Venezuela's historical humunculus

Neurologists have found out how perception and feeling for different body areas are mapped in our brains. They came up with a funny humunculus that show how some parts take a bigger chunk of the brain's resources than what one would initially expect.

It would be interesting to do research on the Venezuelan average brain, even if figuratively speaking. How much attention do we pay to such things as planning or to beach? 

It would also be interesting to know how our historical records are structured and how they differ to those of Mexicans, Chileans or Europeans. Of course: that is not possible.

History and historical manipulation have been used over and over again to direct and manipulate complete nations. That was the case in the Fertile Crescent. That was the case when the English Americans started to invade native American areas in they saw as their "Manifest Destiny". That was the case in Russia and Venezuela.

Humboldt wrote in the first half of the XIX century only two main events seemed to be part of the Venezuelan's historical memory: the Conquista and the Independence war. He also wrote Venezuelans did not feel a very strong link to the history of their ancestors from Europe or from the original America. I would add they did not feel much link to their African ancestors either. 

And that is one of the reasons why the military caste in Venezuela, starting with Bolívar, and then our politicians, have managed to manipulate Venezuelans with particular success. They have transformed Bolívar and some "heroes" into some weird "Gods" and they have declared themselves the priests who do what the Gods wants.

If you ask 10 Venezuelans in what century - more or less - the Spaniards arrived to Venezuela, most of them would not know. If you ask them how their mother tongue, Spanish, came to be, from what language it derives, you will be surprised at the answers. If you ask them a little bit about what social systems native Americans had, you will often hear quite a lot of amazing myths. That is the reason why Chávez can say in an Aló Presidente that native Americans were socialist, did not have kings or slaves and were 2 meters tall. That the reason why a third of our 300+ municipalities are called after a military caudillo.

Every Venezuelan knows the date when Bolívar was born and the day he died. That's not so hard, anyway: those are holidays in Venezuela.

Most Venezuelan books about history suck. They suck big time. The pathos, the kitsch you find is incredible. The very few foreign books about  Venezuelan history you will find are not very different, with some exceptions. The Bolívar cult is promoted, other aspects of Venezuela's development are completely forgotten or just glossed over in an incredible manner.

That is why I am trying to write a little bit more about Venezuelan history beyond myths in Wikipedia.

I wish Venezuelan historians - the real ones - would start to become more prominent. If they do, they will have two big enemies: the government and the military.

I wonder what happened to the ideas the Academy of History announced.