Venezuela: Propaganda Blurs the Lines
One is hard-pressed to miss the slogan “With Chávez, the people are the government” in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, stamped as it is on government posters that paper the city. The statement claims the achievement of a perfect democracy and implicitly suggests the opposite: Without President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy would not exist.
By depicting his rule as nothing less than the true manifestation of popular will, anyone opposed to Chávez’s policies are automatically painted as antidemocratic oppressors. The “with us or against us” binary is a hallmark of government propaganda, which casts legitimate democratic dissent as subversive.
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A key aspect of government propaganda is the association of Chávez with the struggle for Venezuelan independence. His administration calls itself the “Bolívarian government” after revered independence hero Simón Bolívar. And in April the government celebrated the “Week of Caracas – Insurgent City” to commemorate two important dates in Venezuela’s fight for independence. The first is April 19, 1810, when Venezuelans ousted the colonial governor in Caracas initiating the country’s fight toward an independent republic. The second date is April 13, 2002, the day Chávez was reinstated as president following mass protests against a short-lived coup.
The association of Chávez’s return to power with the event that sparked independence from Spain is further conveyed by an exhibition at the government’s Historical Museum of Popular Power that features a photographic recounting of the coup alongside images of Bolívar and other independence heroes.
Unlike these past heroes though, Chávez is not represented as simply another step in the fight for freedom and justice, but rather as the expression of their full realization. A separate exhibit in the museum, for example, details three important uprisings against what it calls “corrupt” governments that “saw the people as a simple, malleable instrument.” These uprisings, it claims, constitute a single process that “culminated” in 1999 when “Hugo Chávez took the reins of the Republic for the first time.” The current president is cast as the endpoint in the long history of Venezuela’s struggle against oppression.
The exhibit calls the April 2002 coup attempt “a disruptive act of transnational fascism.” The juxtaposition of the coup with that of Venezuela’s fight for independence furthers the notion of the opposition as a foreign threat by connecting it to European colonialism. Furthermore, Chávez continuously links U.S. imperialism to the motives of the opposition, aided in part by the funding of some opposition groups by USAID and the congressionally funded U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.
The portrayals serve to blur the lines between legitimate homegrown dissent and foreign intervention in Venezuelan politics. As mentioned above, some opposition groups have undeniable connections to international enemies of the Chávez administration, but the government misleadingly extends this influence to all forms of dissent. Representing the opposition as a foreign entity is, in fact, a critical element of the chavista propaganda binary and completes the antithetical positioning of the two sides: Those who oppose the government are not only antidemocratic; they are also not truly Venezuelan.
Often times the casting of the opposition as not a part of Venezuelan society is accomplished by simply ignoring its existence. For example, a large banner currently hanging in the capital district of Caracas reads, “For the Television that we deserve. No to the Concession [of RCTV].” The banner clearly does not speak for the millions of Venezuelans against the government’s non-renewal of the television station’s broadcasting license—70% according to a recent survey. Chávez negated the legitimacy of widespread student protests against the move, claiming the students were being “manipulated” by the opposition, which he called an “enemy of the homeland.”
Other comments make the effect of such an exclusionary statement more clear. Early on in his presidency, Chávez labeled opponents of a plan to construct power lines in the southeast of the country “traitors, spies, and foreigners.” It mattered little that those against the plan were environmentalists and indigenous groups; the salient factor was simply their opposition. Using words such as “traitors” and “spies” connotes the supposed foreignness of those working against government policies, which are represented to be in the interests of all Venezuelans.
The end result of this dichotomy is that dissent becomes antidemocratic, for it inevitably opposes a government that claims to be the manifestation of true democracy. As protests continue throughout Venezuela, however, it is clear that many see things differently.
Eric Biewener is a freelance writer based in Caracas and the author of two blogs, Custodians of History and Gringo in the Periphery.
I think your own writing somewhat blurred the lines too.
You wrote:
“The juxtaposition of the coup with that of Venezuela’s fight for independence furthers the notion of the opposition as a foreign threat by connecting it to European colonialism. Furthermore, Chávez continuously links U.S. imperialism to the motives of the opposition, aided in part by the funding of some opposition groups by USAID and the congressionally funded U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.”
You write the above without commenting on whether or not it is true. Certainly the media backed the last coup and their meetings with the CIA are fully, documented, photographed etc and there is no doubt.
