No he escrito nada todavía sobre la crisis de la educación superior que atraviesa Venezuela estos días. Para empezar es la misma crisis que se vive desde hace una década, solo exacerbada por la inflación que padecemos todos. Ademas, los origines de la crisis pre-datan el chavismo. Las universidades autónomas no se reformaron cuando tuvieron chance de hacerlo. Ahora no importa si se reforman porque la inflación y la re-conducción automática de presupuesto han hecho fenecer los alegados privilegios de los cuales gozaban las universidades autónomas.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
UCV: the results are in
In spite of all the trouble of last Friday the Central University of Venezuela finished counting the student votes. And chavismo was trashed, TRASHED! Amusing details next.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Are self starving students managing to expose the inner workings of the regime?
 |
| Self starve, wreck an Imperial McDonald! |
And yet it worked: the first hunger strike by students in front of the OAS forced the government to recognize that there were bona fide political prisoners in Venezuela and that the judicial system was there to serve the interests of Chavez. There was not even a pretense to consult the High Court before releasing some of the prisoners. Even if the freedom of political prisoners is not complete, even if the judicial system remains genuflected in front of Chavez from now on there is no need to accuse the regime of such evils: they have been proven, they are an established fact.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The pro Chavez "students"
My S.O. was "requested" today to join the pro Chavez "student" march, even though he is decades from his latest degree.... You know, they need to bulk it up forcing public employees to attend..... The chavista students are really an embarrassment, they suffer from terminal lack of creativity, have absolutely, have no individual character, sound older than Mathusalem, etc, etc... But rather than go on with a rant on how much of an embarrassment they are, I will let two Weil cartoons of Tal Cual illustrate the matter better than any rant I can come up with.
Friday, November 19, 2010
China Commies and the Nobel Peace Prize: an inspiration to Chavez. Sub-title: what are you planning to do about it?
I am not too sure what our local bolibanana regime has said on this subject but after today's article in the New York Times we can be sure that support of the repressive Chinese regime cannot be far at hand. The more so that the NYT also reports that Chinese folks, even many of those living overseas that should know better, approve of the regime not to let Mr. Liu or his relatives go to Oslo collect the Peace Prize.
Andrew J. Nathan, a political scientist at Columbia University who has been studying China for four decades, said he was struck by how many Chinese friends and associates, even those living the United States, had accepted the government’s contention that Mr. Liu was seeking to push China into chaos through writings that called for free elections and an end to single-party rule. “The Chinese people I speak to have quite readily absorbed the government’s point of view that this guy is a criminal nurtured by the West,” he said.Indeed, China has been hard at work in its counter propaganda offensive and it has worked partially among some of its neighbors that are now in a position to be blackmailed.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
The intellectual future is not with Chavez
 |
| Diego Sharifker, new UCV student leader |
And it was not even close, it was beyond landslide: the opposition students sent two lists, the first one getting 6,170 votes and the second one 4,860 while the pro Chavez list got a paltry 1,380 votes (results not complete yet but not expected to change much). Roughly FOR 1 STUDENT VOTING PRO CHAVEZ 8 VOTED AGAINST HIM.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Mallarmé and me
A few days before I reached Paris I read that the Petit Trianon had been restored after an arduous year of work and would re-open to the public just as I was making it to Paris. Of course I tried to plan to go but bad weather and the flu
prevented me from completing an overdue visit. On my only visit to Versailles, in a year that I prefer not to recall, the Petit Trianon was closed to the public. We could only walk around and watch the stunning architecture all dirty as graffiti covered some of the walls. My young eyes were shocked, from my history book the charming but organized lines had always mesmerized me as the ideal palace.
In truth I suspect the French to have had a difficult relationship with Le Petit Trianon. After all it was the small palace constructed by Louis the XV for his most famous mistress, and then became the private playground of Marie Antoinette. All, of course, at tax payer expense, a symbol of frivolity difficult to stomach for a more austere Republican France.
But years have gone by and culture wars eventually rest under a soothing layer of dust. The restoration of the Galerie des Glaces was hailed and we also forgot or accepted that the German Empire was proclaimed there, at Versailles, in 1870. And now Le Petit Trianon becomes a full member in the hallowed ranks of French cultural masterpieces. French TV did not waste time glossing on the Austrian interloper anymore. In fact her good taste was more likely to be praised. We might not be ready to thank her for starving peasants so as to afford life in the palace, but at least we have learned to look at her in a more consequent way, not the caricature that my school history books still carried.
And thus eventually time reconcile us around a common heritage. Except in Venezuela where Chavez is busy reopening old wounds that we thought long ago sealed. My return was a few days before October 12 which is now the Day of Indigenous Resistance and Columbus a guy that purposely discovered America so its people could be enslaved. Or something to the effect. Now the Colombus monument, destroyed by chavista hordes, will not be restored and the site will be renamed for indigenous tribes. We are told the Colombus statue has been restored but we are not shown the picture to prove it.
If cultural wars occur it is because our past has a meaning. We have a choice between understanding what our past really meant, through understanding the context and free ourself of what stains our heritage. Or we may prefer to look at a context that is no more and make it truer than what has reached us. We can thus chose to embrace Le Petit Trianon without diminishing the pain of an era or destroy the Colombus statue pretending that there was no pain in that era. Such is the final paradox of culture wars when people confuse understanding and knowledge. But being denied a Trianon visit would not deprive me of more musings on this paradox as France is so rich in well digested cultural paradoxes.
Not going to Versailles gave me the chance to go to my most beloved museum: Orsay.
The Musée d'Orsay was built inside the old Orsay railway station, saving this magnificent building from destruction and revealing to us the magnificent temples to travel that were XIX century "gares", the door to the fantastic travels until then reserved to the minority willing to face the hardship of traveling before railways. Today the preserved entrance to the station is also the gateway to a magical trip through XIX century art, with the most magnificent collection of Impressionist paintings you can find anywhere, even though routinely some of the pick choices are on loan somewhere. Impressionism and Railways share in having changed our minds and views of the world.
