Hugo Chávez and the closing down of RCTV

Richard Gott appears to be the apologist of the kind that permeates the left today. To these people Chavez is an infallible hero because of the simple fact that he challenges the hegemony of the West. No further questions need to be asked. Chavez is above any independent scrutiny, a very convoluted left logic professes.
Such blind loyalty to a living person appearing to be a revolutionary is pathetic--it paves way for fascism.

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> >>
> >> Racism and TV in Venezuela
> >> by Richard Gott
> >>
> >> "RCTV was a white supremacist channel."
> >>
> >> This article originally appeared in The Guardian
> (UK).
> >>
> >>
> >> After 10 days of rival protests in the streets of
> >> Caracas, memories have been revived of earlier
> >> attempts to overthrow the Bolivarian revolution
> of
> >> Hugo Chávez, now in its ninth year. Street
> >> demonstrations, culminating in an attempted coup
> in
> >> 2002 and a prolonged lock-out at the national oil
> >> industry, once seemed the last resort of an
> opposition
> >> unable to make headway at the polls. Yet the
> current
> >> unrest is a feeble echo of those tumultuous
> events,
> >> and the political struggle takes place on a
> smaller
> >> canvas. Today's battle is for the hearts and
> minds of
> >> a younger generation confused by the upheavals of
> an
> >> uncharted revolutionary process.
> >>
> >> University students from privileged backgrounds
> have
> >> been pitched against newly enfranchised young
> people
> >> from the impoverished shantytowns, beneficiaries
> of
> >> the increased oil royalties spent on higher
> education
> >> projects for the poor. These separate groups
> never
> >> meet, but both sides occupy their familiar
> >> battleground within the city, one in the leafy
> squares
> >> of eastern Caracas, the other in the narrow and
> >> teeming streets in the west. This symbolic battle
> will
> >> become ever more familiar in Latin America in the
> >> years ahead: rich against poor, white against
> brown
> >> and black, immigrant settlers against indigenous
> >> peoples, privileged minorities against the great
> mass
> >> of the population. History may have come to an
> end in
> >> other parts of the world, but in this continent
> >> historical processes are in full flood.
> >>
> >> Ostensibly the argument is about the media, and
> the
> >> government's decision not to renew the
> broadcasting
> >> license of a prominent station, Radio Caracas
> >> Television (RCTV), and to hand its frequencies to
> a
> >> newly established state channel. What are the
> rights
> >> of commercial television channels? What are the
> >> responsibilities of those funded by the state?
> Where
> >> should the balance between them lie? Academic
> >> questions in Europe and the US, the debate in
> Latin
> >> America is loud and impassioned. Here there is
> little
> >> tradition of public broadcasting, and commercial
> >> stations often received their license in the days
> of
> >> military rule.
> >>
> >> "Those most in view on the screen were
> long-haired and
> >> pulchritudinous young blonds."
> >>
> >> The debate in Venezuela has less to do with the
> >> alleged absence of freedom of expression than
> with a
> >> perennially tricky issue locally referred to as
> >> "exclusion", a shorthand term for "race" and
> "racism".
> >> RCTV was not just a politically reactionary
> >> organization which supported the 2002 coup
> attempt
> >> against a democratically elected government - it
> was
> >> also a white supremacist channel. Its staff and
> >> presenters, in a country largely of black and
> >> indigenous descent, were uniformly white, as were
> the
> >> protagonists of its soap operas and the
> advertisements
> >> it carried. It was "colonial" television,
> reflecting
> >> the desires and ambitions of an external power.
> >>
> >> At the final, close-down party of RCTV last
> month,
> >> those most in view on the screen were long-haired
> and
> >> pulchritudinous young blondes. Such images make
> for
> >> excellent television watching by European and
> North
> >> American males, and these languorous blondes are
> >> indeed familiar figures from the Miss World and
> Miss
> >> Universe competitions in which the children of
> recent
> >> immigrants from Europe are invariably Venezuela's
> >> chief contenders. Yet their ubiquity on the
> screen
> >> prevented the channel from presenting a mirror to
> the
> >> society that it sought to serve or to entertain.