Writing in the style you have you suggest this is either smoke and mirrors style propaganda, or worse still, sheer paranoia. But, as you are aware, this is not entirely the case.
Your 70% survey - it seems that any blogger worth their salt would link this. Let’s face it, I guess you had to research it on here. If so link it.
Is that 70% from reliable sources?
That is a frustrating piece you have written. In it there appears to be a great deal of truth but writing it in this form, without any real balance or definitive truth just hints at the very worst of Chavez without actually providing any real evidence.
It’s very easy for anyone reading this to think: “Ah well, he’s there, he should know.”
But we all know, that in this case, that has not entirely proved to be the situation. The very TV stations that are being discussed gleefully reported the coup attempt and did not cover any of Chavez’s supporters opposition.
In fact, they didn’t even cover the situation, at first, when the coup had been reversed. It took state TV to do this.
Certainly, while the media promoted ideals the opposed democracy it was Chavez and his supporters that arguably upholded democracy through his reinstatement.
ourman,
Thank you for reading and commenting on my piece.
Overall, I feel that your criticisms miss the primary focus of my article. It was not my intention to discuss the specific realities of the opposition (i.e. which parts are and are not connected to foreign entities), but rather to demonstrate how, according to the chavista binary, all opposition is the same. My piece is intended to illuminate the chavista narrative and, like all political narratives, there is some truth to it. But a discussion of which parts are true and which parts are not is for a different article to take up.
Of course, I do begin to take up this discussion when I make references to “legitimate” opposition, whether it be the recent student protests or the earlier protests against the power line project in the Gran Sabana. I also take it up, however, when I point out that the US government funds opposition groups in Venezuela and that “some opposition groups have undeniable connections to international enemies of the Chávez administration.” Clearly you feel that I should have engaged more deeply with this latter reality of the opposition, but this falls outside the scope of my article. I only sought to note how there are both opposition groups connected to the aims of foreigners (which I implicitly label illegitimate) as well as independent domestic opposition (the legitimate kind, in my opinion). From there, my article simply attempts to convey how, according to Chavez, there is no distinction to be made between these two.
As far as the survey goes, I am sorry that a link is not provided in the article. Let’s blame NACLA for that. Just kidding. It was conducted by the Venezuelan firm Datanalisis, but unfortunately I was not able to find the results on the company’s website (didn’t try too hard though). They were widely reported in a number of news sources, however, so if you google “Datanalisis RCTV 70%” you will find plenty of links.
I admit that I know little about this company and can therefore not comment on the poll’s reliability. But it’s results were presented uncritically by the pro-Chavez Gregory Wilpert at Venezuelanalysis.com, so that probably counts for something.
I appreciate your response and would be more than happy to continue engaging with you here at NACLA News.
A letter to NACLA:
Over the years I have called attention to NACLA’s depressing drift to the right. The latest instance is a report from Venezuela on the RCTV controversy by Eric Biewener, a young man who graduated from Harvard University last year. His report can be found here:
http://news.nacla.org/2007/06/04/venezuela-propaganda-blurs-the-lines/
If you really want to understand his hostility to Chavez, it helps to understand his general hostility to radical measures, as indicated by his blog entry below. Frankly, my advice to NACLA is this. If you want to hire freelancers to write counter-revolutionary tripe, you might want to choose more carefully since this character couldn’t get a job at New Republic.
—-
So the entire time I’ve been in Venezuela (2 months now), I’ve been trying to figure out why the grocery stores I go to don’t always have chicken or beef. I thought at first that it had to do with the time of day that I went… then I thought that maybe I was going to a crappy grocery store (I was, I now use a better one… but still the same problem with the meat)… then I thought, well, maybe this is just how shit works in Venezuela.
Then, while reading an article about rural land redistribution, it hit me: this IS how shit works in Venezuela. See, the rural land redistribution works like this: some squatters go and burn down a big rancher’s crops, tell him that they own the land now, and then demand that Chávez let them keep the land, which he often does. As a result, lot’s of once productive land is now being used by people who either don’t really know what they’re doing, don’t have the capital to do it, or both. Also, once productive land owners are no longer investing in their land or animals because they fear that it will be a waste. Why grow sugar cane or raise a chicken when some squatter is just going to take it away from you with the blessing of the federal government?
http://theperiphery.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/wheres-the-beef/
I should point out that the article is not on the RCTV controversy (which I would be more than happy to discuss with you elsewhere, especially if you accept the government’s justification for it). It is, rather, on the propaganda of the Chavez administration.
