Chavez and Bashar

I'll have a longer post on the way later tonight or early tomorrow, but I just wanted to post some quick thoughts on Chavez's appearance with Syrian Bashar al-Assad that is ongoing as I write:

1. Bashar spoke for the first 10 minutes, mostly praising the legacy of Simón Bolívar; Chavez has been speaking for about the last forty-five minutes (which is not surprising) with no real sign of stopping.  Bashar is doing an admirable job of sitting still, moving just enough to keep himself awake without being distracting.  He may be going on a bit long, but Chavez really can deliver a hell of a speech.
2. I can't help but giggle every time Chavez says "Inshallah".
3. I absolutely love that Chavez takes 10+ minutes to answer a single question, for the same reasons I love it when Chomsky does it.  When asked a complex question, how on earth can you respond in 30 seconds?  Then again, this is exactly why it seems that his words can be twisted so easily in the US media: take the most impassioned 30 second bite, then chalk the rest up to bluster and self-aggrandizement.
4. Chavez has saluted the government of Turkey twice so far, once in reference to the deal they brokered (with Brazil) on Iranian nuclear materials, and the other in reference to their willingness to decry Israel following the flotilla incident.  I'm not a fan of the current Turkish government to any real degree, but if there are any actions for which they could be praised, it would be those.

This leads me to a final train of thought: Chavez has been praising Syria as a fellow traveller in "anti-imperialism", which makes me wonder how exactly he is defining the term.  In this speech, as well as others I have seen, he extends the term to nations such as Turkey, Brazil, China, Russia, and Iran, none of whom currently have governments which could even be described as center-left (with the possible exception of Brazil), let alone socialist.  Hopefully it is not intended to express anything in relation to a government's orientation towards socialism; likewise I hope he is not using the term so expansively so as to refer to any government that places itself against US interests, which would only serve to trivialize the complex forms of imperialism at play in the modern world for the sake of superficial political propaganda.  I don't think it is either of these.

I think, rather, that what he is trying to achieve is something along the lines of a new Bandung accord,  praising governments that are not simply anti-US/Europe, but that are willing and/or able to undertake independent foreign policy actions at the risk of very tangible political or economic costs, regardless of the general orientation of the government otherwise.  I think this is actually somewhat wise of him, albeit fraught with risks.

If Chavez were to only ally himself with ostensibly or nominally "socialist" governments, he'd find himself backed into a corner with only Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, and only a handful of other countries as allies - none of whom are nearly as powerful as Venezuela, and, in fact, need Venezuela far more than Venezuela needs them (vis-à-vis international politics and markets).  It is far more expedient and realistic at this juncture to seek the creation of viable mechanisms outside the standard UN-IMF-NATO axis than to insist on "socialism or nothing", so long as these measures are complemented by a parallel (and occasionally intersecting) development of socialist internationalism, most likely through congresses of non-government activists with the participation of sympathetic governments.  It is the second half of the previous equation that most needs to be nurtured if any positive outcome is to be realized, but the first half is nothing less than a practical necessity given the inherent difficulties inherent in establishing socialist apparatuses within a highly integrated system of global capitalism.

I'm sure I'll continue this train of though in future posts, so I'll conclude it here.  I think the fact that I called this a "quick" post shows pretty well why I enjoy listening to figure like Chavez and Chomsky ;-)