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Saturday, April 13, 2013

Martin Luther King, from Dallas to Memphis

By Gabriel Molina Franchossi






THE assassination of Afro-American leader Martin Luther King, April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee 45 years ago, is considered by many researchers as part of a sinister plot which included the assassinations of Malcolm X, John F. and Robert Kennedy. (1)

Martin Luther King
In the stormy decade of the 1960’s, the radicalization of those in favor of civil rights, peace and other popular causes had the United States in flames. Two months after MLK’s death, Senator Robert Kennedy was shot. The world had been shocked previously by the November 22, 1963 assassination of President Kennedy and that of Malcolm X on February 21, 1965.

King and Malcolm had challenged the racial segregation which replaced slavery in the United States, abolished by Lincoln during the Civil War. The country’s founding fathers had protected the enslavement of Blacks with a strict legal system of racial separation.

Blacks were crowded into impoverished ghettos and denied access to public facilities reserved for whites, such as transportation, bathrooms, commercial establishments and schools. They were destined to work in the most difficult, low-paying jobs. Afro-Americans’ very limited right to vote guaranteed the stability of the system.

An example of the racism faced by Blacks in southern states occurred on October 19, 1960, when Reverend King was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia, for refusing to leave a department store where he was denied service. A few months earlier in Dekalb County, he had been convicted of a minor traffic offense and given a suspended sentence. The local judge ruled that his arrest in Atlanta provided just cause to revoke this suspension and sentence King to four months of hard labor.

Martin Luther King
The sentence aroused fear for the Reverend’s life, given what such a punishment meant for Blacks in Atlanta. King was brusquely awakened in his county jail cell, at 4:30 am. With his hands cuffed and legs restrained, he was transported over dark rural roads to a penitentiary deep within Georgia’s countryside. (2)

Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver received a request to revoke the sentence from John F. Kennedy, a Presidential candidate at the time. His response was that such a move would be politically disastrous in the South, just a month before the elections, asserting that it would mean the loss of at least three states. Robert Kennedy called the judge, who at first criticized the intervention, but the next day, after considering the younger Kennedy’s indignant reaction to the sentence, freed Dr. King.

Committed Black leaders took the lead in the movement against segregation, which employed a variety of resistance tactics, such as sit-ins in public White Only facilities and buses, as well as boycotts of stores and theaters. With new laws supported by the Kennedy’s in place, the struggle intensified. The federal government sent in the National Guard and Federal Marshals to protect King, James Meredith and other leaders when the civil rights movement’s peaceful activists were threatened and beaten by police in states where change was violently opposed.

King and Malcolm X, in particular, became targets, not only of racists but of the national military-industrial complex when the Black and trade union struggle began to radicalize and organize against the war in Vietnam, as was made evident by the 250,000 strong march in Washington where King gave his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech.

This process also had an effect on the Kennedy brothers, whose support for civil rights legislation distanced them from the powerful elite established within the CIA and FBI. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, told Atlanta Police Chief Herbert Jenkins that two of the three enemies he most hated were Kennedy and King (3). Robert Kennedy considered Hoover a threat to democracy in the country.

Allen Dulles, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, was so intent on organizing interventions in Cuba and throughout the Third World that Kennedy decided to replace him.

The close surveillance of the four leaders – King, Malcolm X and the two Kennedy brothers – expanded to include persecution and threats which make Dulles and Hoover prime suspects in the four assassinations. They had a motive, the opportunity and the means.

 


(1) James W. Douglass. JFK and the Unspeakable. Simon and Shuster, p. XVII

(2) Arthur Schlesinger. Robert Kennedy and his Times. Random House 1978, p. 233

(3) Ibid, p.280

April 10, 2013
 
 
 

Friday, April 12, 2013

Bahamas Government Immigration Policy

A Guest Editorial On Government's Immigration Policy




Tribune242
Nassau, The Bahamas




IN OUR e–mail yesterday, we received “some thoughts for an editorial” from an influential foreign resident, who has spent many years in the Bahamas and has always been most concerned for this small nation’s welfare.
 
