[News] Class and Quarantine in Venezuela: A Conversation with Anacaona Marin of El Panal Commune

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14848 Class and Quarantine in
Venezuela: A Conversation with Anacaona Marin of El Panal Commune
By Cira Pascual Marquina –  April 17, 2020
------------------------------

*Anacaona Marin is one of the key spokespeople of El Panal – a commune with
some 13,000 people in the 23 de Enero barrio in Caracas – and a member of
the Alexis Vive Patriotic Force. A year ago we interviewed her
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14435> about communal organization
and Chavez’s legacy. Now, in the era of coronavirus lockdown, we talked
candidly about the harsh conditions that working-class people are facing
today and grassroots responses to the crisis. *

*What is your interpretation of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the
Venezuelan pueblo?*

These are times that call for reflection but also for action. As part of
the popular movement, we cannot be merely passive spectators when we face a
pandemic or, for that matter, when the pueblo faces any crisis… Che said:
“We must act as we think.”

When faced with situations such as pandemics, invasions, or natural
disasters, all subjects seem to coincide: Anybody can become a victim.
However, you just have to scratch the surface to see something else:
Although the virus itself is blind to social class, the social distancing
measures have hugely different effects for the rich and for the poor.

It’s urgent that social leaders, organizations, and the government
recognize this. We must acknowledge that there are economic and historical
features of this crisis. We must understand how it affects the working
class, people from the barrios – all those folks who have no savings, who
live from one day to the next.

It is necessary to incorporate a class perspective into the reading of the
current situation and to understand the current pandemic not just as a
biological phenomenon: The root of it all is in a model that we must
overcome.

Beyond the issue of how to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our
society, and beyond containing the pandemic, we have to understand certain
structural issues: How do poor people experience the lockdown and why?

We have nothing against artists, singers or public figures who make videos
sharing their lockdown tips. And we respect good-hearted recommendations on
what to read or what movie to watch on Netflix while at home. However,
let’s visualize this: A poor man in his barrio home turns on his small TV
and sees the Oreja de Van Gogh <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MepdOlwdvY4>
song or the image of a “normal” person opening the freezer at home and
choosing her favorite ice cream flavor. Meanwhile, in the rancho [a poor,
self-built barrio house], the kids are saying, “Dad, I’m hungry!” With an
empty refrigerator and out of work, how is this person supposed to carry
out social distancing? Can he really stay at home? Why is the lockdown
always represented in the media as something experienced by privileged
people?

Reflecting on this world that is divided into classes is an urgent task for
the popular movement right now. We have to think about how people are
really living this crisis depending on their social class, particular
conditions, and their locality. The debate about how the current situation
affects the poor must be brought to the forefront. We have to reflect on
how we live in our collective conditions.

We applaud the government’s initiative to keep school canteens open as soup
kitchens for those in need. We also celebrate the participation of communal
councils and communes in this process. Here, in our barrio, we have a
social map of the community and we are able to determine who is most
vulnerable and what are the families at greatest risk.

However, this is not going to get people out of poverty. To contain the
virus, new mechanisms that allow for real physical distancing must be
generated, and we also have to make sure that people won’t be poorer at the
end of the lockdown.

[image: Soup kitchen under El Panal Commune control. (Javier
Gomez/Venezuelanalysis)]
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/1panal.png>

Soup kitchen under El Panal Commune control. (Javier Gomez/Venezuelanalysis)

*Social distancing and stay-at-home policies can have a classist bias.
Technically, they are policies that protect all, but the truth is that the
working class can’t necessarily carry them out. Poor people, under normal
circumstances, face difficulties and even death every day. Since they don’t
have enough to eat, lack the medicines they need and have security
problems, they are understandably willing to take risks now. Why isn’t this
ever discussed in the public sphere?*

We are in favor of the national government’s policies for containment in
general. It acted quickly and that is good. However, as an organization
that takes our share of responsibility for what happens here, we have a big
question hanging over our heads: If people aren’t able to go out and work,
how are they going to eat? At the risk of repeating myself, a public debate
regarding this facet of the crisis has to happen, and it has to happen now.

