The Urgent Cause of the Recall Referendum in Venezuela
The following piece of political reflection constitutes a brief recounting of the affronts suffered by Venezuelans in recent years and a claim for the urgent concretion of the recall referendum this very year. Signed by over one hundred people, a group that includes various generations of poets, novelists, essayists, editors, university professors and artists. Besides proposing the start of many necessary discussions, it invites the reader to think of the importance of culture in the country to come.
We Venezuelans, writers, university professors and artists of diverse social tendencies and aesthetic and political positions, dedicated to expressions of sensibility and thought, moved by our frank indignation in the face of the situation in Venezuela today, reject the sectarian, vulgar and arrogant manner in which the current government leads the country’s fate, as a militaristic movement capable of utilizing the possibilities of democracy and invoking popular power only when it’s convenient for them.
Guided by a project of social engineering that equates the current government with the worst authoritarian experiences, it’s not too difficult to conclude —this isn’t just an idea, it’s a suffering that begins in the body— that they only want to install a single and servile “thought” in Venezuelan society; yes, they want to institute by force a society with citizens whose heads are hung low, meek, in submission and conforming to the sharing of the misery they have deliberately orchestrated; a society afflicted by shortages, sick and starving, depressed in all possible senses, deprived of the most elemental goods necessary for the proper development and formation of life itself. All of this for the single goal of perpetuating themselves in power through propaganda in all public media outlets, the most perverse manipulation of consciences, political persecution, coercion, the control of food, systematic harassment, persecution, defamation, calumny, extortion, insults, threats, absolute control of Judicial Powers, along with the blocking of the National Assembly and its functions for legislation, research, interpellation, discussion and control.
It’s no secret for anyone that we’re living through the systematic destruction of the Republic, understood in its most logical sense as a place for co-existence among those who think differently. In recent decades —from 1999 until today, punctually— we’ve witnessed and been victims of political, legal, economic and social measures that seek to repress and suppress the individual, along with all his creative potential, turning him into an acritical, obedient, impoverished mass, sunken in the blind cult of personality around the quarrelsome caudillo Hugo Chávez, the great author of this tragedy that the current president is in charge of prolonging. After destroying the country’s productive sectors, distributing gifts to neighboring countries in exchange for complicity, strategic silences and doctrinaire advisors, do we still need to remind ourselves that Chavismo wasted one of the greatest petroleum booms in our history? Yes, we need to remind ourselves and observe how the consequences are expressed in every detail of daily life. When it comes time to respond to the interpellations, there are no answers, only justifications and aggression. Some functionaries remain silent. Others ask for faith and sacrifice, while they deny any humanitarian aid for the country for the most essential items related to health care and food. Relatedly, others are fired from their jobs for adding their names to the Recall Referendum. What else can we ask for when faced by the daily scenes of people scavenging through trash bags on the streets to find the most minimal amounts of nourishment? Is it possible, by means of some supposedly socialist ideological subterfuge, to ignore the reality of people dying in hospitals for lack of medicine, treatments and medical equipment?
It’s important to remind ourselves that the current government does not follow the very same Constitution it proposed in 1999; undermining by all means the observance of the Recall Referendum for this year; boycotting, prohibiting and repressing all the civic and peaceful protests of Venezuelans (for instance, at the doors of the National Electoral Council); it persecutes, tortures and jails students. It’s no coincidence that it has also been asphyxiating the budgets of the autonomous universities, for the mere fact of not aligning themselves with their unilateral and sectarian position. Now this government intends to hand out bags of food, but it actually wants to know who their opponents are, how many oppose them (what a task!). Isn’t the creation of a “system” that instead of attacking problems multiplies them an alarming aberration? What type of “humanitarian” government brags about handing out small quantities of cornmeal, margarine, milk and sugar? These, among other matters —one of them, the most difficult one, without a doubt, is the use of hunger as an arm of political extortion— make the urgency of the Referendum more pertinent than ever today. What should be a mea culpa, a revision and correction of economic policies, is taken by the government as “revolutionary achievements” and “victories” in their tedious, imaginary battles.
Each one of us, within ourselves, holds a memorial for all the affronts and horrors that Chavismo has perpetrated in recent years. It’s not unreasonable to think these could be turned into a Universal Exhibit. Quotes, photos, videos, statistics, testimonies, speeches, forced government TV and radio transmissions, tortures, taunts. It would be a walking allegory of what we don’t want to be as a country. This exhibit —let the reader assume it as a way of not ever forgetting these years— should have a permanent hall in every country of this region that has been complicit in modeling our disgrace, beginning with the dictatorship of the Castro brothers, who today, contrary to what’s happening here, seem to be seeking another path.
