Taking over land, and women are strong

We were pretty annoyed when we found out someone had occupied the land that we’ve been struggling for for over year.

It’s a piece of land that is within the area covered by our communal council and technically belongs to the mayoralty, but hasn’t been used for ages because it’s quite a long but skinny piece of land.

We want to build a communal house there, as we have nowhere to meet and such a building could also help solve lots of the other problems in our community- we would use it for the communal police and the monitoring system- as the community decided security was the community’s biggest problem. We’d also use it as a place for older people, for child care, for culture, for subsidised medicine, a community garden, etc. It’s been a typical bureaucratic nightmare to try to get this land, as we write letters to the mayoralty, the appropriate legal bodies, and so on, and wait for replies, and then we go and remind them, and we wait longer and so on.

We’ve also been working with architecture students to design the building.

Then this group comes along and occupies the land without even talking to us, and supposedly just for housing. Now that the Urban Land Law has been passed, such occupations are very common, but lucky for us, while the national priority is housing, due to the massive housing shortage, communal councils also have priority over individuals and other groups, and we have denounced their occupation and hopefully it will in fact speed up us finally getting the land.

M’s communal council, just down from ours, has also occupied (or as they say- taken custody of... since the term ‘occupied’ is more often associated with colonial occupation) various bits of unused land there in the centre of the city. They’ve put up banners, a few which have been taken down by someone not nice, and are maintaining a watch on the main one from 7am to 11pm. Each morning they set up a tent and table, coffee and biscuits, and members of the council hang out there in 2-3 hour blocks, keeping a register of who has done what shift in their notebook.

It’s fascinating how this project has massively increased participation in that communal council. Being in the centre of the city where there are a lot of shops, it was initially quite hard for them to even get the communal council happening. Now, people are coming up to them all day presenting them with letters of residency, as well as helping out with the watch. Of course a lot of it is sadly very self interested, people who had no interest in helping their community before, but now see the possibility of getting land and housing.

And it’s the same with the people occupying our land- they just want it for housing. The thing that bothers us is they aren’t from our community and they didn’t even bother talking to us, to the corresponding communal council and therefore the community representatives. It’s important that, even if in the end the community assembly decides we want to use the land for housing instead of a communal centre, that it be the community who decides that, not individuals! Also, the community knows its needs and its members, and knows who most needs that housing- single mothers living in one room, people living in risky housing on slopes, people in a situation where like 3 families are living in one small house etc. However these individuals are often people who already have a house and just want more property.

The other debate we’re having is about what to use the land for. Because on the one hand, the housing need is serious, but on the other hand, people argue that the city is already congested with traffic and housing and that the need for infrastructure like hospitals, and centres etc, is just as important. I can see this side of the argument, and I think in the end I agree, though I do think the implications of the first one is that basically all new housing is built outside the city and you end up with a situation where all the poor people (as they are the ones who need it most) are living far away from work, politics, culture, the big hospitals, and so on.

We talked about all this at our last communal council meeting, which was an interesting meeting. It was raining like crazy, thunder and all, and it turned out that the only people to turn up were four women. Of the four of us, we were all either sick or very stressed with everything we have to do, but we were there despite the rain. I felt proud. It just so happened I’d just started reading ‘Sandinos daughters’, where I read that under harsh living conditions- poverty, often being a single mother and having to care for their kids as well as sell stuff or whatever to survive- pushed women into being involved in the revolution there and also meant that these women had “developed tough characters. They were capable of making sacrifices”.

Well, the conditions are different in Venezuela, few are struggling daily just to eat, but the situation with women of course is similar. So it turned out at this meeting that the men didn’t turn up- put off by the rain probably, and we were there. And then 5 men came to the meeting to complain about a violent neighbour of theirs, and it was us women who were telling them what they can do about it.

Getting this communal council to work, we’ve faced a lot of obstacles, and it is hard to try to do something like this in a capitalist context where people still have to work, study etc, and have the capitalist mentality of putting family and themselves first, and of competition and consumerism rather than solidarity. But it is the women who have been most persistent. One, a teacher and mother of 6, said to me that in her house, even though her husband is fairly conscientious- helped with the communal council elections, has come to the occasional meeting- it’s always her that does the house work, and when for example, there’s cleaning or something to be done, he always has a headache or is tired or some excuse.

So I think that being a woman is hard, sometimes it’s so hard I wanna quit : ), but in the end, although of course it doesn’t matter, I’m glad I’m a woman and I do feel stronger for it. Women are quieter, we’re not heard as much, but we are strong, energetic, hard workers, and persistent, and revolutions need us.

The debates

One comrade said, during our Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning study sessions (7am-9am!), “The situation in Cuba is really serious… and Cuba is depending on us, how full on..”

The debating is endless…its during the study sessions, its before communal council meetings, it goes for 6 hours during meetings of the teachers in the alternative school, its in the streets when you meet a friend, at parties, in the pub.

And the topics are endless too. So much to consider, so much to fight against, to change, to improve.. its overwhelming: The coexistence of capitalism right now, Chavez and the government working with companies… that the transition to socialism (or communism) takes decades, but that there’s a difference between peacefully coexisting with capitalism, and fighting it… the fact that the state governor here is Chavista but supports the bullfights, while most of Merida does not- do you protest that or not, and how…, about just what the communal council should do and not- if there is a guy in our community selling drugs out of his shop, is it for us to intervene, can we…should we, or don’t we have enough to do already?...The lack of electricity, is it the government’s fault, the bureaucracy, or isn’t it also the system and the model of consumption, where casinos use more electricity than a whole barrio, on lighting up their entrance and things?

…Environment and workers struggles- one more important than the other? …Incorporating teachers trained under the old system, into the alternative school? …How critical to be of Chavez… How much of the problems in the government are his fault, and to what extent do they prove that the revolution is not a revolution verses the fact that there will always be problems and obstacles when trying to change the system…Where does personal change come in?.. Is it more important to focus energy on the children, since they are the future, or on adults, as they are the present?
…Isn’t the PSUV just an electoral front with all the old bureaucratic vices of the past?... How important is it for movements and grassroots organisations to be independent of the government? (Here thinking of the local alternative radio that recently resigned from AMCLA, the national umbrella group of alternative media that is technically independent of the government, but that receives funding from it)… How to constructively criticise government institutions when they are really screwing us over? (“It took two deaths [here in Merida] for the electricity company Corpoelec to finally give us a schedule of blackouts, after 4 months of daily, unscheduled ones,” Everyone on the left is saying, or can’t help thinking..

-
Meanwhile, crazy carnival time has just passed. I was coming back from a small informal meeting at one of the student residencies … planning a micro film about how to save energy…on the bus, and partiers in the street were throwing water and one water bomb went through the bus window and I got wet.
That was quite a day that.. I forget what happened in the morning, something busy.. then I had that meeting, then I caught the bus, which took for ever cos of the traffic, then came back to my house and quickly ate a carrot and an egg for dinner before going to a friend’s house to give a workshop on creative writing to our reading squadron group.

