These past few days I’ve been paralyzed as far as politics is concerned. Some ideas developed lately do not fit not even in my most pessimistic dreams. And December looks like a terrible monster ready to eat us before Christmas. Is not only “The end of Venezuela as I know it”, it’s the end of all possible “Venezuela” and the beginning, with red flags as a welcome, of the savagery. As plain and simple as that.Is not just Chavez, is not just the revolution, the scarcity of basic products, the misery all over you. It’s the madness of people who don’t know any limits when it comes to play a Lego game with my country. Is when a “process” matters more than anything, more than the citizens, more than the life, more than the wealth; nothing matters as long as a certain vague process and its king remain in power.Their followers, always kissing their feet, with a free card to commit as many devilish acts as they want to, would give you the most amazing arguments to support its cause. And all those arguments can be put in just a very few words, of whom no one knows the exact meaning but it doesn’t matter because once they're overly used; there’s an implicit agreement around it. Those words are “capitalism” or “socialism”, “lackeys”, “the empire”, “revolution”, “destabilization” and so on.
And you know you must be aware when the speech doesn’t mention happiness anymore, neither it promise to end with the poverty; but yet it only talks about peace and the treats – real or not – prepared from the outside against it. Whenever someone talks about peace, it can only be because a war is being planned by the speaker, or its being feared by that speaker.
I have never felt the power as strong and big as I feel it over me right now. And, what am I doing about it? … Absolutely nothing. My world ends tomorrow, and I’m sitting in my room listening to the sonata “Appassionata” by Beethoven and those dramatic tunes only reminds me how stupid I’m acting right now. I’m not fighting, I have chosen to be whine and paralyzed instead.
A couple of nights ago I went to celebrate a former classmate (I finished my university studies in July, and I'm currently writing my thesis) birthday at some fancy club in the eastern zone of Caracas. We ordered a few drinks and started chatting about each other thesis and whatever stupid thing we are doing with our lives at the moment, now that we are done with those – once seemed like endless – sociology classes.
Without knowing how they managed to sneak in, a few kids mixed in the crowd. Their faces were filled with sadness while they were trying to sell some roses to the 20 something young executives who were too busy playing with their drinks. Some of those kids were not older than 6 or 7 years old, and they were there, working; in a Thursday night at some place very distant from their homes, if they … I guess I’m being naïve!... actually have a home.
And what did we do about it? Nothing, we just pretended to ignore the kids for a while and kept with our conversation. Eventually, a little girl sat with us and the sociologist inside a couple of friends made them start asking her a few questions. You want to cry, you want to scream, but the situation is way too overwhelming and so you keep drinking vodka with lemon instead.
Another friend whispers me in the ear imitating Chavez voice: “Please kill me if in my government any child lives or work at the streets…”- My mind goes back to 1998 and I remember his promises, his very radical promises that maybe he wanted to keep back then but now, I guess, they are more important things at the moment like get rid of the “Yankee influence”, put the people who “disestablish the country” in jail, buy some Russian weapons to be prepared in case of an invasion and create a Lenin based education project. Those children can wait. Unfortunately, they wont be children forever and that’s the classical problem all governments – and specially this one – face every time they decide to postpone certain priorities in order to assure their seats in Miraflores (our presidential palace).
The same friend gives me a ride home, about 3 am. My mom was waiting for me with the lights on (the news about crime worries her more and more every day). Since I was feeling a little bit dizzy because of the Vodka, I decided to make coffee with milk (I don’t like black coffee) before going to bed. My mom looked at me with a sarcastic face like saying “What are you pretending to do? Are you seeing any milk inside the fridge?”. The milk shortage came back to my mind, I guess the thought of how miserable we have become by getting used to the shortages pretty much ended up with all the drunkenness I had.
I still don’t understand how, in the middle of all this, I’m still going out, I’m still writing, I’m still studying, I’m still living. But, what other choice do I have?
The Sonata “Appassionata” by Beethoven is coming to an end now, with quick notes and strong accords. I wish life were as easy as a piece of music, that has a beginning and an end, no matter how dramatic, hard, sad, or disturbing their notes sound in the middle, it ends with the door opened for another piece waiting to be discovered. But here, only the dreams end and when you thought you have seen the worse, there’s only more coming.
PS: To finish this entry, here it is my favorite passage of the Appasionata, you can find it all in youtube of course. Enjoy, its a very powerful piece