The Passing of a President, Partisanship and Freedom

Just as soon as we had finished our survey, the unthinkable happened. President Chavez, who had returned from his cancer treatment in Cuba, passed away. Zulay and I were on the street when the news hit. There had been many loose rumors that he had already died, so when we heard the news I thought it was just another rumor. Except that this time it was official. Everyone on the street was in a daze. Some were crying, some were scared, everyone was shocked.

With the grim news, the country ground to a halt and preparations were made for the funeral. His casket was marched from the hospital where he died to a military compound in the city and was accompanied by the thousands. His open casket, as all wakes are performed here, was put on display. People traveled from all over the country to come see him one more time. Women would faint from dehydration as they waited in the more than twelve hour line to say their goodbyes. The free outpouring of devotion of the country was more than evident and was nothing that could be faked or forced. A great leader, one of the types that perhaps appears once in a century, had gone.

It is hard to explain the degree to which Chavez formed part of life here. I can only liken it to a medieval monarch except with the added dimension of freedom of speech. Whether you loved him or hated him, his simple existence was a part of daily life and conversation. If you loved him, you saw all that he had done for Venezuela and the deep transformation he had brought about in the country and might even actively participate in that transformation in one way or another. The fact that your shanty cardboard house had been transformed into a brick and mortar structure through a government program that employed your neighbor to build it for you at a serious discount along with the food you have in your cupboard was more than proof enough that Chavez himself had helped you. If you hated him, he was so wonderful to hate that even the rain was his fault. You would fill 90% percent of your conversation about how bad off Venezuela is and how it´s all Chavez´fault: the crime, the potholes, the blackouts, the corruption, the difficulty of find basic goods, the lousy service at the restaurant, your recurring gout, etc etc.

From my own personal opinion, after having lived here for over five years, I'm certain that I've never seen any politician like him, nor will I again. He was the no nonsense type of figure you wish all politicians could be like. The attitude of “What´s the problem? Well fix it then, what's the hold up?” was evident throughout his tenure. Add to that a bursting charisma, open genuineness  and an energy that needed no rest, sleep, or vacation and you have an epic combination. My mother-in-law always talks about the time that a very young boy walked up to him. Chavez immediately picked him up and began to carry him around. The boy, who had just bit the last slivers of a cracker, innocently decided he wanted to share it with the man that was carrying him. The boy reached into his mouth, pulled out the soppy mass and offered it to the president. Chavez, without even so much of a pause, took the salivated mess and eagerly put it in his own mouth, downing it with a grin. I know I wouldn't do that, nor do I know anybody that would do that.

I mention all this because I know these stories don´t cross borders. I know he was painted as a dictator in the US media and the reality is far different. There are times that I think there are more freedoms here than in my own country. There are many open pathways for normal people to participate in local governance and community projects that simply don´t exist in the states. Our politics on all levels are relegated to the professionals while the modern ordinary citizens´ job is to passively watch the news and maybe complain later on Facebook.

I also mention this because as an American, I could never understand why so many countries seemed to have “dictators”. I now begin to wonder if maybe not all the supposed dictators really are such. Perhaps there are good leaders, and the people that live under that leadership are genuinely happy. Perhaps those leaders don´t have America´s best interest at heart, instead they look to better their own country and are willing to let a trade deal die if it means less of local population would die. But that´s to easy to understand, so we just call them dictatorships. Then, we get confused when they win elections, or we call it a fraud and do whatever we can to go against the will of those beguiled people by putting our man in the others place, and then call it a democracy. Are there dictatorships and unfair elections? Of course, go look at a country like Burma. But are all so called dictatorships like that? I have my doubts. I can say with certainty that Venezuela, under Chavez was never a dictatorship.

One interesting story from Chavez's funeral. During the service, there were three reflections given. One by a Venezuelan Catholic priest, one by an evangelical pastor and the third by Jesse Jackson. How in the world Jesse Jackson got in there I have no idea, nor do I care, nor is it the point of this story. During the funeral, over seventy heads of state showed up to pay their respects. One of which was the Iranian president, Ahmadinejad. Now instead of getting riled up about an axis of evil composed of all the people the news tells you to fear, listen to what God does in this situation. God puts an evangelical pastor in front of a world stage. This is a pastor who was a very good friend of president Chavez, and assured the world that Chavez had accepted Christ months before he died. This man takes the responsibility of the moment seriously and begins to preach the gospel to over seventy heads of state in the room in front of him and who knows how many millions watching on TV. As the pastor shares the gospel and the hope we have in Jesus and his resurrection  the camera pans over to the president of Iran listening to the translation and nodding his head in apparent agreement. I can't say that he accepted Jesus as Lord, but he heard the good news. And what an all powerful God does with that is His business. But here is my challenge to you. Would you be surprised to see two heads of an axis of “evil” seated next to you at the wedding banquet? Would you be willing to embrace them as brothers in Christ? Would you be willing to make your allegiance to the Kingdom of God and all those that compose it greater than your allegiance to your politics?