Instead of “highjacking” his ideas — as Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell yesterday accused us of doing in the work permit debate — we are going to let this gentleman express his own ideas in this column. After reading this article, Mr Mitchell should realise that we are not the only ones who believe that if the immigration policy — as enunciated by Mr Mitchell— is not softened, then this country is in for a rough ride.
 
We now turn you over to our guest writer:
 
 
AS the debate about the government’s new immigration policy intensifies, it is worth stepping back from the detail and looking at the bigger picture insofar as this contentious issue – if not fully debated and the government held to account – may have a serious effect on the long-term development of The Bahamas.
 
It is already widely accepted in this small country that foreign interests should not be allowed to dominate the local jobs market without adequate protection of the rights of the indigenous work force. Bahamians with the required qualifications and abilities should be afforded opportunities to secure employment in their own country in preference to equally well qualified foreigners; and it is right that government should put in place sensible immigration policies to help to secure this objective.
 
It is a truism, however, that politicians worth their salt should be aware that their approach to any particular issue at the national level, important though that issue may be, must be balanced against other no less important demands, so that judgments are made which are in the best interests of the country as a whole.
 
In this column on April 8, you quoted the FNM shadow immigration minister’s remarks that the government should not adopt immigration policies that might disrupt the way of life of ordinary Bahamians or interfere with the country’s conduct of business. But the government appears hell-bent on doing just that.
 
If it persists in pursuing its new restrictive policy, this will inevitably have a negative effect not only on commerce, industry and economic development but also on countless individual employers. Unreasonable restrictions on the right of a company to determine the nature of its own workforce will scare away foreign investors and affect the profitability of local businesses. This will lead, in time, to fewer job opportunities and more unemployment – a classic case of the law of unintended consequences.
 
This is not just carping by the opposition FNM. It is the view of a wide range of people in this country and it is baffling that leading politicians seem unable to grasp the bigger picture. Can they not see that, while it is their responsibility to protect the rights of Bahamians, this should be done in a careful and proportionate manner and measured against, for example, the continuing need to attract foreign investment?
 
They should face up to two important truths which the population as a whole understands only too well – first, the average Bahamian will not do so-called “dirty jobs” but aspires to something better with the result that foreigners have to be brought in at that level; and, secondly, until the education system is fixed so that young people come out of school with the requisite knowledge and skills to enable them to handle a job at a higher level, employers have to look elsewhere if their business is going to flourish.
 
We cannot escape the conclusion that the new immigration policy has not been thought through properly. It seems that the government is harking back to the Pindling years when the PLP sought the professional and economic empowerment of black Bahamians. This was overtly racist, though in many ways it was the right policy for the times and it succeeded. One has only to look at the range of senior positions that such Bahamians now hold in the financial, insurance and business sectors. But these represented the untapped cream of well-educated people who were equipped to aspire to such positions. Applying the same policies in relation to more menial labour is unrealistic.
 
By and large, intelligent and well-meaning Bahamians across the political and social spectrum want their leaders to show the maturity and self-confidence to accept that, in order to succeed in a globalised world, this nation must move away from parochialism and protectionism. Impending membership of the WTO will create new mandatory obligations and is a step in the right direction, but the country needs to open up more generally.
 
At this point in its development, The Bahamas has to diversify and expand its economy in order to prosper. Our political class should work out a sensible and effective means of utilising foreign know-how and labour – when there is a need to do so and it is to our advantage – while at the same time protecting the aspirations of the country’s own people.
 
There must surely be a better way of working towards this than making crude remarks about turning down work permits “cold turkey”.
 
April 12, 2013
 
 
 

Continuity and Change in the post-EPA Caribbean


What is required to ensure regional survival in a new world


BY KESTON K PERRY
Jamaica Observer



THE ensuing debate and what some might call tabanca, related to the CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), are very worrying.