When I have only one day in Paris, there is one thing I always do, rain or shine: Notre Dame and a walk through the Marais. If luck gives me a second day then it is the Musée d'Orsay, even for only one hour, to go directly to the Impressionists. Besides a few Renaissance painters such as Fra Angelico, the only thrills I get watching paintings are with Impressionists and their near sequels. I got cold sweats when I saw in Chicago the Après Midi à La Grande Jatte of Seurat, I lacked oxygen when I met Renoir's Le Dejeuner des Canotiers at the Phillips Collection and was forced to look for a bench to sit down the first time I was confronted to Mary Cassat's The Boating Party at the National Gallery. She and Lincoln are for me in Washington what Notre Dame and Orsay are in Paris.
The Impressionist collection at Orsay is for me as much a physical experience as a visual one. The power of these paintings reach me in ways that I do not understand, or rather that I understand too well if I start a Jungian archetype self study, not the subject of this blog. But not all, not always. This time Gauguin left me cold. Some of the great Manet were missing and noticing it disturbed me. Thus for once I was able to focus more on what a painting meant than what it did to me. The first one that arrested me was one that I had never paid as much
attention before, as so powerfully hidden by the larger Manets. I am talking here of the extraordinary portrait of poet Mallarmé, which adorns any high school literature book in France. Or should anyway.
I have had a difficult relationship with Mallarmé, one of the great poets that I could not study in school as end of year constraints made our French teacher skip over him. Thus if I went deep into Baudelaire and Verlaine, Mallarmé I had to do on my own and I confess with little success and many frustrations. See, Mallarmé is the kind of poet that you do not understand much when you read but somehow you know as your read him that it is really great stuff. A little bit like pornography for a famous Supreme Court Judge who said that he could not define pornography but he knew it when he saw it. Mallarmé was not a pornographer that I know of but then again only him could get away with such a verse to close a sonnet:
Longing for the burnt breast of an ancient Amazon...
His most famous poem is perhaps l'Azur, at times a painful mediation on the curse to have poetry inside, with one of the most famous French verses, if anything for its visual bizarreness.
You can find some translations of Mallarmé verses as some brave souls dared to try, but you also must know that Mallarmé was an English teacher and as such he admired and was influenced by Poe. He translated The Raven. So was Baudelaire by the way whose translations of Poe tales, well, read almost better in Baudelaire's French than Poe's English, a very strange case in world literature where a translation actually brings something. I suppose that in a way, that ability to cross cultures allowed Mallarmé to work through his life towards breaking the ancient molds of French poetry.
Seeing that sobering portrait of Mallarmé brought to me an odd action considering the place I was. Tourists were flocking in front of more famous pictures so, as Orsay allows it, I could take my very own shot while I meditated at Manet's Mallarmé picture. I know, no matter how good my shot might turn out it will never be as good as the exquisite reproductions you can buy at the gift shop at the end. And yet, watching your own shots a few days later bing back that moment and the thoughts you had better than any reproduction. That is, if you shot your picture after your processed your emotions or if you are a compulsive picture taker.
The very relative solitude I enjoyed in front of Mallarmé made wonder how could he possibly be relevant to the immigrant children that the French system is actually raising with lots of problems in its school system. The winner of the Cannes Festival this year, Entre Les Murs, has been a movie about the problems of a "banlieu" classroom and the valiant efforts of teachers to reach the kids, not an alien concept I am sure to the teachers of some inner city areas of the States. A famous scene is the "subjunctive past"
lesson, where one child simply said that he would not talk to someone that uses such a tense. I suppose he would not talk to me who rarely uses it but does use it. But is it a generation gap?
If you spit on the French subjunctive, can you reach Mallarmé? Can you also reach Rimbaud and Verlaine through their poetry or will these kids get interested in them for their scandalous liaison when Rimbaud was 16 and Verlaine a married man? It is not that these poets drop past subjunctive in any sonnet. They do not, but the key to understand how the French language works is to understand how its subjunctive works. This verbal mode is the soft form of possibilities and dashed dreams, a complexity so missing in English. Though some would argue that this lack of subjunctive might be a reason of the anglo-saxon energy.
The subjunctive is not the only obstacle to French High Church. Mallarmé remains still a difficult poet even if some managed to put him into music. Brise Marine is quite an example on how difficult Mallarmé can be while still remaining somewhat accessible enough for Serge Lama to sing it.
I would even say that a case can be made that Mallarmé is becoming more difficult for today's
new Frenchmen when the all Mallarmé site, mallarme.net, feels obliged to widget the word "angélus" so people can understand it. The practice of angélus had all but disappeared in France when I was a kid, but yet I knew what the word meant. It seems that today political correctness reserves such knowledge to rarefied elites. An indeed, in the banlieus angelus is as alien as past subjunctive.
I did not think these dangerous thoughts as clearly as I narrate them above today, but they kept coming to me with more precision as I kept my walk through the galleries. In particular how will Muslim children in France learn to appreciate the French cultural heritage, and even more important, can their own cultural and religious heritage allow them to get meaning from Mallarmé or Renoir? Can they also own?
Certainly I do not mean that Muslim children cannot cross the cultural line and appreciate the Orsay Museum, true art speaks to all except for cases like Bamiyan. Then again if the Taliban felt the need to blast Bamiyan's Buddhas it must mean that their ideological construct was perturbed by that art. Though I have yet to visit a Muslim country besides Morroco I know that I can marvel at Islamic art. I know that Isfahan would be marvelous for me. But will it speak to me the way that Mallarmé or a painting by Renoir do? One of my favorite Museums is a small one at the end of the Washington Mall where a treasure of Muslim calligraphy is exhibited, the Freer Gallery. I have been there several times, marveling at the delicate art that pervades all Islamic tradition. It does speak to me, at some level, and I wish I could have one of such hanging on one of my walls to spend at times long minutes of meditation in front. But it is not me. There is something missing for me and it is the physicality of man.