Your assumption that I have a “general hostility to radical measures” is completely ridiculous. I think this world needs A LOT of radical change. I think the capitalist, US-led economic system is a disaster. I think the global political organization of the nation-state system is a disaster. I am all for “radical measures.” But that doesn’t mean that I just go ahead and embrace every one that comes along. Nor do I embrace every megalomaniac that espouses socialist revolution.
I don’t know much about the land distribution measures under Chavez, but it is clear that there are some problems. When some rural poor people intimidate (burning their crops, death threats, etc.) a wealthy rancher into giving up his land and then Chavez legitimates the action, that is not a good radical measure. In a country like Venezuela, in a region like Latin America, and in a world like ours, I am all for radical land redistribution. But there are good, moral ways to do it, and there are bad ways.
I moved to this country with the hope of seeing truly impressive, radical change from Chavez. So far, I have not seen it. I do not think Chavez’s policies are really very different from those of his pre-1980s-debt-crisis predecessors, and he is sadly repeating many of the same mistakes. You consider my piece “counter-revolutionary,” but that is impossible because there is no revolution to counter!
What, specifically, do you take issue with in regards to my article? Instead of just labeling my work “tripe” as if it were self-evident, perhaps you can do me and other readers the favor of providing specific criticisms that we can discuss.
And while you may have lost your faith in NACLA, the most recent issue includes an excellent interview with the important Venezuelan historian Margarita Lopez Maya. She used to support Chavez, but no longer does. I think her description of the situation under Chavez in Venezuela is very helpful and essentially how I have come to understand it.
Finally, to give you a clearer sense of where my feelings lie in regards to the status quo in our world, I encourage you to read my other blog at http://custodiansofhistory.wordpress.com. It focuses on critiquing mainstream US media coverage of international relations. I am sure you will find something there that you do not consider “counter-revolutionary.”
http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/2817.cfm
Well, the RCTV issue is a different topic from my article, so I will keep this short: why was Venevision’s license renewed for another 5 years? That is the question that must be answered. Venevision had the same role in the coup as RCTV. Clearly then, it is not RCTV’s attempt to overthrow Chavez that is really at stake here.
Thank you, ourman and Eric, for a fairly constructive exchange, and thank you also, ourman, for providing the link to Stuart Munckton’s June 6 article from Australia, which is more detailed than Eric’s and (I thought) informative, vigorous, and sophisticated. Louis, the statements about Eric (recent graduate, allegedly failed to get a certain job) were interesting but, being ad hominem, don’t persuade me his views are worthless. Admittedly, the 2 blog paragraphs don’t go deep, but they at least seem honest and candid.
What I can, perhaps, most usefully contribute is to report an important learning experience regarding reporting about radical regimes. In the early 1970s, when I was about 20 years old, I read a syndicated column in my local newspaper that described how Chile’s socialist president Salvador Allende was inciting workers at the prominent newspaper “El Mercurio” to refuse to print it so as to stifle criticism of his regime. Typical Marxist regime hostility to press freedom, was the column’s moral. As a young leftist who had studied the evolution of the Soviet Union from 1917 to Stalin’s dictatorship, I was concerned that Allende would try to suppress criticism, and this lowered my opinion of his government. But in (I think) 1975, I read an article in “Liberation” magazine by Fred Landis (or Landes), if memory serves. Landis described convincingly the CIA’s program of undermining Allende’s regime, and in particular the vicious role played by “El Mercurio,” which appeared to be a direct conduit for CIA anti-regime campaign themes. Landis’s account was credible, and I realized that the newspaper column I’d read, with its theme of Marxist-government-suppresses-press-freedom was designed deliberately to mislead and neutralize potential sympathizers like me. In subsequent years I saw a similar campaign against Nicaragua’s Sandinistas, who were portrayed as aggressive totalitarians while permitting greater press freedom than the U.S.-backed regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala despite being under attack from the U.S.-organized and financed “contra” army. (See Edward Herman’s 1981 “The Real Terror Network” and subsequent works by him and Chomsky.)