We want to collaborate in the organization of a country with tenacious, creative and hard-working people. For this purpose we think that culture is tied to our current storm and will help us think of the country to come, one that’s more conscious, more tolerant, more social, more political —in the human sense of the word: knowing how to be with others, knowing how to exist amid differences— and in this way being able to defend the right to be free, capable of carrying out our desires and projects, far from the separations, the empty praises of poverty, the excessive cult of personality and the militarization of everyday life. The relationship between citizens and the State should not be based on submission and humiliation, under any government. On the contrary, it must be critical: building, organizing, proposing, creating, expanding instead of profaning, pulverizing, expropriating, kidnapping, manipulating, blackmailing.
With a deliberative spirit, freedom and the desire for a better, more just, more egalitarian life, we demand immediately a more just and plural country, whose institutions and civic life —sustained with the base of a robust democracy— are capable of being in tune with the most immediate popular demands, as well as resolving the intense social, economic and cultural conflicts that assault our daily lives at this very moment.
Culture —literature, poetry, visual arts, theater, dance, traditional popular culture, memory; in sum, independent thought, ideas, sensibility and creativity— can’t continue to be an adornment in Venezuelan social life, nor much less an instrument of domination for the established classes in the very complacent and comfortable Chavista cultural power.
The most noble function of culture —among others— is to interpolate, to interpret, to question. It implies a group of identities and visions of the world that, far from disturbing each other, converse. It’s also the point of departure for thinking about ourselves and germinating in our consciousnesses a critical, autonomous and fertile thought, full of imagination, impermeable to the will to dominate and indoctrinate. In other words, minds that are impermeable to the pretensions of the personalist, regressive and anachronistic project represented by Chavismo, a political current full of antagonisms and internal contradictions, which perhaps have yet to fully explode in all their magnitude in the public sphere.
Those who identify with these discussions should add their voices, taking advantage of the fact that at this moment of imminent danger there are still spaces for dissident expressions, facing the unstoppable disaster that overwhelms our country. It is a civic urgency that brings us together in the face of the machinery of control represented by Chavismo in power. May these words be debated, replied and multiplied, under the most varied forms, by each person, in every corner of the country, in every community, in each neighborhood, in every street, in restaurants, schools, newsstands, high schools, military bases, grocery stores, lines, universities, hospitals, in all the places where the current government —capable of persecuting even its own dissident currents, we can’t forget this— concretizes its ravages. We must remember: the very nature of this government is tied to intolerance and fanaticism. These pulsations go against any project elaborated for the common good, for peace, concordance, moderation, dialogue or critical understanding.
Today we also resist the submission and humiliation under an arrogant clique that has kidnapped Venezuela’s institutions. With our names and our citizenship, perhaps our most prized possessions, we are willing to raise our critical voices and participate in all possible discussions for a profound democracy, whose institutions can guide our current differences. We know: these desires can’t be achieved without the cause of the Referendum. Or in other words: the cause of the Referendum is the beginning of the other country, less subdued. That is the reason for this shout in the face of all attempts to delay —or prohibit— the imminent presidential recall process. This option today represents our right to justice, liberty, civility, democracy, in sum, our right to exist in the 21st century. May it be so.
Guillermo Sucre
Alfredo Chacón
Ana Teresa Torres
Elisa Lerner
Rowena Hill
María Fernanda Palacios
José Balza
Rafael Cadenas
Armando Rojas Guardia
Igor Barreto
Yolanda Pantin
Edda Armas
Gabriela Kizer
Santos López
Carmen Verde Arocha
Alfredo Herrera
Alexis Romero
María Antonieta Flores
Luis Gerardo Mármol Bosch
Patricia Guzmán
Sonia González
Carmen Leonor Ferro
Julieta León
Luis Pérez-Oramas
Vasco Szinetar
Nelson Rivera
Elías Pino Iturrieta
Fernando Rodríguez
Joaquín Marta Sosa
Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza
Antonio López Ortega
Miguel Ángel Campos Torres
Ednodio Quintero
Marina Gasparini
Violeta Rojo
Gisela Kozak
Sandra Caula
Luna Benítez
Luisa de la Ville
Marcelino Bisbal
Tulio Hernández
Jaime Bello León
Raquel Gamus
Víctor Bravo
Miguel Szinetar
Ricardo Jiménez
Diómedes Cordero
Francisco Arévalo
Mario Amengual
Alejandro Padrón
Ramón Ordaz
Luis Miguel Isava
Carlos Sandoval
Milagros Mata-Gil
Mireya Tabuas
Krina Ber
Bernardino Herrera León
Humberto Ortiz B.
