When I was at school one of my favorite routines was one usually made just a couple of days before a new school year started, and it consisted on going with my mom and my sister to buy the all school supplies and the paper to cover my new books.The Revolutionary people would have a treat with this, since the contact paper theme was always the most recent Disney (they say, imperialist) movie: one year it was Beauty and the Beast, the next Aladdin or more likely princess Jasmine and the next, The Lion King… It was a bittersweet moment of being still with the tan of the awesome vacations at Margarita island (always, always Margarita, we never tried anywhere else) and sad about their ending, but yet excited for the new books and notebooks and curious about my classmates opinions on my book cover (a totally pointless expectation, since at least other 5 girls always covered their books with the same Disney paper). Just a few days ago I had the opportunity to live that again, by helping my 11 year old niece with her long list of school supplies for the 5th Grade she just starting. While I was cutting the “Ratatouille” contact paper for cover her books (my niece is pretty much into the family tradition) she showed me an unusual cartoon inside her main text book: “I already showed it to the rest of the family” – She said – “I don’t know what does Bush has to do with my text book”. – Hmmm, let me see…
The book is like an encyclopedia where you can find all the main classes from language to math, social studies and science. On the language section it had a chapter about written media, explaining the concept of news, different from an article, a cartoon and so on; with colorful examples of each concept.
Next to the cartoon description you could see a supposedly funny cartoon of two guys sitting on a bench talking. One guy says to the other: “Bush y que anda muy preocupado por el pueblo venezolano” (roughly translated: “Bush is supposedly concerned about the Venezuelan people”) – and the other answers back: “¿Por el pueblo? ¡Será por el petróleo!” (roughly translated: “For the people? It must be for the oil!”). I wont give my opinions on the cartoon stance, although the reader knows I’m not exactly a pro- Bush person, this is not the place to discuss that. The cartoon is the image chosen to start this entry (sorry about the bad quality, I don’t have a scanner and my digital cam is not made for this)
Carrying a suspicious attitude, I started checking the whole encyclopedia from head to toes. I found some things I’m not sure if I liked them. One of the activities proposed after a chapter asks the question if there should be limits to free speech and if the student considers that the media fills its role. One corner in yellow wonders if the student knows that the government founded “Misión Mercal” provides food in cheap prices to the people. And the most interesting chapter on “Social studies” gives a very shallow concept of democracy as the “government of the people” claiming that it’s the best existent way of government but doesn’t say much about the vote or about the power separation.
Yet none of this things alarms me, or make me want to burn the book and write a letter to the school authorities because that is part of the influence I see as inevitable under the schools because of a political process that has already lasted nine years. And my conscience reminds me that I don’t actually remember much of my 5th grade book because I was busier playing with my dolls and watching Disney movies to concern about the political scene back them.
So I can’t tell if my 5th grade book was any different from my niece’s. I’m pretty much sure that mine didn’t had cartoons about Bush that I can remember of; neither any propaganda of government programs (I wasn’t sure of what the government was doing anyway). For the better or the worse,– putting the memory of the briefly – leaded by Hugo Chavez - coup attempts of 1992 aside – politics was simply not part of my childhood and only acquired relevance when the whole “Chavez boom” started.
My niece’ childhood, on the other hand, has been entirely different: by being born in 1996 everything she knows is pretty much about Chavez; and by living inside a very anti – Chavez home, everything she knows is about things that are wrong and a strong crisis that she cannot get out of, no matter how hard we tried to put politics aside when it comes to talk to her.
So given our very different childhoods, it impressed me a lot when she noticed the cartoon about Bush and she was even concerned enough to tell all the family about it. After reviewing her book, all I did was to give her the introduction of a couple of explanations I’m afraid I will have to give her more on detail later: first, the concept of democracy that implies much more than the “power of the people” and if it limits to just the “power of the people” it becomes a plebiscite based democracy for say the least (still don’t have any clue about how to explain that to a 11 year old without feeling that I’m imposing her something); and second perhaps she might need some Venezuelan history clarification.
