Not many pictures December 30, 2006
I haven’t been posting many pictures. This is because of a couple of reasons. First and foremost I’ve been reading and trying to figure out this country. Then I’ve been doing more touristy things like visiting art galleries and museums and I might or might not fill this blog with all that kind of junk later. Then, when I have been shooting, I’ve been indulging myself.
This is to say I’ve been shooting black and white film. Film may not allow me to post post frequently, but its more fun and my plastic box of a film camera doesn’t attract the same kind of attention as my gorgeous Canon 5D does.
The 3rd Great American Awakening December 27, 2006
The ideological breakdowns of the 60’s were a bitter disappointment to Thompson, Mailer, and all of those journalists who truly believed that they just might bear witness to a great American political awakening. But Nixon was reelected, the New Left splintered and faded, and Haight-Ashbury became a seedy countercultural Disneyland.
There was a new revolution afoot, but it was directed inward, toward the cultivation of one’s own personality, mental health, and physical well-being. It was the era of encounter sessions, EST, group therapy. Tom Wolfe called it the third great American awakening, a natural evolution arising from the drug experimentation and communal living of the previous decade. The Me Decade, for short. “Whatever the Third Great Awakening amounts to,” Wolfe wrote in his 1976 New York story “The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening,” “for better or worse, will have to do with this unprecedented post-World War II American luxury: the luxury enjoyed by so many millions of middling folk, of dwelling upon the self.”
Marc Weingarten in The Gang That Couldn’t Write Straight Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, and the New Journalism Revolution
Christmas in Caracas December 25, 2006
Fireworks were shot all over plaza Altamira last night for Christmas.
The action hit its peak at about 12:20. The entire plaza was lit up with the shooting exploding lights, mostly reds and greens. Yellow sparklers sizzled on the plaza floor.
Beyond cell phones, fireworks and cracklers seem to be Venezuela’s favorite toy. They’re shot off all the time, at anytime of the day, in the middle of sidewalks, and in crowded market places. Frequently massive booms are heard about the city like car bombs, an exclamation point of someone’s joy.
Christmas Eve was an occasion for even more fireworks then during the elections.
The best view in the city was in the Baruta municipality where you could watch the fireworks shooting up from the city like rocket ships and exploding below.
Mandatory Volunteering in Venezuela December 23, 2006
Last week the Venezuelan Government passed a law that says all people from 18-60 who are no attending higher education, in the military, or otherwise unable to do so must take part in mandatory volunteering. Below are some thoughts on the volunteering from a Venezuelan living in Canada.
Mandatory Volunteering
By Bruni
There are just two kinds of honest jobs in a free society: those paid with a salary to earn one’s life and voluntary jobs that are done just for the sake of helping others or getting involved in just causes.
Within that framework, each one of us chooses the cause in which to volunteer: sports, medicine, helping the illiterate, professional organizations, etc. The basic idea is to use one’s free time in causes that would provide personal satisfaction while helping the community.
Personally, I am a volunteer to help breast cancer patients. Nobody ever forced me to do it and even though I am in the list of volunteers of a hospital organization, nobody has ever counted my number of hours. I am involved out of personal conviction, not because any government has passed a law mandating that I should participate in Social Services.
Thus, the Social Service law recently passed by the National Assembly totally distorts the nature of volunteering. In a society where everything is valued in monetary terms and where everything is legislated, volunteering provides an implication that is solely based on human solidarity. However, when the government regulates volunteer work within a rigid and controlling framework, imposes the areas of interest and makes it a legal duty, it is destroying the very essence of the human and social solidarity that the law is supposed to promote.
What is even worse is that the social work becomes then a mandatory work without remuneration.
There is a word in the dictionary to define that type of situation. It is a word that nobody wants to pronounce in these modern times and that we firmly reject when we know that it still exists in some extremist places of the planet.
Mandatory work without remuneration is called Slavery.
That Slavery would be put in place in the name of social justice, that it would be state sponsored and legalized or that it would be the product of the greed of inmoral merchants, it is still Slavery.