Yesterday was like that too- I went to our Marxism study group with Tatuy TV from 7am-9am.. we talked about the different stages of capitalism and all sorts of terms which I now know in Spanish but not necessarily in English :). Then I went to the alternative school in the barrio and taught the kids reading.. and it was great as well. They enjoyed it, most of them. Then I made lunch at home and tried to eat it really quickly, then went to the bank to withdraw some money to pay for the posada where my mum is going to stay. I got a ticket with a number, which said I was 389th in the queue! Ay! This is cos the banks and things were closed over carnival..
Well about 4 hours later, I went to the posada.. then walked down to the bus stop to go to the bus terminal and caught the bus, asked about buses at the terminal, went to the big supermarket to buy some things they don’t sell in the centre.. and went home. I was exhausted, and taking my shoes and socks off in the dark cos of the scheduled blackout.. when I remembered.. communal council meeting! Argh! I gobbled some dinner down again, put shoes back on, and went out to the meeting.
There was just five of us, but we got some stuff done and decided that next meeting we’ll talk about the reformed communal council law, and we’ll also aim to have all our surveys done. We’ve been surveying part of the community (a sample of 50 families out of the 200 families that make up our communal council) about security in the area, and the possibility of sticking in security cameras in the streets to deal with the crime. I’m not really in favour of the idea, but it seems pretty much everyone else strongly supports it, so what can you do.
But doing the surveys was fun..I really enjoy knocking on people’s doors and talking to them.. using the survey as a chance to remind them they can get involved in the council, or to come to the community assembly etc.

Man, there have been a lot of other things, but I can’t remember now.. there was a great concentration against the stupid bull fights, which the Chavista governor here, as I mentioned, actually supports.. he allocated money to the bull fighting school, helped get the bulls here and things. Disgusting.. really, especially added to how very not culture bull fighting is, what with the pleasures at seeing an animal tortured and so on… and most Meridenans are against it… especially the left. So there were quite a few concentrations against it. I only made it to one. There were bands, poetry reading, story telling, dance etc.. the idea being to show what culture we really want. And there was placard making in the plaza (see photo above), people holding banners, people painting anti bull fighting slogans on the backs of cars with shoe polish (as is the tradition here).

The battles

Photos: 1) Burning tires and rubbish just down from where I live. In the photo there are only about 5 people, there were many more later on. 2) Puppets as part of the culture night for Haiti. Gosh I love puppets :)

Ah its been a while since my last entry and there is so much to write about. That’s the irony I guess- the more there is to write about the less time there is!

Well I’m happy to report that our communal council finally met (5 people last week, 9 people this week). And there is so much to do, just in the communal council- it’s overwhelming. There’s the hospital and how its been affected by the blackouts, as well as a few other things, and one of our reps is working with 5 other communal councils on that. There’s the surveys for the security project, the communal house we want to build, re-registering the council following the reform of the law, the wall we want to build to protect the houses on the slope, and it’s a long list, and I think that was part of what was de-motivating some people. So last meeting we decided for the next few weeks just to focus on the security survey and getting the council registered.

But urg the whole political situation is like that. I think the left needs to organise better to respond to the electricity situation. There’s bureaucracy to fight and denounce, there’s learning and ideology to be done, solidarity with Haiti, the list just seems endless and it can be overwhelming sometimes, and one is never doing enough or there’s always something else that *needs* to be done. Also, the feminist group has started up again, and I can’t not go to that, and there’s a study group from 7am-9am…a great bunch of people and a great start to the day. There’s the alternative school in the barrio, the reading group, work, writing, etc.

Last week in the study group, among many things, we talked about the media war. Take for example a recent cover of Pico Bolivar- a local private newspaper, and probably the most read paper in Merida, along with Frontera.The headline read, “Chavez: “There’s no electricity crisis”, making Chavez look like an idiot, like a president who denies the country’s problems. Later in the small print of the article you read that the full quote was, “There’s difficulty but there’s no crisis”. Then of course there’s the usual back page, every single day covered in photos of bodies- be it crashes or murders. That’s the side of the cover they always try to sell the paper with. And inside every day it has a full length picture of a digitally edited woman in a bikini, to go with the ‘health’ section.

The study group didn’t meet this week though, because one of their compañeros was killed during the protests on Monday night. He was 15, urg that is sad. He was shot by a sniper from Las Maries Residencias, funnily enough where I lived for a while. It’s got a good view of the university and the main road where the protests where.

Anyway the opposition started protesting on around Wednesday, perhaps earlier in other areas. It was about the blackouts, and then when RCTV had their right to broadcast temporarily suspended, it became about that too- leading to Monday’s events.

On Wednesday night there were opposition disruptions all over the place. Just around the corner from my house, then two blocks up from there and also two blocks down, people were burning rubbish and tires to protest the blackouts. I think they have all the right in the world to protest- while a good part of the issue has to do with the climate and climate change, a lot of it is about planning, bureaucracy, and utter lack of communication by the government officials involved (note I’m saying by the government officials involved, not Chavez and others- the mainstream media seems to think anything any government official does is really what Chavez himself is doing). But anyway,I talked to these guys who were burning stuff, and they had no idea WHAT the causes of the problem were. It was all about a bit of venting, adrenalin, and disrupting things, and the fact that they were further contaminating, in their own words, didn’t bother them at all. What made me feel a bit, umm, troubled, I guess was that there were more of them (perhaps 25) huddled around the closest fire, than there was at our communal council meeting that night (only 5 unfortunately). And all these people lived locally.

Anyway, the rubbish and tire burning and pot banging continued till Monday, on and off, in various parts of the city. I didn’t go to the protest on Monday though. Basically what happened was the opposition (or the violent, far right opposition… since not all opposition are like this) had blocked off main roads, were doing their usual thing, and some of the left- Chavistas, revolutionaries etc, marched for “peace” in the city, and marched to where the opposition were, trying to clear the road for people.

Last Friday night there was a culture event for Haiti, entrance was food, water or medicine donation. It was quite long, from 4pm till about 9pm, but people came and went. From about 5-7 though, there was no electricity, so the venue used a generator (most significant commercial places have generators these days. This place is owned by the university) just for the sound system etc but didn’t have enough power for the lights. The choir sung in almost complete darkness, and walked off the stage down the steps and up the aisle trying not to trip on each other. The oppositions complains, but I think its lovely and generous that Venezuela has sent a few hundred generators to Haiti, when we ourselves are short.

Finally, I had a lovely night last night in another concert- this time a street one. It was put on by the state government (which is Chavista but Marcos Dias, the governor, started off alright but has turned a bit crap in my opinion) and there were great bands, and despite the fact that the governor was supporting the event, the bands had no issues saying they are against the bull fights (which the governor is sadly supporting- by supporting the whole feria del sol “sun fair”). After the guarimba (riots/protests/violent clashes, destruction of a university department, burning of cars etc) on Monday there actually hasn’t been a black out, at least where I live. Also, the university and schools have been closed, in order to avoid further violence. The concert was part of that I think- to avoid the violence plus to do something publicly “for peace” etc.
Had a beautiful time dancing with M : ).

