The Middle Finger

By Adriaan van Ginkel

Well, well, well. My move of last Sunday, partly intended to see how quickly the uniformed hordes toting Kalashnikovs would run up the stairs and crash through my apartment’s door to put yet another “CIA-paid troll” (as an American leftist activist lovingly called me last weekend on the social media) behind bars, has apparently had no effect yet. CIA-paid, yeah right. There are worse jokes than that. Maybe the Venezuelan authorities aren’t so fluent in English, or maybe my backward-running prose has their heads reeling. 

Anyhow, I feel relieved for now. After having said what I wanted to say last Sunday, and still being able to entertain you yet again with another of my letters, I promise you that from now on, you will read my Venezuelan adventures “in the raw”. I won’t insult any politician or minister or president, or any person unlucky enough to wake up the irony in me. But I plan to transform this news brief into a dialogue between you and me. I invite you to write to me, leave some comment on my blog, call me nice or troll or whatever. But I hope that my blog will provide you with an open window to Venezuelan life.

What is this week’s theme? The middle finger. Rude? Nay. It’s another way of saying exactly what is wrong with this country. Although Venezuelans, as I have described it in my Miss BBQ -brief some weeks ago, see themselves as buena gente, good folk - cheerful, boisterous, loud-mouthed, party going, joking and life-loving - it’s an entire different story when you try to discover some third dimension within their firecracker personalities. Generally speaking, there is very little depth in the typical Venezuelan, sorry to say. If you like people whose reactions are primary, i.e. they react the way they feel without thinking twice or counting to ten, then Venezuela could be a place for you. 

Of course there are many “untypical” rational exceptions, sensible careful persons (regardless of their background) who think thrice before pulling your mother into the argument. But most just don’t. And since I’m busy completing my tenth year here, I guess I have the right to hold an opinion about this country and the inhabitants. You are free in your own opinion of course, but this is my space. If you disagree with me and want to cross swords, start your own blog. En garde!

Now, what has the middle finger to do with all this? It’s what I WISH the Venezuelan would show defiantly at the ink-black clouds over their country’s head, and at all the problems ruining their lives. Because although the flamboyant Venezuelans say they don’t care about the disaster unfolding in their lush tropical country, they DO care and worry. Men worry and drink too much, women are over concerned with appearances, and the enormous national consumption of erection-enhancing drugs points to an unhealthy stress living among Venezuelan males, afraid of losing “it” and an unhappy wife as well to another guy. 

Many of my neighbors get up at 3 AM, jump into their cars at 4 AM with their sleeping children in the back – dressed up in their school uniforms – and try to arrive on time to drop their exhausted offspring at school before 7 AM and get themselves behind their bad-paying desks before 8 AM, before infernal traffic makes that impossible. People who don’t own cars (and that number is growing) depend on a mediocre to almost-absent public transport that converts trips into daily odysseys. Offices close down at 4 PM, but my neighbors start arriving home between 7 and 8 PM – all because of the traffic jams clogging all Caracas into a daily infarct – giving them only one or two hours of dining and preparing themselves for bed before another day starts with alarm clocks ringing away at 3 AM. Weekends are spent sleeping or watching movies. Not a way of unloading stress and frustration, on the contrary. And to add to the stress, getting home after dark nowadays means exposing yourself and your loved ones to rampant criminality. It happened to some of my neighbors, fortunately without loss of lives.

Do you really think living in the tropics is all leisure in eternal summers and drinking cocktails on the beach? Think again.

Excessive promiscuity is yet another symptom of unloaded stress and frustration. Don’t let yourself be fooled by macho arguments. I’ve clearly noticed that chasing women here is not so much a leisurely machista pastime as well as a desperate attempt to shove aside the frustrations of daily life. Some do liquor, others do food, and still others other do women. I haven’t noticed that Venezuelan women are as promiscuous as men. My theory is that is has to do with upbringing and their way of controlling men through their beauty, the classical winding around one’s finger. Something that very few men can ever achieve here, unless you are called Brad Pitt.

