Venezuela

Venezuela is another country that’s familiar to me from the Risk board: since I occasionally get anecdotal, why stop now? Back in the 80s my family played Risk a lot—one of my brothers is amazing at it, and beats everyone unless all players gang up on him. (The ganging up strategy has caused a few upset boards in our time…) Anyway, the top of South America is represented on the Risk board by Venezuela instead of Columbia. South America is easy to hold on the board, North America is not. The bottom of the North American continent is represented by the territory of Central America. On the other end of the isthmus is Venezuela, according to Parker Brothers. So, there were a lot of battles over Central America coming from both the north and the south. Our family nickname for that area of the board was “Ronald Reagan’s Playground.”

Venezuela—or, to be exact, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. They’ve gained their independence a couple of times, but on 5 July they celebrate their Independence Day. This commemorates their 1811 independence from Spain. Later, on 13 January 1830, the country declared its independence from Gran Colombia—this was recognised fifteen years later on 30 March, 1845. But getting out from Spain’s control was of course the major moment they celebrate now. It’s neighbours to the east—Guyana borders it—are considered to be more Caribbean than South American in flavour. Venezuela has a Caribbean coastline to the north, and includes a lot of islands in its territory. But it also has a heavy Spanish/South American influence—let’s think of it as Latin American with a bit of Caribbean floating into the mix.

There have been people in Venezuela for at least 15,000 years, but when the Spanish arrived from the 16th century, systematic killing of indigenous peoples began. (These days about 5 percent of the population is indigenous—31 indigenous languages are spoken.) It was here that Spain established their first permanent settlement on the continent of South America. Until the 18th century the country was part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada, which was made up (roughly speaking) of Venezuala as well as Panama, Colombia and Ecuador. From being a Viceroyalty, in 1776 it became a Captaincy General. (I’m learning these terms for the first time—fun!) A Captaincy General was an administrative division used by the Portguese and Spanish empires. It was overseen by a—you guessed it!—Captain General.

But it was a Captaincy General for long—those upstarts starting a series of uprisings until the 1811 declaration of independence kicked off the Venezuelan War of Independence. Unfortunately a natural disaster got in the way—in 1812 an earthquake struck Caracas (the capital, if you’re brushing up) and the first Venezuelan republic fell apart. It was quickly replaced by a second Venezuelan republic in 1813, but that didn’t last long either. But then Simón Bolívar pitched in, and with victory in a few battles independence came about. Of course, having freed a few countries, Bolívar then created Gran Colombia, and in 1830 a new independence movement started.

In the 20th century pro-democracy movements got the military out of politics for the most part, and the discovery of oil deposits helped the country out financially. Following World War II immigrants came to the country from Europe too.

Since the 1990s, Chávez has been a presence. He had one unsuccessful attempt at a coup in 1992 and was jailed. Then in 1998 he was elected president—the office he still holds. Chávez’s policies have attracted controversy: there’s support, there’s derision. He was the victim of a coup in 2002, but his supporters—including many soldiers—called for a counter-coup, and Chávez was back in power after only 2 days. The attempted coup, and short-lived government of Pedro Carmona, has created tension in Venezuela’s relationship with the US, who recognised the two day (unconstitutional, obviously) government of Carmona. There’s obviously a lot to be written about Chávez—and a lot has been written both for and against him. I wish I had the time to dedicate to getting a better picture of the current moment in Venezuela…

The poem I have found from Venezuela is by Guillermo Sucre, and comes from Anthology of Contemporary Latin American Literature 1960-1984. Enjoy!



Not Keeping Silent

Not keeping silent but making silence flow
is what makes us younger

neatness is not concentrated: it is cast

closer and closer, farther and farther, each time
more     each time less

in the snow-covered meadow, only a green circle under
the maple of tan, wrinkled leaves

birds of Morris Graves: resistance to inclemency:
zen birds

praise of life: reconciliation with death

Is it not shameful already to speak so much of life and death?
speak of something else: for example: of not having anything else

to speak about expect life and death.

—Guillermo Sucre
translated from the Spanish by Wayne H. Finke
from Anthology of Contemporary Latin American Literature 1960-1984