Hugo Chavez peddles "21st century socialism" with such innocence and optimism that it's clear he's skipped many pages of history. Suddenly, the thought comes to me that no one has ever given this man, who so enjoys comparing himself to Jesus Christ and Simon Bolivar, a history book about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the crumbling of the Socialist block in Eastern Europe. Perhaps he hasn't gotten to that chapter yet. But he will.
We would be making a really serious mistake if we ignored all the left-leaning governments that have recently come to power in Latin America. Hugo, Daniel, Evo and Rafa _ the comrades like to be called only by their first name _ legitimately won elections in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador because the people are hungry, want decent jobs, are tired of the traditional political parties and of so-called "neoliberal policies", and tired of the crime that has taken over Latin American streets. That is why these guys won, and they won legitimately.
If anything has changed in Latin America it is that democracy has caught on. Bravo. No longer does a leader reach power through a coup or by being specially selected (or "pointed out") by his party or predecessor. The candidate with the majority of votes wins the election. As simple as that. And that's what's new.
Something else new in the region is the fact that the people who came to power represent the folks at the bottom and not those at the top. The left, after so many decades of opposition, has finally gotten its chance to govern. The question now is how will it do it.
There are basically two leftist models: the moderate _ followed by Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, Tabare Vazquez in Uruguay, Lula da Silva in Brazil, and Michelle Bachelet in Chile _ and the radical, proposed by the neighborhood vulgarian Hugo Chavez. Chavez is the class "bully."
Chavez, forgetting history in the second half of the 20th century, seems to want to repeat the failures of communist Eastern Europe: total power in the grip of a single man or group, nationalized economies, repression of any opposition, and requisite veneration of the leader.
In the end _ as we all know _ that communist system collapsed and dictatorships in Hungary, Poland, Eastern Germany, etc., came to an end. Venezuela is walking down that same road.
Chavez controls almost everything, from Congress and the Supreme Court to the army and the national vote-counting system. He wants the state to take over telephone and electricity companies, as if his officials were any more efficient and less corrupt than the those of the international corporations who own them. He exercises repression through black lists and openly threatens opponents or critics of his dictatorship. (Just look, for example, at the guillotine poised over Radio Caracas Television and the insults made to the secretary-general of the OAS.) And he demands an unconditional loyalty that only an absolutist king would dictate. Thus, anyone who's not on his side, is a traitor.
Well, traitors we shall all be.
More than "21st century socialism," Chavez is inaugurating "21st century errors." Instead of creating wealth, jobs and a solid economic structure for Venezuela, Chavez-the-populist gives money away to his friends abroad and voters at home. With oil at more than $52 a barrel, Chavez can travel like King Midas of Greek mythology.
The question is how will he deal with all his liabilities when the oil party is over. How will he pay his debts and fulfill his promises? How will he get that 63 percent of the vote again without passing out money?
We'll see whether Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador follow the beguiling Chavez flute. For now, the most worrisome sign that these new governments might follow the authoritarian route is their public adoration of Fidel Castro.
How can someone who calls himself a Democrat and who got into office through elections defend a dictator who has been in power for 48 years, is responsible for thousands of deaths and has never been elected by anyone? How can you love and defend democracy for the people of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, but not for the people of Cuba?
Before writing this column from Miami, I sat down to eat at a table covered with a tablecloth made in India and drank water from a plastic glass made in China. Why couldn't a single Latin American country, much closer to the United States, have made them?
Because, their leaders were surely fighting among themselves over the direction their countries should follow, instead of doing something concrete to improve their citizens' quality of life.
If Latin America makes a wrong turn again and follows some of the routes proposed by Chavez, we run the risk of becoming irrelevant in the next 25 years. And if that happens, China and India will have eaten up our groceries while we are still wondering what to do.