What does it mean: Chávez vive, la lucha sigue! : By J. B. Gerald

28.3.13

What does it mean: Chávez vive, la lucha sigue! : By J. B. Gerald

In Canada where early March brings no good news, Prime Minister Harper has used the Venezuelan leader's death for ideological propaganda favouring his own brand of economics. At Venezuela's first shock into mourning the Prime Minister responded - “At this key juncture, I hope the people of Venezuela can now build for themselves a better, brighter future based on the principles of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights.” The Ottawa Citizen headlined an article by Terry Glavin, "Hugo Chavez: Venezuela's incompetent fake socialist." The Canadian Broadcasting Company's initial reporting took pains to present the opposition's challenges to the succession of interim President Nicolás Maduro, and Human Rights Watch objections to the Chávez human rights record. As the West's media opened a one-note program sustaining the importance of corporate profit and inefficiency of any socialism which includes people, faces of newscasters morph into the perfection of Venezuela's elite with perfect teeth and coiffes, the select malls of designer dresses, falsely clean banks, the privilege of not understanding, the outrage at challenges to previous advantage. It's impossible to respect the casual contempt of the Canadian Prime Minister's response to the death of a world leader who both took care of the poor and by embracing his own multi-racial ancestry challenged the psychological trap of colonialism's caste system and its stigmatization of 'mixed' blood.