Juan Cristóbal Castro
Nela Ochoa
Kataliñ Alava
Ángela Bonadies
Roberto Martínez Bachrich
Luis Moreno Villamediana
Guillermo Parra
Diego Arroyo Gil
Lorena González
Julio Bolívar
Patricia Velasco
Xiomara Jiménez
Aixa Sánchez
Sebastián de la Nuez
Vince De Benedittis
Norberto José Olivar
Juan Carlos Chirinos
Sonia Chocrón
Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez
Gustavo Valle
Fedosy Santaella
Lena Yau
Rafael Sánchez
Carlos Enrique Guzmán Cárdenas
Alberto Hernández
Miguel Ortiz
Keila Vall
Florencio Quintero
Samuel González-Seijas
Ricardo Ramírez Requena
Santiago Acosta
Alejandro Sebastiani Verlezza
Cesar Segovia
Néstor Mendoza
Rubén Darío Carrero
Blanca Rivero
Graciela Yáñez Vicentini
Franklin Hurtado
Luis Perozo Cervantes
Alejandro Castro
Zakarias Zafra Fernandez
Kaury Ramos
Claudia Márquez O.
Lucía Jiménez Perozo
Luis Yslas
Willy McKey
Mario Morenza
Álvaro Rafael
Georges Galo
Víctor García Ramírez
Kelly Martínez
Diosce Martínez
Ramelis Velásquez
Kira Kariakin
Flavia Pesci-Felitri
Sandy Juhasz
Ana Cristina Henríquez
Daniel García P.
Carlos Paris
Michelle Roche Rodríguez
Yoyiana Ahumada L.
Geraudí González
Mariana Fulcado
Johnny Romero
Dira Martínez Mendoza
Keyla Holmquist-Holmquist
Patricia Heredia Pelaca
Anaira Vásquez
Monday, 29 of August, 2016.
{ Papel Literario, El Nacional, 11 September 2016 }
La causa urgente del Referéndum Revocatorio en Venezuela
We Venezuelans, writers, university professors and artists of diverse social tendencies and aesthetic and political positions, dedicated to expressions of sensibility and thought, moved by our frank indignation in the face of the situation in Venezuela today, reject the sectarian, vulgar and arrogant manner in which the current government leads the country’s fate, as a militaristic movement capable of utilizing the possibilities of democracy and invoking popular power only when it’s convenient for them.
Guided by a project of social engineering that equates the current government with the worst authoritarian experiences, it’s not too difficult to conclude —this isn’t just an idea, it’s a suffering that begins in the body— that they only want to install a single and servile “thought” in Venezuelan society; yes, they want to institute by force a society with citizens whose heads are hung low, meek, in submission and conforming to the sharing of the misery they have deliberately orchestrated; a society afflicted by shortages, sick and starving, depressed in all possible senses, deprived of the most elemental goods necessary for the proper development and formation of life itself. All of this for the single goal of perpetuating themselves in power through propaganda in all public media outlets, the most perverse manipulation of consciences, political persecution, coercion, the control of food, systematic harassment, persecution, defamation, calumny, extortion, insults, threats, absolute control of Judicial Powers, along with the blocking of the National Assembly and its functions for legislation, research, interpellation, discussion and control.
It’s no secret for anyone that we’re living through the systematic destruction of the Republic, understood in its most logical sense as a place for co-existence among those who think differently. In recent decades —from 1999 until today, punctually— we’ve witnessed and been victims of political, legal, economic and social measures that seek to repress and suppress the individual, along with all his creative potential, turning him into an acritical, obedient, impoverished mass, sunken in the blind cult of personality around the quarrelsome caudillo Hugo Chávez, the great author of this tragedy that the current president is in charge of prolonging. After destroying the country’s productive sectors, distributing gifts to neighboring countries in exchange for complicity, strategic silences and doctrinaire advisors, do we still need to remind ourselves that Chavismo wasted one of the greatest petroleum booms in our history? Yes, we need to remind ourselves and observe how the consequences are expressed in every detail of daily life. When it comes time to respond to the interpellations, there are no answers, only justifications and aggression. Some functionaries remain silent. Others ask for faith and sacrifice, while they deny any humanitarian aid for the country for the most essential items related to health care and food. Relatedly, others are fired from their jobs for adding their names to the Recall Referendum. What else can we ask for when faced by the daily scenes of people scavenging through trash bags on the streets to find the most minimal amounts of nourishment? Is it possible, by means of some supposedly socialist ideological subterfuge, to ignore the reality of people dying in hospitals for lack of medicine, treatments and medical equipment?
