frühlings erwachen

as i returned from a brief trip britain the other day, it would be facile or me to go on my usual diatribe about how britain is a third world country with first world prices, with the exception that third world countries usually have better weather and food, friendlier people, functioning public transport systems, use the metric system, have a written constitution, better health care, and mostly have democratically elected locals as their heads of state instead of the wacky offspring of imported german and greek feudal overlords ruling based merely on some bizarre pre-medieval concept of god-given privilege. but i decided not to engage in my typical pastime of britain-bashing, even if the majority of the ludicrously overpriced trains i took broke down or got stuck in tunnels mere minutes into the journey, double-glazing or central heating still haven't made a breakthrough on the isles and there was a tb outbreak (!) in neighbouring birmingham while i was in coventry.

instead, with the coming of spring and all, i've decided to try a new format here on my blog: in lieu of my normal pontificating here i've decided to write little snippets of semi-fictional stories, mostly involving a character who bears a striking similarity to myself.

on to chapter 1, "the letter"...

it was a gloriously sunny day in berlin and having gotten most of his errands done quicker than expected, our protagonist decided to sit down by the spree in a small street-side cafe for en espresso and do something he had not done in a long time - write an actual hand-written letter. the letter was for an old, good friend of his, who by all accounts was quite ill at the moment, possibly very seriously so. the trouble was that his friend was too afraid to do a proper check-up, too afraid of hearing the verdict from the doctors - The Verdict, the one that says that your life is no longer consists of a carnival of opportunities that are out there waiting for you but that you are much closer to that inevitable ending point, much closer than you thought, that your life is soon over. for ever.

while he was writing the letter, hoping, wishing that his friend's condition was not that critical after all, his thoughts went back to the trips they'd gone on together, the evenings spent chatting away, his friend's duracell energy, the way his friend would (quite justifiably), chastise him for his crap dress-sense and puerile humour... while our hero's thoughts drifted across to the other side of the world, ships full of tourists drifted past the cafe and an old man stood on the bridge, singing "o sole mio" in a booming operatic voice...

the truth and nothing but...

both in haiti and venezuela the initial reaction of people when they have seen me with a camera has been to assume that i'm a journalist, instead of the usual reaction of assuming that i'm a tourist. perhaps a dozen times, people in caracas urged me, assuming me to be a reporter, to 'tell the world The Truth about what is really happening in venezuela.' since i consider telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth both a philosophical and practical impossibility, i usually mumbled something spineless along the lines of 'i'll try my best...' only once did i actually falsely 'promise' to Tell The World The Truth, as that particular, slightly drunk chavista was getting increasingly aggressive in his demands that i promise to do just that.

so what's my version of The Truth about the bolivarian revolution? talking about latin american revolutions conjures up images of young, strikingly handsome, fatigue-clad guerrillas, male and female, somewhere in the cordilleras, kalashnikov in hand, battling the forces of oppression (visually exemplified by overweight, mustachioed latifundistas and brutal cops with cheap shades) and defending the rights of the down-trodden campesinos. what seems to be happening in venezuela is, however, much less melodramatic. the stated goal of building 'a venezuela, a present for everyone' consists of mundane measures such as installing wheelchair ramps at metro stations, drafting new zoning laws, building cable cars that will allow the people in the barrios which cling precariously to the steep hillsides surrounding caracas to travel into the city at subsidised prices, of providing cultural activities for free, of subsidised medicines and basic food stuffs, increasing access to education, instilling a sense of pride in the heritage of the previously marginalised non-european sections of society...

soppy leftie that i am, these all seem sensible to me and will maybe make more of a difference in society than the nationalisation of the odd steel mill or yet another fiery anti-american speech. there are some things which i am not completely comfortable with, though, such as the prominent role of the military, the cult surrounding chavez or his coziness with people like putin or lukashenka. but as for the goal of achieving a more just, inclusive, humane society, i wish the venezuelans the best of luck.

saints and spirits

the walls of the little, side-alley shop are filled with bottles, statues, amulets, powders, potions and books. a young couple, assisted by the old lady behind the counter, is pondering which amulets they ought to buy, which ones would best serve their needs, fulfill their wishes...

