Marcela Sánchez has an exceptionally good column on Venezuela that places a plague squarely on both the opposition's and Hugo Chávez's houses:
It is human nature -- not to mention just plain easier -- to blame others for actions that don't make us particularly proud. Politicians have elevated this weakness to an all-too common and unfortunate public practice. And nowhere is this art of pointing the finger in every other possible direction to avoid responsibility grown so old and tired as in Venezuela.Take President Hugo Chavez. He took office blaming corrupt oligarchs who had long dominated Venezuelan political life for maintaining a system that relegated one-third of the population in an oil-rich land to life on less than $2 a day. Five years into his "Bolivarian revolution," poverty levels today are higher than in 1990. Still, he blames others.
Take the opposition and its allies in the Bush administration. They blame Chavez for everything under the sun, and then some. They accuse him of purposely wanting to increase the number of the poor in Venezuela in order to justify the need for his "Marxist" revolution. Yet the national strike the opposition launched a year ago helped devastate an already weak economy.
Enough is enough. Play the blame-game -- with its accompanying conspiracy theories of murder plots and imperialistic ambitions -- and necessary, rational discussion of Venezuala's problems is lost. In a polarized and troubled nation, finger-pointing not only gets in the way of real solutions, it gets in the way of smart politics as well.
It's like she read my mind. I think Chávez is a demagogue and I do not trust demagogues. I could also not abide the way the opposition to Chávez tried to oust him: first the aborted coup and then the divisive strike, both of which showed nothing but contempt for democracy. Now that the opposition has at last recognized the need to respect the rule of law and submit the signatures calling for the recall referendum, they are finally on a track I could conceivably support. Sánchez makes a number of good points in her article, including the fact that whoever succeeds Chávez should make the needs of the poor a priority. This can be done without demagoguery and without dividing the nation. One need look no further than Brazil for proof.
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