A time less smooth

Well the year hasn’t got off to a great start. The electricity shortage is getting worse (while actually blackouts here in the part of Merida where I live are less- about one every 2 days now, there is now quite strict rationing of electricity in shopping centres, cinemas, casinos, etc as well as on advertising, which makes me very happy- they are the ones who do the most wasting of electricity!) but this comes at the same time as the government announced the devaluation of the Bolivar to half its worth, effectively, and there’s a fair bit of discontent.
In practice of course a devaluation only means something if one is travelling or purchasing things over the internet (im talking about for ordinary people not for business), but in practice its massive, because 70% of things are still imported, and those things are going to get more expensive (except food and medicine, which will have an exchange rate of 2.6) – that is, if companies do things the legal way, we will see the effects once they sell their old stock bought at the old rate and start selling their new stock.
Honestly, when I first heard the news, I was dashed. Mostly I was thinking about my boyfriend who has been working very hard on top of study so that he can try to get a computer, and in a few years, travel to Australia with me. The devaluation means that both those things will now cost about double the amount, making them almost impossible. Of course, later, after chatting to a friend, I put things in perspective and calmed down a bit. The measure is meant to encourage local production, which is an economic effect we’d feel in the long term, after going through inflation in the short term. I am not so convinced that this measure will work, but that’s the idea, and frankly I think “sacrifices” are worth it, in order to get the economy here less dependent on oil and more sovereign… and of course ultimately in the hands of the people.
I felt even less worse about it when I went to the dentist today, and unlike in Australia where such consultations would cost like $200 or more (I have no idea, I hardly went to the dentist in Aus cos they were so expensive), this one was free.. of course. So that’s the other perspective- social services, food, education etc, the important things are not effected- and that’s how it should be right? Paying more for the “luxuries” (its debatable how much a computer is a luxury for a student) but the important things are easily accessible.
Nevertheless, the measure is not popular, with only my most hardcore revolutionary friends really understanding it and supporting it, and many unions, and a range of other left organisations have come out against it- calling for a respective increase in wages.
Merida isn’t a very commercial city- there isn’t a lot of big billboard advertising and shopping centres, so it’s hard to know just what proportion of them are implementing the electricity saving measures. True, there are shopping centres out along Avenue Las Americas, frankly I just haven’t been anywhere near any : ). M and I did go for a walk to Plaza Las Heroinas- a place with artesania at nights and food stalls, a place to hang out late at night basically. And at 9 the police van started driving around telling the food stalls (which have lighting) to close. I’m guessing that was for the electricity measures, since they usually stay open quite late. Or maybe it was the heavy January security stuff.
Otherwise, its all just bits and pieces. Our communal council meeting didn’t happen again because for some reason its just tragedy time of year- with a few members looking after sick mums, an uncle that died, someone else very sick etc. I was also going to participate in a diploma of communal councils starting tomorrow but that’s been postponed as well. A shame, I was looking forward to it! Oh well, it’ll happen soon.
And then there is Haiti. Oh Haiti, bashed and bruised from all sides, yet one of the heroes of this continent for being the first to liberate itself from slavery, for constantly struggling despite it all. The youth of the PSUV have been organising stalls in the main plazas for people to donate medicine, food, and clothing, which will then be sent to Haiti. I think right now that is more useful than money. I have a lot to say about the Haiti issue, but this is not the place. Today though I walked down to the plaza with two big bags of clothes, some medicine and some food from myself and the people in my house.

Plazas for reading, stadiums for orchestras

*Photos: At the orchestra concert, kids reading during our cultural day in Belen

Oh blah to Christmas, the streets full of people buying and selling and buying and buying and the traffic hardly moving and people being with their families and many of us not with our families.
Still, I’m trying to see the positive of it. Time! Time to write and read and watch some videos. Not that I didn’t have that before, but now there are big happy chunks of it.

The Bolivarian youth orchestra, the world famous one, famous especially due to that documentary about it and the program El Sistema that trains poor kids in music, is touring the country for Christmas doing free concerts, and came to Merida last week. With them came the conductor Gustavo Dudamel, also famous world wide, and a kind of national hero.
We changed our reading group meeting to 5, and at 6 rushed down to the big stadium, but it took 2 hours to get there because of all the traffic. Some people even turned back, thinking they wouldn’t get there on time or a decent seat. We got there just after 8 (when it was meant to start), and we were way off to the side. I’m guessing there were about 10,000 people there. Anyway I gotta be honest, I didn’t totally enjoy the concert most of the time, just cos the seats were so uncomfortable, haha, and the music (a lot of whatshisname? D…) was so relaxing I would have much preferred to lie down on the field :). But then they finished off with some dancy Venezuelan tunes, both the orchestra and the entire crowd dancing along, and fireworks, and that was cool : ).

What else? Ah our cultural day (of reading, dance, workshops etc, organised by the reading groups and the communal councils), well that was a bit of a mixture. We made the mistake of organising it for a Sunday, the idea being that lots of people just hanging the plaza would participate, but there was hardly anyone. And the second main problem was that the sound system that we’d organised to borrow from the alternative radio E, arrived about 3 hours late. Well, we were meant to get there at 12.30, to start things formally at 2, or at around 2.30-3 Venezuelan time. But the sound system arrived at about 3.30, then it was missing a chord, so we couldn’t start until about 4.15. That was frustrating, and we only did 3 of the 5 workshops we had planned, but they turned out alright. There was a clay making workshop, and J did a cooperative games one, which had people from kids to adults, from our community and from Pueblo Nuevo (which was visiting to do the dance performances) tying each other in knots and walking around four people tied at the legs, etc. Then we finished off with some reading games with the kids.
So the attendance wasn’t great, but it was the first thing we organised and I think we probably learnt a lot from the whole thing, and we did get kids reading in a public space, not a bad first step :).

Finally, on Tuesday, we went to an inauguration of a science centre in Pueblo Nuevo, something apparently they, the people of the alternative school and the communal council, have been struggling for for some time. We talked to a woman from the alternative school, who said they do games and didactic activities to teach around 17 kids the sort of things they would study in school. The kids are from sometimes abusive families or have problems at home, or have learning problems, and haven’t been able to enter or stay in a ‘normal’ school. Now they have a room with 5 computers, donated, or given or whatever, by Fundacite, the government fund for science and technology development, and which promotes computer literacy and open source software, among other things.

Organising in the Dark

The dinning room during a black out.

The woman in the fruit shop gets the mechanical scale down off the shelf. “Ahh, the electricity’s gone,” she says, and the phrase or something like it is repeated up and down the street.
For the last few weeks the power outs have been almost daily, perhaps 5 days a week, they last for 2 hours and a few days have had two or three of them in the one day. They are a pain in the ass, to say the least, and dangerous frankly. Traffic lights don’t work, elevators stop, at night there is no street lighting at all, and then there is the more annoying side- fridge’s off, you can’t work (depending on your job), you have to just sit, or talk, and wait for it the power to come back.
It tends to just be bits of the city at a time, and you never have any idea when or if there will be one, so it is making it really hard to make meetings or events happen. This morning myself and a spokesperson from the community council went to the electricity office, the very place where they turn off the power, and we asked if there was any way of knowing in advance when the power outs would be. The guy explained that the plant runs out of energy, and then they have to cut the electricity, and they only know they are going to do it a few minutes before. We didn’t believe him. It’s by sectors, - a friend near the university might lose power at 1, and over here we might lose it at 5, and its not like each sector has its own plant.
Basically though, this is happening across the Andes in Venezuela, where there isn’t enough electricity supply to meet demand. The annoying thing is we are utterly impotent to do anything about it, partly, I think, due to the crappy management at the electricity company, and partly because this is the sort of thing you can only solve by 1) increased consciousness around not wasting electricity – something we can do about, but right now with the blackouts everyone is pretty well conscious 2) better electricity generation, preferably using alternative methods like solar power, but as if a third world country like Venezuela has the technology. I also read that due to “climate change” – or climate destruction, as the foreign minister more aptly phrased it, there are droughts here like never before, and the hydropower plants haven’t been able to produce what they are capable of.
Other people are saying its an infrastructure problem, and most people have a theory that gets stirred into the pot of rumours and so on. The problem is the management of what is meant to be a democratically run government electricity company, have done next to nothing to inform anyone of what is going on and why. Chavez says the electricity company has a lot of rotten people in it from the past- bureaucrats. Looks like it.

The last few days there have been protests about it as well- with the opposition protesting outside Corpoelec, and burning things etc, and the Chavistas protesting outside the office of the opposition mayor- not just about the electricity but about all the opposition violence in general.
They are really quite ridiculous, the opposition- they have been burning tires and throwing rocks outside the uni for the last week or so, just because they want to end classes early! And its even more stupid because most students don’t actually want to go onto vacations two weeks early. But of course with the roads blocked, students can’t get to class, teachers can’t- and so because of 15 or so young men full of adrenalin for some action with the police, the whole university finishes early each vacation and the students are really only there for a semester, in total in a year, as my housemate said.

