> At 8:10 PM +1000 4/24/03, Thiago Oppermann wrote:
>> if people had a strong sense of participation in the revolution
>> there would be less need for such paranoid measures.
> At 8:10 PM +1000 4/24/03, Thiago Oppermann wrote:
>> do as much as possible to make sure it is a social revolution that
>> people feel enthusiastic about and motivated to defend it without
>> oversight.
>
> By this measure of self-organized and self-mobilized popular
> participation, I think, Venezuela is the most democratic nation in
> the world today. Bolivarians have successfully overturned the coup
> by the elite and overcome sabotages by the rich. Impressive!
I think there are many different ways people come to feel they participate in the revolution and come to be motivated to defend it without oversight. Sometimes this will be because the revolution meets their interests, but sometimes, and I think this is largely the case in Venezuela, it is because of rhetoric and promises that the government will come around to meeting their interests. Chavez dispenses rhetoric like a madman with a chequebook, and you don't see much of it being cashed in, at least not yet. Before you can defend gains, you have to make them....
As for the coup and counter-coup, I think people tend to overestimate the role of the popular revolt, which was nevertheless considerable and perhaps decisive. Though a necessary condition, I don't thin it was a sufficient condition for defeating the coup. The tremendous international pressure applied on the US and coup government was, in a way, unprecedented in the history of Latin American coup (imagine how different the response would have been twenty years ago.) I also think that Chavez's intimate connection to the army was very important. The aspect of the counter-coup which I think might show the decisive role of popular resistance was the fact Chavez could treat the coup plotters with such light reprimands. He basically ignored them, and he didn't censor the press in any significant way. Why can he do this? Could it be that it is because he can count on strong popular, international and institutional support? Or is it, as I fear, because he hasn't really done anything?
Thiago