Venezuela and its toxic relationship with totalitarianism
Many of us have experienced toxic relationships, those in which no matter how hard we try again and again, no matter how much we are in love with that person, it will end up getting worse.
Something very similar happens to Venezuela, it has kind of a loving relationship with an ideology that for close to 20 years has been causing a lot of sadness, and especially a great frustration due to an endless number of unfulfilled promises. The bad thing is that, like many people involved in a toxic relationship, it always promises to improve and change if necessary. But, just as no person changes for another one in any relationship, no ideology changes its bases or principles for anything in the world, because it would simply cease to exist and become something else.
The current system that rules the country came as an ideology that promised abundance and only brought misery. It made the people believe that the one who has (or had) more when it comes to material things was a soulless and evil person, that the rich were guilty of any misery there might be and promised to perform the task of returning what had supposedly been taken away from them by the previous elites.
But these people not only deceive the country on purpose, they don’t tolerate or allow the citizens to have a good quality of life, or to aspire to own property, to travel around the world, but above all they don’t allow the country to be a place where freedom is respected, up the point where millions of Venezuelans are separated from their family and friends, who left the country looking for a better future.
Perhaps the high oil prices from the 2000s, the expropriations and the collection of taxes served for a long time to mask what was really happening. For years they captivated millions of Venezuelans with free homes, free washing machines, free laptops, making them believe that all of this was a “right” for them, and therefore this could be permanent dynamic, even though Venezuela was and still is full or murders, hunger and general resentment. They were able to eliminate basic freedoms and made sure the majority of the citizens became compliant submissives, always waiting for the new handout from the government.
A recent example can be seen in the gas prices, they are forcing people to register in what they call “country card” (carnet de la patria in spanish) which is basically another mechanism to control people and to control their actions. I say they are forcing the people because now if someone wants to buy gas for their cars, they would have to pay international prices unless they register in the country card system which is the only method to have access to cheap local prices. It is obvious that international gas prices cannot be paid by regular Venezuelans because the salaries are extremely low.
But like any toxic relationship, Venezuela not only gave it a second, but perhaps a third, fourth and even fifth chance to this ideology in order to see if it could really make the country become prosperous. As it is clear now, the result was none other than shortages, massive migration and insecurity.
People behind this type of governments don’t care about anything but their ideology
People that support this ideology and take political actions are not normal citizens like any other person. A Venezuelan “revolutionary” that supports this ideology is not really a Venezuelan citizen, as any other normal individual. This individual is actually someone whose priority is to be an agent of his ideology, he owes no loyalty to his country nor to his friends or family. When a person like this, achieves power in any country, he doesn’t look to benefit the people or the society in general, he rules for his fellow comrades whether they are from Venezuela or from any other countries around the world. For that reason, they come to a country and do their best to put all the resources of that country at the service of their ideology. They expropriate companies and use them to finance new totalitarians political parties in other countries. They go to other countries with the sole purpose of indoctrinating a group of young people and try to make them into international agents of their ideology.
They are not interested in the sovereignty of the country, nor do they seek independence from foreign influences, which is something they constantly claim. All they want is for the foreign influences to be the “right” ones, that is, the ones behind the ideology they are supporting.
To explain it in the simplest possible way, the way in which they operate is like a parasite. They manage to take control of a country, take all of its resources, reduce the people’s freedom and move to the next one. Meanwhile the parasites, those in the government, have lives full of excesses with the money they steal.
It is possible to establish a free society in Venezuela? If so, how should this transition start?
Well, the process of turning Venezuela into a country that respects freedom cannot happen in a matter of days, forcing changes in a radical way and without thinking about potential consequences according to the country’s current context could make everything worse. It is difficult to expect from an ordinary Venezuelan who is suffering from poverty and prisoner of the government's dependence for as long as he can remember, to wake up one day supporting the total economic, social and philosophical freedom posed by a different system, this is a change of mentality that doesn’t happen easily. However, it is useless to insult or denigrate someone for thinking in a way that we consider wrong. Nothing better than creating an environment of trust and empathy to explain that concept of freedom that everyone thinks they know but in reality, very few understand and practice.
For something like a big change to take place, small transformations need to happen little by little, it is not only about political changes, it is necessary to understand the importance of changing the current values as well as the idiosyncrasy that has been adopted in this society, in such a way that with time the changes that might be about to happen can remain sustainable. It is about each individual developing the ability to reason for himself, exercise leadership and accept the responsibilities of his own life, in order to understand the benefits of freedom from a philosophical point of view, which is much more complex than freedom only from the economic sense.
Final thoughts
Venezuela is not only a victim of a massive criminal organization that is in control of the government, and therefore, of the country itself, but also it is a victim of its own mentality. For decades the people have been supporting the growth in government power, putting complete trust in this institution and not paying attention to all the bad things that always happen when a government gets out of control.
Getting rid of the totalitarians will certainly be something very difficult, and international help might be needed at some point, but the most important thing is for the people to recognize their mistakes regarding their understanding about how societies can achieve prosperity, it is always about freedom, but somehow, there are some places where individuals seem to always prefer increase the control rather than increase the freedom.
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