It’s important to remind ourselves that the current government does not follow the very same Constitution it proposed in 1999; undermining by all means the observance of the Recall Referendum for this year; boycotting, prohibiting and repressing all the civic and peaceful protests of Venezuelans (for instance, at the doors of the National Electoral Council); it persecutes, tortures and jails students. It’s no coincidence that it has also been asphyxiating the budgets of the autonomous universities, for the mere fact of not aligning themselves with their unilateral and sectarian position. Now this government intends to hand out bags of food, but it actually wants to know who their opponents are, how many oppose them (what a task!). Isn’t the creation of a “system” that instead of attacking problems multiplies them an alarming aberration? What type of “humanitarian” government brags about handing out small quantities of cornmeal, margarine, milk and sugar? These, among other matters —one of them, the most difficult one, without a doubt, is the use of hunger as an arm of political extortion— make the urgency of the Referendum more pertinent than ever today. What should be a mea culpa, a revision and correction of economic policies, is taken by the government as “revolutionary achievements” and “victories” in their tedious, imaginary battles.
Each one of us, within ourselves, holds a memorial for all the affronts and horrors that Chavismo has perpetrated in recent years. It’s not unreasonable to think these could be turned into a Universal Exhibit. Quotes, photos, videos, statistics, testimonies, speeches, forced government TV and radio transmissions, tortures, taunts. It would be a walking allegory of what we don’t want to be as a country. This exhibit —let the reader assume it as a way of not ever forgetting these years— should have a permanent hall in every country of this region that has been complicit in modeling our disgrace, beginning with the dictatorship of the Castro brothers, who today, contrary to what’s happening here, seem to be seeking another path.
We want to collaborate in the organization of a country with tenacious, creative and hard-working people. For this purpose we think that culture is tied to our current storm and will help us think of the country to come, one that’s more conscious, more tolerant, more social, more political —in the human sense of the word: knowing how to be with others, knowing how to exist amid differences— and in this way being able to defend the right to be free, capable of carrying out our desires and projects, far from the separations, the empty praises of poverty, the excessive cult of personality and the militarization of everyday life. The relationship between citizens and the State should not be based on submission and humiliation, under any government. On the contrary, it must be critical: building, organizing, proposing, creating, expanding instead of profaning, pulverizing, expropriating, kidnapping, manipulating, blackmailing.
With a deliberative spirit, freedom and the desire for a better, more just, more egalitarian life, we demand immediately a more just and plural country, whose institutions and civic life —sustained with the base of a robust democracy— are capable of being in tune with the most immediate popular demands, as well as resolving the intense social, economic and cultural conflicts that assault our daily lives at this very moment.
Culture —literature, poetry, visual arts, theater, dance, traditional popular culture, memory; in sum, independent thought, ideas, sensibility and creativity— can’t continue to be an adornment in Venezuelan social life, nor much less an instrument of domination for the established classes in the very complacent and comfortable Chavista cultural power.
The most noble function of culture —among others— is to interpolate, to interpret, to question. It implies a group of identities and visions of the world that, far from disturbing each other, converse. It’s also the point of departure for thinking about ourselves and germinating in our consciousnesses a critical, autonomous and fertile thought, full of imagination, impermeable to the will to dominate and indoctrinate. In other words, minds that are impermeable to the pretensions of the personalist, regressive and anachronistic project represented by Chavismo, a political current full of antagonisms and internal contradictions, which perhaps have yet to fully explode in all their magnitude in the public sphere.
Those who identify with these discussions should add their voices, taking advantage of the fact that at this moment of imminent danger there are still spaces for dissident expressions, facing the unstoppable disaster that overwhelms our country. It is a civic urgency that brings us together in the face of the machinery of control represented by Chavismo in power. May these words be debated, replied and multiplied, under the most varied forms, by each person, in every corner of the country, in every community, in each neighborhood, in every street, in restaurants, schools, newsstands, high schools, military bases, grocery stores, lines, universities, hospitals, in all the places where the current government —capable of persecuting even its own dissident currents, we can’t forget this— concretizes its ravages. We must remember: the very nature of this government is tied to intolerance and fanaticism. These pulsations go against any project elaborated for the common good, for peace, concordance, moderation, dialogue or critical understanding.
