I feel so sad right now that I just forgot many English words I need to write this post. The government has taken away the only property my family haves. In theory we are still the owners but under many conditions I’ll explain on the following lines. I know they have always said that they are not against private property. But we are aware of the huge distance between speeches and reality. We also know that a property can only be public or private. Any other name given to a property by the government like “social”, “of social interest”, “of cultural and historical value”… becomes a pretty way to state that such property isn’t private anymore.
I have spent years seeing how the government decides to take away this land or another under any excuses off their legitimate proprietary. Sometimes the government argues that a land is not productive enough to question its private property. But when such land passes to state hands; the land also passes from being a bit productive to unproductive at all. We have also learned that any land, any company that the government takes away doesn’t serves to make "social justice". Those lands are not delivered to the “people” - the legitimate owners according to the government. Instead, they are simply added to the broad government' patrimony and we, “people”, never see their benefits.
We only see interviews of frustrated owners who have worked for such land all their lives and now they have lost it all. But during all these years I didn’t do anything about it, besides watching the news with a worried look on my face and commenting them with my friends and family. To say the truth: it did not affect me. My family doesn’t have any of those proprieties neither we personally know anyone who haves them. For us, those land owners were just very unlucky rich people in a reality far distant from ours. It sounds politically incorrect and irresponsible to say it but I have made the commitment to tell you all the reality about the ups and downs of living here on this blog; despite how they make me look.
The reality is this: we hear so many bad news everyday that is impossible to care about all the problems this country has at the same time. It’s also hard to be aware of all government abuses and to speak out loud about them at the same time. Government' abuses never affect everybody at the same time. That’s how government' strategy works: no one talks about it, but everybody knows it exists. And if the affected by it is your next door neighbor but not you, you won’t be as worried as your neighbor is.
So next time you will be affected by a different trouble but your neighbor won’t and in that way everybody live their lives in Venezuela like everything was normal. They know the government closed many radio stations but they are not journalist or own or work at any radio station so they do not worry. They just feel bad about the friend who did work for one of those and that’s it. They know the government has forced to exile or put in jail many politicians who oppose the Revolution. But since they are not politicians they only feel bad for a couple of minutes about those faces on TV and then move on with their lives. They know the government has put some protesters in jail but since they don’t personally know any of them, they only have a little talk with their families were they express their concern about the issue. After saying “this country is a shit… Chavez is a shit…” (Pardon me the language) they pass to another topic and get ready for going to a party. They read in the newspaper that a landowner has lost his land under an arbitrary order of Mr. Chavez. But since they do not know the landowner, neither he belongs to their family; and since they do not own any lands; they pass that newspaper page and check the tourism section to see if they can afford a Cruise around the Caribbean next holiday.
This is how it works. We can’t afford to be worried about every single government move. We can barely worry about the ones who affect us directly and sometimes not even that. And I don’t think I can’t blame Venezuelans for having this attitude. It’s a necessary adjustment to the difficult circumstances we daily face by living inside this Revolution. It’s probably not the best, it probably won’t make a difference; but it can make us somehow sustain an illusion of happiness. And happiness is needed to remain strong and alive. Otherwise, many Venezuelan citizens could be diagnosis with a severe clinical depression (I’m hoping that’s not the case).
Last Sunday I was dreaming about cruises on the newspaper section about tourism. I read with absolutely delight the story of a honeymooner who spent a week on a cruise on the Mediterranean seas. Then my boyfriend and I went to a birthday party of a friend of ours and we divided our afternoon between some splashes in a pool and some domino games. But as soon as Monday came, everything was different.
My family had plans to sell this old apartment which belonged to my grandma (who passed away ten years ago). My uncles who lived wanted to move so we started all the necessary paperwork to sell the place. My family was enthusiastic about the things we could do with the money, that it wasn’t much since it is a very small apartment located in a low middle class area of Caracas.
But yesterday, we found out that we can’t sell our apartment. The government put out a decree (without any consultation) that declares our building among others, “good of cultural interest” and “cultural heritage of the nation”. This means not only that we can’t modify the building’ original structure but that no proprietary can sell or rent an apartment without government’ permission. To get this permission we need about 22 documents (including original property documents and other strange requests such as “the building’ coordinates”) which are very hard to get, not to say impossible. The permission is totally discretional: this means the government can’t deny it without any further explanation, even if you have your papers on rule. And the best part: even if you do get the permission, you can’t sell the apartment to the market’ price but rather, the government’ will set the price (again, in a discretional way) were you can sell it. Last but not least: the government will have the right to have the first buying option. Like we say in Spanish: "pagan y se dan el vuelto" (no idea how to say this in English, could anyone help?)