Showing the middle finger would surely unload a lot of stress here. If Venezuelans knew how to unload their stress and aggression without resorting to unhealthy methods like the ones I described earlier, things would look a lot better here. The motto “Life Is Beautiful” is not applied here, sadly. When I see how people unload their tons of built-up frustrations on their children, pets, or animals on the streets by running them over intentionally, I ask myself: what is wrong with these people? Why don’t they find a way of just caring for the really important things in their lives and let all other just go? Why accept the ridiculous fact of your children having to be at school before 7 AM, even when they are at kindergarten age? Why accept losing every day of your life in senseless traffic jams just like that? Why consent with working for really miserable wages and letting yourself be abused by managers whose ideas of motivating employees go back to the Neolithic? Why adapt yourself to the spiral of deadly criminality that has transformed Venezuela into a little hell? Why not choose for life? Do they care so little for it? 

Venezuelans think that the proper way to deal with the crushing weight of stress is to crack jokes and play the happy carefree clown all the time. From what I’ve witnessed, they are dead wrong. The more they are trying to act as if nothing is happening, the worst the situation gets. I’m no psychologist, but I see some very toxic dynamics in this way of thinking. 

And of course, how could we not speak about what these dynamics do to political life? 80% of the population thinks the country is going in the wrong direction and most point at the incumbent president – the one with the moustache – as the main culprit for expensive beer, unpayable meat and unobtainable milk, soap, deodorant and maize meal. But I personally think it’s so easy to blame the guy or girl at the front for everything. I’m no friend of president Maduro, but I have to be fair at this point. 

Let’s not forget that Chávez and Maduro came to the presidency in a democratic way. Election after election confirmed the enthusiasm of the majority of Venezuelans for the revolution that would bring them wagonloads of cheap beer, more meat than you can put on all barbeques, and all the milk you could gulp down in your lifetime. When I first came to Venezuela, I was surprised at the enormous quantity of obese people waddling about. I like a good steak, but I was unpleasantly surprised at the sight of true human carnivores pushing incredible quantities of meat into their faces. There is no other way of describing it from my point of view. Venezuela still holds the second place in the world in consuming pasta right after Italy, did you know that? And of course, back in those golden olden days, life was really payable for most people here. Look at it now.

Poverty is reclaiming lost ground all over the country. And people are very unhappy and dissatisfied, not as much with the crackdown on democratic rights that is taking place right now, but with what they see as “broken promises”. The Chavist government promised a lot of things but doesn’t deliver now. And empty stomachs and receding waist lines make people here very unhappy. Tragically, it’s essentially only that what makes Venezuelans unhappy. The mental connection between scarcity, bad government and better administration is not made. Because most people, as I described it, are already drowning in everyday frustrations and dealing with them in the wrong way. In my country, there is a saying for it: looking at so many trees, they don’t see the forest anymore. 

Yesterday, in San Cristóbal, a 14-year-old scholar was shot pointblank in the head by a trigger-happy policeman during a demonstration. The boy was unarmed, and while breaking free from a scuffle with the police and running away – he was turning his back on the policeman with the shotgun – the policeman aimed and shot the boy in the head. Now, if that had happened in the US for example, the next thing would have been bloody riots. But except from some apologies by the president on TV and the announcement that “steps” would be taken against that killer in police uniform, the country isn’t stirred at all. Everyone is horrified for a while, but then shakes off the thought and go about bearing their unbearable lives.  

And this indifferent way of reacting to so much horror is deeply disturbing. Why don’t people react in a humane way to this inhumanity, this brutality? They should go out on the streets, poor and rich, Chavist, non-aligned and opposition, and demand justice for that single heinous crime representing all other crimes. And show their middle fingers to everything that is turning their daily lives into a horror movie, and shout: enough is enough. 

The day this happens will be a great day, because then the Venezuelan people will have understood that, instead of accepting all horrors and bad things as inevitable, they can change the course of history together, in a constructive way. Shouting insults at some guy at the front doesn’t turn around the boat, nor do coups or senseless violence. Toxicity will only generate more toxicity. 

I guess I’m an optimist, because I know that the Venezuelan has that inner force that will one day push them to true greatness and unity. Till then, we’ll have to wait till Venezuela awakes from its Snow-white slumber.  

