http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1104/cu3.htm
28 June - 4 July 2012
Issue No. 1104
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
Bolivar, a veritable bolt
Gamal Nkrumah narrates the rise of Bolivarism in Venezuela and its spread in
the rest of the emerging world of Latin America through a recently released
seminal study of the life and letters of Simon Bolivar
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Colour me consecrated. Coulour me Revolutionary Red. Colour me with the cobalt,
crimson and gold of the original Grand Colombian banner first hoisted by Simon
Jose Antonio de la Santisima Trinidad Bolivar. Better known as Simon Bolivar,
the Liberator of South America was a statesman and visionary whose goal was to
united South America.
The Would-be Gentleman, the 1670 comic play, Le Bourgeois gentihome, by
Molière, is tantamount to a plea for propriety and modesty. The nineteenth
century Venezuelan-cum-Latin American revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar
personified such propriety. Yet he towered far above most men of his generation
in Latin America.
Click to view caption
A statue of South America's Liberator Somon Bolivar, a stone throw away
from the United States Embassy in Cairo's Garden City District... and now his
life and letters translated into the Arabic language
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The Venezuelan military and political leader of yesteryear considered all
Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere his rightful political inheritance
and his ideological playground. His mantra was "Latin America Must Unite".
I personally cannot but draw parallels with the far-reaching rallying call
"Africa Must Unite" of another shackled revolutionary, my own father Kwame
Nkrumah, the first president of an African nation south of the Sahara to gain
independence from a European colonial power, in Ghana's case, Britain. In a
sense both Bolivar and Nkrumah were hemmed down and manacled so-to-speak by
Lilliputians. And, pundits will fret as the often do, that Bolivar and Nkrumah
were visionaries whose dreams will never come true. Yet those critics of
Bolivar and Nkrumah discover to their chagrin that the ligatures they imagine
the imperialists have attached to the heroes of continental unification cannot,
in retrospect, bind them ever more tightly. Like Gulliver, Bolivar and Nkrumah,
or rather the very ideology they embodied, persuaded their adversaries to untie
them.
The West now sees continental unification as the panacea of all the ills that
have befallen Europe and smaller, economically redundant entities that can only
survive as part and parcel of a larger economic unit -- the continental
conception.
Bolivar was the Garibaldi of South America, except that like Nkrumah in Africa,
his struggle for continental unification was cut short. Guiseppe Garibaldi, the
Italian political unifier, too, championed women's rights and was an
abolitionist who believed in fundamental human rights for all including the
millions of African slaves he came across in Brazil -- Garibaldi actually saw
himself as a universal fighter for freedom. Bolivar valiantly led the Latin
America's successful struggle against the Spanish Empire. He died tragically
young. There is a whodunit plot with only one plausible suspect -- imperialism.
Gustavo Periera's Simon Bolivar: Escritos Anticolonialistas, 369 pages, is a
polished, palmary review of the correspondence of the pedigreed aristocrat who
kicked out the Spanish colonialists from South America. The letters reveal much
of Bolivar's political thinking and how he managed to achieve the germane
successes in a relatively short life span. He became captain general of
Venezuela and the first president of Bolivia, a feat that reinforced his status
as Liberator of South America reinforcing the very notion of continental unity.
Bolivar died at age of 47 in Santa Marta, Columbiam Quinta de San Pedro
Algjandrino.
Translated by Adnan Abdel-Hamid Kazem, the Arabic version exhibits Kazem's
scrupulous attention to detail, and a meticulous obsession to finding the
correct phraseology and terminology, the very nomenclature of the ideologically
loaded Spanish lingo infused in the letters and correspondence displayed in
Gustavo Periera's original Spanish best-seller. Living post-Arab Spring, the
reader will find many parallels between the current situation in the Arab world
and Bolivar's experience in South America. An Arabic-speaking searcher for
parallels across the world will appreciate this classic. South America, where
the shift from military dictatorship to civilian democratic rule predated the
Arab Spring by two decades, could teach us insightful lessons in this part of
the world. This is a historic chance, at a momentous, well-chronicled time when
the Arab world finds itself poised for dramatic change.
Bolivar hailed from noble lineage, the Bolivar aristocrats of La Puebla de
Basque in the Basque Country, Spain. Yet he was the proverbial man of the
people. Venezuela is currently espousing the Bolivarian ideology. Several South
American countries are also flirting with the Bolivarian model. This
unprecedented development in the contemporary world of Latin America raises
several questions that are not directly answered by Gustavo Periera's classic.
This seminal work employs all the settings and set-up of a rising power that
ingeniously utilizes the newly independent state to kick-start economic
development. But it may take many years for the Bolivarian model's strength to
become clear.
With the comprador capitalists of Latin America in a funk, coupled with
Washington deserting them in droves, the policy-makers of Latin America no
longer see capitalism as a way-station on the road to industrially advanced
status.
