Global and Total Tyranny
One single thought permitted, which consequenly condemns the thought of others and punishes whoever dares express it. A will that assumes for itself the absolute right of establishing the operating norms in all State powers and in the life of society. Such are the characteristics that, with different vestments but always in the same spirit, diverse tyrannies have presented throughout history.
How the tyranny that now governs us manifests itself has been talked about on many occasions in this newspaper and in the majority of the country's media outlets. Just the day before yesterday, Wednesday the 18th, in an editorial with a jocular title: "The Gluttonous Government," [Teodoro] Petkoff was presenting us with a picture of how it functions. After affirming that "The government, its party and the State (...) continue their advance toward the domination of all those social spaces where the presence of the State was previously discrete or nonexistent," Teodoro made a concrete balance of how this domination was progressing in areas such as education, sports and the restricted space to which the regime wants to circumscribe the actions of civil society's organizations. The anatomy and physiology of the tyranny that our society suffers are clearly shown in those words. Our life is threatened with remaining in the hands of the State—which Chávez has tenaciously and very carefully consecrated himself to identifying with the Goverment—, of the Government—which Chávez has worked in the same way to identify with himself, controlling the public powers with complete independence— and the Governement parties—which exist only for the purpose of spreading the voice of the President and executing his orders—. Hugo Chávez's tyranny weighs definitely on all the vital manifestations of us Venezuelans. It is our domestic luck, our privilege for having elected Hugo Chávez Frías on more than one occasion as president of what was our Democratic Republic.
"Our matter," the lamented poet Chino Valera Mora would have said; it is "our matter" to find ourselves in this situation. But Hugo Chávez's ambitions for power and absolute power go much further. He intends for his voice, his designs and his very figure to become recognized throughout the entire universe. And that he be recognized, precisely, as the one who embodies Venezuela as a state and Nation. But now, just at this moment when he once again asks Venezuelans, implores us, "with love," to elect him democratically once again as our president; now Chávez's tyranny overflows and is no longer only our matter, but is instead a global matter.
In effect, what else is that opprobrious campaign he has taken on so that Venezuela be chosen as a temporary member of the Security Council? Chávez, who knows perfectly well that this position at the UN doesn't grant real powers, cares very little if it's granted to Venezuela. What he cares about, rather, is that the slogan with which the campaign to capture it was launched, which is none other than personal hatred against George W. Bush, be recognized by the greatest number of governments. Chávez wants his hatreds and the reasons he has to nourish them to be recognized, legitimized by the support the leaders of other countries might be able to offer him. Great ambitions of global hegemony, of an extension of his tyranny to a planetary level. Great designs which don't exclude others of lesser scale, though not of less excessiveness and capacity for looking ridiculous.
Small designs, but not trivial at all, such as freezing relations with Peru and Mexico because, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs explained to Ultimas Noticias, in the elections that took place recently in both countries, there were those who denigrated the name and figure of Chávez, in that way unfairly using them in their electoral speeches. For having blasphemed against our God, the people of Peru and Mexico will be punished with ostracism.
And, even more insensitive from the point of view of international law and the acknowledgement of human rights: Chávez's government requested formal explanations from the European Union about the presence of one of its functionaries at the Biarritz Forum recently, when a well-known member of the Venezuelan opposition [Petkoff] had been present at this Forum. A sad manifestation of Chávez's inveterate will to be the only person to speak and act in the name of Venezuela.
{ Oswaldo Barreto, TalCual, 20 October 2006 }
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