Human… right?

Today, the same day he reappeared live on tv to sign a new law that is supposed to be good for the workers, Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, declared that he will retire the country from the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.

I will not discuss the consequences of this decision -since I’m not a jurist- but, from the simple view of a non specialist, I’m wondering what can lead a state to retire itself from a institution whose only mission -as you can see here- is to “promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere”.

One of the main reasons for the existence of supra states institutions is to avoid a “well intentioned” state to act unwisely against its own people. With this decision, the government of Venezuela is basically saying: “you know what? We never make mistakes, we know what is best for our people, and if -in the future- we need advice from abroad about human rights, we can always ask for recommendations to our friends…you know…from Cuba”.

But here’s the thing: there is no such thing as a perfect state (even the Vatican says that there is a “papal infallibility”, not a “Vatican” one). And advice, legal action and monitoring from abroad should be a good thing for any democratic state. “Democratic” being here, obviously, the keyword.

Made famous as an incomplete cliché, the famous quote from Lord Acton says: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men”.

Right now -it seems- the greatest men are on the venezuelan government.

Think about it Mr. President, and take back the promise you make today, (won’t be the first time) because we all make mistakes, and we all need people around to tell us how to amend them. It’s only human, right?

A (not so) serious letter to @twitter

Dear Mr. Larry (Bird):

Hope you’re doing well.

I’m writing you today as a concerned citizen of Venezuela.

If you can only read this paragraph, I’ll be more than satisfied. The rest, where I merely will try to explain my petition, is up to you. So let’s get to the point, this is my request in less than 140 characters: please, PLEASE, take good care of the password of the @chavezcandanga twitter account.

You see, that’s the official account of our current president, and he (being treated against cancer in Cuba, and absent from national territory for most of the year) make the very regretable decision (for him and for us) of not delegate the presidential powers on the vice-president and -most important for my current petition- decided to run the goverment, well, from twitter.

“How so?” you may ask, and, I know, it’s a very difficult thing to imagine. But I think the best way to explain this is looking at some tweets, don’t you think? so, here it goes:

The tweet said: "Hi Venezuela. I inform you that I have approved 1.950 millions for states and counties from oil revenues. Let's go!"

That tweet announces $450.000.000 dollars approved to states all around the country (Yes, he handles public money as if it is not ours but his, but let’s not deviate from the issue). Not bad, that kind of t-goverment, huh? But, here’s the deal: from this account had also come out tweets like this one:

Don't waste your time...this means in spanish exactly the same thing as in english...

You must remember this tweet from some weeks ago, dear twitter guys, when it became an instant worldwide trend.

That tweet, of course, means the same in spanish as in english: “I really don’t know how to handle this carefully enough as to use it as a substitute of a constitutional state”.

Sure, it is possible that the mistake was the responsability of one of the 200 hundred employees that take care of this account (something that the president himself once said). It is also very likely that some kid (a grandchildren, maybe?) took grandpa’s Blackberry (yes, the anti-imperialist president carries around a very capitalist Blackberry) and simply touched some random keys. In any, case, the only thing I’m asking to you (twitter guys, are you still there?) is to take special care of that password for the following reason:

If the twitter account of our beloved leader (no no, that’s just a joke, it is not a crime NOT to call him like that… yet) for any cause, any given time, gets hacked, and tweets something like “we had just launch an aerial attack to the US, take that, you f*$%& gringos!” some of us will reeeally have a hard time when the “empire” strikes back.

But just some of us, and of course not him because… you know… our president lives in Cuba now.

And he’s receiving the treatment that not one poor cancer patient from our country can receive at our destroyed public hospitals.

But that’s for another tweet.

Thanks, yours sincerely:

@juancarreno

The life and death of Hugo Chávez

The religious socialist

Right now, Venezuela’s future looks like a big, black swan.

Yesterday, (Maunday Thursday, in a very catholic country) a man -in the middle of a catholic mass- gathered his close ones, embraced his mortality and asked God for bravery and life, regardless of the pain.

It wasn’t a priest remembering the words of Jesus.

It was the president of Venezuela.

“Give me your cross, give me your crown of thorns, give me your pain, but let me live, for I have so much still to do…” Implored Hugo Chavez to the image of the crucified Jesus, broadcasted to the whole country via the state TV, (VTV).

Venezuelans are starting to get used to “Miraflología” (a term coined to refer to the “deciphering” of the messages from the government building “Miraflores” and similar to the ancient “Kremlinology” of the cold war), specially since Chavez started to: a) denied any health problem (to accept he had cancer afterwards) b) assured that he was cured (to start radiotherapy days later) and, c) ultimately, guaranteed that he was on the path to total cure (days before the pray I described before).

So, within minutes of the televised mass, social networks started to boom with messages -full of hope from recovery (from chavistas) and full of three types of content from the rest of the people:

• The paranoids: people trying to convince the rest that it is all a big scam, that he is not even sick, and that the strategy is to convert him in a “living miracle” for the upcoming elections.

• The jokers: a big chunk of the population (specially those on vacation) chose not to take seriously any news, protecting themselves of any stress with the “weapon of choice” of any Venezuelan: our hyper developed sense of humor.

• The transition planners: people urging politicians to develop a plan to make a swift transition to avoid the phantom of any coup.

And there is one more category, which involves people with and against the actual government.

They are the apocalyticals

They are the people which shudder only at the thought of someone putting them on the same basket, people trying to convince the rest of us that the destiny of the country relies on the end (or the continuity) of one man on the presidency.

They are the people pushing for the consolidation of the worst of these administration, or pushing for the opposition showing the worst of itself trying to topple Chavez.

They are the people who think that the life and dead of a country like ours can be tied to the life and dead of a man.

They are not right, but they have an advantage, though:

They talked. And tweet.

A lot.

But jokers, planners, chavistas… and yes, even paranoids (and, of course, all the Venezuelans that reject to be categorized by an unknown blogger) know that we live in one of the countries with more history (and education) about democracy in the world, and that we had managed to survive ill leaders, mad leaders and the more disastrous of all: BAD leaders.

We know -and we are proud of it- that any attempt to kill, to topple, or to organize a successful coup during the last 6 decades in our country had failed. Even the ones organized by the actual president, and the ones organized for his worst enemies.

I don’t know what is going to happen in the upcoming weeks (that’s the definition of a black swan, right?) but I know one thing:

This time won’t be the exemption.

It might look as if Venezuela’s democracy is crumbling, but it is not.

Only the faith of the authoritarians in their endlessness power is.