A Note To Tennyson Joseph: Poverty Is Poverty, Regardless Of Colour . . . So Are People!

“Venezuela’s presidential election has done nothing to end the country’s profound political, economic and social crisis. Inflation is spiralling out of control, oil production is plummeting, foreign assets have been frozen, there are serious shortages of food and medicine, tens of thousands are fleeing the country, and the government of Nicolas Maduro has increasingly weakened the country’s democratic instruments [in order] to cling to power.”

Nevertheless, in a recent article published in the Barbados Nation, former SLP candidate for Choiseul/Saltibus and Professor at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Dr Tennyson Joseph, believes we in the Caribbean “should embrace Venezuela’s socialism, rather than seek its overthrow.” The article was evidently intended to mark Nicolas Maduro’s January 10, 2019 inauguration.

Meanwhile, the Allen Chastanet administration refers to Maduro’s May 2018 election, as an “illegitimate process”.

I deliberately quoted the opening paragraph’s undeniably true description of Venezuela’s ongoing crisis. It featured in a column carried by Al Jazeera, written by Asa Cusak under the title: “Is Socialism to blame for Venezuela’s Never-ending crisis?” Lest misunderstandings may arise, I hasten to add Cusak is not anti-socialist. I also have in mind Tennyson Joseph’s declaration that “very intelligent Caribbean people, force-fed on American-controlled news, end up tacitly supporting the overthrow of a progressive, socialist and friendly ally to the region’s poor …”

It is clear, however, that the Venezuelan crisis is not just a consequence of American fake news. Even a widely respected news organisation like Al Jazeera (hardly an American pro-capitalist rag), has reported on it. I’m inclined to agree that “very intelligent Caribbean people” want Maduro’s overthrow because the Venezuelan crisis has had a snowball effect on both the Latin American and Caribbean regions. On Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Sarah Flood-Beaubrun touched on this regional collateral damage when she said: “We are very concerned, of course, in terms of our own security and with the influx of migrants, and also that invites criminal elements and arms moving across the region.”

This, before she echoed the government’s “try to please everybody while pleasing none” stance on the Maduro administration. “The process has been illegitimate,” she said of Maduro’s controversial election last May. She added that the Saint Lucian government “had said from early that the process does not appear, on the face of it, to be fair because there is not a free participation of the people and the opposition, and from that point of view we regard the process as illegitimate.”

Nevertheless: “We continue to recognise Venezuela as a friend.” Her justification for this seemingly paradoxical position? “We believe that if we are members of an organisation that is based on the principle of democracy, we have an obligation to point out and to call upon our friends indeed to respect those principles.” Harkening back to Dr Ernest Hilaire’s stark criticism in the House last year, of the government’s decision to place visa restrictions on Venezuelan nationals, l hardly think this explanation will fly with local Maduro empathizers, most of whom are associated with the SLP, declared supporters of ALBA.

But despite our government’s apparent fence-straddling position on this issue, and given what we know about the upheaval in Venezuela, it’s understandably difficult to grasp why Dr. Joseph still refers to Maduro’s administration as a “friendly ally to the region’s poor”. The poor and starving people of Venezuela, who have been forced to abandon their homeland in order to keep themselves and their families alive, would likely hold opinions of Maduro different from the UWI professor’s.

Add to that, the people of Guyana, who are in the midst of a territorial dispute with their “friendly ally” Venezuela, and there is plenty of evidence to contradict Tennyson Joseph’s perspective.

The political scientist has no word of sympathy for the Guyanese. Toward the end of his piece for the Nation, he writes: “While Venezuela’s dispute with Guyana has polluted the Caribbean waters, global imperialists should not dictate our response to a regional dispute.” As Flood-Beaubrun stated on Monday: “The concerns in Venezuela are for the Venezuelan people to resolve.”

Moreover, that despite the chaos currently plaguing that country, “we do not support the principle of intervention. It’s about non-intervention in the domestic affairs of state.” She insisted that the UWP administration’s stance on Maduro has nothing to do with outside influence by any superpower. “We are not intimidated, we are not coerced, we are not forced to take a decision on any matter by any superpower. Our decisions are based on principle.”

It will serve no good purpose to blame the crisis in Venezuela and its impact on the region on “imperialist USA”. This isn’t a matter of the Caribbean and Latin America, versus them. It’s a question of supporting a regime that has brought utter economic and political misery on its own people. Imagine if the situation in Saint Lucia began to resemble anything like what’s going on in Venezuela, where political dissidents are arrested, and opposition parties barred from participation in elections. What would Tennyson Joseph say then? What would you, dear Saint Lucian reader, say? Alas, I suspect some reactions would depend less on humanitarian considerations than on political colours!