[News] Venezuela, the Decolonial Alternative

[Anti-Imperialist News]

venezuelanalysis.com <https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/15816>
Venezuela, the Decolonial Alternative: A Conversation with Ramón Grosfoguel
(Part I)
By Cira Pascual Marquina – August 4, 2023
------------------------------

*Ramón Grosfoguel is a Puertorican intellectual recognized for his work on
the decolonization of knowledge and power. In this exclusive interview,
Grosfoguel talks about the living links between the colonial and the
neocolonial systems, the problematic legacy of the colonial past in
Venezuela’s present, and US imperialism’s neocolonialism in relation to
Venezuela.*

*As a country besieged by imperialism, one of the pending tasks in
Venezuela is to understand what you call the “coloniality of power.” What
is the coloniality of power and its relationship with Eurocentrism?*

The European colonial project is about economic expansion, but it also has
a civilizatory dimension. At one point, when the colonial epicenter was
Europe, when it was expanding at a world scale, the colonialists not only
extracted wealth from the colonies, but they also destroyed the
civilizations they encountered and imposed their own. In other words, when
we talk about colonial powers, we are talking about the multiple power
structures that were put in place during European colonial expansion.

How did they do it? They imposed Christendom as a cosmology and as a
religion by force. Racial domination was also applied wherever they went,
and they brought structures of political authority through their colonial
administration. This included top-down hierarchies, military domination,
and Christian patriarchy.

The colonialists enforced the international division of labor that favors
the center and divides the periphery. They did all this violently, imposing
various forms of forced labor in the periphery, and exercising direct
control over the market with economic, political, and military mechanisms.

In my work, I identify sixteen hierarchies of power that were exported by
European colonialists. Wherever they arrived, Europeans brought colonial
structures of domination that had an important epistemological component.
And precisely that’s where Eurocentrism comes into the picture.

The colonial project imposed its own structures of knowledge that were
centered in Europe and were undeniably Eurocentric.

*What is the difference between being centered in Europe and Eurocentric? *

All civilizations have their epistemic center in their local territories.
For example, Chinese civilization has China as its center while Aztec
civilization was Aztec-centric. The difference is that the European
colonialist project considered that the knowledge produced in Europe was
superior to the knowledge of the people – and civilizations – that they
were colonizing.

In short, Eurocentrism is the belief that European knowledges are superior
to other knowledges. That’s why, when I use the term “Eurocentrism,” I’m
not talking about the fact that Europeans had (and have) a knowledge that
is centered in Europe, but about the epistemic hierarchy that they
establish. That's what we call epistemic racism, it is linked to the
coloniality of power, and it was exported around the world.

In short, European colonial expansion was not just about* economic
expansion* and the formation of capitalism, but it was also a *civilizational
expansion*. That’s why I argue that capitalism is the economic system of a
civilization that we call modern and colonial.

[image: Cesar Rengifo depicts the effects of colonialism and
neocolonialism. (Archives)]
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/neocolonialismo.png>

Cesar Rengifo depicts the effects of colonialism and neocolonialism.
(Archives)

*You come from Puerto Rico, which is still a colony, but colonies are not
at the center of neocolonial domination nowadays. Instead, imperialism –
which controls vast regions of the world but has few formal colonies – is
the current expression of the coloniality of power. Can you talk about
this?*

In the periphery, we went from colonial administrations to neocolonial
ones. The old colonial administrations were defeated through independence
wars, but this doesn't mean that the coloniality of power disappeared. What
it really means is that the imperialists developed new forms of
colonialism. Kwame Nkrumah coined the term “neocolonial” to refer to the
current configuration.

In the current configuration, the empires dominate the periphery. The
former colonies seem to be independent but in reality, they are still
dominated economically, politically, and epistemologically… and sometimes
militarily! The colonial powers also left behind state structures that
don't leave space to maneuver.

When a country has a neocolonial administration with neocolonial elites
running its state, and the empire exercises pressure and imposes
constraints, real independence is practically impossible. It is a
transition where the continuities are more potent than the discontinuities.

The day after the independence of a colony, that territory is still a
colony – or not sovereign – because it is dependent: it is still in the
periphery of the international division of labor, and it exports the same
goods to the same metropolitan centers. The international division of labor
in place 300 years ago is still here today.

And that's what we call neocolonialism or imperialism.

*How did colonialism morph into neocolonialism so seamlessly?*

After independence, when colonial regimes were defeated, the imperial
system continued operating the same way, but it developed new methods of
domination. The first approach was to control the elites in the newly
independent states. This generally worked, but if the new elites were
anti-imperialist, they would be overthrown through coups, wars spurred by
the CIA, or outright invasions.

Second, the metropolitan centers implanted Westernized universities in the
periphery to colonize minds and promote neocolonial policies. Universities
and other mechanisms for cultural domination are key to the neocolonial
project.

