Who seriously argues against human rights today?

Where is there a wholehearted demand for inequality before the law?

Which government proudly proclaims that it is more legitimate than the will of the people?

I would say: “almost nobody”, “actually nowhere”, and “maybe the Vatican, or Iran?“. In short: apart from theocracies, I know of no politically relevant force that puts forward a coherent counter-proposal to liberal democracy.

This is very similar to the “end of history” thesis put forward by the political scientist Francis Fukuyama at the end of the Cold War. Although the thesis is still sometimes ridiculed today, I believe it describes our times quite accurately:

Of course, Fukuyama was not arguing that nothing would happen at the “end of history”. Instead, his thesis was aimed at the history of ideas of humanity: The principles of liberal democracy have become all but universally accepted in terms of ideas. Yes, even autocrats organise election theatres and pay lip service to the separation of powers. But they hardly dare to shake the ideas openly.

A patchwork of empty words

This ideological “end of history” has also arrived in Venezuela. We remember: Chávez won the presidential elections in 1998 with his “Bolivarian Revolution”, which he labelled as something “new”, something “original”. Ideologically, however, his project had little substance to offer apart from the constant, insubstantial allusions to Simón Bolívar. It was less a well thought-out political philosophy than a cloak for clumsy left-wing populism.

In the name of this revolution

• the autocrat undermined all aspects of liberal democracy (rule of law, separation of powers, free and fair elections),
• sent tanks onto the streets against his own people (whereupon his own generals deposed him),
• and hijacked the state oil company PDVSA, whose oil billions he allowed to seep away in unsustainable consumption and corruption for his political benefit.

My documentary film on Venezuela’s political evolution explains these years of Chávez’s legacy here.

From 2005, Chávez officially called himself a “socialist “. However, it is also doubtful that this ideological repainting got under his skin. Only the most cursory observers overlook the fact that Venezuela’s representative in the “Socialist International” has always been the traditional social democratic opposition party “Acción Democratica” - and never one of Chávez’s parties.

Much becomes easier to understand if one tries to define Chávez not as a convinced ideologue, but rather as a left-wing version of what Donald Trump is for the right today: a charismatic narcissist who makes big speeches and words, and ultimately simply says what is popular at the time.

In the end, Chávez’s ideology was just a thin layer of rhetoric that he put over his left-wing populism.

What Chávez’s popularity says about the “revolutionary” left

Nevertheless, Chávez’s propaganda made it as far as Europe and Switzerland, largely thanks to extremely poorly researched documentaries such as “The revolution will not be televised” (2003) and “War on Democracy” (2007).

In some circles, people hopefully remember with a good dose of shame how they fell for the former coup d’état Hugo Chávez.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)