Today we also resist the submission and humiliation under an arrogant clique that has kidnapped Venezuela’s institutions. With our names and our citizenship, perhaps our most prized possessions, we are willing to raise our critical voices and participate in all possible discussions for a profound democracy, whose institutions can guide our current differences. We know: these desires can’t be achieved without the cause of the Referendum. Or in other words: the cause of the Referendum is the beginning of the other country, less subdued. That is the reason for this shout in the face of all attempts to delay —or prohibit— the imminent presidential recall process. This option today represents our right to justice, liberty, civility, democracy, in sum, our right to exist in the 21st century. May it be so.
Guillermo Sucre
Alfredo Chacón
Ana Teresa Torres
Elisa Lerner
Rowena Hill
María Fernanda Palacios
José Balza
Rafael Cadenas
Armando Rojas Guardia
Igor Barreto
Yolanda Pantin
Edda Armas
Gabriela Kizer
Santos López
Carmen Verde Arocha
Alfredo Herrera
Alexis Romero
María Antonieta Flores
Luis Gerardo Mármol Bosch
Patricia Guzmán
Sonia González
Carmen Leonor Ferro
Julieta León
Luis Pérez-Oramas
Vasco Szinetar
Nelson Rivera
Elías Pino Iturrieta
Fernando Rodríguez
Joaquín Marta Sosa
Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza
Antonio López Ortega
Miguel Ángel Campos Torres
Ednodio Quintero
Marina Gasparini
Violeta Rojo
Gisela Kozak
Sandra Caula
Luna Benítez
Luisa de la Ville
Marcelino Bisbal
Tulio Hernández
Jaime Bello León
Raquel Gamus
Víctor Bravo
Miguel Szinetar
Ricardo Jiménez
Diómedes Cordero
Francisco Arévalo
Mario Amengual
Alejandro Padrón
Ramón Ordaz
Luis Miguel Isava
Carlos Sandoval
Milagros Mata-Gil
Mireya Tabuas
Krina Ber
Bernardino Herrera León
Humberto Ortiz B.
Juan Cristóbal Castro
Nela Ochoa
Kataliñ Alava
Ángela Bonadies
Roberto Martínez Bachrich
Luis Moreno Villamediana
Guillermo Parra
Diego Arroyo Gil
Lorena González
Julio Bolívar
Patricia Velasco
Xiomara Jiménez
Aixa Sánchez
Sebastián de la Nuez
Vince De Benedittis
Norberto José Olivar
Juan Carlos Chirinos
Sonia Chocrón
Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez
Gustavo Valle
Fedosy Santaella
Lena Yau
Rafael Sánchez
Carlos Enrique Guzmán Cárdenas
Alberto Hernández
Miguel Ortiz
Keila Vall
Florencio Quintero
Samuel González-Seijas
Ricardo Ramírez Requena
Santiago Acosta
Alejandro Sebastiani Verlezza
Cesar Segovia
Néstor Mendoza
Rubén Darío Carrero
Blanca Rivero
Graciela Yáñez Vicentini
Franklin Hurtado
Luis Perozo Cervantes
Alejandro Castro
Zakarias Zafra Fernandez
Kaury Ramos
Claudia Márquez O.
Lucía Jiménez Perozo
Luis Yslas
Willy McKey
Mario Morenza
Álvaro Rafael
Georges Galo
Víctor García Ramírez
Kelly Martínez
Diosce Martínez
Ramelis Velásquez
Kira Kariakin
Flavia Pesci-Felitri
Sandy Juhasz
Ana Cristina Henríquez
Daniel García P.
Carlos Paris
Michelle Roche Rodríguez
Yoyiana Ahumada L.
Geraudí González
Mariana Fulcado
Johnny Romero
Dira Martínez Mendoza
Keyla Holmquist-Holmquist
Patricia Heredia Pelaca
Anaira Vásquez
Monday, 29 of August, 2016.