As I said at the beginning, there are only two types of work in a modern society: the one that is remunerated and the one that is done voluntarily, by conviction, with no strings attached and in full enjoyment of personal freedoms.
The non-remunerated and highly regulated work that the National Assembly is now imposing to the Venezuelan people, does not has a place in a free and democratic society.
I finish this post with the saying of a magnet that is proudly displayed on the door of my refrigerator.
It says:
“Volunteers are not paid not because they are worthless,
but because they are priceless”
It refers, of course, to real volunteers.
Rebuilding the Barrios…Part of the Bolivarian Revolution’s Plan For the Poor December 22, 2006
(I showed up to the construction site of a pilot project to replace barrio housing with affordably built housing without an appointment. After taking down my information the head of security showed me around.)
The houses are mostly done. Some people have already moved in and decorated.
The apartments will be done in January or February and the construction is going well, with all the materials needed to finish on site.
Across the street from the construction is one of the metal shacks that the people in the barrio used to live in, sitting as kind of large visual reminder of what living conditions on the hill were like just a year ago.
“We are very proud,” Gisel Ojeda says. She is an old women who is relatively new to this barrio on the hill, up from downtown Caracas. She’s lived here for 14 years while most other people have been here for 27.
Originally from the coastal town of La Guira, Gisel came to Caracas after Hurricane Alan destroyed her home. Her family originally rented an apartment, but were kicked out by their landlord. Without the money for anything else, they bought one of the shacks on the hill.
“There was no water,” Gisel said. “People sometimes had to go up on the mountain to find water. Our homes, even the brick houses below us, were falling apart. There were no sewers.”
“We thank God and this President who made this all possible,” she said.
This barrio and its 120 families were chosen to take part in this pilot project to create affordably built homes for people living in barrios throughout the country.
The Government is paying for the houses and the apartments initially. Each of the houses and apartments (8 apartments per apartment building) have multiple bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and laundry room. The residents have 10-15 years to pay back 25 percent of the cost with the first year free. After their house or apartment is paid off, they’ll be the owner.
After the pilot project is completed there will be a larger test done with 6,500 families in areas around Caracas.
During the year of construction the barrio residents were housed by the Government in hotels.
A small baseball field and batting cage, a basketball court and a free clinic with a Cuban doctor have also been given to the community. Concrete has been put down over the once dirt roads.
The houses are brick with green and yellow trimming and concrete floors. They’re small, but appear sturdy. Above them is the green mountain Avila. Below them is Caracas’s sprawl. Its absolutely gorgeous and in many ways seems to be the perfect pilot project, leaving the question remaining whether or not the Government can reproduce this in barrios throughout the country.
Things appear to be moving very slowly, probably because of money and bureaucratic reasons. After the pilot project is complete there will be a test done with 6500 families throughout various parts of Caracas. Then there will be more large scale construction.
One of the things you hear constantly here is that the Government is thinking in the long term. Ten years is what people are saying when it comes to seeing the results of the social programs. Its unlikely that every barrio will look like this pilot project, but if the barrios of the future look anything like the pilot project, it will be an enormous step forward.
Catia-TVe December 21, 2006
Media is always a big part of the equations. Its not what actually happens. Its how one is told it happened. The Venezuela media has been accused of being extemely biased of their coverage of Chavez. Today I visited Catia TVe, Venezuela’s largest alternative TV station.
Catia TVe
Wilfredo is a talk show host at Catia TVe and talks extremely quickly, spewing information, providing examples to back up what is saying.
Catia TVe, he tells me, has been around for five years, legally. 16 years without a licence.
Before the government granted CatiaTVe a license they had their offices above a mental illness clinic. They showed movies on 16mm projectors to people in the barrios. They weren’t allowed to show the movies in the main plazas. The movies they showed weren’t even available in Venezuela. The staff at foreign embassies would give CatiaTVe the movies to show. The government eventually kicked them out of the mental sickness clinic. A number of CatiaTVe staff members spent time in jail.
