I am a gringo in Venezuela. Currently I live
in Mérida, Venezuela, a university city high in the Andes
Mountains. I am doing a Masters program in Political Science in
the University of the Andes here, working in some of the barrios that
are built on the hills surrounding the city, and analyzing the history
and politics of the country. The class conflict is more present
and on the surface here, and in much of Latin America, than in any time
in recent history, making this an incredibly interesting time to be
studying here. This site is dedicated to sharing my observations
and thoughts during this experience.
This
is a typical
house in the barrios. In Mérida the barrios are somewhat
rural. The people live on the hillsides, but not so packed
together like they do in Caracas. More
than half of Venezuelans (14 million people) live in barrios.
What is a barrio? A barrio means it is a place where the people
have built their own house on land that usually did not belong to them,
without any planning, no infrastructure such as water, electricity,
drainage or roadways. All of these services must be hooked up
afterwards, if at all. Generally the houses are made of scrap
material, junk metal and plastic, sometimes with a dirt floor, although
there are also many fairly nice, sturdy, well-built houses.
Over the last half-century, largely due to mass exodus out of rural
areas, entire neighborhoods and suburbs have popped up around major
cities in this fashion, without any planning or organization. The
principal problems include the risk of falling because of structural
problems, or the risk of land-slides as a result of being built on
unstable ground. Recently there have been land-slides in the
barrios in Caracas in which hundreds of houses fell on top of each
other. In 1999 there was a horrible tragedy in the state of
Vargas on the coast where mud slides caused hundreds of deaths as whole
communities where buried. Other problems include lack of sewage
systems, lack of good water sources, poor walkways and access. It
is in these zones where the majority of Venezuelans now live.
Look
at
these children. This is their house. This is their
environment. More than 7 million children in Venezuela live in
poverty. With the total Venezuelan population totalling around 26
million, 7 million kids is a huge number. 4 million kids in
Venezuela are undernourished. All this in a country with a lot of
natural wealth and immense natural resources.
When I work with people in the barrios and talk to them, many times it
seems like they are people just like me, just poorer. Sometimes
they don't seem to be in a very bad situation. But then I have to
ask myself, how will their life be different from mine? What
opportunities will these children have in the future? What
opportunities and advantages have I had that they won't have?
Apart from the physical problems of living in the barrios, there are
obviously quite large social consequences.Many children
do not
have access to education. There are over 3 million Venezuelan children
outside of
the school systems. Many parents can barely manage to feed and clothe
their children, must less worry about their education. When food,
clothing, and housing are your principal worries, it can be tough
sending the children to school. More than half of all school age
children never finish secondary school.
But
more than education, these children will never have the experience of
living in security. Their chances of finding
good employment are very small. Their chances of
ever accumulating any sort of wealth in their lives are almost none. Chances are good that they will get involved in drugs and
crime, if they even reach adulthood at all. Their houses are usually small, of 2 or maybe 3 rooms, in
which multiple families live together, with adults, children
of different ages and married couples at times all sleeping in the
same room. This, along
with malnutrition and insanitary conditions results in a very
difficult environment in which to develop and grow up.
Therefore, I ask the most important question of all, what
are their
chances of having a full, rich, fulfilling life? How
will they develop and use their potential? How
will they ever develop an understanding of the world? What
kind of fulfilling work will they be able to find? 55%
of Venezuelans work in the informal sector of the economy.
This basically means they have no formal job but are doing
random activities on the
margins trying to get by. This could be selling
various articles, washing car windows, driving a makeshift taxi, and
many more.
Why
do these conditions exist?
There is
a long
story behind this question, and a complex explanation, but it basically
comes down to wealth and class. In Venezuela, as in the rest of the third
world, an economy which creates wealth for the country has never been
developed. For 500 years, the resources of
Venezuela have been exploited, exported, and used
by industrialized nations to create wealth for themselves (Read more
about this history here).
The
only wealth this has created for Venezuela was, and is, for those
Venezuelans linked to the imperialist system; those involved and in control of the exporting
resources, and in the business of importing foreign-produced products
(One of the richest
Venezuelan's is Gustavo
Cisneros, who holds the Venezuelan frachises of DirecTV, Playboy,
Pepsi, America Online, and a large part of Venezuelan media); those in
the
financial sector, owners of industry, and, of course, the agents of the
imperial system; politicians, lawmakers, and lawyers. These
groups are made up by a very small minority of Venezuelans.
Class
warfare has prevented the bottom classes from ever taking control and
changing this economic structure. The
large majority of Venezuelans belong to the agricultural or urban
working classes, the most exploited, poor, and neglected classes who
have always lived in a very backwards situation, suffering from
illiteracy, lack of healthcare and extreme insecurity. From the
very beginning, these lower classes, the masses, have been prevented
from exercising power, from participating the the political system, and
from having any rights. They have been totally marginalized and
excluded. Meanwhile, the wealthy nations of the world accumulate
all the wealth of the poor nations.
For
more
on this, and why poor countries have never been able to produce wealth,
check out the book Economic Democracy: The Political Struggle of
the 21st Century, by J.W. Smith, on the Links
page.
What should be done?
Since the
majority of Venezuelans live in these conditions, any democratic
government should represent the interests and needs of this largest
sector of Venezuelan society. Leftist and pro-socialist President Hugo
Chavez seems to be doing
just that. He has developed government programs, called Missions, which
seek to solve the problems of the poor. The missions include health programs,
education
programs, cheap government-subsidized food, soup kitchens, and physical
infrastructure programs.
As
for the effectiveness, I can only speak from my own experience. I
have been working in some barrio communities here and have had contact
with many of these missions and with the people they are supposed to
target. These programs seeks to
transform the physical and social environments of the barrio zones,
zones in which more than half of Venezuelans are located today.
Working
in the barrios, with the people, gives me a general picture about
the extent of these government programs and their effectiveness.
I hear the opinions of the people about the political process they are
living, and if the programs are improving their lives.
The
interesting part about these programs is that they
require the community themselves to be the protagonists.
They must get organized, decide what they want to change about their
community, how to change it, elect leaders, and design a plan for their
community. Later, the government funds the projects while the elected
leaders, with supervision of the community,
handle the funds, and hire people from the same community to carry out
the projects.
So, not only
does it solve the physical problems, (such as dangerous
living situations, sewage systems, drainage systems, roads, walkways,
water systems, replacement housing)
and social problems (health care, education), but it also gets the
community organized and involved. After the
process
of physical and social improvement,
an organized, united, and transformed community will hopefully be left
behind.
However,
transforming a society that
has lived 500 years of imperialism and exploitation is not an easy
thing to do. Only the future will tell if the Venezuelan people can
overcome their problems and build a better society.
Email
me with any questions or comments at cmcarlson (at) gmail.com