It is hard to tell your kids – and I am a mother, so I have some experience
– “No, today there is nothing to eat because we cannot go out.” It is our
obligation as revolutionaries and participants in the Bolivarian Process to
make people’s real situation visible.

We shouldn't just echo the romantic attitude toward the lockdown. It is
also very important that this reflection goes beyond the idealistic
representation of the pueblo. The television shows them making facemasks
and coordinating access to soup kitchens… all that is good, but the reality
has many other elements.

There are so many ways that communities are organizing, and the media
should represent that too! To give you a few examples: we attempt to locate
the most vulnerable people in our community; our organization has developed
local protection protocols; there is grassroots supervision of commerce to
limit speculation; and we organize producer-to-consumer pueblo a pueblo
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13862> food markets, thus providing
low-cost produce to people. As part of the pueblo, we are active subjects
and should be represented as such.

The pueblo is not passive… ¡Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo! [Only the
people can save the people!].

[image: Food shopping, 23 de Enero, Caracas. (Javier
Gomez/Venezuelanalysis)]
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/2panal.png>

Food shopping, 23 de Enero, Caracas. (Javier Gomez/Venezuelanalysis)

*Communal production is one of El Panel’s strategic goals. In the current
situation, how is production holding up?*

In our organization, studying is very important, and we are now going back
to reading People’s War, People’s Army by Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen
Giap. There he talks about the importance of continuing production in the
midst of the war. One of his main concerns was how to make sure that rice
production continued under war conditions.

For us, it is a real challenge to maintain our plans for strategic
production while we are in pandemic prevention mode, but we are doing it.
The situation is like a war in many ways: Most roads are blocked and there
is a huge gasoline shortage, but we are very committed to maintaining our
production. In our bakery we are facing an additional problem: We are not
receiving flour through the regular state channels, as many other bakeries
do. However, our textile factory, our periurban projects and our work in
the campo are all going forward. This includes raising goats right here in
23 de Enero...

It is not easy, but we are determined to continue producing.

[image: Periurban productive projects in El Panal Commune. (Javier
Gomez/Venezuelanalysis)]
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/3panal.png>

Periurban productive projects in El Panal Commune. (Javier
Gomez/Venezuelanalysis)

*Can you explain something about the soup kitchens and the textile factory
here in the El Panal commune?*

In the El Panal Commune, there are five soup kitchens that provide lunch in
addition to the self-managed meal projects in the afternoon. Some
one-thousand people benefit daily from these meals, which are delivered
door-to-door.

The preparation and cooking happen not only with the participation of the
madres procesadoras [mothers who prepare food], who are paid by the
Ministry of Education, but also with the help of our volunteers. After the
food has been prepared, the volunteers deliver the meals house-to-house. In
that way, the community participates in bringing food to the most
vulnerable families.

We also have a textile factory called Abejitas del Panal, where we have
shifted to producing facemasks. More than 1200 have been freely provided to
the most vulnerable people, but also to CDIs [Integral Diagnostics Centers,
part of Mision Barrio Adentro
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/barrio-adentro>], and sister
organizations that have requested them.

Community supervision is one of the features of all communes, and El Panal
has stood out in this sense. Some years ago the commune appropriated an
idle state food packing plant and put it to work for the community.
Additionally, just a few days back the organization took charge of an
institutional soup kitchen in the neighborhood. Why did you take this step?

It happened just over two weeks ago, in the early days of the pandemic
crisis. We observed some irregularities and decided to do a popular
inspection. When we went in, we found more than a ton of rice and more than
a ton of cornflower lying around. Obviously, we couldn’t allow that food to
go bad or get lost in the midst of this crisis, so we took control.

Now we, as El Panal Commune, manage the soup kitchen. We supply some of the
produce while the Ministry of Education continues to deliver the staple
ingredients. Even though we took control of this soup kitchen, the
relationship with the institution has been very cordial – we have good
coordination, communication and a spirit of cooperation.