{ Papel Literario, El Nacional, 11 September 2016 }
El siguiente fragmento de reflexión política constituye un breve recuento de las afrentas sufridas por los venezolanos en los últimos años y un reclamo para la concreción urgente del referendo este mismo año. Firmada por más de un centenar de personas, un grupo que incluye a varias generaciones de poetas, novelistas, ensayistas, editores, profesores universitarios y artistas. Además de proponer el inicio de muchas discusiones necesarias, se invita al lector a pensar en la importancia de la cultura en el país para venir. Los venezolanos, escritores, profesores universitarios y artistas de diversas tendencias sociales y posiciones estéticas y políticas, dedicados a las expresiones de la sensibilidad y el pensamiento, movido por nuestra indignación franca en la cara de la situación en la Venezuela de hoy, rechazar la forma sectaria, vulgar y arrogante en la que el actual gobierno conduce el destino del país, como un movimiento militarista capaz de utilizar las posibilidades de la democracia e invocando populares única potencia cuando es conveniente para ellos. guiado por un proyecto de ingeniería social que equivale al actual gobierno con las peores experiencias autoritarias, que no es demasiado difícil concluir -esto no es sólo una idea, es un sufrimiento que se inicia en el cuerpo- que sólo quieren instalar un único y servil "pensamiento" en la sociedad venezolana; Sí, quieren instaurar por la fuerza una sociedad con ciudadanos cuyas cabezas se cuelgan bajo, humilde, en la presentación, que se ajuste a la distribución de la miseria que han orquestado deliberadamente; una sociedad afectada por la escasez, enfermos y hambrientos, deprimidos en todos los sentidos posibles, privado de los bienes más elementales necesarios para el correcto desarrollo y la formación de la vida misma. Todo esto con el único objetivo de perpetuarse en el poder a través de la propaganda en todos los medios de comunicación pública, la manipulación más perversa de las conciencias, la persecución política, la coerción, el control de los alimentos, el acoso sistemático, persecución, difamación, la calumnia, la extorsión, insultos, amenazas, el control absoluto del Poder Judicial, junto con el bloqueo de la Asamblea Nacional y sus funciones de legislación, la investigación, la interpelación, la discusión y el control. no es ningún secreto para nadie que estamos viviendo a través de la destrucción sistemática de la República, entendida en su sentido más lógico como un lugar para la convivencia entre los que piensan diferente. En las últimas décadas -desde 1999 hasta la actualidad, punctually- cual hemos sido testigos y víctimas de medidas políticas, jurídicas, económicas y sociales que buscan reprimir y suprimir el individuo, junto con todo su potencial creativo, convirtiéndole en una acrítica, obedientes , masa empobrecida, hundido en el culto ciego de la personalidad alrededor del caudillo pendenciera Hugo Chávez, el gran autor de esta tragedia que el actual presidente es el encargado de prolongación. Después de la destrucción de los sectores productivos del país, la distribución de regalos a los países vecinos a cambio de la complicidad, silencios estratégicos y asesores doctrinarios, más necesidad tenemos que recordar que el chavismo pierde uno de los mayores auges del petróleo en nuestra historia? Sí, tenemos que recordar y observar cómo las consecuencias se expresan en todos los detalles de la vida diaria. Cuando llega el momento de responder a las interpelaciones, no hay respuestas, sólo justificaciones y agresión. Algunos funcionarios permanecen en silencio. Otros piden la fe y el sacrificio, mientras que niegan cualquier ayuda humanitaria para el país para los elementos más esenciales relacionados con el cuidado de la salud y la alimentación. En relación con esto, otros son despedidos de sus puestos de trabajo para añadir sus nombres a la Referendo Revocatorio. ¿Qué más se puede pedir cuando se enfrentan por las escenas cotidianas de las personas que limpian a través de bolsas de basura en las calles para encontrar las cantidades más mínimas de alimento? ¿Es posible, por medio de algún subterfugio ideológico supuestamente socialista, ignorar la realidad de las personas que mueren en los hospitales por falta de medicamentos, tratamientos y equipos médicos? Es importante recordar que el actual gobierno no sigue la misma Constitución que propone en 1999; socavar por todos los medios la celebración del Referéndum Revocatorio para este año; boicoteando, prohibir y reprimir todas las protestas cívicas y pacíficas de los venezolanos (por