Who makes history?

(To Gino Lanzara)
31/10/19

The American continent is a geopolitical laboratory rich in ideas: in the north the Pilgrim Fathers, the Wasps, the melting pots; in the central south, Catholicism, i neo latini stripped of their vestiges and never able to actually become independent despite their enormous potential.

Kissinger, as a good pragmatist, maintained that from a south incapable of producing history, nothing significant could be expected. From Bolivar, whose aversion to the power exercised by men of mixed blood has been forgotten, up to Peron, Castro, Chavez Lula, Morales, Correa, Latin America has generated charismatic personalities but not able to impress capable turns to refute the Kissingerian theses.

Despite the projects, South America remains dependent on the Northern countries which, in this area, have also slowed down the Chinese ascent, not inclined to invade an exclusive Yankee area. Economy, health, corruption, violence, territorial and ethnic frictions, are part of a script that contrasts with the oleographic image of a South with vivid colors and involving sounds; thanks to US policy, there is no regional political hegemony, given that the major players (Mexico and Brazil) have opted for pro-western postures, and a nationalism has emerged Latin which has often inspired military interventions aimed at containing the Marxist wave aroused by Cuba and rejected by the Monroe Doctrine.

THEit was Bolivarian and socialist takes life from the recent American foreign policy, no longer solicited either by the potential Soviet threat or by Marxist-inspired regimes. The indigenous and African-American electorate has led candidates with little inclination to the parliament Washington Consensus, and allowed the turn left which allowed Chavez to take power in Venezuela and, at the same time, to economically support the Castro regime, projected to influence area politics. In short, a geopolitically non-static region, where Brazil did not intend to confirm the Lula experience, although careful not to enter into conflict with the USA; as in Argentina, struggling with a possible technical default, where Peronism is resurrecting; as in Chile, where following violent protests motivated not so much by the economic situation as by the strong inequality in the distribution of income, the Army has returned to the streets; as in Ecuador where the government has had to give in to street protests; as in Bolivia, where Morales' yet another presidential term is openly contested.

If it is true that the XNUMXst century has generated a new Marxism (according to the definition of the German sociologist Heinz Dieterich, who also tried to separate it from Chavismo), it is equally true that what was referred to as the Bolivarian revolution is experiencing a decline that it could mark the end of the left turn and deliver a traditional South American format, in which the US does not allow interference; even the ideological dimension of Bolivar should perhaps be revised, facing the minefield of a less condescending and more objective historical review.

Let's face it, good old Henry1, although not having the same appeal as the Liberator, did not go that far from reality.

Oil and power

Il Chavismo Venezuelan was the protagonist of the neo-South American Marxism, inaugurating a form of petrodiplomazia anti USA, focusing on the Bolivarian concept of the Great Fatherland, and being supported both by the Cuban mutual support and by an internal consensus fueled by the indigenous peoples.

However, Chavez did not take into account either the market fluctuations or the contrast of the USA, the first commercial partners and above all among the few able to refine the heavy Venezuelan crude; it was of little use to look for shores among the countries included by Washington on the black list, so much so as to fail to undermine the balance of power even between the regional partners and the Americans.

At the moment only Turkey has relations with Caracas, so as to conquer a potential transaction space with the USA, an aspect that legitimizes more than a few doubts about the actual political and negotiation capacities of Maduro that nothing could neither against the Monroe Doctrine nor against persistent economic dependence, facilitated by initiatives that are difficult to implement and understandable, such as the one concerning the application of the controlled currency exchange, however unable to restrain an irrepressible hyperinflation.

The Chavis aversion for capitalism, in addition to its more classical meaning, has been embodied in a contrast to modernization and to the holders of specific competences, deems de facto a bad thing according to a unique thought in fashion, but which has facilitated the collapse of Venezuelan education, that is to say a failure that, like everywhere, in the future will only be able to certify the total absence of an actually prepared ruling class, even if coming from from Bolivarian University, more malleable than those bourgeois. The teachers are on the run, confused by the mass of Venezuelans seeking shelter abroad, fueling an exodus that, according to the UN, is close to touching the 5 million refugees.

In the background, the Castro design based on the accessibility of Venezuelan resources and aimed at forming a large Spanish-American coalition preceded by ALBA2, a semblance of a free trade treaty currently in regression for the economic problems of Caracas; Chavez first, Maduro then, guaranteed Cuba the availability of oil revenues while the US administration blocked Venezuelan assets in America.