Earlier you suggested there the usual way of depicting the organized
communities as mere receptors of food or places where people make handmade
facemasks was highly problematic. In fact, a true portrait of the pueblo
now should be different: more about empowerment and politics.

As a militant of this revolution, I view the public media’s depiction of
popular initiatives with some concern. The normal way of representing
popular power these days is limited to showing that some grassroots
organizations are hard at work making facemasks or distributing food.

While many organizations are doing this, and it’s good to make it visible,
communal councils, communes, and grassroots organizations are doing so much
more! There are projects in the areas of production, distribution,
self-defense, and also there are important processes of debate and
reflection.

In our organization, we are quite committed to reflection. We have to think
about how to come out of this with our people’s physical integrity intact.
To do so, we also have to raise our voices to express their urgent needs.

[image: Abejitas del Panal, part of El Panal Commune, hard at work
producing facemasks. (Javier Gomez/Venezuelanalysis)]
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/4panal.png>

Abejitas del Panal, part of El Panal Commune, hard at work producing
facemasks. (Javier Gomez/Venezuelanalysis)

*Working-class Venezuelans were already suffering from the effects of the
crisis and the US sanctions before COVID-19 hit us… And I’m not talking
about the coronavirus patients, I’m talking about the millions of barrio
dwellers that survive from one day to the next and are now basically
without resources. Those people may be grateful that they received a
facemask or a meal from the soup kitchen, but the real question here is how
can people survive without working? As I said earlier, we commend the
government for acting rapidly when the first coronavirus cases appeared in
Venezuela, but the situation of the pueblo has to be addressed.*

Again, we are asking for an analysis of the people’s situation from a
perspective that is not picturesque. What we want is a class-based
understanding of that situation.

A crisis could help us break the back of the capitalist system – it’s the
system that caused this pandemic. Let’s not be spectators in the face of
the pandemic. Let’s deal with it as revolutionaries, as working-class
subjects, and as active subjects!

US imperialism is going full force now against the Venezuelan government,
and therefore against the Venezuelan people. The White House seems to be
beating the war drums much more than normal these days. How is El Panel
preparing, should there be an invasion?

The defense of the Patria is one of the key tasks of any revolutionary
organization.

We believe that there are a variety of scenarios on the table. One would be
the Panama scenario. Then there is the paramilitary scenario with surgical
strikes – in fact, for a while now, the popular movement has been losing
leaders at the hands of paramilitaries (and those murders reflect a
coordinated plan).

Because the threat is imminent, we need more organization and preparation.
Getting information about the territory we work in is one of the keys to
defense: We must know how many people we are: who’s who and how each person
can be deployed; who really has the capacity and the will to struggle. We
have to think about how to protect the commune and defend the country.

We have a true commitment with the Patria: The blood of patriots runs in
our veins and the memory of those who liberated this continent is in our
collective being, but we cannot stay put and pretend that discourse alone
will protect us. We have to know our capacities and our abilities. And we
are working on that right now.

We are preparing for a people’s war on the model of Vietnam. War would be
an invasion, and whatever form it might take, it would be all-encompassing.
We understand that the enemy has a far greater military capacity, but we
also know – and I don’t say this with romantic idealism – that with
organization and preparation, and with the accumulated experience of a
pueblo that has been living in war-like conditions for a few years now, we
would be able to overcome the enemy.

*Of course, defending the Patria would also involve the civic-military
union, wouldn’t it?*

Yes, the civic-military union is paramount. That is the Chavista formula,
and it plays a very important role in all invasion scenarios. With this in
mind, we hope that a more consolidated cooperation with the military would
take shape should the invasion scenario become a reality.

In any case, our organization is ready to defend the Patria.

[image: Left: Anacaona Marin / Top right: View of 23 de Enero, Caracas /
Bottom right: Chavez mural at El Panal Commune sports court. (Archives)]
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/5panal.png>

Left: Anacaona Marin / Top right: View of 23 de Enero, Caracas / Bottom
right: Chavez mural at El Panal Commune sports court. (Archives)
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