It would seem that observers and analysts have adopted the position that the European Union (EU) and its agents are evil, and should be called out for their malicious and iniquitous transgressions against puny counterparts in the Caribbean, who have little chance of engaging the former colonial masters on equal terms. Ironically, in the same breath, many have praised the recent fortune of Antigua and Barbuda in securing an unprecedented victory against Goliath-- the all-powerful United States. The discussion on being assertive and enhancing internal capacity seem to missing from many recent commentaries. Instead, it would seem the age-old dependency and% vulnerability rhetoric have taken centre stage, diminishing and obscuring important resolve to stimulate the necessary dynamism to ensure some modicum of competitive adaptation to the situation that has now befallen the Caribbean.

Within the context of globalised trade reciprocity, it is foolhardy to persist in a mode of requesting concessionary measures from either the EU or other trading partners. Unfortunately, any beggar-thy-neighbour principle cannot be enforced or resurrected within the present global political economy in which Caribbean small island states do not possess internal dynamic or geo-economic clout.
In this ongoing saga of finger-pointing we need to ask ourselves what has truly brought the region to this point and how we should actually be responding.
Prior to 2008, the English-speaking nations within Caricom had enjoyed exceptional preferential treatment for more than 30 years, first from Britain, as ex- colonial polities, and latterly the European Union through market access and guaranteed price levels for their goods. Belal Ahmed, in a 2001 report, highlighted that Caribbean sugar and banana industries — the mainstay of many of the Windward islands — suffered from a number of challenges, inter alia, a lack of technologically intensive production methods and resultantly improved productivity, labour issues, limited crop diversification, little research and development support and downstream activity. Though globalised markets and liberalisation affected regional producers, it could be argued the solutions to many of these issues could have been controlled by and were within the reach of the territories themselves.
Despite being challenged by WTO rulings and possessing concessionary market access, the evidence shows the required quotas for bananas or sugar to Europe had, on several occasions, not been sufficiently met. Perhaps the attendant capacity was not put in place, which resulted in significant revenue losses. Cotonou (1975-2000) and Lomé (2000-2008) come to their inevitable end. However, why did we not put the necessary mechanisms in place while regional producers benefited from concessions? It may be argued, as Sonjaya Lall and others have suggested, that trade preferences tend to retard dynamic capability and result in uncompetitive, sheltered industries. Perhaps, in the case of the EPA negotiations, the strategies may have faltered, negotiators outwitted or the bluster of civil society actors ignored. Alternatively, perhaps, the negotiators were overconfident that the regional private sector policymakers would get their act together in time to ensure competition on an even keel. But what are the reasons for our failure in achieving economic targets over the years and effectively implementing our industrial policy regimes to diversify exports? Though the main sectors have shifted to services, very little has been done to reduce dependence on a single industry, seek niche areas with high potential returns, or to proactively adapt to global developments by moving into higher value-added manufacturing linked to improved technology based on cumulative learning.
We need to examine other perspectives and seize opportunities with respect to indigenous technological capability and learning. To date, the anti- EPA camp has marginally considered areas of innovation, learning and cumulative capacity building in their arguments. Scholars like Carlota Perez argue that the windows of opportunity for development are constantly shifting along with the techno-economic paradigm or technological revolutions. In what ways have Caribbean private sector companies taken advantage of the Internet age in innovating and differentiating their products? The issue of market access would certainly be relevant once there are goods and services of a high calibre to trade, and are constituted with technological inputs that would attract the demand to render them competitive in the EU market and elsewhere.
In this regard, greater access to technological and supply networks could be negotiated through well-placed members of our diaspora. Could it be that complacency become entrenched as a result of meagre economic growth spurts over the years? Moreover, the failure of our regional academic institutions to inculcate broad-based and integrative thinking in their charges, and consequently inspire context-specific and region-wide action cannot be overlooked. In addition, the efforts at building relevant research and action-driven capacity to leverage and take advantage of the information revolution in meaningful ways, based on failed policies, can certainly have some sway.
Sadly, many learned observers, despite their experience and knowledge, remain blinkered by outdated perspectives. As a young researcher, I am bemused and remain uninspired by the course of the debate to date. The Washington-based institutions may have kicked away the ladder, but the East Asian tigers (South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and to a lesser extent Malaysia and Hong Kong) doggedly continued their campaign to develop market-ready microelectronics, software, ICTs, manufacturing, and other service-oriented sectors. Despite their initial teethong problems, they learnt over time and ensured that the lessons learnt were part of their subsequent economic strategy. Are we afraid that this new episode in our economic history will expose the inadequacies of our analyses and development prescriptions? That, in fact, our present situation may be a consequence of the frailties driven by academic and policy insularism, perpetrated at our highest regional institutions?
This EPA exposé related to ill-prepared Caribbean states and private sector stakeholders has constrained regional actors from taking on the world and adapting to the demands of globalisation, even though leading analysts have acknowledged the Caribbean region as part of the global economy for the last 500 years. Why then have we not got our act together or learnt lessons during the post-independence era? It is rather simple to blame the politicians, the political system, the structural deficiencies of the global economy which disadvantage small states, the EU, the negotiators, the negotiating machinery, the regional institutions, and all and sundry, than to take a serious introspective look at the discrepancies and short-sightedness of our analyses and policy prescriptions, and even our own efforts to take action in our own time and sphere of influence. Which academic or writer will ever admit fault or retrospectively state that their analyses were inadequate for fear of being relegated to irrelevance, especially in a small-island context? But, as Plato suggests: "The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant." The shameless blame game and the weeping and gnashing of teeth surrounding the EPA must come to an end. Those who do not wish to get their hands dirty need no longer speak from their soap boxes. We need to break ourselves out of the mould of victimhood and re-assert our God-given character of resilience and capacity for "creative" agency. Our actions must be well considered and evidence-based, and the net must be cast wide enough to capture ideas and knowledge that will do justice to the cause. It is high time we cut our losses from this saga and take that brave step forward to engage the world.

