Chavez’s legacy will live on

While his death sparked an outpouring of grief, his legacy will forever be remembered.
 
HUGO Chavez, who died last week, mourned by millions of Venezuelan citizens and people around the South American region, was a figure that was larger than life.

During his 14 years as president of Venezuela, he managed to institute profound changes with effects on his country and the developing world long after his death.

Some leaders and media outlets in the West have been giving misleading or trivialised commentaries, just as they tried to demonise him during his lifetime.

This is to be expected, since Chavez was felt by the establishment as a thorn in the flesh.

He had not minced words in criticising and acting against the so-called Washington Consensus, a nexus of policies and institutions (including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the US Treasury) that promoted a version of free-market fundamentalism that adversely affected the economic and social life of the Latin American region.

Chavez’s greatest feat was to identify and break out from the straightjacket of the Washington Consensus and to formulate policies that were very different, which he believed would benefit the people, especially the poor.

One of the first things he did as president, after being elected in 1998 with a large majority, was to re-organise the national oil industry and to play a leading role in reviving Opec, the organisation of oil exporting countries.

The price of oil shot up from around US$10 (RM30) a barrel in 1998 to US$20 (RM60), and then to around the US$100 (RM300) level where it now is.

The country’s net oil export revenues climbed from around US$14bil (RM42bil) in 1999 to US$60bil (RM180bil) in 2011.

The hugely increased oil revenues was the basis for financing many innovative social programmes.

Known as “missions”, they included raising literacy and education levels, providing healthcare to the poor through thousands of doctors and health assistants in the communities and providing cheap food for the urban population through special supermarkets.

In the rural areas, there were separate “missions” to look after the peasants, resolve problems of mining communities, and meet the interests of indigenous peoples.

These well-documented social programmes and accompanying economic policies did much to improve the lot of the poor.

According to data compiled by the London-based Guardian, from 1999 (when Chavez assumed the presidency) to 2011, GDP per capita rose from US$4,105 to US$10,801, (RM12,740 to RM33,530) extreme poverty decreased from 23.4% of the population to 8.5% and infant mortality fell from a rate of 20 per 1,000 live births to a rate of 13 per 1,000 live births in 2011.

On the other hand, Venezuela still faces serious problems: an over-dependency on oil, high inflation and a high crime rate.

The pro-poor orientation and policies of the state were responsible for the strong support of the poor for Chavez.

Their devotion to the president was evident in the outpouring of grief and the massive turnout at his lying in state and his funeral.

To his critics, Chavez had simply used oil money to “bribe the poor” to vote for him.

But for Chavez and his colleagues in what they termed the “Bolivarian revolution”, re-orienting institutions and policies to benefit the poor was the main reason to be in government.

Chavez’s influence went far beyond Venezuela. His policies, and fiery rhetoric, set alight the imagination of social movements and the public in South America, and started an important trend.

Following his ascent to power, several other leaders assumed political leadership in neighbouring countries who also bucked the ideology and policies of the Washington Consensus.

The assumption to power of so many such leaders have broken the political sway of Washington and the economic spell of the Washington consensus in the region.

Chavez’s legacy may just be as important as a master builder of regional unity and integration.

In his tribute to Chavez the former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva credited Chavez for his leadership role in the setting up of so many regional institutions in recent years.

They include the 2008 treaty that established the Union of South American Nations, the setting up in 2011 of the political forum of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (that does not include the United States and Canada) and the Bank of the South.

“Of the many leaders I have met, few have believed so much in the unity of our continent and its diverse peoples – indigenous Indians, descendants of Europeans and Africans, recent immigrants – as he did,” said Lula of Chavez.

Chavez was also a believer and practitioner of broader South-South solidarity and cooperation.

He used his country’s oil revenues to finance economic and social programmes in poorer neighbouring countries, from selling oil at below market prices to treatment for the blind.

His memory and grasp of issues and people were also phenomenal.

When I approached him in the main aisle of the conference hall of the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2010, and introduced myself as director of the South Centre, he immediately recalled his knowledge of the centre and his meeting with and admiration for Julius Nyerere, the former Tanzanian President, founding chairman of the centre and another towering pioneer of South-South cooperation.

Without hesitation or ceremony, Chavez invited me to visit Caracas and to organise a large conference to promote South-South solidarity. Alas, we were not able to make that proposed conference a reality before Chavez passed away.

Chavez lit up that Copenhagen conference by telling the thousand-strong audience, that included many heads of state and governments, of his disappointment with the rich countries for not doing enough to contain the climate crisis.

“They spend trillions of dollars bailing out the banks. If only the climate was a bank it would have been saved by now,” he said.

