Venezuela
Neida Atencio
Venezuela has a chance to build “a new socialism of the 21st century,” said Neida Atencio in Anzoátegui’s Diario Impacto. Unlike in China, Vietnam, or North Korea, where socialism was “imposed” from above, in Venezuela the people have chosen their revolutionary path. President Hugo Chavez campaigned for re-election promising to “replace representative democracy with Bolivarian revolution.” He won a decisive victory. Now “all the conditions are in place” to guarantee his success. Revolutionary “Chavistas” control all levels of the state and, increasingly, the media. With last week’s nationalization of the oil industry, the state controls a powerful economic engine. And Chavez himself already enjoys “immense respect on the international stage,” both because of his stirring speech at the U.N. denouncing U.S. imperialism and because of his close relations with the revered socialist leader Fidel Castro. The only thing missing now is the “revolutionary mind-set.” The next project for Venezuelans is to rid ourselves of the “sick consumerist consciousness” and nurture one of justice. “National liberation” is at hand.
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