Keston K Perry is a student at Newcastle University Business School (NUBS) in the UK pursuing an MSc in Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. His research involves the potential catalytic role of Caribbean diasporic entrepreneurs in terms of transnational learning, entrepreneurial activities and technological resourcing capabilities and their implications on innovation and public policy in Trinidad and Tobago.
innovation.tt50@gmail.com

@kestontnt
http://kestontnt.tumblr.com


Jamaica Observer


April 10, 2013

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Conchservation in The Bahamas... ...the Sustainability and Preservation of the Bahamian Conch Population

'Conchservation' Campaign Set For Full Launch

 


 
By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net




A “CONCHSERVATION campaign” is set to be fully launched nearing the end of this month according to Bahamas National Trust (BNT) executive director Eric Carey, who said that there would a national dialogue on the sustainability and preservation of the Bahamian conch population.

Speaking at a press conference to announce the upcoming inaugural Abaco Business Outlook, Mr Carey said: “The conchservation campaign is up and running. We are going to have a full launch of that programme on April 27 working with Ms Elaine Pinder, Frankie Gone Bananas, the Bamboo Shack franchise, Kalik etc. The objective is sustainability whether your talking businesses and economy, conch or grouper, the objective is to ensure that Bahamians can always enjoy these things. We are fortunately not in a position we ever have to sound crazy alarms about conch. We believe that we can continue to eat conch as a important food, culinary icon and part of tourism culinary picture. We still have enough conch to continue to enjoy which is why we want to act very quickly to ensure that we don’t reach a point where we have to go to extremes that Bahamians find untenable.”

The Bahamas currently exports some $3.3 million, or 600,000 pounds, worth of conch per annum. A 2011 report by Community Conch, an organisation involved in the sustainability discussions, revealed that juvenile populations in important Berry Islands nursery grounds had “declined 1,000 times to a few hundred individuals in 2009” when compared to 1980s numbers. As for Andros, of the eight historic fishing grounds surveyed, only one in 2010 had a large enough adult conch population to permit reproduction. And, in Exuma, Community Conch found that the adult conch population on Lee Stocking Island had fallen by 91 per cent between 1994 and 2011, with the bank population in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park off by 69 per cent over the same period.

Mr Carey said that no conclusion had been drawn on whether to ban conch exports. “We have drown no conclusion on anything. An important aspect of it is going to be a national dialogue. When we met with the Prime Minister and we spoke about conch we assured him that we would take the discussion and conchservation national to make sure that there is broad scale understanding of the issue and any measures we have to suggest to the government will have the support and buy in from fishermen,” said Mr Carey.