Can the "balançoire" of Renoir not shock a religious Muslim? Is the casualness of the woman, daydreaming as possibly two suitors sweet talk her, accpetable? What about the form fitting dress that follows no proportion giving her impossibly long (and sexy?) legs? No word about the little girl watching all of this ambiguity? True, all are covered enough according to the more modest standards of the time, and current Muslim fundamentalist wishes, but the body language is there for all to see.
France has been wrecked a few years ago about whether to allow Muslim girls to wear the veil at school. The secular French state tradition, from left to right, ruled that the veil was considered a religious symbol and as such had no place in the French public school system, sending a lot or Muslim girls to private establishments. In all fairness the state also forbade yarmulke and crucifix medallions unless totally invisible under shirts. Much talk went around but not that many dared to speak the real truth around the issue: that feminist women in France could not accept that a religion forced
submission of women. I do agree about the issue and the measures taken then, but that is not the point I want to make here. I want to come back on how art speaks to us, and to this second Renoir painting at Orsay.
Again here we see a casual couple, the woman painted with exquisite details of near ecstasy while he companion has a more predatory look, a sober, less detailed portrait. He is handsome though, a certain sexy squareness, a sense of dominating strength to which the woman seems to be yielding. He also probably lost his hat in the whirlwind chase, on the right corner, an odd detail to leave as the hat is certain to be trashed as people dance over. But he has no care for it, too concentrated on his prey.
Whether you are straight or gay you cannot escape the sexual power of this painting. But what makes it great is not the erotic allusion, it is the need for human companionship that the people in it reflect, perhaps the animal lust of the man or the longing to be loved of the woman, it does not matter, we are always looking for someone to hold us tight. And yet that need might not be love. This painting has an exhilarating effect on me as it shuts down the workings of the mind, letting instinct surface politely, even in the middle of a crowded museum. Suddenly some tourists do not look as unappealing as they looked earlier.
And there is of course that wonderful ball scene, full of hopeful glances and of people looking at who is not looking at them, where the only people that do touch are two dancers and two women.
What can we make of that? Such a scene would still be scandalous in some Western cultures of the Mediterranean, at least not that long ago. Imagine it in Afghanistan! or even Saudi Arabia! But there is also the price to pay for this apparent happiness, on the left side there is a woman that seems to be alone, or lonely, or abandoned, in darker shades. It almost seems that the only dancing couple that is clearly detailed has something to do with that lone woman, they seem to be looking at her. Did the man leave her for another floozie? Or is she sad not because he left her but because she coudl not retain him? Or her? There is a strange message of personal responsibility in that detail.
Perhaps it has been the common thread in the story of humanity but what speaks to me when I see these pieces is of the XX century to come, that from this sort of art came our social, sexual and even moral freedom that today at least some societies enjoy. The works of the Impressionists by freeing themselves form the rules of conformist art helped on our road to civil liberty, Human Rights, and shall dare I say it, better forms of democracy and cross cultural richness. It was after the Impressionists that Western Art really became open to the glories of other cultures, not just a fancy "chinese" room as palaces like the Petit Trianon might have acquired in their day. Perhaps the question I wanted to ask myself is what do we need to do to bring the equivalent of the Impressionist movement to today's Islamism before it is too late and one side tries to erase the other.
The temptation of cultural wars is really big. Even Chavez indulges in it even though Venezuela was, and is still, the Latin American society most open to external cultural influences. Chavistas with money do flock to Mac Donalds, love to go shopping to Miami. But in Chavez case his attitude comes from his ignorance and from the feeling that he has been rejected by Western Culture, an easy way to cope with his own insecurities and possible sense of failure. The consequences of Chavez will be dramatic for Venezuela's future though his manic and silly cultural crusade will eventually be a footnote in the history of the Americas.
What is more of a concern, and Chavez does sense that at some level as he wants to use it, is the clash of civilizations that so many want to avoid and that Chavez foolishly fosters at his own risks. I am talking about how to reconcile a Western World open to new experiences and to a world of risk taking and personal responsibility with a clearly more obscurantists world who stayed in the XVII century where ideas left it as they went ahead with the West. Today the far East and even India espouse many of Western values and Japan is the perfect example on how to retain your culture while burnishing some angles with interesting foreign values. Chavez is playing with fire by thinking he can manipulate the barbarians of today to his own profit, but what he does not realize is that when all is said and done the one that will be on the losing end of the stick is him.
And why will Chavez lose? Because when I was at Orsay Mallarmé talked to me, and Renoir did touch me. And if I go to the Freer gallery something will charm me, and if I go to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts the Japanese weapon collection will make me daydream of my world of Kurozawa. What Chavez is trying to do is to erase as many cultural references as he can from us, an easy task as we are not blessed with a long cultural history and a lot of our history was very destructive anyway. Even from the few treasures that make us Venezuelans, that speak to us, even to me, the son of French immigrants, he wants to pick and chose what might serve him and discard most. There might not be a Venezuelan Mallarmé but there is Andres Eloy Blanco and all through my childhood I heard this.
And yet, even though the whole poem is one of the finest examples of anti racist literature to be found in any culture, chavismo has never embraced it. Because Andres Eloy Blanco was Adeco and that cannot be forgiven , as the accidental discovery of America by Columbus cannot be forgiven. Columbus must be charged with all the abuses committed after him. And thus Andres Eloy Blanco must be guilty, at some obscure level, if anything because chavismo has proven itself unable to write anything as inspiring and effective as that simple poem, and even if Andres Eloy Blanco died one year after Chavez was born and could not be held responsible for what the Adecos did later.