In 2000 Catia TVe began broadcasting on air.
Today Catia TVe is housed, not far from Miraflores palace, on the outer edge of the sprawling Catia barrio, in a cavernous orange building given to them by the Government.
Don’t Watch TV, Make It
The first congress of alternative radio and TV in Venezuela had just finished meeting the day before. The days broadcast was starting (Catia broadcasts from 10am to midnight) reporting on the previous days events.
The Catia Tve’s motto is:
Don’t watch TV, Make it.
There is nothing from the US broadcast on Catia TVe. The only programming from outside Venezuela are movies from other Latin American countries and Europe.
I asked why European films could be shown, but not US.
The US (and China too) has an imperialist agenda, was the answer.
Movies such as Rocky and Rambo, and Disney films, have long dominated Venezuelan airwaves, it is explained.
Catia TVe wasn’t against the US. Many people from the United States had come to Catia TVe. But most American movies weren’t educational. And it wasn’t that all European movies were welcomed. Just the other night a Spanish director had been criticized on air.
The US directors Wilfredo personally respected were Ford and Spielberg. They weren’t afraid to criticize the Government.
The Way Catia Works
Its mostly volunteer. There are some people on staff (28), such as Wilfredo, who have been with the station for a long time and in the past have sacrificed their salary to pay broadcasting and electrical bills.
Most of the stories are gathered by teams called ECPAI’s.
The teams, Independent Community Audiovisual Teams, are volunteers in the community who Catia TVe has trained to use cameras and audio equipment. In Caracas there are fifty teams made up of 165 people.
Stiffening up, Wilfredo imitates a TV broadcaster. Then he says that the people who do the stories can also be ugly and poor, that those people who were concerned “bad” also have the right to their voice.
Answer Criticisms
Those who criticize Catia TVe are older and have been watching Walt Disney movies for the last 40 years.
There is now a need to educate for the revolution.
Fact
Even in the poorest home in Venezuela there is a TV. For years the TV was an enemy of the people. Now it was time to turn into a friend.
Statement
Catia TVe sees that the campasinos and the fabric makes and all the workers of the community make beautiful things too.
Catia Tve won’t just broadcast about things that are bad, they’ll broadcast about the good things in the community too.
Catia
The Case Against Hugo Chavez and What Those Who Never Liked Him Tried to Do December 17, 2006
This is all ancient, but important history.
Hugo Chavez was not who the establishment countries and wealthy Venezuelans wanted to take power in 1998.
But when he was elected they thought he would do what most prior leaders of Venezuela have done, and go back on his campaign promises.
When he did actually begin to redesign PDVSA in the name of bringing it back under state control and ending corruption he began to be seen at a threat to the Venezuelan elite who had long controlled PDVSA with little Government interference.
Chavez also committed a series of other offenses.
On his world tour after his 1998 election he went to Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro before going to the US to meet Bill Clinton.
He attempted to put new life into OPEC and met with Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi.
In April 2001 he opposed the Free Trade agreements being proposed by the US.
In September 2001 he told the US military mission stationed in Venezuela’s Fort Tiuna to leave. This diminished US influence in the Venezuelan Military.
In October 2001 Chavez spoke out against the US bombing of Afghanistan, showing photos of Afghan children injured by US bombs.
It was at this point that Chavez seemed to really incur the wrath of the Bush administration.
By November 2001 Pedro Carmona, a wealthy Venezuelan businessman who was pro Free Trade and US interests, was seen by the White House as the man to take over as president after Chavez was ousted from power.
The National Endowment for Democracy, an American organization that is largely considered a front for the CIA (or they at least do the same thing the CIA used to do in a more open way) gave approximately 2 million dollars to opposition groups as well as pubic relations and communication training to its leaders.
By this time groups on both the right and left were aligned against Chavez.
Even MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) was against Chavez as he was largely leaving organizations outside of his own Government outside of the decision making process.
In Jan. 2002 The opposition held large marches in Caracas. Military leaders called for Chavez to step down. Even the Catholic church declares their opposition to Chavez.