April 08, 2013

Tribune 242


.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Jamaica: Money madness - sliding dollar ... J$100 to US$1

Nedburn Thaffe, Gleaner Writer



With the exchange rate expected to reach the dreaded J$100 to US$1 mark this week, consumers who have over the past few years done their fair share of belt tightening will be forced to buckle up even further and continue to hold strain.

Those consumers' dilemma results from the continued dwindling effect the sliding dollar is having on their ability to purchase goods and services.

Already the mumbling at cashier counters in supermarkets in the Corporate Area have become more pronounced.

Upset and outraged over the amount of money they have had to fork out for basic necessities, even religious zealots who scope out supermarkets to spread the 'good news' have been changing the tone of their message in keeping with the times.

"Jesus warned of condition like this. That was the reason why He said we should pray for our daily bread. It was only under the rule of (King) Solomon that everybody was satisfied," one Jehovah's Witness shared with a consumer outside one supermarket The Gleaner visited in the Corporate Area recently.

Verbal attacks directed at politicians for their management of the economy over successive decades were common on the lips of several persons who emerged from the supermarket in the early afternoon.

With plastic bags in hand, one shopper, who asked not to be named, was obviously not in a good mood after realising that she spent more than she bargained for.

"Three thousand-odd dollars and mi nuh get half a weh mi want yet," the Seaview Gardens resident lamented. "Mi did waan three sardines and a only one mi could afford. You nuh see seh the country mash up?"

The elderly woman reflected on a time when she was able to take J$40 to any supermarket and take home "one box a grocery with chicken and everything".

Those days, she recalled, were in the 1980s and during that period trading of the Jamaican currency did not escalate beyond the J$6.50 to US$1 mark, according to information gleaned from the Bank of Jamaica website which documents the history of the exchange rate.

"That time mi used to do domestic work in Havendale (St Andrew) and every weekend mi would buy grocery fi carry go give mi children dem down di country (Clarendon)," she said.

She recounted how in 1988 she bought a "five-draw, good-size dresser" for J$1,000. The record shows that year the dollar trade highest at J$5.54 to US$1.

Additionally, in 1991, with just J$1,500, the Seaview Gardens resident purchased a brand new divan bed which she possesses to this day. That year trading of the currency started showing signs that there was trouble on the horizon, with the dollar ending the year at J$21.57 to US$1.

Twenty-two years later, she would have to take no less than $18,100 to a furniture store to purchase a similar bed.

"You caan go nowhere with that kind of money now. The amount of things this J$3,500 weh mi just spend could give mi. Mi would have to call taxi and truck fi remove them," she said.

"See it deh, all now no meat kind, no flour, no sugar not in mi bag."

Rose Plummer, who lives alone, said shopping for items once every week has worked out better for her.

According to Plummer, all Jamaicans will have to learn to "cuff and curve" in this time whether they like it or not.

"I can remember paying J$100 for bread, now it's J$250," she said.

"What is going on in the country is sin why all these things happening. We, as a nation, have to go back to God. Portia Simpson cannot solve this problem; this bigger than her. Andrew Holness cannot solve our problem. The dollar flowing like it's at Caymanas Park or stadium and is only Jesus can help us. We have to turn back to Jesus," Plummer charged.

For J$1,597, with discount included, 45-year-old Samuel Wilson was able to stock up on a few snacks which he expected to be enough for his daughter who attends basic school.

"Before the end of the week, I have to come back. Ten years ago, mi could a carry home more than a trolley of grocery with di said amount of money but right now things gone way out of proportion," he said.

"Right now, when mi a buy snack for my daughter, it's no less than J$2,000. It's because mi have a discount card why I get it for this price. It's just by the mercies of God mi survive but it could be worse. God is taking care of me and my family."

nedburn.thaffe@gleanerjm.com

April 08, 2013

Jamaica Gleaner

Saturday, April 6, 2013

The duty to avoid a war in Korea

Reflections of Fidel
 
(Taken from (CubaDebate)




 
 
A few days ago I mentioned the great challenges humanity is currently facing. Intelligent life emerged on our planet approximately 200,000 years ago, although new discoveries demonstrate something else.

