Caracas Chronicles

Our dear Tuti is worried (really worried) about the strategies the CD should undertake to effectively get to the undecided citizens. Today, I saw twice the piece the Comando por el sí is airing (“Yo te propongo”, using a very well know song as leit motiv, is a call for reconciliation and inclusion), and I think that they are on the right track.

You all know I´m more than a little bit crazy, so bear with me…

Yesterday, after talking to Tuti, just by chance I watched “The Lion King” on TV. Besides noticing this Disneyesque interpretation on Hamlet (for that is what it all boils to, dear CC bloggers), there is a magnificent scene. Pumba, Timon and Simba are lying on their back, looking at the stars, and Timon asks: “What do you think those lights up there are?”. His own answer is a very shortsighted one: “Those are fireflies which stuck to that blue-black thing up there” (let´s say that as a naturalistic thinker, he uses his knowledge to explain something through his perceptions and experiences, and obviously gets it wrong). Then Pumba says: “I think those lights are great masses of burning gas” (which is the scientifical truth, isn´t it, Tuti?). He gets at it intuitively, and Timon starts laughing and tell Pumba that with him everything has to do with gas… Then Simba remembers his father, and tells them that those lights up there are the spirits of dead kings watching still over the world. Timon laughs, big time, and they go on with the story.

You´re surely thinking I finally went over the bend and someone better tell the asylum to get me to the paddled cell ASP, but let me explain myself.

The word “consider”, ethymologically speaking, comes from “cum sider”, “sider” being the same root of “sideral”. To consider, to be considerate, is to take the “stars” on account,that is, to give a mythological dimension to events and images. What I´m trying to convey to you, and the reason I think the “Yo te propongo” side of the campaign is effective is because it touches an AFFECTIVE spot, just as Simba´s story about the stars. Pumba´s scientific explanations won´t do (sorry, Tuti, but I think that´s why I really laughed yesterday watching the Lion King after talking to you, so scientifically prone as you are), Timon interpratation (so similar, by the way, to what Chávez will use: “You are poor because someone is rich”, the uncultured man using just his senses to interpret a very complicated issue) falls quite short: what the opposition needs is a way to relate affectively to the voters, showing them what Chávez´s rhetoric has endangered, if not destroyed. The end of the piece: “Let´s be Venezuela again”, is exactly what I think everyone feels, that the country has changed for the worse. I expect Calvin goes into a rage and calls me a Fascist and other pretty things, but if Chávez uses Venezuelan myths and images to manipulate the voters, I don´t see why the opposition shouldn´t. I would “rescue” Bolívar, pounding on his civilian side (yes, guys, he had one, he wasn´t only a hero, he was also a citizen), and will also use other civilian “forefathers”, like José María Vargas, Francisco de Miranda and Roscio for starters. That is on the “positive”, “flower eating” hand.

On the other hand, let´s call it the black and dirty hand, I would again go to my hobby horse: The Lord of the Rings. There is a moment, in the novel (not in the awful movie someone should burn and erase from my memory) when Gandalf faces Saruman (remember Saruman´s power is in the voice, that is, his power is rhetorical), which should serve the CD as an example. Gandalf is not the first to speak, he lets Saruman do his “trick”. Then he laughs and rejects his proposal, and so Saruman proceeds to speak to Théoden King, who also rejects him. So, little by little, Saruman´s tricks are exposed, not by denouncing them rationally or scientifically (sorry, Tuti), but by letting them expose themselves as “tricks” (remember the old sayings: “no tiene culpa la estaca si el sapo salta y se ensarta”, or “por la boca muere el pez”). So, I think the “dirty” hand should be to confront Chávez´s discourse with its own inconsistency, showing its contradictions… For instance, a short spot with Chávez speaking about the abusive luxury of Pdvsa airplanes, but showing images of the airbus he bought for his personal use (which makes the other planes look like carritos por puesto); or for instance show him in two contradictory moods, like a lamb calling for peace and fraternity and then calling every citizen to arms. I think that that part, which some people call “Chávez versus Chávez”, is very easy, and combined with messages of reconciliation like the “Yo te propongo” piece, ans stressing every second that this time it is a personal and indivudual responsibility (that is, making the voters feel responsible for their own destiny as citizens), it surely would prove effective.

(This message was posted just to start the discussion, guys. If you want to shoot the messenger, please use toy weapons).