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The Hugo Chávez Frías Revolution

by María L. Trigos-Gilbert

It’s so difficult to write about the country where I was born while I’m currently living in the U.S.A. This is always hard because it feels as if I’m losing my rights as a Venezuelan citizen. Throughout my life, I have traveled quite a lot, and I have kept my Latin Spaniard spirit within me in spite of many things like the unforgiving results of time and distance. My second trip in the year 2000 to Venezuela was as hectic as it has been every year during the month of December, due to the holidays’ festivities. Yet this time it was different. My cousins and my siblings (including me) debated quite a bit about Mr. Hugo Chávez Frías—the Venezuelan President. There were two teams: one opposing Mr. H. Chávez Frías’ decisions and the other moderately supporting some of his ideas and approaches in the public sector. As you may guess, the debate got rather heated. I, of course, enjoyed it. It reminded me about my childhood when my parents, aunts, and uncles got into huge arguments about politics. You may be thinking that in the U.S.A. people don’t talk about politics because such a subject may be pointless. Well, that’s not the case in Latin America, and a lot less in Venezuela. People love to talk about politics. Venezuelans do get into heated conversations with great fluidity.

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Venezuela & Hugo Chávez Frías

by María L. Trigos-Gilbert

Though I have named my article “Venezuela & Hugo Chávez Frías,” this is not really about one person for one country, in this case Venezuela one of the Latin American countries. On the contrary, what makes a country is not just its president, but its people. We talk a lot about democracy in the USA, but do we really know the meaning of it? Most of you may say that yes, you know all about democracy because this is your political foundation, and indeed your belief. Yet I do also have my belief. My belief tells me that things are not just black and white. By the way, the colors allusion is not about people’s skin color. This is just a term referring that we should not look at life with one glass spectrum. Democracy is like a pot luck. All of the contributions are voluntarily. Everybody has a vote. Is this reality? Absolutely the answer is NO. We may talk a lot, write a lot and debate a lot. In the end we may not be heard by our politicians, just like in any communist country. At times, in those communist countries people may be heard a lot more closely than we indeed presume in our so-called perfect system.

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