We did not receive any explanation of why our building is now part of the “cultural heritage” of the nation. Our building is old, yes, probably from the 60’s… who knows… but its very ugly, very rough, doesn’t have any architectural value as far as I know. In the neighborhood there are many buildings just like ours plus many others which are older, prettier, of much more value than ours. Yet, of the whole neighborhood, only about 12 buildings were selected for the decree. We don’t understand why they want to preserve this building instead the other next street which looks exactly the same. It looks like an arbitrary selection of the buildings, rather than a coordinated effort to preserve our cultural heritage.
Words less, words more, what is happening here is that a property once private, has now fallen into a limbo where, same as the government speaks out, it doesn’t stop being private. In theory that apartment still belong to us. But if it does, why we feel that it now belongs more to them than to us, their legitimate owners?
I look at the people who live in the buildings who have been not affected by the decree. They will discuss over dinner about the bad luck their neighbors have and move on with their lives as it nothing happens. They probably didn’t even read the decree, just found out they were not part of it and that was it.
But next door, for my family, there is a whole different situation. My mom has a headach, product of the incredible tension and frustration she has felt since she found out that her limited heritage is now reduced to zero. Her heritage and my grandparent’s work has been reduced to a place where we can live, but that we can’t sell or rent. The government has stolen from us that right with a decree passed from one day to another, without any explanation.
I don’t have a fancy way to finish this post as I have finished others in the past. I’m just going to say that I’m sad. I’m frustrated. That I wish this illusion of happiness we Venezuelans create everyway could be something more than just an illusion.
PS: My mom and I made a tour around Caracas to take pictures of houses and buildings affected by this decree. I won’t put a picture of our building to protect my privacy. But I would publish the pictures of this couple of buildings instead: they are on the same street, one next to the other. The one on the left was not affected by the decree. The one on the right is now part of the Venezuelan cultural heritage. I think this couple of pictures proves the arbitrary nature of the decree. Can you tell me why one building was included and the other was not?
Also I have a picture of this shopping mall included in the decree and I can’t think of any reason why this building might have any cultural value. Can you? (on the inside is just as ugly as it is on the outside)
I have spent years seeing how the government decides to take away this land or another under any excuses off their legitimate proprietary. Sometimes the government argues that a land is not productive enough to question its private property. But when such land passes to state hands; the land also passes from being a bit productive to unproductive at all. We have also learned that any land, any company that the government takes away doesn’t serves to make "social justice". Those lands are not delivered to the “people” - the legitimate owners according to the government. Instead, they are simply added to the broad government' patrimony and we, “people”, never see their benefits.
We only see interviews of frustrated owners who have worked for such land all their lives and now they have lost it all. But during all these years I didn’t do anything about it, besides watching the news with a worried look on my face and commenting them with my friends and family. To say the truth: it did not affect me. My family doesn’t have any of those proprieties neither we personally know anyone who haves them. For us, those land owners were just very unlucky rich people in a reality far distant from ours. It sounds politically incorrect and irresponsible to say it but I have made the commitment to tell you all the reality about the ups and downs of living here on this blog; despite how they make me look.
The reality is this: we hear so many bad news everyday that is impossible to care about all the problems this country has at the same time. It’s also hard to be aware of all government abuses and to speak out loud about them at the same time. Government' abuses never affect everybody at the same time. That’s how government' strategy works: no one talks about it, but everybody knows it exists. And if the affected by it is your next door neighbor but not you, you won’t be as worried as your neighbor is.
So next time you will be affected by a different trouble but your neighbor won’t and in that way everybody live their lives in Venezuela like everything was normal. They know the government closed many radio stations but they are not journalist or own or work at any radio station so they do not worry. They just feel bad about the friend who did work for one of those and that’s it. They know the government has forced to exile or put in jail many politicians who oppose the Revolution. But since they are not politicians they only feel bad for a couple of minutes about those faces on TV and then move on with their lives. They know the government has put some protesters in jail but since they don’t personally know any of them, they only have a little talk with their families were they express their concern about the issue. After saying “this country is a shit… Chavez is a shit…” (Pardon me the language) they pass to another topic and get ready for going to a party. They read in the newspaper that a landowner has lost his land under an arbitrary order of Mr. Chavez. But since they do not know the landowner, neither he belongs to their family; and since they do not own any lands; they pass that newspaper page and check the tourism section to see if they can afford a Cruise around the Caribbean next holiday.