Meanwhile, in the escuadra de lectura, the reading group, we’ve been trying to take advantage of the end of year and that people have a bit more time, to organise an end of year cultural event, with dance, writing and art workshops, reading games etc. Urg I’m a bit stressed about it coming together and about people coming along! But we’ve put up posters, made announcements on community radio, talked together and with others about how to do the different workshops, and we’ll leaflet the nearby communities in the few days before. So here’s hoping : ).

The communal council has died a bit over the last few weeks. I’m not worried about it being permanent though. It’s just it has been an intense few weeks for students- lots of exams and things, one member had a few weeks of dance festival to worry about, I was away, there have been the blackouts, one member’s brother died and he’s had a lot of work, another one has been quite sick. It’s a shame cos we would have liked to get a few things done before the year wrapped up. Yesterday, after a week without rain, it rained AND there was a black out, so there was just 3 of us at what we were thinking would be a last meeting for the year. Here’s hoping we start next year with a new burst of energy and with everyone in good health and the blackouts avoiding Wednesday nights : ).

The people behind the Bolivarian revolution

...The people you don’t see, who don’t make the press, but who without, you couldn’t say that this was a mass process, and who are a range of beings as diverse, complex and contradictory as the process itself.

For example, there is S. I asked him what he lives for once, and he told me he lives to change the world. He’s 20 years old and studying political science at university. He walks in life with a lazy posture and an unashamed lack of enthusiasm. Sometimes he’s talkative and affectionate, other times he’s quiet and withdrawn.
He says both anarchism and socialism are too limited and right now he says the way to change the world is to change oneself.
On Saturdays he participates in a radio show run by history students at the Radio E, one of the thousands of alternative or community radios and other medias that have sprung up over the last 10 years. They talk about history in a way history isn’t usually talked about, as something to question, to rewrite from the perspective of the people rather than the powerful, as something not determined by individual heroes like Bolivar, but by movements, organisation, the economy, and unfortunate events organised by more than one person, such as war. During these sessions S becomes more lively. He says he’s nervous but it isn’t noticeable. His arguments are well thought out, constructive, original and thought provoking.

There is A, a member of my communal council who lives in a two room house with her husband and kid, the house on the edge of a slope that is suffering erosion problems and it’s quite risky. She had her child when she was 16, now she’s 24 and has just finished highschool and is looking forward to going to university.
She is cheerful and usually turns up to communal council meetings and activities, but sometimes she can’t and only her husband turns up, while she cares for the kid. Her and her husband are also in a church group, and they organise social and community events through that too.
People on the slope can be lazy with their rubbish, not wanting to walk all the way up the hill to put it in the street where it can be collected, and she expresses her frustration about this at the meetings. Her and her husband will re-visit these people with information about the rubbish system and try to organise a meeting of all of them to find a solution to the problem. Her family is also looking for housing, and at the meetings they inform us of what the state government is doing- petrocasas, and the mayor is doing- cheap apartments but you have to pay a lot it upfront, so that we can then inform the rest of the community.

L. At first L was completely against politics. He couldn’t see the point and he got frustrated sometimes when we talked about it or when we couldn’t meet him because we were at a meeting. Then he fell completely in love with a guy who saw revolution as the only thing worth fighting for, who saw a reason to talk about it any social context. At first it made L resent politics even more, but then he started to embrace it. Then he was wearing PSUV wrist bands and calling himself a revolutionary. But I’m not sure that he ever really got it. He came out recently. He goes out a lot, to pubs and things. His crush left and later he fell for someone else and I think in the end he is young, preoccupied with his own identity, and for now that interests him more than the rest.

Two guys I was talking to at the pub: They shouted me a drink and we talked politics. One was an art historian, the other worked in a bookshop. They declared they did not support Chavez. Why? Because he divides the people with his strong way of talking (he needs to stop talking in upper case, they repeated, use softer language, not talk about imperialism all the time). But the opposition are a small sector of mostly rich people, whereas those who support him are the vast majority of the country, and quite poor, do they think the country would be united if he just changed his discourse? Ah. And then, but things cost so much. We are a rich oil country, why can’t we buy more things? And then they repeated a lot of the opposition press rhetoric, Chavez supports the Farc! He spends too much time overseas, when we have our problems here to sort out first! Inflation. Ten years in government and bureaucracy and corruption are still rife! Well, I said, its true there are many problems, many things we need to work on, but don’t you think the widespread free education and health care, the communal councils where we directly solve our communities’ problems is more important than if we can easily buy electronic brands? Ah yes, these are good things, of course we support that! Then me, and don’t you think that not everything is up to Chavez, that where bureaucracy and corruption are a problem, rather than just complaining about it, it should be us, going out there and try to help fix these things? Well yes of course… they said, then went back to how Chavez needs to stop talking about imperialism so much…

The revolution here isn’t as simple as opposition verses red t-shirt wearing Chavez supporters. There are the people who dedicate a lot of time to the communal councils, just because they believe in their principles, but who probably wouldn’t call themselves revolutionary or Chavistas (though many would admit they voted for Chavez). There are those who do call themselves revolutionaries, but whose revolutionary work is limited to their job working for the government, or others who are in revolutionary groups but they focus most of their efforts on criticising the government. There are whole 10 member families who get involved in things, and there are couples made up of both “sides”, there’s the woman who makes chicha at the bus stop with the PSUV sticker on her cart, the guy with a computer collective shop who was helping organise the PSUV youth and who plays the guitar like a second lover, the CC rep who lost her mother and hasn’t been attending meetings lately, the other member who is always nervous, the Chavista students who are somewhat more motivated during elections and less so when they have lots of exams, etc etc.

There’s J, who’s organising a different communal council but who participates in our reading squadron. Despite his relaxed and fairly cheerful demeanour, I think he’s feeling a bit pessimistic right now. “Everyone in my communal council is waiting for the new law to be passed, we don’t want to do anything because the new law will make it all redundant. There’s too much apathy, people don’t come to things.” Are you in the PSUV? I ask. “Yes, I’m in xx patrulla. But we don’t meet. No one comes. Everyone’s very apathetic,” he repeats.

The small shock of going from Venezuela to Mexico

photo- SME meeting

Super combative and democratic electric union and a 6 year old kid in a school uniform selling porn are the two things that have stuck in my mind (or heart) so far about Mexico (in my 1st week of a 3 week vacation), and although it’s a bit ridiculous to try and compare a city of 20 million with a very different history to little Merida in Venezuela, you can, and you do.

Unemployment- because of the crisis, because of NAFTA, because of Calderon- is getting much worse here in Mexico, and since there is little to no social security, people start selling stuff when they are unemployed. People (I’ve talked to all sorts of people, from electric unionists to a radical student band, to the CMR) say that the informal market has grown a lot but the amount of money people in it are earning has gone down significantly. Which makes sense, since the number of employed is the similar to the number of people with money to buy such stuff.
So that, unfortunately, is a similarity with Venezuela, although it does seem worse here, and certainly unemployment in Venezuela has not increased. In Venezuela, in Merida or Caracas, there are usually a few people who get on the long distance buses, sometimes even the local buses, trying to sell some useless thing like bracelets or stickers. Same in Mexico city, but its every carriage of every train- not exaggerating. Especially on trains it seems to be people selling pirated dvds. Then on the station stairs there are more people, spending all day repeating over and over ’3 pens for 10 pesos.’ God what a rotten life.

