By Luis Manuel Aguana
I will not
tire of quoting Leoncio Martínez "Leo" in his editorial in the weekly
magazine "Fantoches" of 26 September 1936 entitled "The Meaning
of the Popular Masses" (see in spanish the reproduction of this historic
editorial in http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2011/06/el-significado-de-las-masas-populares.html) when trying to explain the
behavior of the popular masses, and especially what happened in the
presidential elections of May 20.
The immortal
"Leo" wrote: "Often the
mass leaders are simply amanuenses of the popular dictates, instruments used by
the public conscience, in which the people take advantage of the technical
quality of knowing how to speak or know how to write or how to project. It
would seem that many times the leader is something like the axis of
transmission that mobilizes all the pieces of a workshop, but
that would not be able to animate all that mechanism if it were not powered by
the impulse of a single generator of energies ". (underlined
our)
Could it be
said that the people did not vote in dictatorship on Sunday, May 20th,
encouraged by some mobilizing leadership of "all the pieces of a
workshop", which would generate all the energy capable of producing what
happened that day? No doubt you don't. Each person acted in conscience
according to a situation that he considered hostile to his own life, not
because some political "leader" convinced him to do so in one way or
another. Each Venezuelan acted according to his or her own conscience, all of them,
Chavista-maturists and opponents, even those who bravely did not allow
themselves to be extorted for food.
But then
Leoncio Martínez continues with a concept that showed his profound knowledge of
the Venezuelan political reality and that, although still in force, is not
fully understood by the political class despite 80 years of being formulated: "The
peoples do not follow their agitators but those who embody a unanimous
aspiration of the majority. People do not know agitators but interpreters, so
they follow those who promise them food when they are hungry, those who speak
to them of justice when they feel oppressed, and even those who promise them
revenge when they feel they are victims. They followed Boves because Boves promised them revenge for the
deception of the unfulfilled promises of those who signed the 1811 Act, because
Boves offered them the looting and the battle in retaliation against "the
Mantuan" and against the "white Creole" who had taken over everything
that was supposed to happen to the people. But then they followed Bolívar,
because the Liberator was much better at concretizing aspirations, defining
them in the words of a well formulated doctrine that already reigned in Europe,
called Democracy. Boves, as an interpreter, translated only the passionate,
barbaric, almost animal question that was shaken in the soul of the mass;
Bolívar, reached more deeply, more deeply into the root of the public spirit
and, instead of inviting for the crazy and unbridled attempt, he presented a
total and concrete program, a faithful interpreter of everything that was
desired".
Who are the
interpreters of what happened on May 20? This people acted ALONE on March 20,
individually and collectively, following their conscience, and giving a
masterly lesson in politics to their opposition leadership who feel that they
were left in the hands of criminals. So why does everyone now think they own
this decision of the Venezuelan people? Who will be in charge of being the
interpreter of the Venezuelan reality of this moment after this new regime
heist? This mediocre leadership that got us into this mess? What will be the
political approach to be taken by the country in order to channel "the
momentum of a single energy generator", which is only in the hands of the
sovereign people? If the current political leadership believes that the mere
fact of being an "opponent" of the regime constitutes enough
credentials to get out of it, appropriating a flag that belongs only to the
people, we will have Maduro and his communist system of the Fatherland Plan for
many more years to come. It is not enough to say "I will do better".
It takes more than that.
In my opinion,
Venezuela is struggling between two very serious problems that prevent it from
turning the page of the 20th century: Maduro and his
narcoterrorist-Castrocommunist mafia and the thunderous lack of interpreters
who propose something with which the popular masses feel identified, beyond
wanting to get out of these delinquents who govern Venezuela. On the other side
of Maduro's sidewalk there is a void that is felt all over the country, and
that just because it exists prevents us from moving towards real change.
“Leo”
already said it: the same popular mass that followed Boves, then followed
Bolivar. However, the same popular mass that followed Chávez, although
diminished and barely continues to follow Maduro, because he is still in
government and pays those who accompany him, does not get enough reasons to
follow any of the opponents. What is the proposal of this "opposition"?
Go back to 1998? Messianic leadership of "take off you and put on
me"? It takes a lot more than that to get the mass to change sidewalk for
good.
Some time
ago I stated in this blog that we could say without fail that the latest Plan
aimed at improving the living conditions of Venezuelans was devised by young
people with communist ideas a little over 83 years ago, with the intention of
leaving a primitive country, ruled by a dictatorship of people who were born in
the nineteenth century, and who have all died of old age, and whose heirs have
done nothing but take advantage of the country that left it. That was the Barranquilla Plan
written in 1931.
The last
point of the Programme for the execution of the Barranquilla Plan established
that "within a period of no more than
one year, a Constituent Assembly will be convened to elect a provisional
government, to reform the constitution, to revise the laws that demand it most
urgently and to issue the necessary laws to solve the political, social and
economic problems that the revolution will put on the agenda". From
this Plan emerged the Constituent Assembly of 1947 (see full text in http://200.2.12.132/SVI/images/stories/rb/pdf/barranquilla.pdf). Does this
effort look familiar to you?
There the
Adecos, who were the majority of the authors of this Plan, resolved in this
Constituent Assembly the civil rights and living conditions of a primitive
country, under the ideology of men and women who saw beyond the navel of their
personal aspirations. After that, NO ONE, not even the Adecos themselves, had
any plans to refound the country. After gaining power and sharing it with their
companions from 1961 onwards, they milked the cow so much that they killed it
in 1998.
Well, that
vision of the founders of democracy was the one that the country followed as a
uniform popular mass, to the point that in 1961 that Plan became a reality and
the country was relaunched into a different era of fundamental changes, far
from heaps and military coups... until 1992.
How long
did the masses of people accompany this vision? Until it became extinct at the
hands of its creators and heirs, some of the latter alive and kicking, who now
intend to continue to live off the cow that died in 1998. It is time for a new
vision, for a new Project that inspires and moves Venezuelans of this great
popular mass, and for new interpreters to carry it out. It's time for a new
plan. It is time for the masses of people to find "those who embody the
unanimous aspiration of the majority", as "Leo" said in 1936. It
is up to us to convince the Venezuelans of this and to make it a reality when
they all try to take credit for an abstention that has no owner…
Caracas,
May 22, 2018
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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