> Daring to talk, interact, help and be helped by those
> who are really different (a hard thing to do for some
> of us) -- and reflect seriously on the experience -- is
> the only way to expand our comfort zone with what is
> odd to us.
I was going to say that Chavez seems to elicit a similarly visceral adverse reaction from many white Americans and Europeans. (Fidel as well, especially now that he is old. Ageism is an ingredient, I believe. In our culture here, the elderly -- especially when they come in races different from ours -- are increasingly repulsive, until they prove otherwise.) Setting politics aside, for what I've observed, Ahmedinajad and Ghadafi cause the stomachs of regular, fair-minded white Americans and Europeans to revolt.
As a college student in Cuba, for five years, I lived in very close proximity with youth from all over the world -- including a few people from Venezuela and other countries with strong African (Caribbean) influence. The first few months were hard. We all wanted to impose our way or the highway. At first, I just couldn't stand what I felt as their affectation and grandiloquence. (That was the males. The females, from the get-go, had no observable blemish.) They, in turn, couldn't stand my sense of irony and what they regarded as blatant lies (which to me were transparent jokes, ha). Etc. Five years later we were all crying like babies at the airport, hugging, kissing, bidding farewells, promising to stay in touch.
This is from Terentius: Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto. Easier said than done.