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Relentlessly Chávez continued,
hour after hour on Sunday afternoon, May 14, in the drab auditorium
of Camden Town Hall in London, the Spanish words tumbling out
like some verbal tsunami or chaotic linguistic volcano. Socialism;
Fidel; the Bolivarian Revolution; Evo Morales; democracy; more
money spent on Venezuelan schools; don't dare invade Iran or
you'll get the price of oil rising to $100 a barrel; human rights;
Richard Gott; globalization; hope; capitalism; Jesus Christ;
George Boosh; the ultimate selfishness of one person trying to
drive a car in a traffic jam when he could get to his destination
more quickly on foot.
On the platform a score of MPs and activists maneuvered their
chairs so as to be seen to be close to the newly arrived star.
After two hours of non-stop oratory the President of Venezuela,
constitutionally elected, friend of the poor, still popular with
his voters and the most powerful politician in South America,
took breath. He paused and reminded Ken Livingstone, Mayor of
London and chairman of the meeting, that Ken had promised him
all the time he wanted. Said Ken genially, "I was thinking
you were only half way through".
The ideas continued to pour out from Chávez once more.
Hope; Ken Livingstone, mi amigo; Viva Haïti; more money
spent on Venezuelan health care; you're wasting money burning
all this oil; Viva la Mujer; the reverendísimo Pat Robertson
and his call for my assassination; cheap Venezuela fuel for England's
poor; Benedict XVI; Long live Mother's Day - Mamma, I love you;
George Bernard Shaw and the great Irish nation; Israel; Iraq,
the Vietnam of the 21st century; US terrorism: the Europeans
should exert a much more calming influence on the United States..
Some of us had been in our seats since three o'clock and now
the hands of the clock nearing eight as Mayor Livingston thanked
the speaker. The atmosphere, even after more than three hours
of solid speechifying was still electric, Chávez's words
drowned by the cheering of the audience, many of them the sort
of young people who would never be seen at a political rally
in Central London listening to a British politician. Then he
pressed the flesh of young and old who showed no desire to let
him go, pausing to have his picture taken with Auntie Flo or
a baby grandson.
In the body of the hall the yellow, blue and red Venezuelan flags
were waved alongside banners and slogans on poles - "You'll
never walk along", "Greetings from Poland", "Welcome,
Chávez, to London". Then the Latin Americans resumed
their chorusing. Delighted to have one of their very own politicians
making such a hit in the British capital, they belted out: "Oooh,
Aaah, Chavez no se va", "Oooh, Aaah, Chavez no se va",
"Oooh, Aaah, Chavez no se va", again and again and
again. Chávez, we were being told, was not going to be
moved.
We spilled out onto the pavement and Chávez and his escort
roared off back to the Savoy Hotel.
London hadn't seen such a demonstration of popular participation
in politics for years and years. Certainly no British political
leader of the very few who dare to stand at a public hustings,
could hold a candle to him for conviction, breadth of vision
or power of delivery. The impact of his words seemed to lose
little if anything for having to be routed for many of his listeners
through a very efficient system of simultaneous translation on
the little wirelesses provided for all who didn't understand
Spanish. In these days when New Labor, Conservative and Liberal
Democrat fight shy of a public meeting which might allow their
champions to be shamed by an imprudent reply to a question from
a voter, the meeting was a tonic and a delightful relief after
all these years of silent, secret, rancorous, thin-lipped rivalry
between Blair and Brown.
How enjoyable to escape from
the careful political tacking carried on year in and year out
by parties dancing around each other in a bloodless political
dance devoid of passion and ideology. Whatever one's political
views, it was a shot in the arm to hear a political leader having
no difficulty in condemning capitalism and condemning the United
States government in terms which no European politician would
ever dare to use in public. And in recommending "socialism
of the twenty-first century" as part of green platform of
care for the environment and of husbanding the earth's resources
for the benefit of future generations.
Chávez courted, charmed and won the Town Hall audience
with a discourse of Third World hope. This discourse was delivered
by a man who could count on an immense strength of character,
a figure who personified the long-awaited challenge of Latin
Americans to the neo-liberal financial "orthodoxies"
of the World Bank and the US and European bankers. Venezuela's
leader knows that Latin American voters understand that free-market
nostrums have brought nothing but stagnation to their societies
and the consolidation of societies where fat cats rule and the
poor rot. After a succession of "lost decades" Latin
America is patently that part of the world where inequality is
the worst and where until recently the United States felt it
had a right to meddle in the politics of its Western Hemisphere
neighbors. He realizes that policy which cuts across US political
and economic designs is not just an optional extra to be adopted
or laid aside at will. It is, he knows, the sine quo non for
acceptance and popularity among voters who have lost patience
with Washington, the White House and the US Congress and who
dislike the activities of US military everywhere from Colombia
and Paraguay in the Western Hemisphere to Baghdad, Fallujah,
and Shannon in the Middle East and Europe.