While I was talking to her about democracy I could notice how she quickly realized about the omnipotent present of two very different Venezuelas confusing us all the time. “So, do I have to learn all that, even if is not true?” – She asked me looking at her now “Ratatouille” covered big and brand new text book – “You will probably have to learn many things that are not true, and pretend they are” – I answered back, doubting if I was giving her the correct answer. I just couldn’t tell her something like: “don’t learn it just like that, discuss it to your teacher!” because sooner or later that advice could put her into some risk. To my proposal of making her pretend to be agree with the revolution at school (if it happens) and follow a whole different world perspective at home; she didn’t gave me not even the most tiny skeptical look. She looked at me back convinced that my answer was something completely normal, and a minute later she was back organizing her new school supplies like nothing.
Either way, she daily faces this contrast. For example; she has developed a strong taste for the Hummers, she thinks that those are very pretty cars (yes, I’m disagree, they are big and nasty but that’s not the point). Just recently, the Venezuelans have become used to see those very expensive cars everywhere: they are the typical ride of the so called “Boliburguesía”: members of the government who have seen their fortunes dramatically increase – definitely corruption. So when she asked us the other day to check out the Hummer that was just passing aside, my mom freaked out “those are Chavistas cars!” – “But they’re pretty!” – She replied to my mom like saying: “Who cares if they are Chavistas’ cars?”
At 11 years old, I would have drawn into a huge confusion if someone – especially from my family – had asked me not to believe on my text books or my teachers and even more, to pretend they say the truth and not even discussing about them. The books were like the Bible and the teachers the priests and there was no reason to put on question what those books had to say, but simply learn them and pass the exams. Of course you had always your doubts and your questions like my discussion with my 3rd grade teacher about the color of my skin (not a mix of three races like she affirmed that all Venezuelans were) or my complains about a class called “Educación para el trabajo” (“Education for the work”) on 6th that was basically about home stuff like how to wash your clothes and cook…and the religion classes that became the classic discussion ground specially on high school, where we believed that we were the most grown up and rebel individuals in the whole planet Earth.
Unknowingly, the religious schools seem to help free speech thanks to those endless debates year after year about the creation, the existence of God and so on. Besides in high school we usually had on religion class, lessons about other religions besides Catholicism like Judaism or Islam. And outside religious classes, the classes looked pretty much secular (from Darwin to the Enlightenment).
Anyway, I didn’t made this post to talk about catholic schools; the important thing to notice here is that none of the doubts I had back at school, were strong enough to put my identity into risk, and certainly none of them were strongly supported by the adults except some “bohemian” uncle here and there (cannot stop wondering if I just become one of those “bohemian” aunts).
My niece is naturally trained (I didn't had that privilege) to overpass the confusion from living between two parallel country’s. But she’s still free to discuss any vision, and her text book although it has some things to worry about, is not red in the revolutionary way of saying it.
The situation that I recount now is the prelude of a much worse situation that it’s now touching our feet, with the new school reform project. From suspecting and doubting, but having the opportunity to learn something different; to the suppression of any possible discussion aside the political project leaded by the president its a long path I refuse to walk.
Hugo Chavez wants to educate children for the revolution, for the revolution and for nothing else. Many children like my niece would be like Julia (almost, because Julia was partly convinced that the system was exactly the way it should be) on George Orwell’ 1984 and will just make a performance of being revolutionary children, even if deep inside, they are not. The human brain, even talking about a child, is not as easy to wash as some people can think and I still find it hard to believe that it can be washed completely (sigh, maybe this is only a naïve assumption).
>But I can sense that if this performance is forced and imposed, with no possibility of act otherwise under the threat of grave consequences to the dissidents; then this is definitely not a performance easy to maintain. And then many, I’m afraid, will become revolutionary children for real – if and only if – the government is strong enough to impose it, and the society unconscious enough or able somehow to allow it.