the artefacts in the shop are all part of the local yoruba (or orisha) religion. like its counterparts in the caribbean and other latin american societies, yoruba is a mixture of catholicism, indigenous beliefs and african religious influences brought over by west african slaves. the catholic church saw these religions as pagan cults while the more earthly colonial masters feared the revolutionary potential of these movements which were beyond their control (and were quite possibly spooked by the undertones of black magic involved). and with good reason, as these various religious movements did in fact often provide an important structural basis for slave revolts, such as the 1804 revolt in haiti which eventually led to haitian independence.

being more or less forbidden religions, these syncretic movements often 'hid' their message in an accepted catholic packaging. for example, the west african trickster god eleggua has taken on the form of saint anthony of padua while the gifts given to santa barbara are actually meant for the goddess shango.

in venezuela, this veneration of saints, spirits and gods also involves the veneration of historical figures considered to have special powers, such as simon bolivar, guaicaipuro or the doctor jose gregorio hernandez. intriguingly, the yoruba pantheon also includes the figure of a viking, symbolising the norse settlers of vinland. unfortunately i was not able to elicit much more information about the figure, apart from that it is an auspicious figure and apparently a relatively popular one at that.

coming back to the young couple in the shop, i could not help but notice that they evidently didn't put all their faith in supernatural powers. in order to deal with more mundane problems of everyday life in caracas, they were quite conspicuously 'packing heat,' with a 9 mm automatic on her belt and a revolver on his...

roots, rock, reggaeton

as mao famously said, the revolution is no tea party. but the great helmsman hadn't said anything about street parties... and so it happened that i found myself yesterday in a sea of red t-shirts and baseball caps, venezuelan flags and revolutionary slogans on a closed off stretch of one of the main streets of caracas.

by pure coincidence i seem to have arrived here in time for the celebrations marking the 6th anniversary of the failure of the anti-chavez coup in 2002. the occasion has been marked by above-mentioned street party, speeches, concerts, demonstrations and a military parade (assault helicopters and fighter-bombers screeching across the sky in the name of 'world peace,' of course...)

on the streets were about a dozen stages with salsa, reggae, reggaeton, rock, political speeches etc., stands were selling trotsky's books and popcorn, chavez-puppets and beer, revolutionary newspapers and ice cream. while the usual revolutionary suspects such as che, fidel and bolivar were feted, one could also see a concerted effort here to raise awareness of (and pride in) indigenous heroes such as cacique guaicaipuro who led a successful revolt against the spanish.

later on, the man himself, hugo chavez frias, gave a speech to his faithful, calling for a true bolivarian revolution, socialism, dignity, equality and vigilance in the struggle against The Empire...

while the chavistas were dancing in the streets, those not so positively inclined towards the revolution spent the weekend spending their money like there's no tomorrow in the shopping centres, restaurants and night clubs of east caracas, cruising around in oversized suv's, just like the nouveaux riches anywhere.

money is the root of all evil

from a purely visual point of view, caracas presents itself as a slightly schizophrenic city. on the one hand, banners and murals 'welcome the socialist delegates to insurgent caracas,' urge the people to 'cultivate the seeds of the socio-cultural revolution,' remind us that 'the present (as in 'the now') belongs to all of us' and announce that 'under chavez, the people are the government.' these revolutionary slogans are, however overshadowed by 20 metre tall luminous nescafe cups, equally enormous pepsi signs, ubiquitous multinational beer commercials sporting scantily clad blondes and so on...

in a sense, the simultaneous struggle and co-existence of the two world views exemplified by the slogans could perhaps be seen as a reflection of where things are at in venezuela as a whole. one of the upshots of this struggle for the future of this country has been an economic crisis, with high inflation and an exodus of capital out of the country.

the detractors of the bolivarian revolution claim its due to chavez' propensity to use state funds based on political rather than economic calculations, the chavistas claim its due to the detractors themselves, who, being in the upper and middle class of society control the economy and, being no friends of chavez, have been putting the breaks on economic development themselves by taking their money out of venezuela and placing it in offshore accounts. both possibilities sound plausible enough and are not mutually exclusive.