Then, there is the implementation of economic sanctions. If a country such
as Cuba or Venezuela goes off the path, a blockade will descend upon its
people. And mind you, the mechanism of sanctions goes way back. With the
Haitian Revolution, a brutal blockade was applied to the island after its
independence.

As you can see, the empire deploys hybrid warfare against the periphery to
keep it in line. It can take the shape of a fake news campaign, an
electrical blackout, a coup, or an invasion… All options are on the table
all the time.

*Let’s look at the Venezuelan case. How did the neocolonial system take
shape after independence?*

The first independence of Latin America was not carried to completion, and
left us with structures of domination such as racism, Christian patriarchy,
and the church, but also capitalism, its devastating logic, and its
international division of labor.

If we look at Venezuela, the neocolonial system assigned a role to the
nation: exporting one commodity, oil. Of course, the Bolivarian Revolution
has tried to break away from oil dependency and diversify its economy, and
it also tries to break with the neocolonial structures of domination
through its communal economy…

However, Venezuela is still highly dependent on oil exports, while racism,
Christian patriarchy, and capitalism are still there. Also, the neocolonial
structure of power inherited from the Fourth Republic [1958-1998] is still
around.

But the Bolivarian Revolution has many things to teach us. Foremost among
them is Chávez’s project to decolonize political authority. He realized
that to interrupt the existing politics of domination, we need to occupy
the existing institutions while promoting a new form of political
authority: communal power.

By combining the dismantling of the old institutions with the promotion of
new communal power, Chávez was breaking with the old Eurocentric dilemma of
the left: anti-state anarchism versus statism.

The fact is that, from the point of view of Latin America, that's a
nonsensical debate. Chávez said: *Hey, it’s both at the same time! We need
to occupy the state in order to interrupt the politics of domination, but
we won’t be able to build a new society from the state, so we need to build
a communal state outside of the existing one. *

Why is this necessary and decolonial? Because the inherited state is
corrupt, operates through domination, pits people against people, and is
organized in such a way that the *pueblo* cannot decide. That’s why Chávez
said *Commune or Nothing! *We need to build a communal state parallel to
the existing state in order to replace it.

In his reflections, Chávez was creatively breaking away from the
neocolonial episteme. That’s why I always say that Chávez was a decolonial
thinker: he proposed a form of political authority that would break away
from the Eurocentric dilemma of statism versus anti-state anarchism. That’s
a 200-year-old European debate. Chávez said: *Enough is enough, we need to
do the two things at the same time!*

Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution have a lot to offer to critical
decolonial thought, but unfortunately, few people know of it outside
Venezuela.

*Perhaps the fact that Venezuela offers a decolonial alternative is what
makes it a target for US imperialism. Would you agree?*

Over the years, the Bolivarian Revolution has endured all sorts of attacks:
from the 2002 coup <https://www.venezuelanalysis.com/tag/2002-coup> to
violent *guarimbas* <https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/guarimbas>; from the
sabotage <https://www.venezuelanalysis.com/tag/economic-war> of the economy
to Guaidó’s 2019 coup attempt
<https://www.venezuelanalysis.com/tag/coup-attempt-january-2019>; from the
sanctions <https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/sanctions> to the attempted
paramilitary invasion <https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/operation-gideon>
from Colombia in 2020 financed by the empire. The story goes on and on.
Why? Precisely because Venezuela is breaking away from the neocolonial
project and because it represents an anti-imperialist alternative to the
structures of domination in place around the world.

However, despite all the support that the neocolonial elites get from
imperialism, they have been defeated in elections time and again over the
last 20 years. Why? Because people understand the decolonial project and
are committed to their country’s sovereignty.

It is true that the neocolonial phase hasn’t been fully overcome. Racism is
still there. Capitalist exploitation is still there. The subordination to
the international division of labor is still there. Christian patriarchy is
still there. However, through its control of oil production, the Bolivarian
state has been able to distribute the rent in the form of social services
for the people.

Over the past few years, the sabotage of the economy with the consent of
the local, neocolonial elites has intensified. As a consequence, people
have suffered hyperinflation and scarcity of food and medicines. The hope
of the imperialists is that the people will channel their discontent
against the government. However, that hasn’t happened. Why? Because of the
*pueblo*’s consciousness.

Venezuela had a popular pedagogue in Hugo Chávez Frias. Every Sunday, in
his Aló Presidente <https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/alo-presidente>
broadcast, he would take three to four hours to discuss the problems of the
revolution and this raised the consciousness of the people. That’s why,
when you talk to Venezuelans now, they will tell you that it is US
imperialism and not the Venezuelan government that is generating
hyperinflation. They know that Venezuela is enduring a large-scale sabotage.

They also know that the US wants Venezuela’s resources. After all, the
country has the largest oil reserves in the world, as well as enormous gold
and rare mineral reserves, which are important for the US
military-industrial complex.

People know all this. Venezuelans are conscious and they won’t submit to
the United States!
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