ejemplo, a las puertas del Consejo Nacional Electoral); persigue, torturas y cárceles estudiantes. No es ninguna coincidencia que también se ha asfixiando los presupuestos de las universidades autónomas, por el mero hecho de no alinearse con su posición unilateral y sectaria. Ahora bien, este gobierno tiene la intención de repartir bolsas de comida, pero lo que realmente quiere saber quiénes son sus adversarios, cuántos se oponen a ellos (lo que es una tarea!).No es la creación de un "sistema" que en lugar de los problemas que atacan a una aberración alarmante multiplica? ¿Qué tipo de gobierno "humanitaria" se jacta de la entrega de pequeñas cantidades de harina de maíz, margarina, leche y azúcar? Estas, entre otras cuestiones -una de ellas, la más difícil, sin duda, es el uso del hambre como un brazo de Extorsión política hacen la urgencia del Referéndum más pertinente que nunca. Lo que debería ser un mea culpa, la revisión y la corrección de las políticas económicas, es tomado por el gobierno como "logros revolucionarios" y "victorias" en sus tediosas, batallas imaginarias. Cada uno de nosotros, dentro de nosotros mismos, tiene una memoria de todo el afrentas y horrores que el chavismo ha perpetrado en los últimos años. No es descabellado pensar éstos podrían convertirse en una exposición de Universal. Citas, fotos, vídeos, estadísticas, testimonios, discursos, transmisiones de radio y televisión del gobierno forzada, torturas, insultos. Sería una alegoría a pie de lo que no queremos ser como país.Esta exposición deje el lector asuma que como una forma de no olvidar nunca estos años- debe tener una sala permanente en todos los países de esta región que ha sido cómplice en el modelado de nuestra desgracia, empezando por la dictadura de los hermanos Castro, que hoy en día, al contrario de lo que está pasando aquí, parecen estar buscando otro camino.queremos colaborar en la organización de un país con gente tenaz, creativa y trabajadora.Para este fin pensamos que la cultura está ligada a nuestra actual tormenta y nos ayudará a pensar en el país para venir, una que sea más consciente, más tolerante, más social, más política -en el sentido humano de la palabra: saber estar con los demás, a sabiendas de cómo existir en medio diferencias- y de esta manera poder defender el derecho a ser libre, capaz de llevar a cabo nuestros deseos y proyectos, lejos de las separaciones, las alabanzas vacías de la pobreza, el excesivo culto de la personalidad y la militarización de la vida cotidiana. La relación entre los ciudadanos y el Estado no debe basarse en la sumisión y la humillación, bajo cualquier gobierno. Por el contrario, debe ser crítico: edificio, organizar, proponer, crear, ampliar en lugar de profanar, la pulverización, la expropiación, secuestro, manipular, chantajear. Con un espíritu de deliberación, la libertad y el deseo de una mejor, más justa, más igualitaria vida, exigimos de inmediato un país más justo y plural, cuyas instituciones y la vida cívica -sustentada con la base de una sólida democracia- son capaces de estar en sintonía con las demandas populares más inmediatas, así como la resolución de la intensa social, económica y conflictos culturales que asalto nuestra vida cotidiana en este mismo momento. cultura -Literatura, la poesía, las artes visuales, el teatro, la danza, la cultura popular tradicional, la memoria; en suma, el pensamiento independiente, las ideas, la sensibilidad y creativity- no puede seguir siendo un adorno en la vida social venezolana, ni mucho menos un instrumento de dominación de las clases establecidas en el poder cultural chavista muy complaciente y cómodo. La función más noble de la cultura -entre otros- es interpolar, de interpretar, a la pregunta. Implica un grupo de identidades y visiones del mundo que, lejos de molestar a los demás, conversar. Es también el punto de partida para pensar en nosotros mismos y en nuestras conciencias germinar un pensamiento crítico, autónomo y fértil, llena de imaginación, impermeable a la voluntad de dominar y adoctrinar.En otras palabras, las mentes que son impermeables a las pretensiones de la personalista, proyecto regresivo y anacrónica representada por el chavismo, una corriente completa política de los antagonismos y contradicciones internas, que quizá aún tienen que explotar plenamente en toda su magnitud en el ámbito público. Los que se identifican con estas discusiones deben sumar sus voces, aprovechando el hecho de que en este momento de peligro inminente todavía hay espacios para expresiones disidentes, frente a la catástrofe imparable que abruma nuestro país. Se trata de una urgencia