[News] Burning Questions Put to Shaman Rufino of Venezuela

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Burning Questions Put to Shaman Rufino of Venezuela
A Huottüja leader easily dispatches most of the major political issues the
country is facing, including the electoral dispute.

Chris Gilbert <https://venezuelanalysis.com/guest-author/chris-gilbert/>
September
25, 2024 -
https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/burning-questions-put-to-shaman-rufino-of-venezuela/

[image: shaman rufino counterpunch]
Shaman Rufino (CPM)

The July 28 presidential elections in Venezuela have sparked especially
heated disputes, with President Nicolás Maduro’s right-wing challenger,
Edmundo González, and several countries refusing to recognize Maduro’s
landslide victory. Even the international Left has shown some wavering and
division, with softer social-democratic factions and other imperialism
sympathizers lingering in a kind of agnostic limbo, despite the Venezuelan
Supreme Court’s definitive ruling in favor of Maduro. Amidst this turmoil,
it seems that no one has thought to turn to a very respected grassroots
authority in Venezuela: the Indigenous shamans of the country’s southern
Amazon region.

This oversight needed to be rectified. For that reason, when Cira Pascual
Marquina and I found ourselves in Amazonas state investigating socialist
communes this September, we decided to visit the internationally renowned
shaman, Rufino Ponare, of the Huottüja (Piaroa) people to ask for his views
on the pressing political issues of the day. The journey to see the shaman
was done on foot and involved crossing several swollen rivers, all under
scorching 100-degree heat. It took about an hour to reach Rufino’s secluded
hamlet. There, we exchanged greetings with the 72-year-old man and
presented our humble gifts of coffee, sugar, and cigarettes. Rufino then
kindly invited us into a sizable thatched “churuata” (hut), where we all
shared one of his homemade cigars. After explaining the reason for our
visit, it was agreed that we could ask for his opinions on the Bolivarian
revolution, socialism, the recent elections, and the future of the
revolutionary process in the country. The shaman’s son, Rafael, would
translate his answers from Huottüja, the language in which he is most
comfortable.

When asked about the Bolivarian Process and socialism, Rufino responded,
“We, the Huottüja people of the Catañiapu River, like our grandparents,
live in socialism, sharing, and caring for the territory.” It is worth
noting that these simple words from the Indigenous shaman were far from
abstract. On the contrary, his statement was reflected in every aspect of
the concrete reality around us. Everything in that territory—land, cassava,
hunted meat, homegrown tobacco, and the few products brought in from
outside—was shared equally among the community. The same applied to their
lodging, as the village had large churuata huts where several family units
slept under the same roof. The shaman then offered a tangible example of
how socialism worked for them: “If you have, say, one tarantula to eat,” he
said, “you would share it with everyone. Even if there is little, you
should distribute it fairly, so that everyone gets at least one of the
spider’s legs.” On a national level, when thinking about socialism for the
entire country, he said that every region and every community should
receive a share of the available resources.

Having established that the Huottüja people of the Catañiapu River had been
living in socialism for as long as anyone could remember, the shaman next
offered some thoughts on how socialist governments should conduct
themselves. A socialist government, he argued, must immerse itself in the
people. He particularly appreciated it when Hugo Chávez criticized one of
his ministers (it was Erika Farías in the Golpe de Timón
<https://mronline.org/2015/04/01/strike-at-the-helm/> discourse) for not
visiting the communities and instead staying in an office. “If you are a
minister, you need to know what the people’s needs are. You have to go out
there, walk through the mud, get your clothes dirty. In this way, you can
come to understand things,” Rufino said. “That’s how we Huottüja from the
Catañiapu River do things. We go find out what is going on, immersing
ourselves in it to understand.” Planning, he added, is also important for a
socialist government. It shouldn’t just improvise. Their own community and
all its work activities, he noted, were highly planned.

Regarding the recent elections, the shaman said there should be no
confusion—the truth was very clear. He had experienced a vivid dream during
these days. To illustrate, he put a large white light bulb and a red
plastic bottle on the table where he keeps his ceremonial items such as
yopo, mambe, and tobacco. He set the white bulb down, then moved the red
bottle into its place, quickly switching their positions repeatedly. In the
dream, the white object, which was bad (“shahura”), had been replaced by
the red object, which was good (“adiwa”). The meaning of the dream was that
the white and bad opposition of María Corina Machado and Edmundo González
might have hoped to win, but it was really the red socialist configuration
that had triumphed in the elections. In the end, the group that had
defended Indigenous peoples and other Venezuelans had won!

Having thus resolved the electoral dispute through this authoritative
dream, Rufino turned to the question of the future of the Bolivarian
government and socialism. His vision for the future, like that of the Old
Testament prophets, was offered in a conditional mode—it was structured as
an if-then statement. By voting for Maduro, he said, the people had given
the government a new mandate on July 28 with a landslide victory. This was
good, and the Bolivarian Revolution itself was also good. Rufino believed
the revolution would continue for a long time—he stretched out his arms to
indicate a great expanse—but there was an “if” that conditioned its
longevity. The revolution would only endure if the government took all
communities into account, as they themselves do in their villages. A
portion of every resource—whether money or food—should be distributed
equally and regularly to everyone. Only then would the future be secured.

A word should be said about the eminently practical advice that Shaman
Rufino offered to the government following the elections. The Indigenous
peoples of Venezuela, by and large, have a logically different relationship
to the nation-wide socialist project that Chávez promoted compared to the
rest of the population. This is because they already live in an advanced
form of socialism in terms of social and communal relations. Building new
socialist communes is unnecessary for them, as they already possess such
social structures in a superior form. Thus, they don’t need lessons about
socialism or social transformation. By contrast, what they do need, as Marx
said of Russian peasant communes in a letter drafted to Vera Zasulich
<https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/zasulich/draft-1.htm>, is
for the outside world to stop causing them problems or putting obstacles in
their way, and instead provide them with material and technological
support. In this way, they could become a fulcrum—a point d’appui, Marx
wrote in French—for social renewal, and they would experience an
“unfettered rise” in the future as part of a general project of
emancipatory socialist development.

These words from the old Karl Marx about Russian peasant communes apply
perfectly to the situation of the Indigenous people of Venezuela. The
state, under Chávez’s government, made significant advances in its policy
toward Indigenous peoples compared to all previous governments in the
country. Indigenous peoples were recognized in the Bolivarian Constitution
of 1999, and subsequent organic laws established their rights to education
in their own languages, to self-government, and to the use of their own
legal systems. They also gained representation in the National Assembly and
the cabinet, through the Ministry for Indigenous Peoples. Importantly,
Chávez also expelled the insidious Nuevas Tribus evangelical missions,
which had used terror tactics to convert Indigenous communities. Because of
these governmental policies, persecution and disrespect have been largely
curtailed. However, what the dynamic and evolving project of Indigenous
peoples still needs is access to resources and technological support,
allowing them to move boldly into the future with “an unfettered rise”
under the socialist principles passed down by their ancestors.

Thus ended the interview, which lasted just over an hour. The shaman was a
bit tired that day due to some stomach problems he had recently gone to the
city to resolve. The medicine was working, but he still felt a bit off. As
Cira and I made the trip back, our mouths still earthy tasting from the
homegrown tobacco, we knew the visit had been well worth it. From a small
table, with a light bulb and red bottle mixed among yopo, mambe, and
ceremonial utensils, the shaman had dispatched with ease most of the major
political questions of the day in Venezuela. We also felt that the doors of
perception had been opened regarding the fundamental conditions for
socialism’s future success in the country.

*The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not
necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.*
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