So Chavez is trying to gut our cultural heritage, without having some coherent system to replace it except his speeches and what are called his thoughts and his personal myths. Will Chavez speeches stir great emotions besides hatred? They will not because culture and art do not happen in a vacuum. If Muslims cannot feel what I feel in front of Mallarmé portrait it is because I cannot feel what they would feel at the Kairouan Mosque, it is because our emotions are constructed on our own cultural past and how it makes us relate to our environment and how they create a place for us.
But then again when Chavez makes Venezuelans stop caring about their real past they will also stop caring about him.
I think I am not afraid of Mallarmé anymore. He came to me when I needed him most.
--- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Translations:
La chair est triste, hélas ! et j’ai lu tous les livres.
The flesh is sad, alas! and I have read all the books.
Si queda un pintor de santos,
If a Saints painter remains,
si queda un pintor de cielos,
If a heavens painter remains,
que haga el cielo de mi tierra,
that he may do heavens of my land,
con los tonos de mi pueblo,
with the hues of my people,
con su ángel de perla fina,
with a mother of pearl angel,
con su ángel de medio pelo,
with a curly hair angel,
con sus ángeles catires,
with light haired angels,
con sus ángeles morenos,
with brown angels,
con sus angelitos blancos,
with white angels,
con sus angelitos indios,
with indian angels
con sus angelitos negros,
with black angels
que vayan comiendo mango
that they walk eating mangoes
por las barriadas del cielo.
in heavens neighborhoods.
And GP offers us this version
If there's a painter of saints left,
if there's a painter of skies left,
let him create my land's sky,
with the tones of my town,
with his fine pearl angel,
with his mediocre angel,
with his blond angels,
with his brown angels,
with his little white angels,
with his little Indian angels,
with his little black angels,
may they go on eating mangoes
through the neighborhoods of the sky.
-The end-
prevented me from completing an overdue visit. On my only visit to Versailles, in a year that I prefer not to recall, the Petit Trianon was closed to the public. We could only walk around and watch the stunning architecture all dirty as graffiti covered some of the walls. My young eyes were shocked, from my history book the charming but organized lines had always mesmerized me as the ideal palace.In truth I suspect the French to have had a difficult relationship with Le Petit Trianon. After all it was the small palace constructed by Louis the XV for his most famous mistress, and then became the private playground of Marie Antoinette. All, of course, at tax payer expense, a symbol of frivolity difficult to stomach for a more austere Republican France.
But years have gone by and culture wars eventually rest under a soothing layer of dust. The restoration of the Galerie des Glaces was hailed and we also forgot or accepted that the German Empire was proclaimed there, at Versailles, in 1870. And now Le Petit Trianon becomes a full member in the hallowed ranks of French cultural masterpieces. French TV did not waste time glossing on the Austrian interloper anymore. In fact her good taste was more likely to be praised. We might not be ready to thank her for starving peasants so as to afford life in the palace, but at least we have learned to look at her in a more consequent way, not the caricature that my school history books still carried.
And thus eventually time reconcile us around a common heritage. Except in Venezuela where Chavez is busy reopening old wounds that we thought long ago sealed. My return was a few days before October 12 which is now the Day of Indigenous Resistance and Columbus a guy that purposely discovered America so its people could be enslaved. Or something to the effect. Now the Colombus monument, destroyed by chavista hordes, will not be restored and the site will be renamed for indigenous tribes. We are told the Colombus statue has been restored but we are not shown the picture to prove it.
If cultural wars occur it is because our past has a meaning. We have a choice between understanding what our past really meant, through understanding the context and free ourself of what stains our heritage. Or we may prefer to look at a context that is no more and make it truer than what has reached us. We can thus chose to embrace Le Petit Trianon without diminishing the pain of an era or destroy the Colombus statue pretending that there was no pain in that era. Such is the final paradox of culture wars when people confuse understanding and knowledge. But being denied a Trianon visit would not deprive me of more musings on this paradox as France is so rich in well digested cultural paradoxes.
Not going to Versailles gave me the chance to go to my most beloved museum: Orsay.
The Musée d'Orsay was built inside the old Orsay railway station, saving this magnificent building from destruction and revealing to us the magnificent temples to travel that were XIX century "gares", the door to the fantastic travels until then reserved to the minority willing to face the hardship of traveling before railways. Today the preserved entrance to the station is also the gateway to a magical trip through XIX century art, with the most magnificent collection of Impressionist paintings you can find anywhere, even though routinely some of the pick choices are on loan somewhere. Impressionism and Railways share in having changed our minds and views of the world.When I have only one day in Paris, there is one thing I always do, rain or shine: Notre Dame and a walk through the Marais. If luck gives me a second day then it is the Musée d'Orsay, even for only one hour, to go directly to the Impressionists. Besides a few Renaissance painters such as Fra Angelico, the only thrills I get watching paintings are with Impressionists and their near sequels. I got cold sweats when I saw in Chicago the Après Midi à La Grande Jatte of Seurat, I lacked oxygen when I met Renoir's Le Dejeuner des Canotiers at the Phillips Collection and was forced to look for a bench to sit down the first time I was confronted to Mary Cassat's The Boating Party at the National Gallery. She and Lincoln are for me in Washington what Notre Dame and Orsay are in Paris.
