Is Venezuela taking the Cuban road? [View All]

[IndianaGreen]

Is Venezuela taking the Cuban road?

Simon Butler
26 September 2008

From Chavez’s first electoral victory in 1998 onwards, the Venezuelan opposition — largely composed of the wealthy elites fearful of losing their power and privileges — has accused Chavez of seeking to “Cubanise” Venezuela. Accordingly Cuba has been presented as a kind of living hell, where the people are said to be starving, scared and desperate to re-establish a capitalist economy.

German Sanchez’s Cuba and Venezuela: An Insight into Two Revolutions, explains why this hysterical campaign has failed so miserably. The book provides a comparison of Venezuelan and Cuban revolutionary experiences which stresses their respective distinctiveness while underlining their fundamental political compatibility.

Sanchez, the Cuban ambassador to Venezuela since 1994, indicates that one of the reasons he wrote his book was that he had identified some hesitancy among the Venezuelan “new left” to re-examine Cuba in light of the ongoing revolution in Venezuela.

If this is true it must be even more the case for some sections of the English-speaking left internationally, who still uncritically accept the Cold War spin of Cuba as an undemocratic police state. This leads many — even among those who view Venezuela positively — to underestimate both the symbolic influence of Cuba and the practical relationship of solidarity between the two revolutions. The publication of this book in English invites a serious reappraisal of Cuba in light of its significant role in the growing rebellion in Latin America.

The first section of the book outlines the development of the Cuban Revolution and provides a useful summary of its advances and victories, its errors and subsequent reorientations. In the face of US aggression, including an illegal blockade of the island nation, Third World Cuba has achieved First World health and education services (provided free of charge to all Cubans) while making inroads against the racism and sexism rampant in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

Sanchez stresses the uniqueness of the Cuban Revolution. The form of Cuba’s revolutionary development in the 1960s cannot be simply repeated elsewhere in Latin America today. Furthermore, Sanchez rules out any idea that Cuba’s revolution can be recreated, copied or exported to other nations, including Venezuela.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/769/39647