Analysis: Civil Society

When Eduardo Galeano wrote the Open Veins of Latin America four decades ago, he wrote of a continent mired in oppression and of a political, economic and social process that excluded the majority of its citizens. Today, something very different is taking place.

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The historic revolutionary moment of January 1, 1959, when General Fulgencia Batista escaped Cuba, came on the heels of another, lesser known revolutionary moment just a year earlier. On January 23, 1958, General Marcos Pérez Jiménez fled the capital of Venezuela, as a multi-class opposition ended a long era of military rule.

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A piece by the Frente Francisco de Miranda Youth Organisation discussing the opposition's strategy of destabilisation and the possibility of an international intervention in Venezuela.

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A year and a half before Venezuela’s December 2012 presidential elections, the debate has already begun. As is often the case, both pro-Chavez and opposition forces are discussing their views amongst themselves, and not with each other. In an attempt to bring opposing Venezuelan voices together, two members of opposing political forces were asked a series of questions relating to political life, education, and the media, among other things. Here are their answers.

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The Venezuela of today is a nation mobilized in defense of a new ideal – a proposal for the future referred to simply as Socialismo del Siglo 21, or 21st Century Socialism. In this analysis, Rosales seeks to contextualize a few of the guiding principles being used by the Venezuelan people in their struggle to consolidate a socialist society, and takes a brief glimpse at the challenge faced by 21st Century Socialism in the fight against capital’s culture of consumption that remains quite present in the Venezuela of the Bolivarian Revolution.

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The Venezuelan process is caught between a fundamental contradiction: popular demands for democratic participation against tendencies towards hierarchical decison-making and concentration of power. In this interview, Venezuelan Professor of Social Sciences Edgardo Lander speaks to these contradictions. 

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The US government is setting the terrain for the 2012 presidential elections in Venezuela, soliciting funding to back anti-Chavez groups and help prepare a "candidate" to oppose Chavez. Meanwhile, Republicans recently called for a "full-scale embargo" against the oil-producing nation.

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