The Impressionist collection at Orsay is for me as much a physical experience as a visual one. The power of these paintings reach me in ways that I do not understand, or rather that I understand too well if I start a Jungian archetype self study, not the subject of this blog. But not all, not always. This time Gauguin left me cold. Some of the great Manet were missing and noticing it disturbed me. Thus for once I was able to focus more on what a painting meant than what it did to me. The first one that arrested me was one that I had never paid as much
attention before, as so powerfully hidden by the larger Manets. I am talking here of the extraordinary portrait of poet Mallarmé, which adorns any high school literature book in France. Or should anyway.I have had a difficult relationship with Mallarmé, one of the great poets that I could not study in school as end of year constraints made our French teacher skip over him. Thus if I went deep into Baudelaire and Verlaine, Mallarmé I had to do on my own and I confess with little success and many frustrations. See, Mallarmé is the kind of poet that you do not understand much when you read but somehow you know as your read him that it is really great stuff. A little bit like pornography for a famous Supreme Court Judge who said that he could not define pornography but he knew it when he saw it. Mallarmé was not a pornographer that I know of but then again only him could get away with such a verse to close a sonnet:
Je pense plus longtemps peut-être éperdument
A l'autre, au sein brûlé d'une antique amazone.
A l'autre, au sein brûlé d'une antique amazone.
Longing for the burnt breast of an ancient Amazon...
His most famous poem is perhaps l'Azur, at times a painful mediation on the curse to have poetry inside, with one of the most famous French verses, if anything for its visual bizarreness.
Je suis hanté. L’Azur ! l’Azur ! l’Azur ! l’Azur !
You can find some translations of Mallarmé verses as some brave souls dared to try, but you also must know that Mallarmé was an English teacher and as such he admired and was influenced by Poe. He translated The Raven. So was Baudelaire by the way whose translations of Poe tales, well, read almost better in Baudelaire's French than Poe's English, a very strange case in world literature where a translation actually brings something. I suppose that in a way, that ability to cross cultures allowed Mallarmé to work through his life towards breaking the ancient molds of French poetry.
Seeing that sobering portrait of Mallarmé brought to me an odd action considering the place I was. Tourists were flocking in front of more famous pictures so, as Orsay allows it, I could take my very own shot while I meditated at Manet's Mallarmé picture. I know, no matter how good my shot might turn out it will never be as good as the exquisite reproductions you can buy at the gift shop at the end. And yet, watching your own shots a few days later bing back that moment and the thoughts you had better than any reproduction. That is, if you shot your picture after your processed your emotions or if you are a compulsive picture taker.
The very relative solitude I enjoyed in front of Mallarmé made wonder how could he possibly be relevant to the immigrant children that the French system is actually raising with lots of problems in its school system. The winner of the Cannes Festival this year, Entre Les Murs, has been a movie about the problems of a "banlieu" classroom and the valiant efforts of teachers to reach the kids, not an alien concept I am sure to the teachers of some inner city areas of the States. A famous scene is the "subjunctive past"
lesson, where one child simply said that he would not talk to someone that uses such a tense. I suppose he would not talk to me who rarely uses it but does use it. But is it a generation gap?If you spit on the French subjunctive, can you reach Mallarmé? Can you also reach Rimbaud and Verlaine through their poetry or will these kids get interested in them for their scandalous liaison when Rimbaud was 16 and Verlaine a married man? It is not that these poets drop past subjunctive in any sonnet. They do not, but the key to understand how the French language works is to understand how its subjunctive works. This verbal mode is the soft form of possibilities and dashed dreams, a complexity so missing in English. Though some would argue that this lack of subjunctive might be a reason of the anglo-saxon energy.
The subjunctive is not the only obstacle to French High Church. Mallarmé remains still a difficult poet even if some managed to put him into music. Brise Marine is quite an example on how difficult Mallarmé can be while still remaining somewhat accessible enough for Serge Lama to sing it.
I would even say that a case can be made that Mallarmé is becoming more difficult for today's
new Frenchmen when the all Mallarmé site, mallarme.net, feels obliged to widget the word "angélus" so people can understand it. The practice of angélus had all but disappeared in France when I was a kid, but yet I knew what the word meant. It seems that today political correctness reserves such knowledge to rarefied elites. An indeed, in the banlieus angelus is as alien as past subjunctive.I did not think these dangerous thoughts as clearly as I narrate them above today, but they kept coming to me with more precision as I kept my walk through the galleries. In particular how will Muslim children in France learn to appreciate the French cultural heritage, and even more important, can their own cultural and religious heritage allow them to get meaning from Mallarmé or Renoir? Can they also own?
Certainly I do not mean that Muslim children cannot cross the cultural line and appreciate the Orsay Museum, true art speaks to all except for cases like Bamiyan. Then again if the Taliban felt the need to blast Bamiyan's Buddhas it must mean that their ideological construct was perturbed by that art. Though I have yet to visit a Muslim country besides Morroco I know that I can marvel at Islamic art. I know that Isfahan would be marvelous for me. But will it speak to me the way that Mallarmé or a painting by Renoir do? One of my favorite Museums is a small one at the end of the Washington Mall where a treasure of Muslim calligraphy is exhibited, the Freer Gallery. I have been there several times, marveling at the delicate art that pervades all Islamic tradition. It does speak to me, at some level, and I wish I could have one of such hanging on one of my walls to spend at times long minutes of meditation in front. But it is not me. There is something missing for me and it is the physicality of man.
Can the "balançoire" of Renoir not shock a religious Muslim? Is the casualness of the woman, daydreaming as possibly two suitors sweet talk her, accpetable? What about the form fitting dress that follows no proportion giving her impossibly long (and sexy?) legs? No word about the little girl watching all of this ambiguity? True, all are covered enough according to the more modest standards of the time, and current Muslim fundamentalist wishes, but the body language is there for all to see.France has been wrecked a few years ago about whether to allow Muslim girls to wear the veil at school. The secular French state tradition, from left to right, ruled that the veil was considered a religious symbol and as such had no place in the French public school system, sending a lot or Muslim girls to private establishments. In all fairness the state also forbade yarmulke and crucifix medallions unless totally invisible under shirts. Much talk went around but not that many dared to speak the real truth around the issue: that feminist women in France could not accept that a religion forced
submission of women. I do agree about the issue and the measures taken then, but that is not the point I want to make here. I want to come back on how art speaks to us, and to this second Renoir painting at Orsay.Again here we see a casual couple, the woman painted with exquisite details of near ecstasy while he companion has a more predatory look, a sober, less detailed portrait. He is handsome though, a certain sexy squareness, a sense of dominating strength to which the woman seems to be yielding. He also probably lost his hat in the whirlwind chase, on the right corner, an odd detail to leave as the hat is certain to be trashed as people dance over. But he has no care for it, too concentrated on his prey.