> To
> >> watch a Venezuelan commercial station (and
> several
> >> still survive) is to imagine that you have been
> >> transported to the US. Everything is based on a
> >> modern, urban and industrialized society, remote
> from
> >> the experience of most Venezuelans. Their
> programs,
> >> argues Aristóbulo Istúriz, until recently
> Chávez's
> >> minister of education (and an Afro-Venezuelan),
> >> encourage racism, discrimination and exclusion.
> >>
> >> The new state-funded channels (and there are
> several
> >> of them too, plus innumerable community radio
> >> stations) are doing something completely
> different,
> >> and unusual in the competitive world of
> commercial
> >> television. Their programs look as though they
> are
> >> taking place in Venezuela, and they display the
> >> cross-section of the population to be seen on
> >> cross-country buses or on the Caracas metro. As
> in
> >> every country in the world, not everyone in
> Venezuela
> >> is a natural beauty. Many are old, ugly and fat.
> Today
> >> they are given a voice and a face on the
> television
> >> channels of the state. Many are deaf or hard of
> >> hearing. Now they have sign language
> interpretation on
> >> every prograe. Many are inarticulate peasants.
> They
> >> too have their moment on the screen. Their
> immediate
> >> and dangerous struggle for land is not just being
> >> observed by a documentary film-maker from the
> city.
> >> They are being taught to make the films
> themselves.
> >>
> >> "Venezuelan state TV will become a useful space
> for
> >> rescuing those values that other models of
> television
> >> always ignore, especially our Afro-heritage."
> >>
> >> Blanca Eekhout, the head of Vive TV, the
> government's
> >> cultural channel, launched two years ago, coined
> the
> >> slogan "Don't watch television, make it". Classes
> in
> >> film-making have been set up all over the
> country. Lil
> >> Rodríguez, an Afro-Venezuelan journalist and the
> boss
> >> of TVES, the channel that replaces RCTV, claims
> that
> >> it will become "a useful space for rescuing those
> >> values that other models of television always
> ignore,
> >> especially our Afro-heritage". With time, the
> excluded
> >> will find a voice within the mainstream.
> >>
> >> Little of this is under discussion in the
> dialogue of
> >> the deaf on the streets of Caracas. For the
> protesting
> >> university students, the argument about the media
> is
> >> just one more stick with which to hit out against
> the
> >> ever-popular Chávez. Yet as they mourn the loss
> of
> >> their favourite soap operas, they are already
> aware
> >> that their eventual loss may be more substantial.
> As
> >> children of the oligarchy, they might have
> expected
> >> soon to run the country. Now fresh faces are
> emerging
> >> from the shantytowns to challenge them, a new
> class
> >> educating itself at speed and planning to seize
> their
> >> birthright.
> >>
> >> Just a few weeks ago, Chávez outlined his plans
> for
> >> university reform, encouraging wider access and
> the
> >> development of a different curriculum. New
> colleges
> >> and technical institutes across the country will
> >> dilute the prestige of the older establishments,
> still
> >> the preserve of the wealthy, and the battle over
> the
> >> media will soon be submerged in a wider struggle
> for
> >> educational reform. Chávez takes no notice of the
> >> complaints and simply soldiers on, with the
> >> characteristics of an evangelical preacher: he
> urges
> >> people to lead moral lives, live simply and
> resist the
> >> lure of consumerism. He is embarked on a
> challenge to
> >> the established order that has long prevailed in
> >> Venezuela and throughout the rest of Latin
> America,
> >> hoping that the message of his cultural
> revolution
> >> will soon echo across the continent.
> >>
> >>
> >> Richard Gott is the author of Hugo Chávez and the
> >> Bolivarian Revolution. He can be contacted at
> >> rwgott@aol.com
> >>