I’ve also now met with a range of movements, collectives and parties- though far from a majority of them, just a sample. While the electristas are fired up, and that’s mega exciting, the culture collectives Ive met (2 of them) seemed a bit dead or faded. One, fighting the battle of trying to inject culture in a barrio where, as usual, street markets of stuff and more stuff dominates, seemed to have about 5 or so main volunteers, who were all in their 50s or 60s, and who have been doing it for a while. They said they’ve gotten some resources from the city government (which is semi left, but which itself has few resources as the national government doesn’t want to give money to them), and despite it all- they are out there every Tuesday putting music on for people to dance to (seemed mostly very old people- which is fine, but clearly all the young people are sticking to their stalls) and conducting some classes. Frankly, as un politically scientific as it may be, what struck me most was the guy who talked to me. He was tired. He was repeating a schpeal he’s clearly said many times, and not with the animo of the average Venezuelan activist that you’ll come across- who you sometimes can’t shut up just because they are so excited and have so much to say.

Of course the whole electricity thing is on a different plain- and the groups who aren’t participating in this newly formed Resistance Assembly of movements who want to not just get the SME workers re-instated but finish with Calderon altogether- are making a big mistake. I’m talking about some of these collectives, and the Zapatistas.

So, it’d be lovely to see some unions as fired up as the Electristas here, in Venezuela, but of course its just completely different. The national government in Ven doesn’t go around firing 44,000 workers in order to privatise services. And then, I live in Merida, not in the industrial sector, where they probably do have such mass meetings like the one I went to a few days ago here.

Fascinates me that here some people believe what they hear about Venezuela too, one woman, a Mexican, in my dorm at the hostel saying she actually went to a highschool that was called Venezuela, but all she knows about it is that the president is a dictator and there isn’t a lot of freedom. I start telling her that education is free and medicine is free and there’s complete freedom of speech and she starts to ask more, because she’s trying to get a visa to the US to go live with her husband (who married her in Mexico), and has a whole folder full of documents for it and at least she has heard how expensive medicine is in the US.

So there’s a lot more I could say. Being here as a tourist just for a few weeks I’m bound to miss most stuff, though I am trying to talk to lots of people, I’m going out to the barrios, not just to tourist sites. I guess there is MORE to buy here- Ven, being a petroleum country, imports cost a lot and there really isn’t much variety of food, clothes, and products (relatively speaking of course. In terms of living, its more than enough). Here, you are bombarded with stuff to buy and at first it can seem nice- I found shoe laces so easily, or whatever. But eventually it gets tiring and a tad depressing.

Busy Times

Wow, things have been so busy, that I’ve been fairly stressed, to be honest…and I only work part time!

On Monday we had an extra-ordinary meeting of our communal council. People there are getting a bit stressed too, and a bit demotivated. The council has existed for around a year now, and “we haven’t achieved any of our major projects”, complained one of the leading members (who is also feeling warn down because he’s one of the communal bank reps, finally after this long, we got a signature we needed, to open a bank account, but the lines each morning are horrendous, and he keeps going, seeing the long line, and saying he’ll go next time).
That, the lack of a bank account, has been one of the main things stopping us get much down (the three main projects we have are the communal house, a wall to protect some of the houses that are on the edge of a slope, and a security camera project). The other thing though that has been stopping us is the opposition mayor and the ‘sindico’, so that we can get legal title to some land.

This week is also FILVEN in Merida- International Fair of Books-Venezuela, and one of the main focuses this year is the Revolutionary Reading Plan. There are workshops every morning for reading promoters and a whole day on Saturday, plus book and artesania tents, poetry recitals, performances etc. I haven’t been able to go to a workshop yet because of work but tomorrow, the organiser told me the topic is promoting reading to children, and Friday- writing local histories, so those will be really great. On top of that, on Saturday we have our own reading squadran meeting to organise, and the ‘women and spirituality’ conference which links women’s issues with food production and the environment. Saturday I’ll literally be going back and forth between the two events.
I went to a poetry recital last night, it was half recitals and half speeches about the history and formation of an alternative publishing group, which was interesting. But the whole thing was very badly organised- as with FILVEN in general. My opinion (and I’m going to go more into depth about this an upcoming article about bureaucracy in Venezuela) is that the institutions aren’t linked, or communicating well enough with the movements, the councils, and the communities (from the fact that there was no publicity out about FILVEN before it started, to not involving us well in the decision making- myself and M attended meetings to organise FILVEN but the program and financing was all decided by the institutions before the meetings) and so it was the same old people at the poetry recital. To me, the point is to reach out, not just sell books. Of course, having a book fair in of itself is a great thing, and the talleres, but it could be so much better I think.

M and I, as part of our reading promotion, have been trying to do a small weekly activity with some kids from his street, who also eat in the food house, but it has been hard to get it started. Three of the kids are more keen than the other three (younger, I guess), but every time we arrange a time to do the activity, half of them aren’t there when they said they would be and so on. I guess I’ve learnt that we have to be more flexible- design activities for just half the group and go with it, or do it 2 hours later than planned and on other days (well, I’m ok there, though sometimes its hard, as me and M both have a range of commitments). We will get there, I think it’ll just take a while. As I said to M (though perhaps talking more to myself), it’s hard to promote reading to people who don’t read! Much easier to organise groups of people who already like reading, but that’s not really the point. And it’s not just that they don’t read, they (or more their parents) have grown up in a world that couldn’t care less about them, and its easy for them to then adopt a similar attitude about the world. Still, they are nice kids.

Then the other thing is that I’m going to take a few weeks “holidays” and go to Mexico, something I’ve dreamed of doing for a long time (in love with the political muralism there, among other things), so I’ve been preparing for that, and writing my novel, and argh! A full life, I shouldn’t complain.

Steep slopes, Uni classes, and community forums.

*photo: cinema-forum in Belen

Merida city or Merida central is kind of on top of a mountain, well a small flat one, its hard to describe, but this mountain drops down into a valley that goes back up into taller mountains on the other side of the valley. People from our community and the one next to it live on the slope, along a twisting path that goes all the way down the valley.
We went to the Cuesta de Belen (slope of Belen) and going down was easy, and about ten minutes down, after asking at various houses, we found the house where two of the main communal council people for the slope live. They had a simple house with an upturned car on the side and about 4 kids playing on a sort of patio. The mother looked really young to have so many kids, one a young teenager. We talked to her about the women’s forum and she said she’d stick up posters along the path- only a few are necessary as everyone has to walk up by the same path. Which is the hard part, the walk up is exhausting, and we didn’t even go right down to the bottom, I don’t know how the old lady we saw does it.
Another day I went to Campo de Oro to do the same thing. For some reason Campo de Oro is one of the most organised areas of the city, I guess the nucleo might help (The nucleo is an area, in this case, with cultural centre and hall, community radio, internet café, barrio adentro health centre). They were having a combined meeting of various communal councils, there were about 40 people there in total, and the IMMFA woman motivated the women’s committees in general and I motivated the conference, and they were quite keen with lots of questions.
That was a full on night that, I meet the IMMFA woman at a meeting of paroquias, we then went to that meeting, then I went to what was left of my own communal council meeting.