In Feb. 2002 Opposition leaders, eager to gain support abroad, met with officials at the White House.
In Mar. 2002 Opposition groups met in Venezuela and decided on a transitional government for after Chavez was removed from power.
On April 10th 2002 PDVSA workers went on strike, causing turmoil in the country. Pedro Carmona went on TV to say the strike would be indefinite. Political parties allied against Chavez called for a march the next day.
What happened on April the 11th is more common knowledge. Opposition supporters gathered in the East of the city and were told by organizers to march on Miraflores. When they got to the palace they found a large group of pro-Chavez demonstrators already there. Snipers fired on the demonstrators from the rooftops. A number of people, mostly Chavistas, were killed.
The violence was blamed on Chavez by the media. The opposition told him to resign or they would bomb the presidential palace.
Chavez turned himself over and was taken to a military base on an island off the coast of Venezuela. He was held there for 48 hours, presumably waiting to be taken out of the country.
Massive demonstrations in Caracas caused the National Guard to take control of the palace and Chavez was returned to power.
Since the 2002 the opposition has continuously tried to unseat Chavez. First with a massive oil strike that crippled the economy, a referendum, and earlier this month normal elections.
For whatever reason, maybe Chavez is blessed with incredible luck, he is still in power.
Maracaibo December 15, 2006
Yesterday I got a ride to a taxi stop from one of the mothers of the people that have been showing me around Maracaibo.
She told me that there are three languages. Spanish, English, and Maracuchian.
Maracuchian is the kind of Spanish spoken here in Maracaibo. Its not so much that its a different dialect of the Spanish that is spoken throughout the rest of the country. It is more that there are additional words that are used in the language. Words that are considered rude and improper to the rest of Venezuela are used every day in Maracaibo and people here consider their language more honest and straight forward.
Maracaibo is indeed very different then the rest of the country.
The four university students that showed me around the city yesterday were extremely proud of their Marachuian culture and that Zulia was such an important state.
One of them, Angie, was saving up for a computer and when I suggested she take a job with PDVSA, the oil state oil company, she said that it wasn´t any longer a good company. That it was just a shadow of what it once was.
At a museum along the brightly colored Carabobo street the director told me about how a lot of the architecture in the city and to a certain extent Maracaibo´s culture had been shaped by the Americans that had come around the 1920´s and 30´s to drill for oil.
There are entire districts of American style houses. In the Laras district you can find the building that houses Shell. Now by law foreign oil companies must be partnered with local oil companies if they want to operate. They can use separate contracts, but they need to be jointed with the local company so not so much of the oils profits leaves the country.
PDVSA says that they export 3.3 million barrels a day. Industry estimates say that the figure is closer to 2.6 million a day. All the oil is crude and has to be processed outside the country.
Around Maracaibo December 14, 2006
Maracaibo is a happy change from Caracas. Here it is not am insane smog pit of converging vehicles.
That is an unfair and untrue statement. Caracas is actually a very nice city, but at times that´s what is feels like.
The word out there is this.
People from Caracas don´t like people from Maracaibo. People from Caracas say they´re arrogant. People from Maracaibo say they´re just jealous.
It´s Maracaibo that makes the cheese and the milk. It has the cattle and the lake with the oil. Maracaibo provides for the rest of the country.
More of this Maracaibo stuff tomorrow.
Lake Maracaibo
The town of Cobimas across the bridge from the city of Maracaibo has a PDVSA oil plant and at the end of the day small boats come in from the oil rigs and drop workers who are carrying orange life vests and overnight bags off on the beaches.
In the back of a Taxi a man named Franco says he has worked for PDVSA for thirty years. In four months he´ll retire and claim his pension. He says he doesn´t like politics himself, but the workers are politized. Some for Chavez some against him. Its half and half he says, despite the mass firings after the oil strike in 2003.
He says that the pay at PDVSA changes and sometimes is good sometimes is bad. It a day to day thing, but it was good work. Hard, and a lot of people had had bad accidents, but it was good work.
older posts »