Whether you are straight or gay you cannot escape the sexual power of this painting. But what makes it great is not the erotic allusion, it is the need for human companionship that the people in it reflect, perhaps the animal lust of the man or the longing to be loved of the woman, it does not matter, we are always looking for someone to hold us tight. And yet that need might not be love. This painting has an exhilarating effect on me as it shuts down the workings of the mind, letting instinct surface politely, even in the middle of a crowded museum. Suddenly some tourists do not look as unappealing as they looked earlier.
And there is of course that wonderful ball scene, full of hopeful glances and of people looking at who is not looking at them, where the only people that do touch are two dancers and two women.
What can we make of that? Such a scene would still be scandalous in some Western cultures of the Mediterranean, at least not that long ago. Imagine it in Afghanistan! or even Saudi Arabia! But there is also the price to pay for this apparent happiness, on the left side there is a woman that seems to be alone, or lonely, or abandoned, in darker shades. It almost seems that the only dancing couple that is clearly detailed has something to do with that lone woman, they seem to be looking at her. Did the man leave her for another floozie? Or is she sad not because he left her but because she coudl not retain him? Or her? There is a strange message of personal responsibility in that detail.Perhaps it has been the common thread in the story of humanity but what speaks to me when I see these pieces is of the XX century to come, that from this sort of art came our social, sexual and even moral freedom that today at least some societies enjoy. The works of the Impressionists by freeing themselves form the rules of conformist art helped on our road to civil liberty, Human Rights, and shall dare I say it, better forms of democracy and cross cultural richness. It was after the Impressionists that Western Art really became open to the glories of other cultures, not just a fancy "chinese" room as palaces like the Petit Trianon might have acquired in their day. Perhaps the question I wanted to ask myself is what do we need to do to bring the equivalent of the Impressionist movement to today's Islamism before it is too late and one side tries to erase the other.
The temptation of cultural wars is really big. Even Chavez indulges in it even though Venezuela was, and is still, the Latin American society most open to external cultural influences. Chavistas with money do flock to Mac Donalds, love to go shopping to Miami. But in Chavez case his attitude comes from his ignorance and from the feeling that he has been rejected by Western Culture, an easy way to cope with his own insecurities and possible sense of failure. The consequences of Chavez will be dramatic for Venezuela's future though his manic and silly cultural crusade will eventually be a footnote in the history of the Americas.
What is more of a concern, and Chavez does sense that at some level as he wants to use it, is the clash of civilizations that so many want to avoid and that Chavez foolishly fosters at his own risks. I am talking about how to reconcile a Western World open to new experiences and to a world of risk taking and personal responsibility with a clearly more obscurantists world who stayed in the XVII century where ideas left it as they went ahead with the West. Today the far East and even India espouse many of Western values and Japan is the perfect example on how to retain your culture while burnishing some angles with interesting foreign values. Chavez is playing with fire by thinking he can manipulate the barbarians of today to his own profit, but what he does not realize is that when all is said and done the one that will be on the losing end of the stick is him.
And why will Chavez lose? Because when I was at Orsay Mallarmé talked to me, and Renoir did touch me. And if I go to the Freer gallery something will charm me, and if I go to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts the Japanese weapon collection will make me daydream of my world of Kurozawa. What Chavez is trying to do is to erase as many cultural references as he can from us, an easy task as we are not blessed with a long cultural history and a lot of our history was very destructive anyway. Even from the few treasures that make us Venezuelans, that speak to us, even to me, the son of French immigrants, he wants to pick and chose what might serve him and discard most. There might not be a Venezuelan Mallarmé but there is Andres Eloy Blanco and all through my childhood I heard this.
Si queda un pintor de santos,And these verses speak to me with the same strength than anything that I might have seen in Paris two weeks ago. "que vayan comiendo mango ---- por las barriadas del cielo" nothing more Venezuelan has ever been written.....
si queda un pintor de cielos,
que haga el cielo de mi tierra,
con los tonos de mi pueblo,
con su ángel de perla fina,
con su ángel de medio pelo,
con sus ángeles catires,
con sus ángeles morenos,
con sus angelitos blancos,
con sus angelitos indios,
con sus angelitos negros,
que vayan comiendo mango
por las barriadas del cielo.
And yet, even though the whole poem is one of the finest examples of anti racist literature to be found in any culture, chavismo has never embraced it. Because Andres Eloy Blanco was Adeco and that cannot be forgiven , as the accidental discovery of America by Columbus cannot be forgiven. Columbus must be charged with all the abuses committed after him. And thus Andres Eloy Blanco must be guilty, at some obscure level, if anything because chavismo has proven itself unable to write anything as inspiring and effective as that simple poem, and even if Andres Eloy Blanco died one year after Chavez was born and could not be held responsible for what the Adecos did later.
So Chavez is trying to gut our cultural heritage, without having some coherent system to replace it except his speeches and what are called his thoughts and his personal myths. Will Chavez speeches stir great emotions besides hatred? They will not because culture and art do not happen in a vacuum. If Muslims cannot feel what I feel in front of Mallarmé portrait it is because I cannot feel what they would feel at the Kairouan Mosque, it is because our emotions are constructed on our own cultural past and how it makes us relate to our environment and how they create a place for us.
