By Adriaan van Ginkel
Not only in Venezuela
but
almost everywhere a taste for the “virtual” has developed. Virtual friends,
virtual sex, virtual commerce, even the phenomenon of the e-cigarette – it’s
not there, but at the same time, it is. Even many newspapers are not found on
paper anymore, but on your computer or tablet screen. My blog, for instance, is
not published on hardcopy, but on a blogger site. The internet and its offspring
called “social media” have made the world a more accessible place, it’s true. My
blog is being read on at least three continents at the moment. But at the same
time, I think that like everything, the “virtual” has its pros and cons. Through the internet, I reach a public I could
never have dreamt about in the pre-digital era. And at the same time, it feels
like swallowing a bag of hot air with a steak aroma, and imagining it’s a real
steak I’m eating. Real, and not real. There, and not there.
On a more carnal
level, Venezuela stands out when it comes to virtual
female
beauties, Norelys
Rodríguez (right) who as you guessed right, has been a beauty queen, has nose
and boob jobs done. Plus, she often appears in public and on TV with straight
hair, without those lovely natural curls, which makes me ask myself what is wrong
with natural beauty? Guys and girls world-wide go through the torture of epilating
their bodies till they appear like peeled shrimps. Guess that is why many then
choose to cover the mowed lawns on their bodies with tattoos, who knows. I am
no psychologist nor do I pretend to be one, but there is to my opinion
something tacky with getting rid of your body hair just to cover it up again
with hideous tattoos from top to bottom. Food for thought, I’d say. Why go for
the virtual, the make-belief? If anything, this question could become the
epitaph to our modern society.
Socially,
suspected false fronts are popping up everywhere you
look. The meat on your plate, is that really meat? Is the corn next to it
authentic, or genetically altered? What is natural about the orange juice you’re
sipping right now while you’re reading this blog? How can a child have three
parents, like it happened not so long ago? What to think about world leaders?
Is Pope Francis the spiritual leader the world has been waiting
for, or not? What to think about US President Barack Obama? Are his intentions
to make the world a better place, true, or is it a façade hiding other schemes?
What to make of that co-pilot who just
now crashed a plane with 149 other living persons into a mountain with
kamikaze-like accuracy and calm? Did he want to make a statement against work exploitation
by a greedy airline, as some suspect, or was he just bitten by the crazy bug? Questions,
questions, and more questions about this crazy world of ours are following.
The pictures of late
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez hugging and kissing
around him have converted him into an icon which
will last for at least this and the next generation. Many of his followers will
point at pictures like the one on your right, and ask: how can this man ever be
bad? I have no doubt that the cult around Chávez will stay around for a very
long time and even reach a saint-like veneration. Personally, I don’t think
that this man was faking his love for poor people, as he himself came out of poverty.
What I ask myself, is how a scheme like Chávez’, so grandiose in its battle
against social injustice and poverty, could ever have resulted in the biggest
poverty and social injustice experienced in Venezuela. If a well-designed car
(according to its publicity) leaves me stranded on a road with no previous
warning, then something is wrong. Bad maintenance OR the publicity is bogus, a
false front which managed to do the one thing it was meant to, and that is to
shake the money out of my pockets.
Call it marketing,
call it media manipulation, straight lying, whatever. If
something or someone with good intentions and happy smiles screws things up,
then something is fundamentally wrong there. Pope Francis can be applauded by
the whole planet for his warmth, his humanity and his humility, but church attendance
is not going up, it’s going down in many places, and criticism about Francis
not attending to the true matters of faith is growing
steadily. Same goes for
Barack Obama. He can be cheered on his new social policy, which can safely be
called the Obama Doctrine (Poor People First), but I personally don’t see that
the scene in the US or the world has improved after six years with this leader –
quite the contrary, I’d say. For me, a leader who has split up his country in hatred
cannot be called a good leader at all. And that goes for both Chávez and Obama,
whether they had done it with good intentions or not. The result matters, not
what drove it. And in the end, if we choose to close our eyes to the result and
only look at the intentions, the false front, what are we then but instruments
of our own destruction, paraphrasing Simon Bolívar, the Venezuelan Liberator of
Latin America? You answer that question.
Thanks for your
reading. Please leave a comment behind or subscribe to my blog. You will then
have a message in your inbox every time a new blog is published. Don’t miss it!
Have a great week and till next Wednesday!
© Adriaan van Ginkel 2015