And actually, Washington is unable to come to the assistance of the comprador
capitalist and nation because the United States itself is fast losing its grip
of its neighbours south of the Rio Grande. Washington's bigwigs are getting
their knickers in a twist over Venezuela. The brouhaha surrounding
Bolivariarism, the political ideology also practiced by Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez, is insufficiently appreciated in the Arab world, and so this
translation comes at an opportune moment for leftists in the region.
Gustavo Peirera's masterpiece is a work of remarkable fecundity. First, it
demonstrates the occasional doubts that Bolivar himself had that his own
ideology could be properly implemented in his beloved continent, and even in
his own Motherland.
Second, as an early exponent of the notion of continental unification, he
abhorred the consumerist pretensions of the nouveau riche and comprador
capitalist classes as much as he detested the Spanish colonialists. He
galvanized the intelligentsia to his cause of continental unification thanks to
his verve and nerve. Bolivar's revolution was not a storm in a glass.
Why make it simple, Bolivar's detractors, complain. Setting up shop in Africa
and Latin America for a continental unifier is no easy task. And it has not got
easier since the days of Kwame Nkrumah and Simon Bolivar. The latter liberated
his native Venezuela as well as Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia. (The very name
Bolivia is derived from Bolivar and Venezuela's national currency to this day
is called the bolivar.) Bolivarianism has become synonymous with popular
democracy, and not just in Venezuela.
Nor does the Bolivarian model necessarily guarantee social stability.
Bolivarianism only works effectively when directed by a competent state
apparatus, dedicated technocrats, an organised labour force, or proletariat who
owe their allegiance to a charismatic leader with an intense passion for
continental unification and a patriotism than encompasses an entire continent.
Bolivar's abolitionist attitude, his conviction that slaves must be freed even
though he hailed from a slave-holding family of plantation owners, endeared him
to the masses in South America.
Bolivar eschewed the incessant striving for prestige and respectability by the
economic, political and social elite in South America. And, so do the followers
of Bolivarianism today in Venezuela and across the continent. The United
Socialist Party of Venzuela was in 2007 replaced by the Fifth Republic Movement
-- spearheaded by a group of leftist social activists.
So is it state capitalism in Marxist parlance or is it Socialism? Today, we
have neither. Socialists cannot use the laws of the country to crush the
capitalist system because they must adhere to Western-style democracy.
Doctrinaire Marxists believe this is a bit unreasonable. And, this, of course,
is an understatement. Since the restrictions against capitalism have no basis
in the laws of the land, leftist activists in Venezuela and South America
espouse Bolivarianism as a model of direct action.
The trade bloc MERCOSUR, grouping Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay --
the last mentioned country is one of South America's poorest and least
developed countries -- embodies the very idea of Bolivarianism, or continental
cooperation and economic amalgamation. A landlocked country in the heart of the
continent, Paraguay witnessed a bloodless coup d'etat this week. The change of
guard has caused much ink to flow.
Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru have associate member status in MERCOSUR. The
very notion of creating an economic grouping as a stepping stone to continental
unification is fast gaining ground in Latin America. However, if the southern
continent follows in the footsteps of its northern former colonial masters in
Europe -- blah from start to the crisis of the euro, and capitalist in
orientation -- MERCOSUR will be more likely to sour fond memories of Bolivar.
Bolivar differed from leaders of the American Revolution because of his
staunchly anti-slavery stance. Race-consciousness -- both Latin Americans of
African origin and the indigenous Native American populations -- has made
significant inroads into the decision-making process.
Bolivar was born and raised in an area that was heavily reliant on slave
labour. Yet, even though South America still awaits its own Barack Obama, it
does have Bolivian President Evo Morales, the first Native American
democratically-elected head of state. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez himself
claims to be partially of Native American origin, at any rate.
Hugo Chavez's brand of Bolivarianism is the firebrand whipping up a new South
American storm, or rather winds of change.
But, back to the present. The coup in Paraguay, a grim reminder of the history
of the militaristic clique's intervention in politics in Latin America,
installed the 49-year-old former vice president Federico Franco as the new
president of Paraguay -- a youthful, albeit less socialist-inclined,
alternative.
Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, overthrown in a bloodless coup was a
Bolivarianist at heart. What is relevant is how most of the continent's
leaders, mostly left-leaning Bolivarianists and Socialists rallied to Lugo's
cause.
"In the name of the Venezuelan people and as head of state, Venezuela does not
recognise this worthless, illegal and illegitimate government that has been
installed in Asuncion," Hugo Chavez proudly declared.
"Without any doubt there has been a coup d'etat in Paraguay. It is
unacceptable," Argentine President Cristina Fernandez added. She like most of
the democratically-elected leaders of South America is Socialist.
"We are not going to cover up these actors that infringe terrible damage on our
democracies and people," Ecuador's president Rafael Correa aptly summed it up.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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