Thursday was the end of the campaign for the Venezuelan presidential elections set for Sunday, April 14. The campaign should have been called a brawl, because the verbal sparring between the candidates on both the right and left was really raw.
Reason rests on the appreciation and discernment of facts. Everything finally reaches a category of relativity. That’s why I try not to be sectarian or biased. I always make my own opinions, which are committed only to sincerity – first with myself, then with others.
So those who still believe in or need a Pope, the lay sisters and ordained nuns who clamor for the approval of a female priesthood, or simply the media and other curious people who waited between the black smoke and the white outside of the Vatican now have their Holy Father.
People don’t always speak very well of Argentineans. They’re labeled smug for feeling like they’re Europeans. Even the Mexican poet Octavio Paz once said “Argentines are Italians who speak Spanish and feel themselves Frenchmen.”
Cuba’s current president has referred more than once to the country’s interest in talks with the US government (clarifying that this must be on the basis of absolute respect for self-determination – which I agree with, by the way).
By virtue of having gone so many centuries exploited and discriminated by the great powers, any achievement for the Latin American population is magnified from its perspective. It’s as if that we are crying out to the world: “Look at us, we exist!”
I need to confess something. All this time I’ve been a victim of prejudice against the Bolivarian government of Venezuela and its desire to build a political, economic and social system that they call 21st century socialism. The figure of President Hugo Chavez has always aroused suspicion in me.
Populist social revolutions have as an inevitable feature, an excess of enthusiasm seasoned with a ridiculous chauvinism. The indignant masses cease to be citizens belonging to a party or a government; they adopt the epithets of their leaders.
No, dear readers, this isn’t a misspelling or an editing error. It wasn’t an English default of a MS Word document in my PC. The title of this post is a sort of parable related to its content. I’ve borrowed that classic passage from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
From my point of view, this was a wise and sensible decision in these times when all conservative and sectarian structures, institutions and ideologies are facing their greatest crises. His decision should be an example for many politicians to follow.