Today in Doha Hugo Chávez defended Sudan's president and war criminal al-Bashir once again. He even invited al-Bashir to visit Venezuela. Hugo's dear friend, Argentina's president Cristina Kirchner, left the hall as soon as al-Bashir arrived as she wanted to avoid having a picture of her taken next to the war criminal. She knows such a picture would haunt her in the future.
Meanwhile, Venezuela's Miss Universe 2008 said "she had a lot of fun in Guantanamo". She was there "in support for the US troops stationed there" or something like that. Oh, my, it is so embarrassing to be Venezuelan these days.
Update: this will be forgotten in Venezuela very soon, but I am sure in Sudan a little bit more suffering is added to the avalanche of it the people in Darfur got. Every day raids against the Southern population are carried out where women are raped and killed.
Translated from Al-Intibaha with Google Tools:
Chavez .. Bashir to visit Venezuela
Doha Intibaha
shaf.jpg Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's support for Sudan and the arrogance of his anti-colonialism, which led the world against countries hostile to the principle of dominance and vulnerability of people, Chavez said he is proud of many positions of the Sudanese President and his people. For his part, Field Marshal Omar Al-Bashir, the price of the courage of Venezuelan President Chavez and his supervisor in support of Arab and Islamic peoples and al-Bashir announced his willingness to visit the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, and to thank the people of Venezuela and its leader .. This came in a meeting that brought Chavez Bashir yesterday morning the Qatari capital Doha on the sidelines of the summit, which began its work in Qatar yesterday.
Last Updated (Wednesday, 01 April 2009)
لتقى شافيز .. البشير يزور فنزويلا
الدوحة الانتباهة
shaf.jpgجدد الرئيس الفنزويلي هوجو شافيز دعمه للسودان ومواقفه المناهضة للغطرسة التي تقودها دول الاستعمار العالمي ضد الدول المناوئة لمبدأ الهيمنة واستضعاف الشعوب وقال شافيز إنه يعتز كثيراً بمواقف الرئيس السوداني وشعبه. من جهته ثمن المشير عمر البشير شجاعة الرئيس الفنزويلي شافيز ومواقفه المشرفة في مساندة الشعوب العربية والإسلامية وأعلن البشير عن استعداده لزيارة العاصمة الفنزويلية كاركاس وتقديم الشكر لشعب فنزويلا وقائدها.. جاء ذلك في اللقاء الذي جمع البشير بشافيز صباح أمس بالعاصمة القطرية الدوحة على هامش أعمال القمة التي بدأت أعمالها بقطر يوم أمس.
(Sigh)
ReplyDeleteI have never felt proud of being Venezuelan, no more than I would feel of having black hair or white skin. It is an accident, not part of who I chose to be.
Yet, even if I try to detach myself, as nationality is an illusion, I do feel ashamed of these stupid airheads. But, sometimes, considering that I am a man, and nothing pertaining to man is alien to me, as Terentius said, then, as Neruda said I happen to be tired of being a man, I despair when I see so much cruelty and disregard for others.
The only consolation is that Northern Europe exists.
Actually, me neither. I am proud of a couple of things I have done, I did not do anything to be Venezuelan, but these blokes somehow do manage to make me feel embarrassed, specially when I hear about them on the same day
ReplyDeleteWell, I feel Venezuela has more to show than these blockheads. They're the ones that get press, sure, but it's just because they can scandalize our paparrazi prone world with stupid comments.
ReplyDeleteI'm embarassed of both public figures above and their actions. But I don't get my venezuelan "repairs" from them.
Anyways, the whole al-Bashir thing is a pote de humo. He won't come, Venezuela is part of the ICC, after all (US is not, btw).
I know Venezuela is more than that, but it is a reflex.
ReplyDeleteI also agree this is a bravado from a very unhappy and insecure Chavez and al-Bashir won't come to Venezuela, but that is rather irrelevant. The point is how that is taken in the Arab world and above all for me in Sudan. I am sure that was published in governmental papers in Sudan (which are a majority). I am sure that emboldens the people who are with al-Bashir. And that can have consequences. Even a single more brutal attack or attitude towards a population that has suffered so much by al-Bashir thugs is too much.
Venezuelans will forget this issue soon.
See update
ReplyDeleteThe machine translation messed up with
ReplyDeleteومواقفه المناهضة للغطرسة
I think they refer to Chavez's position against "Colonial arrogance". It is a Sudanese (Arab) paper, so they praise Chavez all way through
Kepler
Damn.
ReplyDeleteThis is going to be terrible for them. Guapo y apoyado, el Al Bashir.