But then again when Chavez makes Venezuelans stop caring about their real past they will also stop caring about him.
La chair est triste, hélas ! et j’ai lu tous les livres.
I think I am not afraid of Mallarmé anymore. He came to me when I needed him most.
--- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Translations:
La chair est triste, hélas ! et j’ai lu tous les livres.
The flesh is sad, alas! and I have read all the books.
Si queda un pintor de santos,
If a Saints painter remains,
si queda un pintor de cielos,
If a heavens painter remains,
que haga el cielo de mi tierra,
that he may do heavens of my land,
con los tonos de mi pueblo,
with the hues of my people,
con su ángel de perla fina,
with a mother of pearl angel,
con su ángel de medio pelo,
with a curly hair angel,
con sus ángeles catires,
with light haired angels,
con sus ángeles morenos,
with brown angels,
con sus angelitos blancos,
with white angels,
con sus angelitos indios,
with indian angels
con sus angelitos negros,
with black angels
que vayan comiendo mango
that they walk eating mangoes
por las barriadas del cielo.
in heavens neighborhoods.
And GP offers us this version
If there's a painter of saints left,
if there's a painter of skies left,
let him create my land's sky,
with the tones of my town,
with his fine pearl angel,
with his mediocre angel,
with his blond angels,
with his brown angels,
with his little white angels,
with his little Indian angels,
with his little black angels,
may they go on eating mangoes
through the neighborhoods of the sky.
-The end-
Friday, July 20, 2007
Educational brainwash in Venezuela
There are those exquisite moments where the dignitaries of the regime forget that the "ancien regime" democratic ways allowed them to become the fascists (or is that stalino-commie?) that they are today. For example this week we got the words of Adan Chavez, the evil brother of mini-me, keeping up his drive against private education; and Carlos Escarra telling us that the 37% who voted (official numbers, not a verifiable one) against Chavez had no business in discussing the constitutional overhaul.
Private education under siege
Every totalitarian regime has been hell bent in destroying any form of private education. The reason is very simple: nobody should be allowed to develop a dissenting perception of life, the only one being allowed is the one from the state. The obviousness of this forces me to stop from giving any further detail least I would insult the intelligence of readers of this blog.
In Venezuela the all out assault against private education has been delayed once and again because simply the government has been absolutely unable to reorganize the public system. Closing or intervening private educational system, in addition to its political costs, is simply something that the regime cannot financially undertake, at least as long as it has not shown that it can manage the public system. Even more so when doubts about the educational Misiones (Robinson, Ribas and Sucre) are starting to appear more and more as it is plain to see, for example, that illiteracy is far from eliminated in Venezuela. Or as Mision Sucre students wonder aloud whether their degree will get them a job, if they even get their degree.
But with all the changes that we have been threatened with the government is now forced to tighten the squeeze on private education, from your local infant garden to private universities. So, to start squeezing out of existence private schools the government has forbidden them to increase their billing. That is, tuition at private schools for 2007-2008 HAS TO BE THE SAME as during the 2006-2007 period. That official inflation was 15% and real inflation something above 20% does not concern the education minister of Chavez, his brother Adan, who every day looks more and more like the second in command, the bolibanana revolution imitating the Castro brothers show.
In addition minimum wage were increased by 20% last may, which forces an increase of 10 to 20% on wages that are above minimum, anyway. We all know that wages are the bulk of any school budget. Needless to say that private schools are seriously talking civil disobedience and that parents are supporting price increases! In many school parents have gathered to make "donations" and the phenomenon has been so widespread that Adan Chavez had to come out to say that such donations were illegal!
What direct benefit does the government hopes to achieve with that? Either close some schools, or force them to ask subsidies from the state. Subsidies are already given in lower social class neighborhoods private schools since the state has long ago discovered that it is cheaper to subsidize some catholic schools, for example, as it cannot manage the educational system as it should. Subsidies, of course, allow for political pressures on those schools who can at least be barred from any anti Chavez, pro capitalist message, if they were so inclined.
To confirm this wish to control educational message we also got this week an interesting moment. Barreto of soccer fields infamy, has decided to distribute in some public schools little cookies wrapped in political slogans which are by definition of dubious taste and cultural value. Some parents complained and Adan Chavez said that he did not understand the buzz. After all, according to him, children need to be told more and more about socialism of the XXI, which we are to understand is a good thing even if it looks, walks, quacks as a commie duck more and more. Parents of private schools obviously do not want anything related with any political indoctrination of their children.
It is a nice coincidence that the Washington Post reports today that educational textbooks in Russia are changed these days to glorify Putin more. And to bash the Untied States again. Echoes of a totalitarian past are back in the ex Soviet lands. Venezuela-Russia, "même combat".
Note: the children of chavista ministers in general do not attend public school! Most in fact attend some of the priciest private school. For example the Private French School of Caracas hosts many of those nomeklatura kids in either one of its French or Venezuelan section. The French school is one of the most expensive private schools of Venezuela...
Constitutional contempt
But if anyone had the faintest doubt that the chavista administration worried about ALL Venezuelans welfare, this was once again erased by Carlos Escarra. This sleazy and greasy lawyer, not trusted by Chavez, even today, has had to crawl into so many gutters to try to ingratiate himself that now that Chavez finally put into a position of interest, he wallows in intellectual litter even more gladly than when he was trying to climb. The list of all atrocities that Carlos Escarra has said is too long to mention and is worthy of ranking one day with the list of specious politico legal arguments of the Stalinist Massive Trial Judges or the Nazi judges that legalized deportation and racial cleansing.