On Monday Chávez turned his attention from the enthusiasts
to the opinion-formers and businessmen. A squad of journalists
including those from CNN and the US-based Associated Press news
agency who were generally hostile saw him arrive an hour or so
late for a pre-lunch press conference in Livingstone's beautiful
modern City Hall beside the Thames, overlooking the Tower of
London and Tower Bridge. He answered some questions of the journalists'
questions and ignored others. After lunch of Welsh lamb and white
wine on the top floor it was on to Churchill Room at the Houses
of Parliament, then to the gilded seventeenth-century grandeur
of the Banqueting House in Whitehall from whose central window
Charles I stepped onto the scaffold on that cold January day
in 1649.
After strong rumors along his
staff that he finally wouldn't bother with the massed businessmen
and bankers waiting there, he finally arrived, again wildly late,
and did little to rein in his love of Latin oratory. The promised
lecture gave way to a blizzard of statistics about the economy,
the finances and spending on welfare, health and education, followed
by a details of the huge spending projects which Venezuela, basking
in the hot sun of its new oil wealth, was planning: a pipeline
for natural gas across South America from Venezuela to Argentina,
soaring bridges across the mighty River Orinoco, four new underground
railways, enormous petrochemical schemes and on and on. As the
clock ticked towards ten o'clock some of the audience grew restive
and tiptoed out. Nevertheless a big majority stayed to hear his
appeal for Britain, which had done so much two hundred years
ago to free Venezuela from Spanish rule, to return to invest
in the country's twenty-first century. He was adamant that he
did want foreign investors as partners, of course, and
not owners. As he left they stood to applaud the humbly-born
son of modest schoolteachers of mixed race who raised him and
his four siblings in a palm-thatched house on the savannah and
who set him out on the military career. He rose to lieutenant-colonel
of paratroopers and was elected to the presidency in 1998 while
still in his forties. The hostility shown to him by US government
and business was undetectable and he had various quiet meetings
with big British companies keen to become partners in his ambitious
South American plans.
Somehow we found time to talk tete-a-tete. He grew up with strong
notions of Ireland. The stockily-built young man whose features
are evidence of the Amerindian blood in his veins went to school
in the town of Barinas at the Liceo O'Leary. This was named after
the young Corkman Daniel Florence O'Leary who went to London
to join the cavalry being recruited to aid the Venezuelans in
their war of independence against Spain. Wounded in battle, O'Leary
became the principal aide-de-camp to Simon Bolivar, the commander
of the Venezuelan insurgents and national hero. O'Leary was promoted
to brigadier-general before he was thirty. After Bolivar's death
in 1830, exiled and repudiated by those whom he had lead to victory
over Spain, the Irishman and his Venezuelan wife settled in Colombia,
finding time for two return visits to Cork and a call on Daniel
O'Connell.
"I want to go to Ireland very soon, the sooner the better",
he said. "There are a lot of people in Ireland who share
our ideas."
Then his presidential plane took him off to North Africa where
he could thank the Algerian and Libyan governments whose cash,
he told me, had supported him in the dark days of 2002 when he
briefly faced a group of US-backed plotters who seized and imprisoned
him briefly. He left many behind in London who were well pleased
with his visit, notably Ken Livingstone who has done himself
on end of good with the big Latin American population of London
and who has plans for a big Latin American festival in September.
Meanwhile a few hundred business people in London boardrooms
are dreaming of big new contracts.
And many British politicians must be wondering how a South American
leader who dares to set aside sound-bites and addresses audiences
for hours in a language which is not their own can arouse such
enthusiasm. It can't just be the oil. The man's vision must have
something to do with it.
Hugh O'Shaughnessy has has vast experience in reporting
from Latin America for such newspapers as The Guardian, The Financial
Times and The Observer. He was a friend of Salvador Allende and
a prescient herald of Pinochet's ultimate arrest. Among other
books he has published Pinochet
and the Politics of Torture. He can be reached at: alliston1@btconnect.com
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