The straight talking and colourful Chavez will be missed; his legacy will live on.

Global Trends By MARTIN KHOR

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The post-Chavez era is unlikely to be very different, mainly because the West is still unprepared to change.

 A supporter lines up to pay her last respects to late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, outside the Military Academy in Caracas on March 8, 2013. Venezuela gave Hugo Chavez a lavish farewell on Friday at a state funeral that brought some of the world's most notorious strongmen to... 

THE expected death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from cancer has produced predictable reactions all-round. The left mourned a fallen hero who had “made” a revolution, the right basked in quiet hopefulness for change, and the rest offered condolences to the extent their politics afforded.

Yet the leader who broke the mould of Venezuelan politics seemed to deserve less conventional responses to his 14 years of reshaping the country.

In an otherwise balanced airing, the BBC featured pundits variously calling Chavez “a communist” and “anti-American”, blithely repeating the familiar line about his links with Iranian and Russian counterparts being merely superficial.

CNN took a business angle in accusing Chavez of under-investing in Venezuela’s oil sector. And so on. Critics elsewhere alleged that he was just another Latin American strongman who promoted the cult of the individual and undermined democratic institutions.

Evidently, Chavez did not dampen public enthusiasm for his leadership. But his failure in upholding democratic institutions applies particularly only within the narrow context of formal democratic procedure.

His biggest contribution to Venezuela is to awaken the people to their democratic birthrights like adequate housing, healthcare and education.

This change has been so profound as to remake national politics, so that even opposition politicians now have to promise the same thing, only more. In a primal democratic institution and process, the masses would vote with their feet against any candidate who dared to offer the people less.

This transformation is further based on overturning decades of unquestioned allegiance to the Washington Consensus of “open markets”, “privatisation” and “deregulation”. A Latin America that has changed thus is not about to change back too soon.

True enough, Chavez had been a Latin American strongman. But that quality was more cultural than political, as he adopted the classically paternalistic, macho style of the Latin caudillo.

The difference, again, is that while previous Latin American caudillos tended to be pro-US right-wing dictators, Chavez was not that. So he is regarded differently or not at all.

There is no doubt that Chavez and his policies were popular and not just populist. One of the biggest problems for his opponents has been his transformation of the state to serve public, rather than privileged private, interests.

Critics have also tended to fundamentally misread history, believing that Chavez had reinvented Venezuela. The reality is that Chavez himself had been a product of the times in the region, rather than the other way round.

The same regional moment had also produced similarly progressive leaders in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. This so-called “turn to the left” in the region may instead be named the “Latin Spring”.

Since the turn of the century, the movement swept a region like the “Arab Spring” later did, but with key differences. The Latin Spring involved more countries, far more people, and was established democratically rather than through bloodshed and foreign military intervention.

But despite its strengths, it was not regarded positively by the Western establishment and mainstream media, because another key difference was that it went against Western-friendly despots rather than Western-averse ones.

And Chavez was placed at the head of the movement because Venezuela was seen to have started it all. From the lack of a positive reception came the negative perceptions.

But the fact is that neither Chavez nor any other individual, however gifted, could have masterminded or stage-managed a historic regional movement even if he wanted to.

The various Latin American countries are all sovereign nation states dominated by no single individual. There is also no single power “guiding” them other than the US that had done so before.

The new era is one of each country taking charge of its own affairs for itself, based on the people taking charge of the state. The time of death squads, Iran-Contras and transnational corporations lording it over the peasants is past.

It happened before, but in piecemeal fashion: the fall of Nicaragua’s Somoza, Bolivia’s Suarez and Chile’s Pinochet. It was never a broad movement like today’s.

The scale and reach of the present movement is much larger than any single country’s experience. It is also set to outlive individuals like Chavez.

Failing to recognise this will mean failing to deal adequately with these countries, at a time in history when they are also becoming more important. It would also allow Cold War ideology to claim more unwitting victims.

Chavez’s opponents and critics have long linked him with Cuba’s Fidel Castro, an apparent error that is true and justified but only unintentionally. Like Castro, he was essentially a Third World nationalist pushed into making less than ideal linkages around the globe by default.

But today’s newly awakened Latin America cannot be pushed into the fold of a non-existent Soviet Union, nor of a Russia or China too preoccupied with its own internal challenges and anxious only for foreign markets or sources of raw materials.

Instead, they are more likely to be pushed more closely to one another, finding common cause among themselves and in relation to Washington and its Consensus”. The new Latin America will remain different from before, long after Chavez ‘s presidency despite its significant national contribution to it.

Behind The Headlines by BUNN NAGARA

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