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An
antidote for apathy
Venezuela's
president has achieved a level of grassroots participation our
politicians can only dream of Selma
James Increasing
numbers of people, especially the young, seem disconnected from an
electoral process which, they feel, does not represent them. This is
part of a general cynicism about every aspect of public life. Venezuela
has many problems, but this is not one of them. Its big trouble - but
also its great possibility - is that it has oil; it is the fifth largest
exporter. The US depends on it and thus wants control over it. But the
Venezuelan government needs the oil revenue, which US multinationals
(among others) siphoned off for decades, for its efforts to abolish
poverty. Hugo Chávez was elected to do just that in 1998, despite
almost all of the media campaigning against him. Participation
in politics especially at the grassroots has skyrocketed. A new
constitution was passed with more than 70% of the vote, and there have
been several elections to ratify various aspects of the government's
programme. Even government opponents who had organised a coup in 2002
(it failed) have now resorted to the ballot, collecting 2.4 million
signatures - many of them suspect - to trigger a referendum against
President Chávez, which will be held on Sunday. For
Venezuela's participatory democracy, which works from the bottom up, the
ballot is only a first step. People represent themselves rather than
wait to be represented by others, traditionally of a higher class and
lighter skin. Working-class sectors, usually the least active, are now
centrally involved. Chávez
has based himself on this pueblo protagónico - the grassroots as
protagonists. He knows that the changes he was elected to make can only
be achieved with, and protected by, popular participation. Chávez
has understood the potential power of women as primary carers. Four
months of continuous lobbying got women the constitution they wanted.
Among its anti-sexist, anti-racist provisions, it recognises women's
unwaged caring work as economically productive, entitling housewives to
social security. No surprise then that in 2002 women of African and
indigenous descent led the millions who descended from the hills to
reverse the coup (by a mainly white elite and the CIA), thereby saving
their constitution, their president, their democracy, their revolution. In
a country where 65% of households are headed by women, it is they who
are the majority in government education and health campaigns: who are
users as well as those who nurse, train and educate. Again, women are
the majority in the land, water and health committees which sort out how
the millions of people who built homes on squatted land can be given
ownership, how water supplies are to be improved, and what health care
is needed. Despite
oil, 80% of Venezuelan people are poor, and the Women's Development Bank
(Banmujer) is needed to move the bottom up. Unlike other micro-credit
banks, such as the Grameen in Bangladesh, its interest rates are
government-subsidised. Banmujer, "the different bank", is
based on developing cooperation among women. Credits can only be
obtained if women get together to work out a project which is both
viable and what the local community wants and needs. As
Banmujer president Nora Castańeda explains: "We are building an
economy at the service of human beings, not human beings at the service
of the economy. And since 70% of the world's poor are women, women must
be central to economic change to eliminate poverty." In
this oil-producing country 65% of basic food is imported. President Chávez
has placed much emphasis on regenerating agriculture and repopulating
the countryside, so that Venezuelans can feed themselves and are no
longer dependent on imports or vulnerable to blockades which could
starve them out. After all, you can't drink oil. Most
importantly, the oil revenue is increasingly used for social programmes
as well as agriculture: to enable change in the lives of the most who
have least. People feel that the oil industry, nationalised decades ago,
is finally theirs. The oil workers have created committees to work out
how the industry is to be run and for whose benefit, even what to do
about the pollution their product causes. The government has turned the
referendum, regarded by Venezuelans as an imperialist attempt to oust Chávez,
into an even wider expression of the popular will. The small electoral
squads, again mainly women who know the community and whom the community
knows, are checking identity cards to weed out the names of those who
have died or are under age, and register all who are entitled to vote,
so that this time there will be little opportunity for electoral fraud.
The turnout is expected to be 85%. Some, especially the well-off, see
the political engagement of the whole population as a threat to the
status quo. Exactly. But since, increasingly, people find representative
government doesn't represent them, it may be the wave of the present. ˇ Selma James coordinates the Global Women's Strike; she will be one of the international observers at Sunday's Venezuelan referendum |