Ethnicity and Revolution

Abstract

When Jun Ishibashi of the University of Tokyo published his 2003 essay Towards an Opening of the Debate on Racism he put an end to the myth of racial democracy Venezuela. Moreover, his work sparked a serious and systematic academic debate on this up-till-now taboo subject, which researchers had always treated a superficial manner. Racism is a serious problem Venezuela, and the situation has been exacerbated by the current economic, political, and social struggles under way the country, where the upper and middle classes are opposing the changes initiated by President Hugo Chavez Frfas and the Bolivarian revolutionary process. The economic crisis that began with the decline international petroleum prices and the subsequent devaluation of the bolivar on the so-called Black Friday February 1983 served to expose the existence of profound racism directed not only at Afro-Venezuelan and indigenous inhabitants of the country but also at the popular sectors general, who are constantly berated by the upper and middle classes opposed to the process of change as vermin, mixed-breeds, Indians, barefoot, and rabble. This political economy of racism is nothing more than the historical continuation of the long process of conquest and slavery of the indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan populations that began 1496. Spokespersons for the right, however, stubbornly uphold the theory of Venezuela's exceptionality with regard to racism. Hans Neumann, for example, argues that in Venezuela we complain about a lot of things that we think are wrong. But we have some things that should serve as an example to other countries. One is that race is not important judging a person. In Venezuela racial discrimination is not a factor either employment or social or intellectual realms. . . . Prejudice against someone because of the color of his skin does not exist. This is not an obstacle here as it is other places (1997: 1).

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