This is not to confuse intelligent life with the existence of life which, from its elemental forms in our solar system, emerged millions of years ago.

A virtually infinite number of life forms exist. In the sophisticated work of the world’s most eminent scientists the idea has already been conceived of reproducing the sounds which followed the Big Bang, the great explosion which took place more than 13.7 billion years ago.

This introduction would be too extensive if it was not to explain the gravity of an event as unbelievable and absurd as the situation created in the Korean Peninsula, within a geographic area containing close to five billion of the seven billion persons currently inhabiting the planet.

This is about one of the most serious dangers of nuclear war since the October Crisis around Cuba in 1962, 50 years ago.

In 1950, a war was unleashed there [the Korean Peninsula] which cost millions of lives. It came barely five years after two atomic bombs were exploded over the defenseless cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which, in a matter of seconds, killed and irradiated hundreds of thousands of people.

General Douglas MacArthur wanted to utilize atomic weapons against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Not even Harry Truman allowed that.

It has been affirmed that the People’s Republic of China lost one million valiant soldiers in order to prevent the installation of an enemy army on that country’s border with its homeland. For its part, the Soviet army provided weapons, air support, technological and economic aid.

I had the honor of meeting Kim Il Sung, a historic figure, notably courageous and revolutionary.

If war breaks out there, the peoples of both parts of the Peninsula will be terribly sacrificed, without benefit to all or either of them. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was always friendly with Cuba, as Cuba has always been and will continue to be with her.

Now that the country has demonstrated its technical and scientific achievements, we remind her of her duties to the countries which have been her great friends, and it would be unjust to forget that such a war would particularly affect more than 70% of the population of the planet.

If a conflict of that nature should break out there, the government of Barack Obama in his second mandate would be buried in a deluge of images which would present him as the most sinister character in the history of the United States. The duty of avoiding war is also his and that of the people of the United States.



Fidel Castro Ruz

April 4, 2013

11:12 p.m.

Granma.cu

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution: Legacy and Challenges

By Manuel Larrabure – The Bullet / Socialist Project




The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has prompted the international left to acknowledge two key features about him and Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution. The first is Chávez's commitment to fighting for the poor and oppressed. Plenty of statistics demonstrate this. Literally millions have been lifted out of poverty and given new opportunities to improve their lives. Examples from daily life abound. I remember speaking to an upper class anti-Chavista once who was complaining about how, since Chávez came to power, it had become difficult to find maids. Many of the poor women she used to hire, she explained, had enrolled in a free education program provided by the government, one of the highly successful ‘missions.’ Another time, an empanada maker who lived with his son in the same 10-foot by six-foot stand he cooked out of told me how, since Chávez arrived, his community became emboldened to organize themselves into a cooperative with the mission of fighting the hotel and restaurant chains in the area, and create a community controlled tourist zone.

A second feature about the Bolivarian Revolution also cannot be elided: the political impasse in addressing corruption, bureaucracy, political clientalism and finding an alternate model of economic management. When workers organize to take over a factory (for example, Sidor in 2008), they have to fight not only the capitalist owners, but often also the local or provincial government (even at times Chavista ones). If they win the fight, workers then have to struggle with government supervision, which often seems more concerned with meeting technocratic goals, rather than developing a genuine participatory democracy in the workplace. And, as the latest round of currency devaluation shows, unless added measures are forthcoming, it is the poor who will bear the burden of reduced living standards (through inflation) for the problems of economic management without compensatory gains in increased workers’ power in workplaces (Lebowitz, 2013).

This top down tendency is also expressed in the area of foreign policy. When the ‘Arab Spring’ erupted, rather than supporting those struggling in the streets of Egypt and Syria, a one-dimensional anti-imperialism had Chávez aligning Venezuela with the oppressors, rather than siding with the poor and workers and against imperial interventions. There is also the alliances with the likes of Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that go beyond the necessities of finding support against Western imperialism and U.S. empire.

