To the memory of my little sister Ana Elina, proud ucevista...
Since I became a ucevista in the early 1970s, the Central University of Venezuela suffered from a budget deficit. No government, of whatever sign, paid attention to any of the official universities, especially the UCV. Higher education was never a priority for decision makers! The protests we held as students had as their first slogan "Fair budget for the UCV!" Who can deny me that?
We scientists were - and still are - outcasts. The Faculty of Sciences had no headquarters and as students we were close to Engineering, Dentistry, Medicine, Pharmacy, Law, etc. Our official headquarters were some horrible sheds next to the Faculty of Pharmacy, and as the years went by we were able to use the facilities of the old Industrial Technical School "Luis Caballero Mejías", which was annexed to the architectural complex of the UCV; and even so, it took many years to achieve the necessary constructions and repairs for the full installation of a Faculty of Sciences with a certain decency. And that was also a product of the pressure from students and professors of the Faculty. We even invaded the building to force that decision. That has its history.
Then, what is the difference between what was happening yesterday and what is happening today when the regime bursts in like an elephant in a glass shop, taking over an institution that is falling down along with its physical plant? That Maduro is a tyrant who did not reach high school and now wants a Doctorate Honoris Causa that would be given to him by the sycophants who remain in control of our first house of studies? A little seriousness, please! What is happening today is nothing more than the metastasis of a cancer that has been destroying our universities for decades, whose main flag is the Central University of Venezuela.
Our university was the main refuge of the radical left in the country during the first years of democracy. And to a greater or lesser extent all governments never gave support to "the communists of the UCV", viciously ignoring the needs of higher education and of a country that required a first class university. They preferred to give crumbs to the universities rather than strengthen them. The ignorant Maduro would never have passed through the doors of a strengthened and first world UCV.
Those who really made our university shine inside and outside the country were its people, its professors, employees and students who proudly did whatever was necessary to achieve academic excellence in a sea of needs and shortages. Professors giving classes at a fraction of the salaries earned in other universities around the world, is still the panorama we observe. And the responsible politicians, graduates of the 11 faculties, proudly receiving their degrees in our Aula Magna, forgetting the next day the commitment to their Alma Mater? Thanks a lot... Shame on them!
To those who tear their clothes when they see the images of Maduro and his entourage violating the doors of the Aula Magna, I tell them not to cry for what they never knew how to defend. We have all been co-responsible, to a greater or lesser extent, that the darkest and most abject ignorance that can be imagined directing the destiny of this country has violated our highest house of studies and pretends to set itself up as the dictator of the future of our youth. Not even Juan Vicente Gomez, jailer of students, dared to lay his hands on the university institution, surrounding himself, on the contrary, with the most enlightened intellectuals of his time who came out of its classrooms.
Neither Maduro nor Chávez came to power without the help of people graduated from UCV classrooms. Graduates without morals or conscience, much less love for their Alma Mater. The Rodriguez brothers graduated from the UCV, for God's sake! What is going on in Venezuela? Have we already hit bottom? After this demonic tragedy of more than 20 years that has mourned the homes of absolutely all Venezuelans, we must make a deep and thorough review of the university we want, and transform what needs to be transformed in it for the new country that must and has the obligation to be born.
The best universities around the world do not survive without the direct and indirect financial support of their alumni. Executives of major U.S. corporations donate entire buildings and research facilities to universities like Harvard, which awarded them their degrees. There are ties that are not extinguished after a professional graduates. There are provisions in the laws that allow the university in each place to have the flexibility necessary for it to be able to be truly intellectually and financially autonomous. This is the product of grateful legislators with a commitment to their universities. Why can't this happen in Venezuela?
However, while we continue to work for the end of this tragedy, what is needed is an intelligent academic civil resistance that first of all does not immolate itself at the altar of iniquity that the regime intends to do, on pain of losing what is left of our UCV. That is what Maduro and his criminals aspire to because they achieved it before when they destroyed PDVSA. The best of their people left the country, leaving the oil ignoramuses to destroy our main industry. Let us not make that mistake with the UCV. Let us not let them turn it into a "Bolivarian university". Although I know how difficult I am asking, we must do the rest, resisting and fighting from within this new onslaught of tyranny.
I trust in the creative powers of the people, as Aquiles Nazoa sang, applied to our UCV community. Let us survive this tragedy and rebuild our UCV morally and physically. But that can only be achieved if each and every one of us as ucvistas truly feel our university and we turn to it from any position where we are, ready to lend our best selfless support for the resistance that we will have to fight, and make our university overcome once again the shadow that looms over it...
Caracas, November 2, 2021
Blog: https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
Instagram: @laguana01
Telegram: https://t.me/TICsDDHH
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario