Thursday, April 11, 2013

Henrique Capriles Radonski















Today Henrique Capriles Radonski came to Mérida and thankfully our politics class was canceled so we could go check it out. I was wearing gym shorts and a tank top I bought in the Centro the day before. It looked a lot bigger when I bought it, but when I put it on, I discovered that quite a bit of my gut was hanging out. Around 9AM we started walking up la Avenida Urdaneta and caught a bus which took us about ten blocks from the viaducto where the concentración would be. When we arrived, there were already thousands more people than had been at the Maduro rally. Afterward, they said somewhere around 250,000 people had gathered on the streets, rooftops, and the viaduct for the event. Similar to the Maduro rally, it was somewhat of a party atmosphere with music and plenty of beer. We developed a system where people would pass money to those selling the beer and then pass the beer back so no one would have to push through the crowd with cups overflowing with foam. There were signs representing every area and organization; my favorite was Páramo la Culata con Capriles. For those who watch Game of Thrones, there was a sign with Eddard Stark and the words “Progreso is coming.” Another interesting one said Revolución with the R crossed out. A note on the word revolución in Venezuela: it is associated exclusively with the Chávez government. They refer to the Bolivarian Revolution as something that began with Chávez and will continue with Maduro; although nothing is changing, it has a kind of “we’re going to keep sticking it to the man” connotation. There are often pictures of Chávez alongside Che Guevara and Simon Bolívar, despite the fact that Bolívar was a rich, white criollo who wanted independence from Spain for financial reasons. The music was very enjoyable; they played a mix of salsa, joropos recios (the music of los llanos played on the cuatro and harp; their equivalent of bluegrass), and Capriles songs (algo nuevo está pasando! Somos miles y miles y miles con Capriles, hay un camino, con Capriles somos todos Venezuela…) which are strangely reminiscent of a Disney soundtrack. We learned a few chants while we were there as well, the most popular being “se ve, se siente, Capriles presidente!” People were getting creative with their choice of spots to see him; some were even climbing over a wall with barbed wire and shards of glass and then walking across a tin roof. One guy fell through the roof and had to get carried out. The roofs and balconies of pretty much every surrounding building were full of people; it was pretty amazing experiencing all of the energy. My friends lifted me up to the point where my feet where at the height of their heads and I got some great shots of the crowd. I unfortunately needed to use the bathroom once, which was a twenty minute affair pushing past people and then waiting for a chance to open the door when people were not pushing past. We ended up waiting for about three or four hours for Capriles to arrive; he was scheduled for 10AM so we assumed around noon, but it was not until 2PM when the truck emerged at the end of the viaduct. Since we had been waiting so long, it was chaos when he finally arrived. As with Maduro, the truck passed about fifteen feet from where we were standing and then we jumped into the river of people following it. He was wearing a soccer jersey with the national petroleum company PDVSA printed on the front and his classic tri-color hat. He did the usual routine of handing out his hat, putting on a new one, and then throwing the new one into the crowd. There was a veritable current of people pushing towards the front, so my friend Adam and I went with the flow and ended up about fifteen feet from the podium where he would speak. At this point it was a mosh pit atmosphere with plenty of pushing and shoving, which I actually enjoyed because I was taller than most people there. I am used to having to put forth a little more effort to hold my own in a crowd. There were so many people that the truck did not make it all the way to the stage; he had to get out and be escorted through the crowd. It was hard for him to get a word out for the first ten minutes since everyone kept erupting into cheers and chants. The speech was filled with much of the same rhetoric as Maduro’s, but he spent quite a bit of time talking about Mérida-specific issues like the teleférico which has been out of commission for five years, the lack of hospitals in El Vigia, the airport which is not open for commercial flights, the unsafe streets at night, and the unnecessary importation of potatoes and milk. Since he speaks very clearly, I understood about 95% of his speech. It was much easier to cheer for Capriles since I agree with many of his policies and most of what he said. In my opinion (which matters very little in this case), he would be a great choice for Venezuela, but for many people he is associated with money and the United States, which is not very palatable for poor Venezuelans. Although the US is the number one importer of Venezuelan heavy crude oil, and Venezuela turns around and buys it back after being refined in the states, one of the biggest tools of Chávez and now Maduro is maligning the US as imperialist pigs and talking about this so-called fight for patria. We found out later in the evening that a woman was killed by the paramilitary government police that ride on motorcycles (can’t remember their name at the moment); they did not give us any details, but crazy man! In other news, we are heading back to la Culata this weekend for a four day adventure. The elections are Sunday so we have school off Monday for whatever reason. I had been thinking about trying to summit Pico Bolívar and Pico Humboldt before I leave, but the trips are pretty expensive and there is not much interest, so as of right now, looks like I’ll be back in Minneapolis on May 4th

5 comments:

  1. What? No WOOFing in Argentina?

    Carolyn

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  2. Whaaat? No other interest in climbing the big mountain. Oh, if I were there I'd join you in a heartbeat. Hope something works out! "Carpe diem" or "Aprovecha el día" as we old folks say. We have thoroughly enjoyed reading about your amazing journey. Hope the election day stays safe, I imagine emotions will be HIGH.

    Peg

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  3. P.S. Glad to hear a Rush say he's taller than most of the crowd, vertical progress in the Rush gene pool!

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  4. I agree - it would be nice if you could connect with a few kindred souls and meet that mountain or otherwise explore SA a bit before heading back. I was also really hoping you'd consider coming back through Florida so you could get that massage! Que sera sera.
    What a great experience to be there during this election and perhaps ()evolucion! I too hope energies are somewhat subdued just for safety's sake....glad you have youth on your side to be able to hang in the crowd like that...ah, the good ol' days ;) I look forward to your next post - again, great writing, reading and wonderful pix <3 Now I'm going to prove that I'm not a robot :D

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  5. The political rally sounds like a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in the 70's. Did you here libre pájaro shouted out? Great job with the blog Mick. You should get another minor in blogology. I also enjoy the fact a Rush stands above most in a crowd. Take care Mick.

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