By Luis Manuel Aguana
In the midst of the most dreadful
economic, political and social crisis of our entire republican life, today's
Venezuela is in great uncertainty. After abandoning a street agenda where
citizens had as one of their most important civic achievements a Popular
Consultation on July 16, 2017, Venezuelans seem to have lost their course.
On the one hand, political Venezuela
- the MUD and its new Front - tell us that we must demand conditions to go to
an electoral process with the regime, placing that as a solution to the
country's serious problems; and on the other hand we are told that we must
abstain in a militant way, sabotaging a process that we all see as fraudulent.
However, in both cases, the country is not told how attending or not attending
an election process will resolve the Venezuelan terminal crisis; Nor does
anyone explain how we got rid of a National Constituent Assembly of the
government with supreme powers, which makes and unmakes at its discretion, to
the order of a foreign government and of the regime, and to which a supposedly
next President of the Republic must submit, and which can be expected to be
sworn in before that Constituent considered by the whole world as irritating,
illegal and unconstitutional.
Venezuelans
have lost their faith and confidence that the political establishment will rise
to the challenge we face. But the agenda and public debate remains between
going and not going to vote. What's going on? Who sets the country's agenda?
Why should we only debate that? Are there no other options to consider?
And I
certainly find it very strange that only proposals that refer to elections - or
their refusal - as a solution to the country's problem, and not other equally
democratic and constitutional proposals, which point to the core of the
political problem, discussing the formulas for dissolving this unconstitutional
Constituent Assembly of the government, such as a plebiscite or popular
consultation, or a referendum, before even considering any new electoral
process, exist in the public debate.
There are
very important groups and public opinion generators that are deliberately
ignoring and/or rejecting the issue, burying such an important debate in an
ocean of sterile electoralism that prolongs the suffering of Venezuelans. And
if we add to that what many expect, a foreign military intervention, the public
opinion agenda becomes even more rarefied and complex.
Only by
understanding a problem can we begin to move towards a solution. Let's look at
the following definition: "Agenda-setting
theory describes the
"ability of the news media to influence the importance placed on the
topics of the public agenda". With agenda setting being a social science
theory, it also attempts to make predictions. That is, if a news item is
covered frequently and prominently, the audience will regard the issue as more
important…" (see
Agenda-settiung Theory, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda-setting_theory).
According
to this theory of communication, the answer to why something is important or
not to the population is found in the mass media and in those who set the
opinion. This would seem obvious but it is not. Being this a concept taken as
proven and universal, the Agenda Setting in our country has always been guided
by few people and/or media. To ensure that what is discussed in the country is
on the public agenda, it is necessary to convince these “opinion leaders” that
the issue is important.
In the near
future, programs such as Aló Ciudadano and Buenas Noches on Globovisión
generated much of Venezuela's Agenda Setting. Important opinion programmes by
well-known radio and television producers were also part of the creation of
this political agenda and to a certain extent still are, although they are very
much diminished.
As the
government's"communicational hegemony" was imposed, a large part of
the Agenda Setting has been transferred to opinion makers through digital
video/audio programs and their dissemination through social networks, but
always by the hand of few credible operators, without leaving aside the few
important print media of national coverage of opposition tendencies that have
not yet closed their doors, such as El Nacional and others of relevance.
It is of
key importance that these operators of social communication study and
accommodate new alternative ways of solving the political problem without
expecting it to be"news" first, but rather that it is they who create
this alternative reality by accommodating these new proposals over and above
the interested wishes of a political claque that refuses to die and has amply
demonstrated that it does not want a solution for the country.
Many people
have told me that the National Constituent Alliance-ANCO plebiscite proposal is
unknown and that we need mountains of money to get it to the people. And I ask
myself: should we have one or more patrons, or should we have millionaires in
the old-fashioned way behind us who hope to collect future political favours in
order to put something on the country's agenda that is in the interests of the
whole world? I would agree that you need money to push someone's candidacy
forward because that would be in the interest of that person or political
group. But is it the same when the proposal is in the interest of the country?
The debate
on what is on the agenda is that it sets the course of action for what will end
up happening in Venezuela. But if it is not even on the agenda of the public
discussion the possibility that the people will decide their destiny through a
plebiscite, much less will it be considered by the thinking citizens as a real
solution to the country's problem. Hence, I believe there are hairy hands
interested in keeping this crucial issue for Venezuela off the agenda. And
those hairy hands are full of money to achieve that, which magnifies the
problem.
In all the
public forums around the country where we have debated the possibility of a
Plebiscite or Popular Consultation, invariably and without distinction of
political tendency, all have agreed that it is certainly an inclusive,
democratic and constitutional alternative solution to the Venezuelan crisis.
But it should be scheduled for general discussion and debate. I wish that this
would be the thinking of those who currently set the country's political
agenda. Perhaps the
fate of Venezuela is in their hands...
Caracas,
March 15, 2018
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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