“La repetición de la historia” / Pompeyo Márquez

“The Repetition of History”

With this same title [Eleazar Díaz] Rangel published a commentary in Ultimas Noticias on 9/3/07. True. We’re in the presence of an historical involution. When we read Simón Alberto Consalvi’s biography Juan Vicente Gómez, just published recently, we retract to the end of the 19th century and the opening decades of the 20th (1899-1935: [Cipriano] Castro and Gómez).

To think that in this first decade of the 21st century, amidst the era of knowledge, the techno-scientific revolution, we have to hear about the “necessary” man, the one who is “indispensable,” about the “Single Chief,” the “Supreme Leader,” “Give Us the Order, Commander,” these all return us to that era. Truly this all means an involution the country will face and which the younger generations with more preparation than previous ones will have to defeat, because their future is at stake. Fortunately Venezuela has a democratic muscle formed throughout these last 70 years and everything in the world points toward the triumph of democracies with social justice.

We’re convinced that a portion of the country that today controls the levers of power through their “Single Chief” won’t be able to impose on the majority a change in its daily regimen and in the coexistence of citizens. We’re not in the midst of a simple debate regarding the modification of the Magna Carta. The matter is more vital: it is the desire to bury what liberties remain and, to gather Manuel Caballero’s phrase, it is literally the liquidation of the entire Constitution and placement of the life of the Republic, of the Venezuelan nation, in the hands of a caudillo, of an autocrat, in the name of the Liberator and by means of an absorbing cult of personality, centralization and presidentialism.

It seems pertinent for me to bring up this pearl, among many, from Consalvi’s life of Gómez, referring to the beginning of Castro’s mandate:

“In 1902, he assumed power as Constitutional President, with the Constitution he wanted: the term prolonged to 6 years (Chávez wants 7 years, my note). He never doubted in transforming Bolívar into a type of medium. One day while hallucinating he confided to the Parliament: “Something intangible but surely noble and wise like the numen that filled the soul of Bolívar, whispers in my ear that we have already crossed, perhaps for good, the odious promontory of domestic tempests,” and Consalvi adds: “The first of these tempests was called Cipriano Castro.”

These hallucinations are very relevant to our ears!

Millions and millions of Venezuelans have to stand up. I will repeat this until I drop: it’s not a problem for Chavistas and anti-Chavistas. It’s something that concerns the immense majority of the country. To lift our gaze: to trace a political stance that will go beyond December 9th. To affirm that we want to live in a democracy with social justice. That’s the challenge we’re facing. And we will achieve it. The question isn’t when but how. CONFIDENTIAL




{ Pompeyo Márquez, Tal Cual, 14 September 2007 }