On Saturday we had another taller organised by the ministry of culture for the reading promoters. There was more people this time, later the organiser told us he’d texted everyone that they could lose their libraries if they didn’t come (since so many people or groups who registered reading squadrons just got their libraries then haven’t done much, and even a few people have been selling the books from the libraries, which is just screwed).
The workshop was interesting, lots of discussion about the role of the teacher, and about what it means to read. We looked at the history and lyrics of the Venezuelan national anthem and discovered that most people sing it without really thinking about what the words mean, or necessarily meaning what they sing. Reading can’t be like that. Especially not when it comes to politics and preparing yourself to be a person who’s going to participate in changing the world :)

Then in the afternoon we set up for the cinema-forum. We had the projector from a friend of mine, and radio ecos lent us big speakers and a screen. In terms of using the forum to create a women’s committee, it probably wasn’t a success and on reflection probably not the best way to do it- its hard to form a committee in such an open atmosphere, with others there who don’t want to be on it, just watch the film, etc. But we did get some names down, and we can call them later.
As a community film night it was great- we had some great little cartoons about environmental problems, then a short doco about some enviro initiatives here in Merida, up the mountains. People sat on the fence behind, and on the chairs we’d set up, and I’d guess all in all about 60 people or so watched. There was some good discussion between films on what we can do here to improve recycling.
Then, just as we were getting to the last short doco on women, rain came out of nowhere and fell down heavily on us, and for a while we stood there in the middle of the plaza around the equipment with a floppy broken umbrella, then we moved to the church nearby where there was shelter, waiting for the rain to calm down so we could put things in the car. None of us had umbrellas which is silly for a country with rain so often :)

Finally, a few weeks ago I started taking a class at the ULA (University of Los Andes), in colonial literature- quite a useful and critical course examining the language of the invaders of South America, how they saw it and why, what role literature had in justifying and maintaining the colonisation, both in their eyes and foreign eyes. I enjoy it, because it’s been a while since I had the luxury of being a student, and the teacher is quite good, as a teacher. He has a good class dynamic- unusual for ULA where most classes are just the teacher talking. But, he’s incredibly right wing, to the point where he says racist things like the Chinese are going to end with the world (ya he said exactly that) and he constantly makes irrelevant jokes about Chavez and the revolution. First of all, I find it ironic, because his stance on colonialism is fine- no racism there, but when it comes to the current political situation he has all sorts of paranoid and stupid theories without any academic logic behind them, that the reason why there are black outs all the time in Merida is that the government is too centralised (sorry mate, the electricity system just doesn’t work like that!) or that the cheap books the government sells aren’t of good quality and the government bookshop closes too early- so its all screwed and a lost cause apparently ha. Its ok, it really just shows that the opposition are full of crap when they talk about being repressed, this teacher gets away with a lot more politics than most teachers in Australia could even touch on. I don’t mind either, I don’t have any opposition friends or listen to the opposition channels, so it’s a handy reminder of the fact that not everyone here is as revolutionary as the people I know.

Promoting Reading and Self Organisation of Women in the Barrios

It was Friday night, young guys and students were drinking beer outside the barrio entrance, next to the main road. We met one member of the Milagrosa barrio, and walked past the drinkers, up a steep path until we reached a blue house.
A woman, almost 40, greeted us, and called up into the houses, until 4 more women came down to join the meeting. Two were housewives, two were social workers, another was a worker and another a pensioner. One woman was so shy she refused to sit in the circle, while another two women had a lot to say, were angry, and frustrated.
‘We’ were myself, helping to organise an upcoming conference for women in October, a woman from the Merida Women’s Institute (IMMFA) and a woman from the Women’s House.

The IMMFA woman told the group of women that the point of the meeting was to talk about setting up a women’s defence committee, which would make the law against violence (which recognises about 19 types of violence against women) known, raise awareness of women’s rights, and could organise a range of other activities. “We don’t just exist to have kids,” she said.

“We’ve been receiving a lot of denunciations, a tonne, and most of them are by young women,” she said.

One of the barrio women said, “I’ve been living here for 37 years and the truth is the people are very apathetic and we’ve tried to unite the community and we haven’t been able to.”

The others were equally negative, saying, but we’ve done this and tried that and had this problem, and this person behaved like this, and the bureaucracy….etc. Their pessimism was understandable, and it’s a common feeling in many communities, or for anyone, which would be all of us, who tries to get through the bureaucracy and achieve something.

The IMMFA woman replied, “I understand, yes, but capitalism has many vices, we’re changing them slowly, I wish we could change everything by tomorrow, but there’s so much.”

She also gave the group a lot of information- about when the people with disabilities meet, how to get help, equipment etc for people with disabilities, the documents needed to get an elderly person’s pension, and so on.
Then suddenly one woman laughed, “And this is why we need to organise, to collect this information and hep each other and the others.” Then she started complaining about problems with bureaucracy again.

The IMMFA woman agreed, “But why does this happen? Because there are a few people in charge of everything, that’s why we have to organise ourselves.” Then she gave out a range of pamphlets about the law, women’s rights etc, for the information to be “socialised” and suggested, “Why don’t we organise a cinema forum?”

When I got home that night, at about 9.30, it was pouring rain. There was no running water, and there was a blackout that lasted until early the next morning, part of the daily blackouts we’ve been having in Merida for the last few weeks.

-
Myself and a friend also attended a neighbouring communal council meeting yesterday to promote the women’s committees and the upcoming conference. This community council is mostly just three men who regularly meet, and after 2 years, have finally been granted some funding to implement a lighting and security project. These men were also frustrated and demotivated, and one man kept saying how he wished they had “young people like you (us)” in the council, as they are tired. He said ages ago Chavez had promised funding for communal councils, and they had put together a bunch of projects, but never received any funding so feel disillusioned.

It’s interesting though, because these guys are opposition. They are “anti-Chavez” but see the usefulness of the community organising itself to solve its own problems.

-
And last Saturday we had a meeting of reading promoters, or members of “reading squadrons” where we talked about what the point of such reading circles is, about participatory education and the role of the teacher. We read a story together which really moved me, about a boy whose family was quite poor, his mother was quite negative and assured the teacher he would fail when she enrolled him into school, and from then on the boy was always treated as a failure, and had little motivation to study. It was loosely based on a true story, the boy ended up in prison and was shot at a young age just after getting out of prison.

Talking to one friend who lives in one of the barrios and who’s being trying to promote culture there, he said few of the kids there read. You can understand why- poverty is a shitty life experience, it makes people negative, the teachers and schools are under-resourced and a lot of people and institutions judge you as a failure from the start.

And that’s why the communal councils and this “Bolivarian Revolution” aren’t just about material things- new roofing on houses, health, better rubbish systems etc, which, while being very important, is somewhat meaningless without food for the spirit as well- culture, music, personal growth, etc. Reading stimulates the mind, the ability to criticise and think autonomously, it makes our world bigger, puts us in the shoes of others, improves our creativity, awakens interest and curiosity.

And so promoting reading, both to children, their parents, and adults in general, is important, and it’s important we do it in a positive, fun, participatory and dynamic way.
We had our first reading circle last Saturday, where we discussed the new education law, each person reading a part to themselves then summarising it to the group. The law is so interesting that we all had a lot to say, and ended up talking together, constantly interrupting each other for 2 hours, instead of the forty minutes I had planned for, leaving us no time to plan our promotion of reading activities in the community. We’ll do that this Saturday.

Blackouts and books

Wow there have been a lot of black outs lately. Around this time last year I remember, it happened as well, and a lot of meetings were disturbed and didn’t happen because of it. Then, it “got fixed” and we’ve mostly been fine, until this last week, when they have been every day- usually just for half an hour or an hour, but on a few days they were all afternoon or night. Of course, the speculation as to why is rife, with rumours of coups, blaming the opposition, blaming the government, etc. I am not sure what the real cause is, to be honest, though I also hear there is a union battle going on in the electricity sector.
It has been ok though. We had our communal council meeting on the school basketball court by the light of the moon one night when there was no electricity all night. We used our mobile phones to sign the attendance and read anything we needed to, and one member held his phone over my shoulder as I read last weeks minutes. And the FILVEN meeting, discussed below, we had next to an open window. That was during the day, so it was not so bad- but most of the culture ministry area doesn’t have windows for natural light, so we all had to squeeze in this corner next to the one window in that part of the building.

