From New Lines Magazine
As Latin American dictators marginalize and jail protesters, the leaders rely on backing from prominent but obtuse individuals and organizations
What a night it was for the delegation of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) last June as they gazed down on the Venezuelan capital of Caracas from the five-star, luxury Gran Meliá Hotel.
“View from the dancefloor, it’s absolutely beautiful here,” tweeted delegate Jen McKinney, while fellow delegate Tom Wojcik contented himself with the words “Caracas” and images of the hotel’s glittering façade, where a room for a night costs more than 70 times the Venezuelan monthly salary.
The attendees were ostensibly in town to participate in the Congreso Bicentenario de los Pueblos del Mundo, set to commemorate the 1821 victory of Simón Bolívar over royalist forces at the Battle of Carabobo. But in fact the gathering served as a kind of magnet for partisans of the region’s various authoritarian governments. The DSA junket to Venezuela was part of a growing trend of “anti-imperialist” revolutionary tourism in Latin America where well-heeled outsiders come to glory in the necrotic splendor of dead or aging revolutionary leaders while carefully eschewing any discussion of what kind of conditions citizens in said countries live under. It is an alliance inspired not by loyalty to progressive and leftist ideals and values but of fealty to rulers and power.
In office since the 2013 death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, his successor Nicolás Maduro portrays himself and the country’s ruling Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) as vanguards of an anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist nexus of regional powers including Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia.
As the delegation of the DSA proved, however, interest in Venezuela’s government does not extend to curiosity about the country’s tumultuous history or tormented present. Visiting Chávez’s gravesite, DSA member Sean Estelle tweeted that former President Carlos Andrés Pérez — the mercurial populist who nationalized the oil industry and served as vice president of the Socialist International for 16 years — was a “right winger.”
The incuriosity was complemented by an intolerance for critique or even discussion. Venezuela’s Partido Socialismo y Libertad, itself a left party largely inspired by the Argentine Trotskyist leader Nahuel Moreno, wrote that the DSA delegation “lost the opportunity to meet with worker activists, feminists, the LGBTQ community, indigenous activists, peasants and youth from the popular sectors and the independent left.” As Venezuelans begged the DSA to take a more nuanced approach to the country, DSA member Austin Gonzalez sniffed on Twitter: “Something i would appreciate most is if people did not try to talk down to me when it comes to Venezuela…I’m fully aware of everything going on.” Later, after the DSA was given an opportunity to meet Maduro himself (lovingly documented on DSA social media and by Venezuela’s state-run Telesur network), Gonzalez gushed that “who I met was not a dictator” but “a humble man who cares deeply about his people.”
Michael Deibert is a journalist, author and a Researcher with the Centro de Estudos Internacionais of the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa.
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