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I have a really bad anecdote about Venezuelan. We had a guy from Venezuela on our Uni course. Once at a party one of the girls on our course with communist lea

by ErrantX 17y ago

I have a really bad anecdote about Venezuelan. We had a guy from Venezuela on our Uni course. Once at a party one of the girls on our course with communist leanings (an American, as it happens) says to him "don't you think it's so great what's going on in your country at the moment?" The look on his face was awful (to this day I dont think she understands quite why he was upset)

andrewcooke 17y ago
The trouble is that we / you don't have enough context / social knowledge to extrapolate from this. If the guy is in the USA then it's likely he comes from a fairly wealthy background. And that is absolutely not going to support Chavez. S American politics cover a much wider range than American / Western politics, where you are basically choosing between Pepsi and Coke. There really are Maoists and Fascists and everything inbetween.... And also, American leftist supporters of Chavez are incredibly naive, in my experience. So this is just the kind of cultural disaster you could predict - it doesn't really tell us anything new. I am not criticising you - just trying to explain the general problem with understanding what is happening in Venezuela. It's very had to get a good grip on. So much news is extremely polarized.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  > So this is just the kind of cultural disaster you could predict - it doesn't really tell us anything new. Oh absolutely (you've pretty much described the situation spot on). It was just a related anecdote :) (incidentally he was fairly poor in Venezuela but had distant family in the UK who managed to pay for him to make it over to university here. The girl was generally extremely naive: but in her eyes was wordly, experienced and a bit radical. You can imagine who was more interesting to hang with - Jose is one of the people that kicked off my fascination with South America)
gruseom 17y ago
I had a similar experience once. The thing is, though, that a Venezuelan on an international university course almost certainly comes from the tiny elite whose interests are so opposed to Chavez that they would hate him no matter what, regardless of the interests of the country as a whole. That doesn't make the opposite opinion any truer, of course.

by ErrantX 17y ago

andrewcooke 17y ago

The trouble is that we / you don't have enough context / social knowledge to extrapolate from this. If the guy is in the USA then it's likely he comes from a fairly wealthy background. And that is absolutely not going to support Chavez. S American politics cover a much wider range than American / Western politics, where you are basically choosing between Pepsi and Coke. There really are Maoists and Fascists and everything inbetween.... And also, American leftist supporters of Chavez are incredibly naive, in my experience. So this is just the kind of cultural disaster you could predict - it doesn't really tell us anything new. I am not criticising you - just trying to explain the general problem with understanding what is happening in Venezuela. It's very had to get a good grip on. So much news is extremely polarized.

ErrantX 17y ago
> So this is just the kind of cultural disaster you could predict - it doesn't really tell us anything new. Oh absolutely (you've pretty much described the situation spot on). It was just a related anecdote :) (incidentally he was fairly poor in Venezuela but had distant family in the UK who managed to pay for him to make it over to university here. The girl was generally extremely naive: but in her eyes was wordly, experienced and a bit radical. You can imagine who was more interesting to hang with - Jose is one of the people that kicked off my fascination with South America)

gruseom 17y ago

I had a similar experience once. The thing is, though, that a Venezuelan on an international university course almost certainly comes from the tiny elite whose interests are so opposed to Chavez that they would hate him no matter what, regardless of the interests of the country as a whole. That doesn't make the opposite opinion any truer, of course.