Have a great week and till next Wednesday!

© Adriaan van Ginkel 2015                    

EXTRA EDITION - The Thin Red Line

By Adriaan van Ginkel

It is possible that after publishing, this might be my last news brief for now. I hope not; my plan is to keep on writing and publishing my briefs about Venezuela, the country in which I am living and working, and cover all kind of topics. I was planning to write about something else, like the sad situation in the animal shelters – one of the worst on this continent – and as an active animal protectionist, this subject stays very close to my heart. But what happened these last days here on the political scene has pushed me to devote some lines on what is happening at this very moment in Venezuela concerning freedom of speech and conscience. 

I think it would be like writing about the local cuisine while a natural disaster has struck the region. Totally ridiculous and unethical. Self-censure has been one of the biggest evils of our modern times. So I’ll give it a shot, telling you one or two things about what is really threatening my blog, and maybe risking a knock on the door by uniformed guys afterwards. The internet here is almost prehistoric and has hampered my publishing more than once, but what is now looming over freedom of speech and conscience is far worse than wobbly technology.

First a word or two about the main picture. It’s noticeable that authoritarianism has become more and more common in our world, don’t you think so? Consider Putin’s Russia, for example. But supposedly democratic countries like the US are increasingly linked to cloak-and-dagger activities like massive email monitoring and peeping into what people are saying in the social media. Within the European Union, it has become risky to say or publish anything that might be considered an attack on Islam or Muslims - which is explained officially as acting against racism and discrimination, but in fact is an authoritarian move against freedom of speech and conscience. In an earlier news brief featuring the banned Venezuelan cartoonist Rayma, I already touched the subject. Venezuela is no exception to the growing power of governments trying to control our minds these days. Very few media worldwide can be trusted on their independence. Political lobbies are not the only forces bending news behind the scenes to someone’s benefit. State meddling has become an even darker force. But the extremes, to which the Venezuelan government has ventured the last years, are notable. And increasingly troubling. 

Writing about Venezuela from within has become a tricky business these last years. I have to be very careful in my wording to not tread on some sore revolutionary toes. My knowledge about how people in the Eastern Europe of before 1989 managed to read and tell the truth between the lines has helped me a lot till now. It’s like walking on a thin red line. But how thin is that line really? Or is it more like walking on sheet-thin ice?

The day the Maduro government arrested the metropolitan major of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, at his office and a huge force of secret police armed to the teeth pushed the 59-year-old opposition politician around like some criminal in front of CCTV camera’s, I knew that things are getting serious in Venezuela. Ledezma has been accused of conspiring to stage a coup and overthrow Nicolás Maduro. The proof? His signature under an opposition alliance declaration calling for a transition government following that of the incumbent, but within the frame of the constitution. This was taken by Maduro as an incitement to overthrow his government. Ledezma is now locked up and the (mock) trial will almost surely condemn him to a lengthy stay in prison. And all for having voiced his disagreement with Chávez and Maduro over the years, and for his signature under that declaration. 

In a normal democracy it’s OK to voice your dissent against the sitting government, right? As long as it’s done in a democratic and respectful way. But Maduro has now clearly crossed the line between apparent democracy, something the macchiavelic juggler Hugo Chávez left behind, and true authoritarian rule. Maduro sees every criticism against his person, no matter how carefully put, as a direct attack on Venezuela, and thus high treason if it concerns domestic critics. To me, Maduro’s style of ruling, together with a personality cult that is surpassing that of Chávez in a quick tempo (as I have personally witnessed), has turned a corner right into Autocrat Street that leads to true dictatorship. He is not there yet. His authority is as yet challenged within the government party PSUV, and there has been a growing protest within and outside the country against the arrest of Ledezma. His government record since 2013 has been so disastrous that about a week ago, Maduro asked his audience, in a jokingly way, NOT to take the first two years of his presidency into account. The new state currency exchange machine SIMADI that I commented on lately, by the way, is still grounded because of lack of currency, need I say more? More on SIMADI further below. 