This is how it works. We can’t afford to be worried about every single government move. We can barely worry about the ones who affect us directly and sometimes not even that. And I don’t think I can’t blame Venezuelans for having this attitude. It’s a necessary adjustment to the difficult circumstances we daily face by living inside this Revolution. It’s probably not the best, it probably won’t make a difference; but it can make us somehow sustain an illusion of happiness. And happiness is needed to remain strong and alive. Otherwise, many Venezuelan citizens could be diagnosis with a severe clinical depression (I’m hoping that’s not the case).
Last Sunday I was dreaming about cruises on the newspaper section about tourism. I read with absolutely delight the story of a honeymooner who spent a week on a cruise on the Mediterranean seas. Then my boyfriend and I went to a birthday party of a friend of ours and we divided our afternoon between some splashes in a pool and some domino games. But as soon as Monday came, everything was different.
My family had plans to sell this old apartment which belonged to my grandma (who passed away ten years ago). My uncles who lived wanted to move so we started all the necessary paperwork to sell the place. My family was enthusiastic about the things we could do with the money, that it wasn’t much since it is a very small apartment located in a low middle class area of Caracas.
But yesterday, we found out that we can’t sell our apartment. The government put out a decree (without any consultation) that declares our building among others, “good of cultural interest” and “cultural heritage of the nation”. This means not only that we can’t modify the building’ original structure but that no proprietary can sell or rent an apartment without government’ permission. To get this permission we need about 22 documents (including original property documents and other strange requests such as “the building’ coordinates”) which are very hard to get, not to say impossible. The permission is totally discretional: this means the government can’t deny it without any further explanation, even if you have your papers on rule. And the best part: even if you do get the permission, you can’t sell the apartment to the market’ price but rather, the government’ will set the price (again, in a discretional way) were you can sell it. Last but not least: the government will have the right to have the first buying option. Like we say in Spanish: "pagan y se dan el vuelto" (no idea how to say this in English, could anyone help?)
We did not receive any explanation of why our building is now part of the “cultural heritage” of the nation. Our building is old, yes, probably from the 60’s… who knows… but its very ugly, very rough, doesn’t have any architectural value as far as I know. In the neighborhood there are many buildings just like ours plus many others which are older, prettier, of much more value than ours. Yet, of the whole neighborhood, only about 12 buildings were selected for the decree. We don’t understand why they want to preserve this building instead the other next street which looks exactly the same. It looks like an arbitrary selection of the buildings, rather than a coordinated effort to preserve our cultural heritage.
Words less, words more, what is happening here is that a property once private, has now fallen into a limbo where, same as the government speaks out, it doesn’t stop being private. In theory that apartment still belong to us. But if it does, why we feel that it now belongs more to them than to us, their legitimate owners?
I look at the people who live in the buildings who have been not affected by the decree. They will discuss over dinner about the bad luck their neighbors have and move on with their lives as it nothing happens. They probably didn’t even read the decree, just found out they were not part of it and that was it.
But next door, for my family, there is a whole different situation. My mom has a headach, product of the incredible tension and frustration she has felt since she found out that her limited heritage is now reduced to zero. Her heritage and my grandparent’s work has been reduced to a place where we can live, but that we can’t sell or rent. The government has stolen from us that right with a decree passed from one day to another, without any explanation.
I don’t have a fancy way to finish this post as I have finished others in the past. I’m just going to say that I’m sad. I’m frustrated. That I wish this illusion of happiness we Venezuelans create everyway could be something more than just an illusion.
PS: My mom and I made a tour around Caracas to take pictures of houses and buildings affected by this decree. I won’t put a picture of our building to protect my privacy. But I would publish the pictures of this couple of buildings instead: they are on the same street, one next to the other. The one on the left was not affected by the decree. The one on the right is now part of the Venezuelan cultural heritage. I think this couple of pictures proves the arbitrary nature of the decree. Can you tell me why one building was included and the other was not?
Also I have a picture of this shopping mall included in the decree and I can’t think of any reason why this building might have any cultural value. Can you? (on the inside is just as ugly as it is on the outside)
