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If there has been ever a phrase that has marked the lives of Venezuelans in the last two decades, it’ s the one where people say “It’s impossible for that to happen”. This is a popular saying that combines both: disbelief, and underestimation. It has, moreover, become an export product.
In 1998, this particular saying was the characteristic response to those who said that Hugo Chávez would turn Venezuela into a second Cuba. Today, it continues to be the response received by those who predict that countries like Argentina, Mexico or Spain will follow the same path as Venezuela.
There are many factors that prevent people from believing that a country can be destroyed in the same way as ours was. Certainly, it was once almost unimaginable that such role-model Venezuela would end up being the ruin it is today, but it was not impossible. What happened in Venezuela, can happen anywhere else, as happened in Cuba more than six decades ago.
The most serious thing is that, despite the devastation that is taking place from country to country, some still claim these are isolated events having nothing to do with there being intentional in nature, but more to do with inefficiency. That was, without a doubt, an achievement for Chavism, although it came actually from Castroism: to sell the idea that the situation of misery that their countries are experiencing is the fault of others who have not allowed them to be efficient, and not that they had the intention of totally subduing their societies from the start.
As if this were not enough, not content with denying the premeditated evil intentions of these regimes, some consider that the state of misery and poverty that these countries are living in is such that it is impossible for them to influence other political processes or of any other type, because these regimes can barely stand on their own two feet. This charlatan-like conclusion is only the product of ignorance, and of denying the existence of a plan having as many faces and moments as it has decades, constructed by the enemies of freedom and democracy.
Yet today, everything seems to be called a “conspiracy theory”. This is the typical expression of the arrogance of a shoddy Intelligentsia which, disguising itself in moderation, neutrality and equanimity, pretends to be all the while above good and evil, untainted, believing itself to be the owner of the truth. In this so-called moderate fashion, which they call “the center”, regimes as bloodthirsty as those in Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua are excused because these “poor little ones” are not capable of doing half of what they are accused of.
One of the things that has allowed Castroism to remain in power in Cuba, after more than six decades, is the underestimation of its power and influence. Today, they are trying to do the same with Chavism, minimizing its capacity to export and influence. This underestimation of Castroism has come from a good part of the unpolluted “intelligentsia” which, appealing to “moderation” -which is actually moral superiority – has made the world believe that the Castros and their henchmen are not capable of doing so much. Of course, these brainy “intellectuals” think they have the power to look down on people, and tell them that things are not as they think, because they have the truth, and everything else is labeled a conspiracy theory.
Thus, they have denied that the Forum of Sao Paulo or the Puebla Group are the monsters they are, for example. Even worse, they make fun of everything, as if it were a game. This macabre “game”, nevertheless, has cost millions of victims as part of the implementation of a well-thought-out and long-term project, whose success has been due, among other things, to the excessive moderation and underestimation that unbelievers have sown.
Every time someone denies the real ability of regimes as those mentioned, those regimes smile and win. They win because the blood in their hands is washed, they are pardoned, and they are portrayed as victims when it is them (and them alone) who are the actual victimizers. These regimes have set out for themselves, individually and collectively, the task to scourge our civilization, as well as to scourge the minds of cowards who see in them a middle ground between good and evil. This moderate Intelligentsia must know that there is no middle ground between crime and justice, or between freedom and oppression. Being in the middle between a criminal and his victims, does not make them calm or open-minded observers, but rather accomplices, and this applies to all those who see a solution to our collective tragedy in merely being centrists.
The most curious thing about all this is that most of those who go around pontificating about everyone, putting themselves above good and evil, do so today from exile. They label everything as a conspiracy, but they themselves are living proof of having had to flee their own countries in order to survive. How is it that a conspiracy theory that, according to them, is improbable and exaggerated, is so capable of expelling millions of people from a country? Could it be because it is not a conspiracy after all, or because that was the plan all along? Surely they know, but their arrogance overrides all other considerations.
The clearer we are about the diagnosis, and the more we get to know about what we are facing, the easier it will be to defeat these regimes. Don’t let any of those small-time blabbermouths come and tell you that you should blame your national tragedy on conspiracy theories because you are not capable of recognizing your own failure in confronting the regime that brought it about. It does not only show disrespect to so many victims and to the struggle for the cause, but it is an exercise in underestimating your intelligence. Behind these infamous remarks is a whitewashing of a painful reality that implicates people who acted with the full premeditation,
If you know what Chavism is, and you know what Castroism is, you know how they have organized themselves and how they operate criminally, and so, well congratulations because you have understood what we are facing. Leave behind those who want to accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist, because they are the ones who, in great measure, helped “no way it can’t happen here” gain ground and consolidate itself.
The real conspiracy is one against your intelligence, and it comes by the underestimation and disbelief of those who never take a stand, but insist on telling you that you are wrong, and where to stand. Every time they think they are correct in doing that, in fact it is those regimes they minimize that actually win.
That is the great lesson to be learned.
Pedro Urruchurtu, is a political scientist. He is the Vice President of RELIAL and coordinator of International Affairs for the Vente Venezuela party // Pedro Urruchurtu es politólogo. Vicepresidente de RELIAL y coordinador de Asuntos Internacionales del partido Vente Venezuela