be that as it may, the way this all has impacted my life is that the government has now moved to curb currency flows in and out of the country and a currency black market has emerged. i don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg, but in any case changing dollars into bolivares is trickier than one might think. as i couldn't find an official exchange office anywhere close by, i decided to try to tap into the black market, which had the added allure of offering me almost twice as many bolivares for my greenbacks than the official rate. and what better way to try and do something shifty than to go and talk to the experts on the issues: taxi drivers. as my luck would have it, though, i stumbled upon an extremely rare kind of human being: an honest, law-abiding taxi driver. so instead of offering to change my dollars at some dodgy rate, he took me to an official exchange place. what's more, he didn't even try to rip me off and even lowered the price from what he had initially said. shocking.

the official procedure for exchanging money was also quite complicated, with my passport getting photocopied, me having to sign a declaration that i was acting according to the provisions of regulation 185/01 of the supervisory agency of banks and other financial institutions of the bolivarian republic of venezuela and had my fingerprint taken before i received my bolivares. in a sense i could have understood the procedure if i was trying to take money out of the economy, but i was bringing money in, and legally at that... but then again i should have learned by now not to try to understand the logic of bureaucratic procedures.

another upshot of the economic crisis seems to be that food prices are high. not necessarily in the absolute sense (depending on whether you exchange money legally or on the black market, its either a bit higher than the central american average or actually quite cheap), but more in the relative sense. for example, a small pizza in a streetside restaurant costs about as much as a night in my hostel, 1,5 trips on the airport shuttle bus, 5 beers, 6 hours on the internet, 12 espressos or 36 rides on the metro. either those pizzas are something really special or something strange is going on.

one possible explanation could of course be that the chavez government might be subsidising the price of public transport, internet, coffee and beer - if that should turn out to be the case, i just might turn chavista myself...

in the ivory tower

one day i'm sitting in a battered jeep, sweating in the mid-day heat, surrounded by street children outside, waiting to pass a military checkpoint manned by sri lankan peacekeepers who are trying to clamp down on the wave of kidnappings that is plaguing haiti. the next day, i'm sitting in an air-conditioned conference room on the 34th floor of a glass and chrome hotel in san francisco, listening to the same phenomenon being discussed by eminent academics. only this time the daily, ordered chaos of port-au-prince is called "challenges of external intervention in areas of limited governance." welcome to the academic ivory tower.

i'm in s.f. for an international studies conference, fascinated and a bit jet-lagged by my journey from planet praxis to planet theory. the panels at the conference range from the incomprehensible ("unfortunate performativity: towards a co-fertilization of the economy of qualities and polyheuristic theory") to the dubious ("different time, different place: insurgencies in contrast" chaired by the u.s. military academy); from the quirky ("the international relations of middle earth: learning from the lord of the rings") to the ballsy ("amitai etzioni meets his critics," chaired by: amitai etzioni, the panelists: his critics).

my favourite panel discussion was the one linking u.s. military policy and neo-colonialism with the lack of body hair on american comic superheroes and the size of vampirella's breasts. why did i ever choose to study something as down to earth as engineering?

pimp my ride

in haiti, like in many other poorer countries of the planet, public transport vehicles are often turned into elaborate works of art. jeepneys, tuk-tuks, bemos, tap-taps and gua-guas on all five continents are adorned with blinking lights, oversized sound systems, dozens of rear-view mirrors, elaborate paintjobs, extra-wide wheels, pictures of saints, gods and superstars, and whatever else strikes the fancy of the driver as being cool. one of the things i like best, however, are the slogans and names the drivers put on their vehicles. there's nothing like a motto to the tune of "fate alone guides me" to instill trust in your passengers...

going through port-au-prince today, i jotted down some of the slogans on the tap-taps. many were religious, such as "dieu est eternel," "psaume 94, verse 17," "le don de dieu" or the bit more puzzling "sel jezu ki ka fe sa" (its only jesus who can do that). some were a mix of the religious and the mundane, such as "no problem, god bless me, you speak i work." another one that had me puzzling was "marianne say me thank you my mother," while "pensez vous a demain" seemed like sound advice. "u don't know me, oke?!" sounded a tad menacing but the main prize of the day goes to the two tap-taps with miniature jet planes on their roofs, one labeled "air argentina," the other "air florida."

my all-time favourite, however, is still the minibus in rural rwanda which proclaimed, several years after the end of his presidency, that "bill clinton is a mighty force in the world."