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<font color="#280099"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="4"><b>Hugo
Chavez: New World Rising</b></font></font></font>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><b>by BAR executive editor Glen Ford<br>
</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/hugo-chavez-new-world-rising">http://blackagendareport.com/content/hugo-chavez-new-world-rising</a></small></small><br>
</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><font
color="#2323dc">“<font face="Arial, sans-serif"><i>For 14 years, they
have painted the Bolivarian Republic as illegitimate, dictatorial,
primitive.”</i></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">The darker majorities of Latin
America mourn the passing of the people’s champion, President Hugo
Rafael Chávez Frías, the man whom the racist white Venezuelan elite
called </font></font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"><i>ese
mono</i></font></font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> –
“that monkey.” Since 1998 – with a 48-hour break during the 2002,
U.S.-sponsored coup – the </font></font>four-fifths of Venezuela that
is some variety of Indigenous-mestizo-mullato-African – like Chavez –
has known power for the first time since the conquistadors of Western
Europe launched their 500-year war against the rest of planet Earth.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">South America’s emergence as
the most promising zone of resistance to U.S. imperial savagery is
inseparable from the dark awakening in the barrios, favelas, rural
villages and native highlands of the continent. Chavez’s triumph, and
that of the Aymara-descended Bolivian president, </font></font><font
color="#0000ff"><u><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Evo Morales</font></font></a></u></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">, in 2005, are the most
dramatic expressions of what has been called the “Latin Spring” – a
reclamation of national patrimony that is, by historical necessity,
socialist. As a result, a large majority of South Americans now live
under relatively progressive governments. </font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">The Cuban Revolution of 1959
was, of course, the great hemispheric breakaway from Yankee empire in
the 20</font></font><sup><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">th</font></font></sup><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> century, the seminal event in
the disintegration of what later came to be called the “Washington
Consensus” in Latin America. Chavez’s victory, almost 40 years later,
was the other shoe dropping, a phenomenon nearly as racially-weighted,
in Latin American terms, as the Haitian Revolution that culminated in
1804. Fidel, the son of a Spanish soldier, declared that “the blood of
Africa runs deep in our veins” and that Cuba is an “African Spanish”
nation. However, that reality was hardly visible in the Cuban
hierarchy. Not so, with Chavez, the </font></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"><i>pardo</i></font></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> whose lineage was obvious and
proudly worn. </font></font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font
size="2">"My Indian roots are from my father's side. He is mixed
Indian and black, which makes me very proud," </font></font><font
color="#0000ff"><u><a href="http://venezuelanalysis.com/print/1414"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">said Chavez</font></font></a></u></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> – a circumstance of birth and
pride that made the whites of affluent east Caracas neighborhoods like
Altamira spitting mad, hysterical in their hatred. The racial-political
color line has long been plain to see in the complexions of pro- and
anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><font
color="#2323dc">“<font face="Arial, sans-serif"><i>The ‘Latin Spring’
is, by historical necessity, socialist.”</i></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">The purported “ambiguity” of
race in South America is largely limited to those who belong to the
innumerable subgroups of the Not-White, in all their flavors. However,
for the fraction of the population that believe themselves to be purely
European, there is no ambiguity; they know precisely who they are (or
claim to be). Color lines may be fuzzy among the mixed race majorities
of much of Latin America, but white elites quickly bring these
boundaries into stark relief when fundamental questions of privilege
and power arise. Popular power means the rule of people like “that
monkey,” Chavez – illegitimate and bestial.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">U.S. corporate media speak the
language of the pale denizens of Altamira. For 1<font size="2">4</font>
years, they have painted the Bolivarian Republic as illegitimate,
dictatorial, primitive. Chavez is delegitimized as a “strongman,”
rather than a remarkably popular politician and icon who has won more
elections than any other head of state in the western hemisphere during
the same space of time. As former U.S. president </font></font><font
color="#0000ff"><u><a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us-dcemonises-venezuelas-democracy"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Jimmy Carter said</font></font></a></u></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">, last year: </font></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">"As a matter of fact, of the
92 elections that we've monitored, I would say that the election
process in Venezuela is the best in the world."</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">In assessing Chavez’s
“legacy,” the global bourgeois media cite the “divisions” that plague
Venezuelan society and, in the words of </font></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"><i>Business Week</i></font></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">, an economy in “shambles.”
But, Chavez and his comrades would have been abject failures – and been
tossed from office – had they not drawn lines between the oppressed
majority and the privileged exploiters. Division is good and necessary.
Consequently, the economy has succeeded in reducing the proportion of
households in poverty from 44 percent in 1998 to 27 percent in 2011.
Chavez has served the people.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><font
color="#2323dc">“<font face="Arial, sans-serif"><i>The
racial-political color line has long been plain to see in the
complexions of pro- and anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela.”</i></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Just before Chavez’s last
electoral victory, former Brazilian president Lula da Silva, a product
of the post-1998 wave of leftist triumphs at the polls, </font></font><font
color="#0000ff"><u><a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us-dcemonises-venezuelas-democracy"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">said</font></font></a></u></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">: "A victory for Chávez is not
just a victory for the people of Venezuela but also a victory for all
the people of Latin America … this victory will strike another blow
against imperialism."</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Last week, as Chavez was
fading, the opposition leader, </font></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Henrique Capriles Radonski,
traveled to </font></font><font color="#0000ff"><u><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/world/americas/venezuela-says-its-tracking-opposition-leader-in-us.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">New York, Miami and Washington</font></font></a></u></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> – presumably, to get his
marching orders. </font></font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font
size="2">Washington hopes that Venezuelan socialism cannot survive
without Chavez. In their state of desperate decay, the imperialists are
willing to throw whole regions of the world into chaos rather than be
eclipsed by new alignments of trade and international relations.
Venezuelans have every reason to expect a renewed U.S. campaign of
destabilization, in the wake of their leader’s passing. </font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">Chavez tried to give Barack
Obama the benefit of the doubt. On election night, 2008, at a rally in
Caracas, Chavez spoke </font></font><font color="#0000ff"><u><a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/11/03/us-usa-politics-chavez-idUSTRE4A24RT20081103"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2">this way</font></font></a></u></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2"> of the president-elect: </font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;">“<font face="Times"><font
size="2"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">We are not asking him to be a
revolutionary, to be a socialist – no. We just want the black man who
is about to be the U.S. president to have enough stature for the times
the world is living through.</font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Times"><font
size="2"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">"I send an overture to the
black man, from us here, who are of Indigenous, black, Caribbean, South
American race. I am ready to sit down and talk ... I hope we can, and I
hope we can enter a new stage." </font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Times"><font
size="2"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">But the Black man in the White
House is </font><font color="#0000ff"><u><a
href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20712033"><font
face="Arial, sans-serif">smelling like sulphur</font></a></u></font><font
face="Arial, sans-serif">, just like his predecessor.<br>
</font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Times"><font
size="2"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.06in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Times"><font
size="2"><font color="#280099"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><i>BAR
executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at </i></font></font><font
color="#0000ff"><u><a href="mailto:Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com"><font
color="#280099"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><i>Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com</i></font></font></a></u></font><font
color="#280099"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><i>.</i></font></font></font></font></p>
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