The new education law is still very much on people’s mind, and I love it how well informed (some) people are…before our communal council meeting the week before, one woman was explaining the law (article numbers and all) to one of the newer, less regular attendees of the meeting. Another man was saying how he had talked to his nephews. The opposition has got out a bunch of false versions of the law, and this man go his nephews to read the real version (“look, that article doesn’t even exist!”) and they were like, “oh that’s not so bad!”.

On Thursday I went with communal council members to Suncorp so we could ask yet again about that piece of paper that we handed in in order to register our communal bank (I’m simplifying, all the paper work is a bit more complicated than that). The woman from Suncorp wasn’t there so we took the advantage that we were all together to go up the road a bit to the architecture faculty of the university.
We talked to a teacher who is in charge of organising student/community projects, about helping us with the design for a community centre. We discussed with her the size of the land, and our ideas- to build something that not just functions as a community meeting and cultural space, library, but also for child care and old people care- where old people can go while the person who usually takes care of them is freed to go to work or take care of other responsibilities.

In around October is the Venezuelan International Book Festival (FILVEN). M and I went to the first organising meeting for the festival here in Merida, where we (Ministry of culture, Revolutionary Reading Plan, reading Squadrons, the Writers Network etc) discussed the starting stuff, like when and where. There was quite a discussion about where- whether to focus on Merida city, whether to try to get out to everyone and do it simultaneously (are there the people to be able to do that), to launch in Merida city then go travelling around the rest of the state, and so on. And whether to focus on areas where there are already reading squadrans set up (hold further training type workshops with them) or to areas where they aren’t set up, to try to spur that on.
Usually these book festivals are half stalls of books for sale and half workshops. I’m glad that people at the meeting emphasised that the point of the festival isn’t getting books sold, but rather promoting reading and facilitating it with all sorts of events such as poetry reading, plays, film, and so on. And that secondly, now that there are reading squadrons, they should play a big role in promoting the festival, and in the events themselves.

Responsibility for the Streets

It seems the mayor and his staff often override what should be community council territory. The mayor is opposition, but I’m not sure if the problem is more that or, general bureaucracy and old habits.
For example, one issue that has been ongoing for our communal council has been the immigration office building- which is situated in our ‘territory’. It is more a house than a building, and since the government started speeding up the processing of passports (a good thing), they are now receiving 300 people a day and the queue is in the street, onto the road, blocking people’s houses and the parking blocks people’s parking. My house is included, and I have to say I don’t mind much – it just means having to walk on the road sometimes cos the street is blocked (not so bad in slow traffic Merida), and sometimes asking someone to move so I can open the house door. I worry more about the people in line all day, in the sun or rain. Anyway local residents are pretty concerned about it, and we had a meeting of 22 people with the director of Immigration in Merida and with a representative from the mayor. The director said they are waiting on a new building, with more floor space so people can queue inside. In the mean time, the best we can do get a pedestrian cop to keep things in order. There are also buhoneros (informal stall holders) who sell orange juice, arepas, etc. They got permission from the mayor to be there, but communal council people were angry, because both the buhoneros and the mayor should come to us before granting people permission to do stuff in our community- in this case it’s a business that results in a lot of rubbish in the street.
The mayor/municipal government has also made it really hard for us to get use of a piece of public land. It’s a small bit of land that was going to be used, originally, for a child care centre. For whatever reason, they changed their mind about that, and now its not being used at all, and we’d like to use it to put our community building on (which would have library in it, meeting space, security, etc). The more opposition leaning member of our CC got verbal permission for us to use the land but it’s been a six month bureaucratic and annoying wait to get any kind of written permission. It’s a shame, because that building would help us organise a lot of stuff and do a lot of stuff more effectively. At the moment we meet in the school on Wednesdays and any weekend meetings have to be in someone’s house.
On the other hand, the “reading squadron” is coming along…we had a first meeting in my place last Saturday, and I’m excited that we got enough people, so we filled in the form and chose our name (el grillo- the cricket), which I handed into the culture ministry, and I’ve organised a rep from there to come and help us organise our first activities.Yipee! It’s so awesome to be doing stuff and for meetings to be happening and things to be happening :).

I went to a Socialist Front meeting the other day- after a long time without going because of work and other reasons. It was great, a good re-orientation. Much smaller, but everything is right now because its “summer” vacation time. (I’m loving vacation, I’ve been spending a lot of time with M, cooking, sleeping, watching movies, a poetry recital in the plaza, catch up on reading…but I’m looking forward to it all starting up again).

Sometimes, we can get lost or lose perspective a bit, without a group like the Socialist Front, I think. In the patrullas (the new organising form of the PSUV), or in the communal council, there isn’t a lot of space for Marxist analysis (although that should happen in the PSUV, but if it does, its at a more basic level) or for constructive criticism of the revolution (or complementing the revolution as well). That is, basically, there’s no where for cadre revolutionaries to talk together. Well, in the absence of a good revolutionary party, the Front provides that space.
At this Front meeting, I liked one comment someone made, which was that you can say there is ‘consciousness’ when people start collectively taking responsibility for their community- be it their street, suburb, country, or the world. This is one of the reasons why I think the community councils are so important, it’s such an obvious but revolutionary idea- that we are responsible for what happens to our surroundings, not just for ourselves and our families.
Then we talked about how one strengthens consciousness- and it’s clearly a combination of ideology or theory (which the patrullas are meant to be tackling once a month now- a very good thing, beyond my basic gripe that it was a decision made by a leadership that is totally removed from our local circumstances) and experience. One CMR member said – well the reading squadrans are good, Alo presidente is good, but people have to start taking over their workplaces, taking real democratic control of them, and that’s the experience side. I think there are other types of experience, but he has a point- the PSUV is simply not promoting such things or even assisting struggles where that is happening. Or promoting/supporting any social movements really.

Mercals and Murals

The Saturday before last we did community council stuff all day. We started at just after nine and painted the first layer of white paint on the wall, to do the mural, finally. Then while that was drying we cut up and wrote on leaflets, which we then handed out as we visited each house.
The idea of the leaflets was to raise awareness about the rubbish problem- here the system is that each Monday, Wednesday and Friday we put out rubbish in a bag in the evening, and it gets collected. But a lot of people put it out at other times, and some street corners get filled with garbage that won’t be collected for a while. Others don’t tie the bags well and dogs get into it and spread the rubbish around. Naturally, everyone complains about it but it’s always someone else’s fault (this was a comment we got a lot when we went to talk to people about it). So we got a leaflet from the mayor that specifies possible fines people can receive, and we went around visiting the houses making sure everyone was really clear about what hours exactly they can take the rubbish out.
We divided the streets amongst us, Me and M took the slope (literally houses built onto a steep slope of hill) and streets 13 and 14. A lot of people weren’t home or didn’t want to answer (they’d talk to us through their closed door, it was weird), others were very happy that something was been done about the problem, a few wanted to have a whinge about it, but frankly, no one was really interested in getting involved in the communal council. (Although, we’ve had a few new people since the mural, coming along saying they want to be regularly involved).

In the end we ended up having to pay for the mural paint out of our own pockets, but got it super cheap from the electronics/paint store in the plaza, as the guy there is communal council-sympathetic :).
It was great to have lots of people chipping in with the painting and the drawing and ideas and we did it during the day which mean the sun damn well killed us, but also that lots of people stopped and asked us what we were doing and showed interest. We added the meeting time and place at the bottom of the mural, so everyone will definitely know about it now.
J, a teacher, decided he couldn’t paint, so he watched for a while, while another J told him off (in a friendly way) for not helping out. Finally he cleaned up the edges of the letters with white and got one of those letter things to draw the lettering at the bottom. All fun, I like the chatter.
And then, we were painting in front of one member’s house (well 2 actually, who are related) and the mother cooked soup for everyone for lunch and kindly brought out yum pineapple juice and water.
And now I think the CC feels like its finally got something concrete done (2 things really). So many of our projects take forever due to paper work issues, financing issues, bureaucracy, etc, Not that it’s the first thing the CC has done- collected money and utencils for the school, other things I’ve written about before, and other things before I got involved…but the mural will help us get the message out about what we’re doing, plus the community can stick their stuff up too.

