The Bolivarian revolution in the time of "World War IV..."We're moving into an era of stark choices and harsh realities. American millenialist fundamentalism, wedded to good old fashioned economic imperialism, is locked in a death struggle with its freakish mirror image: Muslim jihadists bent on a restoration of the ancient Caliphate. Hovering around the edges is a sort of nervous European "kinder, gentler" capitalism: too timid to be a real counterweight to the US, but unhappy with its extremism. China seems to be sitting this one out.
And then there is the global South.
The billions below the Equator have never done well with modernity, and they were pawns in the global power struggle of the last century. But some of the
best ideas on how to build a saner society have come from the South. Despite this marginalisation, one nation in particular - oil-rich Venezuela - is increasingly drawing attention to itself for its novel political ideas.
The Bolivarian revolution is often associated with Chávez, and while he obviously provided a strong initial impetus - not to mention, political power - towards that work, it is clear that at this point the movement has a life of its own.The goal of the Bolivarian revolution involve social change in the context of a participatory democracy, where citizens are carrying out programs in their own communities, under their own control. I liken this dynamic element of the Bolivarian revolution, echoes of the old principle of subsidiarity, that revolutionary principle first enunciated by, of all people, a Catholic Pope.
A significant element in the Bolivarian revolution is the importance of education. The goal is to have free education from childhood to the graduate level carried out to further Bolivarian ideals in different spheres of work. According to the rector of the Bolivarian University: “education is not just to create professionals. Education is much more than that. Knowledge is power, and more people with knowledge empowers the whole population. Educating women empowers not only the women educated, but the whole population. Creating critical thinkers, a population of intellectuals, is a much more profound project than just preparing people for jobs.”
An interesting part of all this is that the revolution, for once, is well funded. In these years of high prices for oil, Venezuela's state oil company is generating big profits to be invested in social programs: what Chávez has called sembrar el petróleo (to harvest the oil). In this instance, the rich are not being expropriated to finance the revolution. Rather, in a geopolitical act of jiujitsu breathtaking in its irony, the capitalist system's thirst for oil is being exploited to finance a post-capitalist alternative. This is probably one of my favourite elements in this whole story.
The Venezuelan government under Chávez has created a number of different programs which are called "missions:" Mission Robinson, which is concerned with elementary level education; Mission Ribas, for high-school level education; Mission Sucre at the college level and Mission Vuelvan Caras ("about face"), which provides education in the trades. In addition,Mission Mercal brings staple foods to the barrios and countryside at prices affordable by Venezuela's poor. And Mission Barrio Adentro ("into the neighborhood") is establishing an expanding network of neigborhood clinics. This effort has been spearheaded by Cuban medics - who are, however, soon to be replaced by Cuban-educated Venezuelans - to staff clinics for the poor.
The Bolivarian revolution presents an alternative model for a real and participative democracy. The Bolivarians pursue the old socialist goals of health care for all, free access to education and a decent quality of life, but without the stultifying bureaucracy and social injustice that doomed the dinosaurs of the Soviet bloc. If it delivers on even a fraction of its promise, it will stand as a shining example that the world need not follow the scary and dehumanising path laid out by the dour men and their Bibles and Korans.
[*] Heinberg, Richard, “The Party’s is Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies”, 3rd Edition Revised, New Society Publishers, Canada 2003.