After the funeral and the burial, the political fight awoke from dormancy. Elections were set to take place just one month later. Maduro, the current party candidate, was hand picked by Chavez to run the show while he was in treatment. Capriles, the opposition candidate was the same that ran against Chavez last October. To me the election was very telling. It was close, with a thin margin of 240,000 votes. This was much closer that the previous elections. There was a high turn out where once again, over 80% of eligible voters voted leaving our own voter turn out numbers to shame. The basic position of the candidates was to show how much they loved Chavez and wanted to embrace and continue his work. The only problem is that neither of them are Chavez. Many people that previously supported Chavez weren´t about to support the new guy, even if he had been hand picked by him. The reasons for why not are many, but let´s just consider one.

The country is in a difficult situation right now. The most evident symptom is seen in the difficulty finding basic food items. I don´t say impossible, nor do I say that there is scarcity. But if you go to a supermarket on any given day at opening time, there is likely to be only two of the following: corn meal, flour, oil, butter, milk, rice, pasta, or sugar. And even then, what is there isn´t going to last long, maybe till midday. While nobody is going hungry, it takes a lot more time and effort to sustain the basic culinary needs in the household. Prices have gone up: eggs have nearly tripled in price over the past nine months and chicken, beef and pork are getting to be pricey. But then again, the culture is one of laughter and jokes abound about the difficulties of finding food items. We all just take it in stride and make it work out with what we got. We can speculate about the economic reasons for why this is all happening, we can blame one party or the other, or the whole country at once, we can get frustrated, but we´re all just in the same line in the supermarket. It is so much better just to be thankful for what we found, and to be able to share it family and neighbors who are out.

Yet, there are many that would prefer to dwell on, and quite loudly so, about the problem and just who is to blame for it. The government has its explanations for why this is happening, as the does the opposition  Oddly enough, each blame the other, and each is somewhat right and somewhat wrong. But should you mention to someone who is firmly on one side or the other that they are only partially right, you can expect to have your ear yelled right off. You will be called one name or another depending on your opinion, and completely shut down in any sort of conversation.

The powers are at each others throats, doing all they can to whip the population into a frenzy to support their own particular just cause. All it does is polarize the country. Although some just want to find enough to eat, while making a few jokes to lighten the atmosphere where they find themselves. Politics wants to be God. It wants all of your attention, your worry, your concern for the future, your offense at the gall and stupidity of the other side, your gratitude for what your side has done, your understanding that this is truly important, urgent, and under attack. It paints its parties with colors, with symbols. All those of the color and the symbol are the same, nameless components of the mass which can be summarized in three easily refutable bullet points.

We all know this, and many of us are good at seeing through it. The scary bit is just how few truly committed people to this false vision are needed to impact everyone whether they believe it or not. And that is scary indeed, no matter where you live.

As one writer put it, the best option is simply to ignore the rival powers. Whenever you give attention to them, you give them their sought after glory. Even if you rebel against them, you give them what they want. Anger fills you as you consider the other group, but in the same moment you make yourself a slave to them. They go left, you go right. They look down, you look up. They say yes, you say no. There is no freedom in opposition, rather it is the saddest form of slavery. It is a self imposed slavery, submitted to mindlessly oppose the whims of the other. The more I learn, the more convinced I become that freedom cannot be won, fought for, nor defended. Freedom can only be received.

“The truth shall set you free.” “It is for freedom that Christ set you free.” Notice the passive nature of being set free. It comes from outside, not from within. Freedom is brought about by truth, not by struggle. There is only one Liberator, and that is truth Himself. His freedom is one that permits the oppressed to bless those that curse them, carry the burden twice as far as is legal, be blessed in their poverty. It invites the oppressor to consider his ways, leaving them behind for the freedom shown him even beneath his own oppression.

I would hope that we might learn to depend more on the truth and less on its interpretation, and especially the interpretation that best suits us. Only then might we avoid the trappings of partisanship, unnecessary anger and the illusion of freedom through negation. Until all are free

Press on for Joy!