Apart from the fact that the statement above, coming from a head of state, is downright pathetic, it also shows that Maduro is fully aware that things are not going well for him. Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez has stated in her blog some days ago that it has become apparent that Maduro is incapable of governing. Her words, not mine.

The sudden arrest of Ledezma – and others may follow the coming days – is, to my personal opinion, a show of force coming from a unpopular president who tries desperately to show to everyone that he is in control and that he is the boss. It might carry him further for some months, and between constant reports (true or not) of conspirations against him and uncovering of assumed assassination plots (again, true or not) by unhappy military or opposition members “paid by Miami”, Maduro might survive the economic tsunami that will engulf us all the coming months. 

SIMADI has turned out to be not a way for people like me or you to buy dollars or euro’s in exchange of bolivars, since the system stipulates that you have to buy at least 300 US dollars in ONE single day to participate (IF the dollars are available), leaving the average person out of the game. 300 dollars at the government’s exchange rate equals two average monthly wages, and who can pay that money and buy dollars legally? Only the rich, the powerful and the famous. Some social justice! It is apparent that with yet another failed attempt to control the economy, confidence in Maduro’s government to stabilize the economy, and hence the country, is quickly vanishing. And the government’s new method of smashing any political dissent to bits, together with arbitrary expropriations and verbal threats to private business, does not restore at all that vanishing confidence. There are many threats to Maduro’s government, even from within the own ranks, and I am not stating that all opposition members are cute little daisies either. There are some hardliners I really wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, mind you.

What is becoming more and more apparent to me, is that Nicolás Maduro has very little clue as to what he is doing. His rambling and incoherent speeches don’t add anything positive to the record, and his disastrous approach of the economy, without apparent course or purpose except the consolidation of his own power, really does frighten me as a resident of this country. You can have bad presidents (whom you can kick out of their seats at the next elections) or good dictators who really do good things in between bad, but who very rarely know when it’s time to leave power. But a bad, unfit dictator is maybe one of the worst things that can happen to any country. Is Maduro such a leader? I truly hope not!

I hope and pray (you become very religious in a country like Venezuela) that president Maduro will have the courage to admit that he needs better advisers, a new policy, or else just quits with honor and calls for new elections. And I also hope that I won’t end in some dark SEBIN dungeon just for stating that in my blog. I live and work in this country, and I and my family see with growing desperation how the money earned is worth less and less, how it’s impossible to leave the country without selling a proverbial kidney, how hope fades in your mind and your heart of ever living a normal life and not worrying that the loaf of bread that you got at the bakery, might cost you double next week, or maybe not be available at all. Living under such a pressure, and watching a president thinking only of his own power and his glory while the country is going down – man, it gives you nightmares. 

That is how walking the red line goes in countries like Venezuela. One step too much to the side, and you might be out. Ledezma slipped and fell, who is next?

Have a great week and hopefully till this coming Wednesday!

© Adriaan van Ginkel 2015

Carnival And Contradictions

By Adriaan van Ginkel

Many people abroad have asked me about carnival in Venezuela. Is it like Rio? Simple answer: NO. Carnival in Venezuela is essentially a children’s celebration. Starting Thursday, you see tiny little princesses and superheroes walking about, clutching their mothers’ hands on their way to dress-up parties where they can join other princesses, fairies with magic wands and even more superheroes for some great fun. 

True, there are grown-ups who put on crazy wigs and dive into the carnival craze, with or without the trademark beer bottle in their hands. But most adults see the big weekend (Saturday all through the following Tuesday) as a perfect chance to relax with the family and in-laws, go to the beaches with tens of thousands also seeking peace and quiet, clutter the roads, clubs and BBQ places and in most cases indulge in birra and parrilla, or barbequed meat (I would name it road kill nowadays) washed away with as much ice cold beer as possible. Together with boom boxes mounted on the back of cars stamping out ear-shattering reggeaton, salsa, bachata or that lovely (?) vallenato music from the beloved sister republic of Colombia, plus the screaming of drunken housewives and male pencil pushers from dusk till dawn, the above might give you a general idea of how Venezuelans celebrate their carnival. 

