The overrated commentary of Domingo Alberto Rangel

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, March 07, 2003 By: Justin Delacour

International media commentarist Justin Delacour writes: In my view, Patrick J. O'Donoghue is an excellent reporter, probably the best English-language reporter in Venezuela. His principled independence as a reporter is second-to-none, demonstrated by the fact that he does not hesitate to present facts and viewpoints that are highly critical of both the opposition and the Chavez government.

That said, I sometimes get the sense that Patrick portrays people like Domingo Alberto Rangel and Douglas Bravo in a more positive light than they deserve, as if the two men were the holy saints of the Venezuelan left.

Personally, all that I see in Rangel's comments is a bunch of petty little sectarian diatribes against the Venezuelan government, combined with a lack of political sense that may partly explain why Rangel has nothing to show for himself politically.

In Patrick's recent article, Rangel is quoted as saying that the FARC should have "an internationalist policy that would eliminate current nations and create one unit consisting of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela… if Bolivar talked disparagingly about 'mini-countries,' why shouldn't 21st century Marxists not assume the standard of a single entity from the Orinoco to Guayas?"

• Well, gee, maybe Colombia's guerrillas figure that it's not for them to decide what the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian people want.

Like it or not, Mr. Rangel, nationalism and national sovereignty have always been a fundamental element of Latin American guerrilla movements; guerrillas that have flagrantly disregarded such considerations ... such as Che Guevara's group of mostly Cuban insurgents in Bolivia ... have failed miserably.

That's not to say that Guevara or his guerrilla compañeros were not honorable figures, nor that the concept of internationalism is ignoble; it's simply to say that people -- whether we like it or not -- do not simply eschew their nationalism in favor of Rangel's lofty notions of "internationalism."

Reality is not always to be found in the dusty old texts of "internationalist" Marxism, nor in the writings of Simon Bolivar.

O'Donoghue paraphrases Rangel as saying that the FARC and ELN "seem to ignore the fact that they are the vanguard of a revolutionary movement destined to change not only Colombia but also the whole of meridian America…"

Well, I hope folks don't mind if I express my belief that "revolutionary vanguards" are a thing of the past, and that's where they should stay. Revolutions are not to be carried out by specialized classes of "revolutionaries."

• True revolutions can only be brought to fruition by mass organizations, under the direct democratic control of unprivileged majorities.

I believe that, in Venezuela, such promising mass organizations are now in the process of development… in the form of Bolivarian Circles, community media, and a new politically independent trade union federation.

Vanguardism represents some of the most elitist and undemocratic features of traditional Marxism.

From my perspective, Rangel -- with all his lofty advice for others to follow -- is the ultimate "armchair leftist": I find it pretty audacious on his part to accuse Chavez of "opportunistic" efforts to appeal to both the "armchair left" and the political right.

From where I sit, it doesn't seem like many rightists are jumping on board with Chavez, nor that Chavez is doing much of anything that would induce them to do so. 

In fact, I think it is Rangel who is guilty of opportunism; to speciously accuse Chavez of associations with the political right for the purpose of furthering his own sectarian and Quixotic causes is about as a rank a form of opportunism as I can imagine. 

Rangel's remark that the Colombian guerrillas operating in Venezuela have "forced the big landowners and ranchers to recognize social benefits and a decent salary for Colombian laborers" is about the only interesting piece of information that I've seen from him.

Until I see any other worthwhile insights from Rangel, I'll continue wondering what is so newsworthy about his commentary.

Justin Delacour jdelac@unm.edu