Then last Saturday, some social/community worker students had organised a mercal day. We handed out slips of paper notifying everyone in our area that there would be one… and there was meant to be the Mercal, and ID stall, and a doctor giving out vaccinations…but the last two didn’t come for some reason (one of the students had to go to hospital, that was probably part of it).
The Mercal was great fun though- they were selling powdered milk a bit cheaper than the Mercal store, plus fish and chicken, canned sardines and so on, and a big range of vegies and fruit…all for 4bs ($2) per kilo. You get a big bag and just fill it up with herbs and potatoes, tomatoes, cauliflower, guayaba, etc. That price is really cheap, especially compared to most vegie shops in the centre. Down at the big farmers’ market in Soto Rosa, on Saturdays and Sundays, you can get some vegies like potatoes, carrots and tomatoes for 2bs/kilo…but Soto Rosa is a bus trip away and hard for some people in our community, like the elderly, parents of multiple young kids etc. This way, the mercal was in the local plaza and a maximum of 4 blocks walk for anyone. (Interestingly though, although it was obviously organised through the government structure, it was a small cooperative who did the actual selling and who received any profits).

Creative Communities

*photos: the dance class in la pastora, Caracas, and the Rincon de los Muchachos in Merida

They had whole big bins full of tizanna, a Venezuelan drink with lots of small pieces of fruit- a bit like punch I guess. The local community council had organised it for the Day of Children, which was celebrated all over the country and the city, and in this case in the Rincon de los Muchachos, one of the most beautiful playgrounds I’ve ever seen. It’s situated just on the edge of the working class suburb of Santa Juana, with the big green mountains in the background.
The man, Cesar Albanoz, who designed and helped make the park is a quiet, very old man who always wears a beret. He’s a poet and a writer, and he used all sorts of recycled materials to make the park. As you enter, there’s a martian type thing of all colours, holding a sign that says ‘by all for all’. There’s a giant boat with a bird at the top, a turtle, a train with a rainbow of birds painted all over it, swings and slides and see saws. That day there were also chairs set up in the shade for the parents and adults to sit back in while their kids plays, and about 8 tables with chess games, where adults and kids were playing….including one kid who must have been about 4, and had no concept yet of taking turns, and just moved his pieces about the board at random, while his adult opponent patiently played along. Then, on the left there is a large round building with a pointed roof, where they were handing out the tizanna and where kids sat in a circle, painting using water balloons. I wanted to join in :).
So it was cool, because people/kids from the community and from outside it were all mixing and playing together, being creative and just having a ball. Usually I don’t like sitting and doing nothing, but this day I just felt like sitting in the shade for hours and just watching, it was really peaceful.
The contradiction came when they handed out party bags, with pink barbies on the bag for the girls and something blue on the bag for the boys, and full of commercial sweets. So there was still very dominant values of consumerism mixed in with community and creativity.

A few days later I went down to Caracas to be with M and his mother, who was receiving cataract surgery. One site struck me, as I was sitting on the bus as it arrived in the city amongst hours of slow moving traffic- people standing on the pedestrian strip in the middle of the road, as they do- usually selling anything from kites to hand towels. In this case I saw people with signs around their neck saying ‘Artists movies’ but in their hands what was very obviously porn, full of pink bare bodies.

I took the opportunity of being in Caracas to go see my friend, who teaches modern ballet (I think it was) in her community and a few others, organised through the community councils. There’s a few key ideas behind these classes- to get the kids off the streets (in the drug using, smoking, not doing much etc sense), to get the women and girls doing something other than demeaning regaeton dancing, to build the sense of community, and to arm people with another method of self expression, and with self confidence.
It was beautiful really, the whole environment in the class (which was conducted in a hall next to the Mercal). I was there out of curiosity, but also to take some photos for the ministry, I think, and for my friend’s mum :). My friend is a good teacher too, in just a few months- perhaps four, she has taught her students (they were aged about 7 to 40 plus) to do beautiful things with their bodies. Good exercise too. And at the end of the class everyone walked out chatting amongst each other and with the teacher and kissing each other goodbye, walking down the street of the barrio together, back to their homes.

(And of course, all the dance classes and the activities in the park in Merida etc are free..)

Capitalism is death

*photo: view of M’s bathroom window

“Capitalism is hunger” and “Capitalism is death” accompanied with images of various coups, military regimes, wars and so on, is one of the current ad campaigns on the Venezuelan government channel. Better if you could see it yourself, to believe me how effective it is.
A few foreigners have commented to me lately that the government media here is very propagandistic, and its true that, in order to counter the shit put out by the private media, a lot of the government websites, radio and TV do emphasise the various government projects and achievements. But its not true that there’s no debate (in fact most of the talk shows on VTV are some kind of debate) and frankly I think the Capitalism is Death campaign is great- its full of dates and events and facts about the current world situation that other TV channels, anywhere in the world, would love us to forget and to be otherwise distracted by not funny crap like Everybody Loves Raymond or whatever.
-
The technology students came again to our communal council meeting and presented their plan to deal with crime in the area. Their idea is to put cameras on every corner, which would feed back to a computer which would be monitored by the community police, or people chosen by the community or the council. I have to say I was hella sceptic, it reminds me of big brother or 1984, with the obvious big difference being that the cameras are under democratic community control, rather than some dictator dude. Still, I said we’d have to hold a community assembly as there are privacy issues, and the rest of the meeting agreed, but everyone seemed pretty convinced that people would feel combating crime is more important.
-
There have been a lot of meetings…I went to an anarchist meeting on campus, and have to say I couldn’t disagree more with the main speaker. But to the credit of anarchists, he was extremely negative about everything, criticised everything, and proposed nothing. I don’t think they are all like that.
Then there was a meeting with an Argentinian feminist- about 30 people turned up (7 guys), which is not bad for little Merida and for a country with a non existing women’s movement. The woman was said quite a few interesting things, and compared the history of women’s struggle in Europe to the one here in Latin America (though I disagree with her that you can so easily generalise about LA- Bolivia and Chile and Colombia and Guatamala are world’s apart). She said that here, women still occupy the private domain, and men the public, that there is no “new man” if there aren’t new male/female relations, that when you talk about revolution you have to start with democracy in the house or family, and that gender is the cultural expression of sexual differences.
There was also a rather cool puppet show and singing night put on by Argentinians as well, the other night in the cultural centre. Awesome music and a touching show- the way the woman moved the puppet around, giving him emotions through his posture, and how this puppet-man was meant to symbolise Argentinian history… that was definitely special.
There was the book launch of a book about INVEVAL, in which a CMR worker from there talked about the Revolutionary Front of Occupied and Co-managed Companies. He had lots of great ideas, but unfortunately at the moment they are only being put into practice in a few companies around the country. In the discussion one woman said that we should be fighting for democracy in the public sector as well as the private sector workplaces. She said she has worked for years for CNE (National Electoral Council) as a contract worker. Meanwhile a friend of mine works for the government workers rights institute, and she said that daily they get complaints about bosses not implementing laws, abusing workers and so on. Clearly the revolution is radicalising workers, has seen a few occupations and many more workers protests and so on than before, but its only touching the tip of the iceberg.