Chavez, in the period that saw him in power, besides subordinating Venezuelan intelligence to Cuban intelligence, worked on the structure of the state, influencing some apparatuses (the judiciary), creating others useful to consolidate his position, and structuring, in apparent direct take, a common political front between institutions, military (increasingly present also in terms of financial management) and popular base, initially a recipient of socio-economic improvements. Despite everything, not even the Colonel, who has nevertheless centralized power by imposing strict control over the medium, he understood how to free himself from the economic conditioning of oil, guilty of forgetting what had been recommended since the 30 years to diversify and modernize the economy.

Chavez was a charismatic catalyst, a gift lacking his successor, Maduro, elected thanks to a small difference in votes compared to the antagonist Capriles, dialectically put in constant difficulty by the self-proclaimed President Juan Guaidò whom he could only answer with an unprecedented repression, put on the ropes by an economic crisis born of rash choices that make Russia and China turn up their noses, and not least affected by familism in the allocation of offices.

The US, aware of the danger of a direct military intervention, prolonged the stalemate, aiming to demolish the Venezuelan military economic structure from the inside with sanctioning interventions, strengthened by the international consensus received by Guaidò, supported moreover by the frond of the Chavez faithful purged by Maduro.

The Divisions of the Pope

We now propose another interpretation, the Vatican one, obviously only from a political point of view.

The Argentine Pontiff has a perspective view of the Latin American Great Fatherland which, though religious, remains imbued with Bolivarian convictions, in an ideological union that is not always easily distracted between Marxism and liberation theology.

Latin America, even among myriad faults, is understood as a homogeneous geopolitical entity, a melting pot of different but still Christian entities, albeit no longer exclusively Catholic.

The Trump Presidency, while holding back, was unable to prevent direct contacts between the Holy See and various States, aimed at facilitating diplomatic negotiations marked by alternate fortune; the Pope, in this context, has also worked with Venezuela to reach an effective mediation between a regime that has never tolerated dissonant voices, and the opposition, a regime that has defined the bishops, by the mouth of Chavez, a tumor.

The problem is presented in a double aspect: on the one hand the Chavismo which reveals itself as a political and pseudo-religious phenomenon, witnessed by the crucifixes depicting Chavez and presented by Maduro to Bergoglio, and on the other, despite the stance taken against the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, the unclear Vatican political posture towards the oppositions , never openly supported. Venezuela is also a puzzle for Petrine diplomacy, which did not however consider it appropriate to refrain from attending, albeit in a minor tone, the inauguration of the 2 mandate of Maduro, stressing that it has relations with states and not with governments, and probably calling for radical political change.

Paisanos forgotten

The Italians and Venezuela owe each other a lot, and our government should consider the assumption that compatriots must be defended regardless, both to protect their interests and to preserve a possible influence on an executive future; forgetting one's own migrants would do nothing but make the subsequent foreign policy more impenetrable, especially where it was intended to maintain unlikely ideological positions aimed at confirming an indefinite principle of non-interference and oleographic third-worldist support.

Leave the Italians of Venezuela to their fate, trait d'union with the entrepreneurial West, it would mean relegating to a subordinate role in the moment in which a change of direction that could not fail to take into account the national governmental inanities, unaware of the Venezuelan economic potential, should appear.

In summary, Italian foreign policy has taken another crab, preferring to appeal to assumptions with indefinite contours, not considering the geopolitical and realist matrix that pushed the more discerning to the recognition of Guaidò, supported by our compatriots, by the US State Department, and by the mediation of the Norwegian government.

I paisanos they have been abandoned once more by a policy devoted to a-historical and abstract ideology, characterized by a generic anti-American sentiment that ignores what national interests can be declined according to assessments based on skills and knowledge.

We have just highlighted a trend of thinking that has brought the Venezuelan school system to its debacle: read it again calmly, you might find worrisome analogies.

Realistic conclusions

Venezuela is projected towards default - certified by Standard & Poor's -, because it is unable to meet deadlines, with a huge accumulation of billions of arrears between capital and interest, and paralyzed by a regime now screwed on itself; the US could push for one proxy war fought by Brazil, however careful not to exacerbate relations with a traditionally belligerent neighbor. On the other hand, there is the Cuban paradox, which cannot afford to lose Venezuelan economic support, but which has actually led the country to an irreversible systemic crisis.

While in the rest of the continent the 21st Marxist century is heading towards a tormented epilogue due to failed promises or a natural cyclical evolution of history, all the premises for a regime change which, however conceivable, can only be bloody, especially in post when, as with any internal conflict, the season of the will open redde rationem; economic interests and loyalty of the FFAA leaders let us assume that an electoral round will not be enough to change the balance.

1 Kissinger

2 Bolivarian alianza para los pueblos de nuestra America

Photo: presidency of the republic of Turkey / web / presidency of the rabbit of ministers