Now, isn’t that unfair of me! Of course, Venezuela does have true carnival

sanctuaries. The most famous one takes place in El Callao in the east of the country (right), where the carnival is celebrated very much like on Trinidad. Hot calypso music, big parades where they shake’ em all, front and hind at the same time, all dressed up, merry and of course filled up with booze. Here and there, all through the rest of the country, you see and hear specks of carnavalesque merry-making with music, drums and cheering on the main squares – and what would that scene mean without the hordes of passed-out drunks on the streets? If anything, fiesta among Venezuelans nowadays equals an ode to the beer bottle (rum and whiskey are too expensive these days) and in some cases, a premature funeral to the much-plagued liver.

That is, if a bullet from some hoodlum doesn’t get you first. The final numbers haven’t yet been published, but I can tell you straight away that as in all previous years, this carnival season will bring a bumper harvest of corpses. Total frustration, beer in excessive quantities, moonshine liquor that in the best case would drive you blind, passions about that second cousin having cheated on you with money or supposedly touching your wife, not your mistress – throw all those ingredients into a pot and add to it some loaded guns and other weaponry plus bad aiming and Latino bravado, and you have the “perfect ending” to a carnival party in the barrio or slum. A weekly corpse average sums up between thirty and forty in the capital Caracas alone. Let’s see what the news will bring tomorrow. It will undoubtedly surpass that weekly average.

What gave me the giggles some days ago – and this might serve you as an indicator of how Venezuela is faring these dark days – is that right on the onset

of carnival, on Saturday, president Maduro interrupted all prime-time programs on TV and radio, soaps and movies to launch yet another one of his interminable broadcasts or cadenas. I saw some parts of it by chance, had really no idea what he was talking about, and switched back to the satellite TV channel I was watching. Now, what did give me the giggles? The day after, I decided to ask anyone I knew about that cadena. What did Maduro say? Invariably, nobody knew. I looked it up in Twitter, the chatterbox of Venezuela. No information! I started laughing, and told myself: undoubtedly, many Venezuelans will have seen that presidential moustache crawling up and down and sideways on their screens for those ninety minutes on prime time, on a Saturday for Pete’s sake! And nobody knows what the whole interruption was about?

Mind you, he was talking and talking about a failed coup staged against him, an assassination plot, and plans cooked up by president Obama himself to knock over his government. There was even talk about some planned invasion of the country from abroad… and nobody cared! Virtually no one in the country is really interested in Mr. Maduro’s stories. I’m not saying that he was making up the story, although it sounded all very carnavalesque to me when I read about it a day later. I am just stating that nobody cares anymore about this topic. And that is serious and disturbing, I really think so. If a nation thinks in such an indifferent way about its government, then what could come next? 

Last week I mentioned the “Marginal Currency System” or SIMADI. The government stated that this exchange system, in which you can freely exchange dollars and bolivars at the market’s rate, would become operative right after carnival. But as it goes every time, things in Venezuela go the other

way. SIMADI’s exchange rate was published by the government just before the carnival weekend, without warning. And suspiciously close to the black market dollar rate, which raised more than an eyebrow. And to make the surprise complete, it started crawling upwards a day later. Which indicates that before the official launching date, there was already trading in dollars with SIMADI. By whom? What is the rest of us mortals to expect after tomorrow? Through a friend of mine I learned that a foreigner, using his credit card, withdrew bolivars from an ATM in Caracas a couple of days ago, at the SIMADI’s exchange rate.

It all sounds like the cake is being eaten on the way from the kitchen to the dining room. And some economists even suspect that SIMADI is nothing more than the government’s branch of the black market currency trade. For now, I don’t hold any opinion about that, because it will become apparent only after tomorrow what SIMADI is really about. But let me tell you this: if there weren’t so many crude and deadly contradictions, Venezuela would be a year-round carnival full of beauty queens and less gorgeous fat-bellied drunks, framed by breathtaking tropical nature. 

But unfortunately, the cake on the table is the cake we are supposed to eat. Half-eaten, if there is no other option. Yummy. 

   

Have a great week and till next Wednesday!

© Adriaan van Ginkel 2015