London – Today, I was part of a debate on Chávez’s legacy for Cross Talk, a program on Russia Today. I thought it would be fitting to mention María Afiuni, after all, she is as much a part of that legacy as Barrio Adentro, right? How foolish of me… Russia Today, you see, is Putin’s “news” channel. This implies that its editorial line must align with the Kremlin’s directives. Any deviation from this, any attempt to fully exercise freedom of expression is rejected, as I discovered today.
While I was essentially ridiculing the arguments of a couple of propaganda hackers (Alex Main, a former agent from Venezuela’s Information Office now with Weisbrot’s CEPR, and George Ciccariello-Maher, an “assistant professor” from Drexler who has been cheering for Chávez for years), I decided to hold up a sign (in the photo) during the first break. At that moment, the host Peter Lavelle told me to take the sign down, as the debate was about Chávez’s legacy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to make my case about María Afiuni, who IS part of that legacy.
In the past two days, I’ve been asked to comment on Chávez’s death for BBC World Service, BBC News, BBC’s World Have Your Say, and BBC’s Radio 5. On the last two programs, two other “professors” made unsupported claims, including the idea that there was real independence of institutions in Venezuela (as Julia Buxton stated), or that Chávez had won 14 free, fair, and transparent elections in Venezuela (according to Mike González). Today it was “assistant professor” Ciccariello-Maher’s turn, who claimed that thanks to Chávez, the marginalized in Venezuela had access to health and education for the first time. Neither of them could provide coherent explanations to my factual counterarguments, of course.
So what’s with these “professors”? Why are they unable to accept a simple fact of life, human fallibility? In their eyes, everything Chávez did was good. No mention of coups, deaths, political persecution, human rights violations, associations with rogue regimes and narcoterrorist organizations will ever be heard from this lot. I’m increasingly comfortable acknowledging, quite honestly, the positive aspects of Chávez. Plus, any mature person, anyone not blinded by ideology, knows that every human being has both positive and negative traits. When evaluating the legacy of Hugo Chávez, it’s perfectly fine to praise his populist poverty relief programs, his charisma and popularity, his prominent role in our country’s political arena, etc. If I can accept that without scruples or hesitations, why don’t these “professors” dare to even acknowledge, for example, Chávez’s militaristic and authoritarian nature, or his indefensible relationships with Fidel Castro and Bashar al-Assad, or his support for the FARC, or imprisoning a judge for simply doing her job? What kind of example are these academics trying to set, and more importantly, how can they expect respect with such childish and intellectually dishonest behavior? Thinking about it, I came up with the hashtag #ideologytrumpsobjectivity.
Returning to Cross Talk, I’m not sure if they’ll dare to air my participation in the program, until they kicked me out. I hope they do. But I realize they are in an impossible situation. If they air the program, I might get booted after holding up a sign calling for the freedom of María Afiuni and the Pussy Riot, leading to a public relations disaster. If they choose to completely edit me out and pretend it never happened, that’s also a PR disaster, because then it becomes impossible to claim they are a provider of objective news where freedom of expression can be fully exercised.
It’s one of those: A4 paper? 20 pence; marker? £ 1; journey to the TV studio? paid; being removed from Putin’s propaganda channel for holding a sign calling for the release of innocent political prisoners? priceless!