Vicente:
Of course Venezuela is much more than airheads, that is why I am staying, rather than going abroad, even if I could. The thing here is that almost nothing is done, there are plenty of things to do, to create, to fix. In Europe and America the basics are done and the threshold to innovate is much higher than here.
Guido, OT:
ReplyDeleteI see you are into biology "and stuff".
Perhaps this can interest you:
http://venezuela-europa.blogspot.com/2008/12/where-do-venezuelans-come-from.html
And this:
http://venezuela-europa.blogspot.com/2008/12/where-do-venezuelans-come-from.html
Cheers
Well, over the years, I've started to think political discourse works differently according to latitudes (even though savants would have us believe otherwise).
ReplyDeleteArguments, logic and change, at least in France, are come by after harsh conflicts (people here march and protest every week), whereas in Venezuela or even the U.S., things tend to be more consensual. I wrote something on this a while ago (in Spanish):
Sociedades del consenso vs. sociedades del conflicto.
Maybe that'll help explain why "nothing gets done", or why Venezuelans come off as conformists who think life is peachy and fun until a Caracazo arrives.
Vicente,
ReplyDeleteI don't know. For what period of history do you compare the US and Europe?
Was abolition a consensus? The human rights movement? The expansion to Indian territories and Mexico?
Can you give me examples?
I see more consensus in the current times in Germany or Belgium or in Europe as an entity. I see in the US a more monolithic political thought, in spite of all the tiny weird groups and fractions, so there is less to disagree on among the ones who ever have a chance to be in power. That is how they were calling Obama a communist.
I think Venezuela is another matter altogether. Apart from the Punto Fijo treaty I have not seen consensus but brutal imposition.
As for Venezuela, I would link to this video of great Arturo Uslar Pietri (Spanish, pity for those who don't speak it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59-nampXHGw&feature=related
We are still thinking we are in El Dorado or we are the descendant of those unfortunate raped Indians and African slaves. In reality we are everything and much more: the descendants of the raper (actually, much more than many think, as I showed in a post on genetic studies in Venezuela) and the raped, the one who did not have sense of personal ownership and the one who thought wealth could be just found and not created.
We have to know our past - and that is not just the Independence part and that is just a little chapter - to go beyond it. Instead, we keep making recreations on it.
Of course, the US had general elections (at least for white and not always for people without possessions) for a longer period of time than a lot of European countries. The US was built as a nation where (white) men had equal rights when that was not the case in Europe. That was an advantage but also a weakness. Social progress in the US - I think - has taken a more slowly pace once European democracies took root after WWII
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind I use "consensus" in the sense Habermas or Richard Rorty would. It's a cultural approach, and examples are easy to find. In France, there is an intrinsic tendency to protest any change before even considering it, just because change is (you can consult Nietzsche's 2nd. intempestive consideration, to understand why; tip: the role of history in discourse).
ReplyDeleteIn Venezuela, any conversation tends to move towards stabilization: People seem to talk just to reinforce the fact that they all think alike. Go to a party and start opposing every point, you'll see.
In France, this is hardly the case. If you don't oppose statements, they'll think you're a condescending idiot.
It's just the way language and culture work.
I know this might not clear anything up, but it's difficult to make a point in a blog commentary. Many people have talked about this (I'm far from a trend setter), and any discussion, from Umberto Eco's "apocalipticos e integrados" to Rorty's "Truth and progress" pretty much adress this issue, although maybe from a different perspective.
Vincente, you got me there.
ReplyDeleteI am into computers.
My experience with philosophy has been rather scant. Curiously I interpreted once at the UCV for Karl-Otto Apel (a Habermas collaborator), but it was eons ago. I read some
Wittgenstein and some introduction to philosophy for complete neophytes.
I don't know what Habermas said concretely, but I can say the level of discourse in Europe is extremely varied.
The lorry burning you see in France is not what you see in Germany and much less in Switzerland or in Scandinavia.
When I see the level of discourse in Germany I feel there is more onto which CDU, SPD and others have to practice consensus.
I would not call it consensus when the talking partners have already almost the same interests and they just differ because of some lobbying groups.
One of the nice things I see in Europe (not that it is always nice) is the realization the national leaders of very different political groups sit together in front of everybody and discuss their ideas.
As you don't have some absolute extremists, like some extreme right or extreme left groups, you can see a lot of consensus and at the very least dialogue taken place.
It is not often, but you can have something like CDU Angela Merkel talking next to the head of the Liberal Party, next to the Green Party next to the Social Democrats next to the PDS (now Linke).
In France there is a weird sense: on one side, defiance towards l'Etat. On the other, everyone counts on the state as "provider" more than in, say, England or Germany.