Assuming Munckton’s account is reliable, a similar campaign is going on today against Chavez, one that is inaccurate and involves deliberately misleading accounts. Eric, you are right (as I was in the early 1970s) to be watching for signs of authoritarian missteps by Chavez and his supporters. I agree with your argument that it’s wrong to call critics spies and traitors — it’s presumably false in the case you cite — and I could list other acts by Chavez that I disapprove. But become as aware as you can of how others are trying to manipulate your opinions. Chile in 1970-73 did have spies and traitors, and Allende and many others died in the aftermath of the U.S. backed “9/11″ (1973) aerial attack on the presidential palace. Try to keep the big picture in mind (e.g., why it makes sense for Chavez to seek allies, even among leaders I don’t approve of), including U.S. government psychological warfare against us. Read Munckton’s account, and tell us what you think.
For candid and constructive dialogue,
Bob Irwin
Addition to my article
Yesterday the university student movement in Caracas read a statement at the National Assembly. Upon leaving, a friend tells me that Chávez supporters outside yelled at them, “You’re worms! Not Venezuelans!”
The chavista binary in action.
Bob,
First of all, I didn’t fail to get a “certain job.” Louis has no idea who I am and is simply insulting me in his desperate attempt to defend his blind support for Chávez (I refer to our exchange on his blog here). I have asked him repeatedly for a specific criticism of my article (that he labels “counter-revolutionary tripe), but he has yet to provide a single one.
In what way is Stuart Munckton’s article “more… informative, vigorous, and sophisticated” than mine? They are on entirely different topics! I don’t know why ourman posted that link underneath my article. Regardless, Munckton’s fails to answer THE critical question that I posed a couple comments ago: why was Venevision’s license renewed for another 5 years? Venevisión played the same role in the coup as RCTV. Munckton asks “which other government in the world would renew the license of a station that actively participated in a coup against the legitimate government?” I don’t know which other one would, but Chávez sure did! Clearly then, it cannot simply be RCTV’s actions during the coup that caused its license to be revoked. Just because it should be revoked for this reason does not mean that it is being revoked for this reason. The question which must be asked is “Why RCTV but not Venevisión? The difference is that Venevisión long ago stopped being critical of the Chávez administration, while RCTV stuck to its guns. THAT is the difference. Therefore, the non-renewal of RCTV’s license is absolutely an attempt to silence a government critic. If you want an “informative, vigorous, and sophisticated” commentary from me on this matter (since my above piece is on an entirely different topic), I would refer you to this post on my blog.
Munckton’s argument is the one I subscribed to back in January when a flurry of editorials appeared in the US press that condemned Chávez’s post-electoral victory announcement of how he would not renew RCTV’s license. I admit that it is a very convincing argument on the surface, but it ultimately cannot stand unless it manages to convincingly address the key issue I have raised. I have read a lot of opinion pieces written in support of Chávez’s decision, but none have managed to deal with this issue. For what it’s worth, Munckton’s article has other holes in it as well, and I’d be happy to discuss those with you further if you’d like.
For now though, I wish to address the rest of what you said in regards to Chile. I am indeed well aware of the US government’s role in bringing about the coup (”Make their economy scream” Nixon infamously told CIA director Richard Helms). And, furthermore, I am well aware of the biases that the US mainstream press had toward anything leftist during the Cold War (and, in fact, continues to have to this day). In fact, NACLA actually published an article of mine last December following the death of Pinochet. It criticizes the pathetic editorial that the New York Times wrote for the occassion, and delves into the fear-mongering that the Times was responsible for during Allende’s presidency in the early 1970s. Furthermore, I author a second blog that focuses on illuminating the biases of the US mainstream media these days. Trust me, I do not turn to the editorial boards of the NY Times, LA Times, or—god forbid—the Washington Post for my views on the RCTV controversy or anything related to Chávez. As you rightly note, our mainstream press has long since lost its credibility when it comes to offering opinions on Washington’s enemies.
I think you are absolutely correct to keep this in mind as you read pieces regarding the RCTV decision. Unfortunately, this is one occasion on which a leftist leader truly is cutting down on freedom of expression.
And, for what it’s worth, the non-renewal of RCTV’s broadcasting license is hardly the strongest example of Chávez’s increasing authoritarianism.