Socialism in the 21st Century

However, hidden within these two opposing developments is a third, potentially more vital one. As a result of the Bolivarian Revolution, we can now begin to think of what in recent decades had become unthinkable, namely a socialism in the 21st century. In the 20th century, socialist politics predominantly took two forms. The first was the path taken by social democratic parties that sought social transformation by populating the state with reform-minded officials and proceeding to attempt to manipulate the economy from above through a variety of technocratic measures. At best, this would eliminate the worst abuses of capitalist markets. ‘Cast your vote and leave it to us’ was the technocratic message to the working classes.

A second strategy was some version of Lenin's theory of dual power in which the exploited and oppressed were to build toward a counter power parallel to the capitalist state. At a decisive juncture, the old state would be ‘smashed’ and old rulers overthrown; the masses formed via a vanguard party would then replace the old state with a new one built in opposition to it, and buttressed by new organs of working-class power. A political elite in the vanguard party would then grab hold of the reins of this new state and lead the transition to a new society. Unfortunately, as the experiences of socialism across the 20th century tells us, both these paths failed. For they both insulated the masses from genuine democratic participation in the state. If the technocratic message was ‘leave it to us,’ the vanguard's message ended up being ‘do as we say.’

Venezuela's path, which has confused the majority of commentators, has been neither one of the above. It is both. Communities and workers have been organizing from below; and technocrats and bureaucrats have been passing laws from above. Each fights and cooperates with the other in an uneasy alliance. In a way, over the last decade Venezuela resembles the political theorist Nicos Poulantzas' (1978) alternative to the above two paths, what he called a “democratic road to socialism,” where struggle for a transition necessarily has to take place through, against and apart from the state. Similarly, more contemporary thinkers (such as Ciccariello-Maher, 2007) have conceptualized this path as having features of dual power through, rather, than against the state.
This is not, however, all that is happening in Venezuela. If it were, all Venezuela would demonstrate is how it is not possible to take two seemingly incompatible paths at the same time; and that the forces of bureaucracy, because of their institutionalized power, are likely to win out over time in a lengthy battle of attrition. But Venezuela is also showing that something new is being created.  Venezuela's co-managed ‘socialist enterprises,’ an initiative Chávez was central in developing, perhaps best illustrate this point.

Socialist Enterprises

In these relatively new enterprises, the class relation expresses itself most forcefully in the struggles between workers and state managers. Although at first it appears that this is the same old capital-worker relationship, but with a different name, upon closer inspection, something more complex is happening. Unlike workers in unions that tend to struggle for things like higher wages or labour rights, workers in these enterprises tend to struggle for things like equal wages, genuine democratic participation, and the elimination of a rigid social division of labour within the plant.[1] In other words, this is a more developed form of the class relation, a sharper form, one that Poulantzas was able to hint at, but was not quite able to fully articulate. Thus herein lies the importance of Venezuela. As workers struggle against managers in these state-owned enterprises, we begin to see a glimpse of what 21st-century socialism might look like. In other words, we get a glimpse of the future. In this future, it is new workplace relations centered on participatory democracy that stand on the side of progress, while it is the state that, paradoxically, becomes the guarantor of the class relation, and therefore the sight of the next rupture.

There is so much more to be learned from the Bolivarian Revolution. Here, I've only been able to barely scratch the surface. The communal councils, the struggle to build the new communes and communal cities, the experiences with participatory budgeting, the Bolivarian universities; all these and the many other innovations in Venezuela represent pieces of the revolutionary puzzle. A puzzle out of which a new future can be seen right here in the present. A puzzle that, as we are reminded of with his passing, Hugo Chávez played an important role in, opening up the political space and encouraging self-organization of the poor and workers. No revolution can be built by a single person or by decrees from above, no matter how well intentioned. Yet, at his best, Chávez, from the presidential palace, was like an activist in the streets: he told the truth, he risked his life and sung a song of hope. Hope for a better world. Indeed, for another world. Chávez, presente!

