Can the (rich) students stop Chavez?

The last week thousands of students have protested in several Venezuelan cities against the President’s ambition and strategy to get re-elected one more time.

According to Hugo Chavez, this “group of students, which mostly belong to very rich families and private universities”, are deliberately used as marionettes by those interested in putting Venezuela on fire.

I have the feeling Hugo Chavez’s time is about to end, but not by the effort of the (rich) students but by his own failure to bring together most of the Venezuelan people around a credible vision.

Hugo Chavez should have put more energy into the task of reaching consensus. Instead, he talked too much. Like a foolish dragon lost in time and space, he let to many incendiary words leave his jaws.

When it comes to the crunch, it appears like King Carlos of Spain was not that much wrong when he commanded the Great Commander of Venezuela to shut up.

Britain – the best place in Europe?

“If we are considering the attitudes of the majority to the minority, today Britain is by far – and I mean by far – the best place in Europe to live if you are not white.”

This controversial statement was delivered today by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, (EHRC), Britain. He said that in a speech to mark the tenth anniversary of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry.

After reading the speech  I wonder what Trevor Phillips is up to. I hardly believe the disadvantage Britons really are his priority.

I do however agree with his analysis of how people of dual or of multiple heritages have a special role to play in bringing us together (wherever in Europe we live) – they are indeed not only a potent symbol but also a real source to change of that better Europe that we will become.

Read how The Independent interprets the message of Mr. Trevor Phillips.

Not yet “post-racial”

Read NY Times columnist Frank Rich’s text “White Like Me”… 

“Some 19 percent of the population [in Washington] lives below the poverty line, and that 19 percent remains a secret city to many who work within the Beltway. Washington is its own special American case, but only up to a point. For all our huge progress, we are not “post-racial,” whatever that means. The world doesn’t change in a day, and the racial frictions that emerged in both the Democratic primary campaign and the general election didn’t end on Nov. 4. “

Who Taught You To Hate Yourself?

Obama will soon be disciplined…

My father used to quote: “politics is the art of solving problems”. I don’t know who said that first but it’s anyway true. The dilemma is that the problems politicians nowadays create are far more than those they solve.
Paraphrasing Malcolm X, we can today say in most places around the world: we are living in a society that is by and large controlled by people who believe in segregation and racism.
Barack Obama can certainly speak loudly and magnificently about racism but he is not the guy with the guts needed to solve that problem.
I believe in human kind. Yes, we can! I say too because I believe changes still are possible. But I doubt Barack Obama’s values and visions will remain unassailable under the pressure of Corporate America and of all the hegemonic interest groups and networks controlling the economy and the nation’s foreign policy.
He will be disciplined. Barack Obama will be trained to understand how power is constructed and how it works in the global order to serve not the oppressed masses but the oppressors in command.
And he will reinforce that power because his nature is more that of a street-smart survivor participating in the TV-show Robinson, than that of a straight revolutionary leader ready to struggle on the world stage.