May 22nd 2008, by Carlos Ruiz - Ven Central
U.S. foreign policy talks of democracy to mean subversion to Western capital, although this interpretation arises via dubious logic from the unwavering principle of economic freedom for all. Obviously, all policy (including economic) should follow from democratic choice, but the inherent problem for capitalists is that their ideology can only be seen to benefit a majority when viewed from the perspective of an increasingly privileged minority.
The position of Western countries, having plundered the third world for time immemorial, is clearly better than that of their victims, whose claims to successful Westernization are evident only in the centers and well-kept suburbs of major cities and resorts. Venezuela is a country that has broken free of the preferred form of imposed capitalism; that which places particular emphasis on the ability of U.S. multinationals to operate abroad as they see fit, embedding themselves with political establishments.
Capitalism is maintained primarily through the media system, which is operated entirely by the capitalists themselves, and the school system, which is so important in terms of avoiding masses of truly critical thinkers that it must be centralized in the hands of the capitalist state. With the public education and media optimised to keep obedient, unquestioning workers enclosed in a mass capitalist reality, there will only be a minority of dissenters. These will go largely unheard, and can thus be prevented from assuming political power.
Venezuela was once like modern-day Colombia, where President Uribe was “conclusively” voted in with a mere 7.3 million votes in a country of 43 million. Mass abstention happens to be a conclusive demonstration of how the system alienates the poor, because political candidates only pretend to speak for majority interests.
Many things have changed in Venezuela since Chavez came to power in 1999, following an unusual, fortuitous and tragic set of circumstances. He was comprehensively re-elected in 2006 as 75% of the electorate turned out to vote. Venezuela probably has the most politicized population on the planet, and the most fair and trustworthy democratic process.
EXPOSING A VULNERABLE SYSTEM
The opposition’s problem is that all this democracy is taking the country in a direction that has stripped them of their political power, and threatens to empower the working class beyond all recognition. In order to do this, the capitalist media is being marginalized in an entirely legal fashion, maintaining the freedom of the opposition to say practically anything they wish. Meanwhile, the schooling system is a principal target for outright revolution.
Traditional schooling in Venezuela follows the Western format, which in normal circumstances guarantees most students enter the workplace without even the slightest knowledge of politics. Why would the elites want to politicise anybody when the status quo is already working for them? All they require are institutionalized workers who follow orders, accept reality, and spend the rest of their lives slaving to enrich the capitalist class (and a relatively small section of themselves).
A true revolution in Venezuelan public schooling would not require the teaching of any particular ideology, or even values. The difference would simply be a liberation from a one-way, teacher-student monologue, and all the incessant memorization and testing that implies. In the traditional system, students are essentially receptacles for a state curriculum which of course narrates the elitist Western perspective of history. A revolutionary curriculum would tell a rather different story, since input into its content would come from society as a whole and not just the corridors of government.
Aside from a more realistic ‘people’s history’ of the world, the emphasis would undoubtedly be on usable skills, a classical education, and important issues concerning the planet. But the eventual outcome has little to do with any designated curriculum, because the priority is that students play a role in adapting their education to their own interests, and that the teacher is more of a catalyst or moderator, who inspires debate and questions, and permits the maximum degree of personal freedom.
RESHAPING REALITY
The idea is simply to fit education into the structure of society at large, rapidly reshaping to accommodate popular power and ideas which happen to conflict with capitalist principles. The media environment in Venezuela is now far removed from the previous arrangement of a lame duck state TV channel that stooped so low as to broadcast commercials, while all other stations and print media were operated by rich private interests. State media now actively combats the Westernization of culture and exposes the very foundations upon which capitalism is maintained.
Nowadays, the state media has expanded to prioritise culture and education, while an explosion in grassroots media has resulted in thousands of local radio stations and community publications. The government has reined in the private media’s penchant of throwing insults at the new government, and denied the renewal of a free-to-air broadcast license to a TV network that conspired to overthrow it in 2002, while habitually perpetuating distortions and morally questionable soap operas.
Venezuela’s new TV spectrum has become more protective of children, and is now far more racially representative. Unfortunately, the private stations continue to present the white European faces in abundance, together with mind-numbing commercials and Western influences, and utilizing their freedoms to brazenly oppose all government policy, thereby twisting the truth for a large section of a society.
The way the opposition frame the process of revolutionary change is interesting. Traditional media and schooling are perceived to be a natural order, and therefore correct and harmless. Children have always been fed Christian ideas in school, so that is undoubtedly the best way to raise them. I was taught this way, so why not my children? They raise the question of the freedom to have one’s child schooled in any given fashion, but misunderstand the entire nature of what the revolution wants to achieve.
For a start, the key choices provided within traditional education are between religious and secular, with the option of an elite school if you have the money to pay for it. Any choice between traditional and “liberational” education would be a valid one, though it is worth noting that no such choice existed when elites were in government. What Chavez seeks to impose on all schools is a democratic curriculum, while the mode and method of teaching itself will adapt over time. It is likely that there will remain the option to teach in the traditional fashion, though over time people would recognise any superior method and its popularity would spread.
Clearly the opposition do not desire any change in any part of the curriculum or protocol, and so their tactic is to sow fear that parents will lose their children to the state. Distortion and ignorance are widely evident. A Globovision reporter, sent to a school in a nice part of Caracas where parents were waiting to collect their children, asked one: “Do you believe that the ideals of socialism should be taught in school?”. The answer was: “Of course not. I don’t know anything about socialism, and it doesn’t interest me. I am 44 years old, was raised in democracy, and want my son to be a democrat also.”
Another parent, when asked whether religion should be taken out of schools, replied: “Never! We’ve had it for 200 years and it has produced excellent results.” He goes on to say “They just want to indoctrinate our children”, which is the common refrain, along with allegations of “Cubanization” and the idea that the government wants citizens to become “instruments of the state”.
Anyone who has read Paolo Friere, the Brazilian Marxist pedagogist, knows that teaching Marxist ideas is not advocated in any of his books. In materials produced by the Venezuelan Ministry of Education, they appear to rely heavily on his studies and writings, which do not concern the actual content of education, only the “liberational” method. Quite simply, this produces inquisitive beings capable of comprehending and critiquing the society around them. This, he said, was the basis of a just society and true democracy.
Another famous quote in the Ministry’s materials is that of Simon Rodriguez, the philosopher and educator, and tutor to Simon Bolivar:
To teach is to teach to think. To assign things to be recited from memory is to train parrots… Teach the children to ask questions, so that, asking the Why behind what you tell them to do, they become accustomed to obeying Reason: not authority, like the limited, nor custom, like the foolish.
When people in the Venezuelan opposition claim the natural order of education is democratic, free or correct, it shows that they are accustomed to obeying authority and custom. In next year’s display of democracy, which will center on “revolutionizing” education, the opposition will be invited to give democratic input into a new curriculum, and will refuse. The reality they construct for themselves is based on being ignorant about proposed changes, and resistant to change based on this ignorance.
http://vencentral.com/2008/05/22/revolutionizing-education-and-society/
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