Challenges Ahead

It is widely expected that Nicolás Maduro, now interim President of Venezuela, will win the upcoming Presidential elections on April 14. If elected President, he has promised to take up the five priorities set out by Chávez in his final strategic proposal, Plan de la Patria 2013-2019: multipolarity; national independence; Bolivarian socialism; environmentalism; and economic development.

What is far from clear, however, is how the contradictions evident in these five priorities can be reconciled by the existing state. For example, the priority to preserve the planet and save the human species (environmentalism), stands in sharp opposition to the government's plan to further strengthen the extractive industries in the country, including natural gas, mining and the development of the Faja del Orinoco, which contains the world's largest known reserves of heavy and extra heavy crude oil, or tar sands. The document does mention the need to develop new technology with low environmental impact, but no further details are provided.

In addition, the goal of deepening participatory democracy as the central mechanism behind ‘Bolivarian Socialism’ clashes with the goal of achieving national independence and ‘multipolarity,’ that is, a world with multiple poles of power that is free of imperialism. Although a worthy enough pursuit in theory, in practice, multipolarity has in some cases translated into open support for leaders such as Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad, hardly models of participatory democracy and 21st-century socialism. It is worth mentioning that it was indeed Maduro, as Minister of foreign-policy, that played an important role in developing and maintaining these alliances.

In spite of these contradictions, the five priorities outlined also contain a path forward, namely that of strengthening the ‘popular economy.’ That is the building up of the constellation of organizations, such as cooperatives, co-managed enterprises and communal councils found throughout the country. It is these organizations that have the most potential for resolving the above-mentioned contradictions.

Consider Pedro Camejo, one of the co-managed ‘socialist enterprises’ located in the city of Carora. With its mission to contribute to the achievement of ‘food sovereignty’ in the country, this enterprise has been providing small and medium local farmers agricultural technology and technical assistance at below market price. As a result, agricultural production in the area has increased considerably in recent years. At the same time, workers within the enterprise have been learning new capacities, skills and values, such as collective management and solidarity, largely as the result of the practice of participatory democracy. In addition, the technology comes from PAUNY, one of Argentina's ‘recuperated enterprises’ that builds tractors. As part of an agreement, workers from PAUNY traveled to Carora to train the Venezuelan workers and share their experiences in a spirit of international solidarity.

Although far from perfect, this one example does demonstrate how the five priorities outlined can be met in a more positive way. The challenge for militants within state agencies and institutions will be figuring out how to strengthen this sector of the economy without suffocating it with bureaucracy.  The challenge for workers and communities will be to figure out how to enter these spaces while retaining enough autonomy so that struggles can be launched against the state when needed, as is frequently done. Indeed, workers and communities know something the state doesn't, namely that participation within these new democratic spaces, although crucial, is only half the equation. The other half is continued organization and struggle from below.

It remains to be seen what direction a Maduro government will lean in the post-Chavez era. The impasse of the Bolivarian revolution over the last few years is about to be broken. The future is uncertain. But more than ever it is contingent on how the workers and poor that have been empowered by the Bolivarian revolution over the last decade organize and push toward the promise of a 21st century socialism. •

Manuel Larrabure is a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science department at York University in Toronto, Canada. His research is on Latin America's “new cooperative movement” and “21st-century socialism.” During 2013, he will be conducting fieldwork in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela.

References:
  • Chávez, H. (2012). Propuesta del Candidato de la Patria para la Gestion Bolivariana Socialista 2013-2019. Retrieved from: www.chavez.org.ve/programa-patria-venezuela-2013-2019 [December 12, 2012].
  • Ciccariello-Maher, G. (2007). “Dual power in the Venezuelan Revolution,” Monthly Review, 59(4), 42-56.
  • Lebowitz, M. (2013). “Working-Class Response to Devaluation Measures in Venezuela,” The Bullet No. 773, Feb. 2013.
  • Poulantzas, N. (1978). State, Power, Socialism. New York: Verso.
Endnotes:

1.For a more detailed analysis of this phenomenon, see my forthcoming article in Historical Materialism, “Human Development and Class Struggle in Venezuela's Popular Economy: The Paradox of 21st-century Socialism.”
Source: The Bullet