ciudadana que nos reúne en la cara de la maquinaria del control representada por el chavismo en el poder. Puede ser debatida estas palabras, respondieron y se multiplicaron, en las más variadas formas, por cada persona, en cada rincón del país, en cada comunidad, en cada barrio, en cada calle, en restaurantes, escuelas, puestos de periódicos, escuelas secundarias, militar bases, tiendas de comestibles, líneas, universidades, hospitales, en todos los lugares donde el actual gobierno -capaz de perseguir incluso sus propias corrientes disidentes, no podemos olvidar esto- concretiza sus estragos. Debemos recordar: la naturaleza misma de este gobierno está ligado a la intolerancia y el fanatismo. Estas pulsaciones van en contra de cualquier proyecto elaborado por el bien común, por la paz, la concordancia, la moderación, el diálogo o la comprensión crítica. Hoy también se resisten a la sumisión y la humillación bajo una camarilla arrogante que ha secuestrado a las instituciones venezolanas. Con nuestros nombres y nuestra ciudadanía, tal vez nuestras posesiones más preciadas, estamos dispuestos a levantar nuestras voces críticas y participar en todas las discusiones posibles para una democracia profunda, cuyas instituciones pueden guiar nuestras diferencias actuales. Sabemos: estos deseos no se pueden lograr sin la causa del Referéndum. O en otras palabras: la causa del Referéndum es el comienzo de otro país, a menos tenue. Esa es la razón de este grito en la cara de todos los intentos de retrasar -o que prohíben el proceso revocatorio presidencial inminente. Esta opción hoy en día representa nuestro derecho a la justicia, la libertad, la cortesía, la democracia, en suma, nuestro derecho a existir en el siglo 21. Que así sea. Guillermo Sucre Alfredo Chacón Ana Teresa Torres Elisa LernerRowena colina de María Fernanda Palacios José Balza Rafael Cadenas Armando Rojas Guardia Igor Barreto Yolanda Pantin Edda Armas Gabriela Kizer Santos López Carmen Verde Arocha Alfredo Herrera Alexis Romero , María Antonieta Flores Luis Gerardo Mármol BoschPatricia Guzmán Sonia González Carmen Leonor Ferro Julieta León Luis Pérez-Oramas Vasco Szinetár Nelson Rivera Elías Pino Iturrieta Fernando Rodríguez Joaquín Marta Sosa Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza Antonio López Ortega Miguel Ángel Campos Torres Ednodio Quintero Marina Gasparini Violeta Rojo Gisela Kozak Sandra Caula Luna Benítez Luisa de la Ville Marcelino Bisbal Tulio Hernández Jaime Bello León Raquel Gamus Víctor Bravo Miguel Szinetár Ricardo Jiménez Diómedes Cordero Francisco Arévalo Mario Amengual Alejandro Padrón Ramón Ordaz Luis Miguel Isava Carlos Sandoval Milagros Mata Gil- Mireya Tabuas Krina BerBernardino Herrera León Humberto Ortiz B. Juan Cristóbal Castro Nela Ochoa Katalin AlavaÁngela Bonadies Roberto Martínez Bachrich Luis Moreno Villamediana Guillermo Parra Diego Arroyo Gil Lorena González Julio Bolívar Patricia Velasco Xiomara Jiménez Aixa SánchezSebastián de la Nuez Vince de Benedittis Norberto José Olivar Juan Carlos Chirinos Sonia Chocrón Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez Gustavo Valle Fedosy Santaella Lena Yau Rafael SánchezCarlos Enrique Guzmán Cárdenas Alberto Hernández Miguel Ortiz Keila Vall Florencio Quintero Samuel González-Seijas Ricardo Ramírez Requena Santiago Acosta Alejandro Sebastiani Verlezza Cesar Segovia Néstor Mendoza Rubén Darío Carrero Blanca RiveroGraciela Yáñez Vicentini Franklin Hurtado Luis Perozo Cervantes , Alejandro Castro Zakarías Zafra Fernández KAURY Ramos Claudia Márquez O. Lucía Jiménez Perozo Luis Yslas Willy McKey Mario Morenza Álvaro Rafael Georges Galo Víctor García Ramírez Kelly MartínezDiosce Martínez Ramelis Velásquez Kira Kariakin Flavia Pesci-Felitri arena Juhasz Ana Cristina Henríquez Daniel García P. Carlos París Michelle Roche Rodríguez Yoyiana Ahumada L . Geraudí González Mariana Fulcado Johnny Romero Dira Martínez Mendoza Keyla Holmquist-Holmquist Patricia Heredia Pelaca Anaira Vásquez lunes 29 de agosto de 2016. {Papel Literario , El Nacional , 11 de septiembre el año 2016}
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Guillermo Parra
Poet. Translator of Israel Centeno, The Conspiracy (Phoneme Media, 2017), José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Selected Works: Expanded Edition (Noemi Press, 2016), Air on the Air: Selected Poems of Juan Sánchez Peláez (Black Square Editions, 2016) and José Antonio Ramos Sucre, From the Livid Country (Auguste Press, 2012). Author of Phantasmal Repeats (Petrichord Books, 2009) and Caracas Notebook (Cy Gist Press, 2006).
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