The latest uttering of Escarra is that the 37% of people who voted against Chavez had no say on constitutional changes, that 63% had voted for socialism and that the change was irreversible so why should the government even bother explaining its reasons to a more than a third of the country. What about "Venezuela es de todos"? Visibly after the fiasco of the Copa America as the rallying moment the government stupidly hoped for, now it is time to erase the memory of those who oppose Chavez. If polls give Chavez below 40% these days, why not come back to that comforting 63% of people who voted for Chavez out of fear and under threat?
That is to be expected in a country that refused to punish someone like Tascon for his apartheid list. Any public official can now speak disparagingly against any political adversary knowing full well that the state power is geared to crush such adversaries.
And thus we can observe the two tenets of brain washing: brainwash the young as soon as possible, and pretend that the ones that cannot be brain washed do not exist.
-The end-
Private education under siege
Every totalitarian regime has been hell bent in destroying any form of private education. The reason is very simple: nobody should be allowed to develop a dissenting perception of life, the only one being allowed is the one from the state. The obviousness of this forces me to stop from giving any further detail least I would insult the intelligence of readers of this blog.
In Venezuela the all out assault against private education has been delayed once and again because simply the government has been absolutely unable to reorganize the public system. Closing or intervening private educational system, in addition to its political costs, is simply something that the regime cannot financially undertake, at least as long as it has not shown that it can manage the public system. Even more so when doubts about the educational Misiones (Robinson, Ribas and Sucre) are starting to appear more and more as it is plain to see, for example, that illiteracy is far from eliminated in Venezuela. Or as Mision Sucre students wonder aloud whether their degree will get them a job, if they even get their degree.
But with all the changes that we have been threatened with the government is now forced to tighten the squeeze on private education, from your local infant garden to private universities. So, to start squeezing out of existence private schools the government has forbidden them to increase their billing. That is, tuition at private schools for 2007-2008 HAS TO BE THE SAME as during the 2006-2007 period. That official inflation was 15% and real inflation something above 20% does not concern the education minister of Chavez, his brother Adan, who every day looks more and more like the second in command, the bolibanana revolution imitating the Castro brothers show.
In addition minimum wage were increased by 20% last may, which forces an increase of 10 to 20% on wages that are above minimum, anyway. We all know that wages are the bulk of any school budget. Needless to say that private schools are seriously talking civil disobedience and that parents are supporting price increases! In many school parents have gathered to make "donations" and the phenomenon has been so widespread that Adan Chavez had to come out to say that such donations were illegal!
What direct benefit does the government hopes to achieve with that? Either close some schools, or force them to ask subsidies from the state. Subsidies are already given in lower social class neighborhoods private schools since the state has long ago discovered that it is cheaper to subsidize some catholic schools, for example, as it cannot manage the educational system as it should. Subsidies, of course, allow for political pressures on those schools who can at least be barred from any anti Chavez, pro capitalist message, if they were so inclined.
To confirm this wish to control educational message we also got this week an interesting moment. Barreto of soccer fields infamy, has decided to distribute in some public schools little cookies wrapped in political slogans which are by definition of dubious taste and cultural value. Some parents complained and Adan Chavez said that he did not understand the buzz. After all, according to him, children need to be told more and more about socialism of the XXI, which we are to understand is a good thing even if it looks, walks, quacks as a commie duck more and more. Parents of private schools obviously do not want anything related with any political indoctrination of their children.
It is a nice coincidence that the Washington Post reports today that educational textbooks in Russia are changed these days to glorify Putin more. And to bash the Untied States again. Echoes of a totalitarian past are back in the ex Soviet lands. Venezuela-Russia, "même combat".
Note: the children of chavista ministers in general do not attend public school! Most in fact attend some of the priciest private school. For example the Private French School of Caracas hosts many of those nomeklatura kids in either one of its French or Venezuelan section. The French school is one of the most expensive private schools of Venezuela...
Constitutional contempt
But if anyone had the faintest doubt that the chavista administration worried about ALL Venezuelans welfare, this was once again erased by Carlos Escarra. This sleazy and greasy lawyer, not trusted by Chavez, even today, has had to crawl into so many gutters to try to ingratiate himself that now that Chavez finally put into a position of interest, he wallows in intellectual litter even more gladly than when he was trying to climb. The list of all atrocities that Carlos Escarra has said is too long to mention and is worthy of ranking one day with the list of specious politico legal arguments of the Stalinist Massive Trial Judges or the Nazi judges that legalized deportation and racial cleansing.
The latest uttering of Escarra is that the 37% of people who voted against Chavez had no say on constitutional changes, that 63% had voted for socialism and that the change was irreversible so why should the government even bother explaining its reasons to a more than a third of the country. What about "Venezuela es de todos"? Visibly after the fiasco of the Copa America as the rallying moment the government stupidly hoped for, now it is time to erase the memory of those who oppose Chavez. If polls give Chavez below 40% these days, why not come back to that comforting 63% of people who voted for Chavez out of fear and under threat?
That is to be expected in a country that refused to punish someone like Tascon for his apartheid list. Any public official can now speak disparagingly against any political adversary knowing full well that the state power is geared to crush such adversaries.
And thus we can observe the two tenets of brain washing: brainwash the young as soon as possible, and pretend that the ones that cannot be brain washed do not exist.
-The end-
Saturday, June 09, 2007
The Student Vote in Venezuela: No to Chavez
While all of these events were taking place this week, the Andes University was electing its student organization. Remember? The election that was canceled by the high court, TSJ, without any ground? Probably against the constitution by the way. And which was supposed to be won by Nixon Moreno, now hiding at the Nunciature?
Well, if the government was hoping to gain some time so it could bolster the election of its supporters it did not work out. The results are in and at the ULA chavismo has been trashed (as it is always trash in ANY university that is not "bolivarian", the universities where to get in you basically need only to wear a red shirt).
The results are lapidary for chavismo: the opposition got 26,832 votes and chavismo got 8,514. That is right, for every vote chavismo was getting, the opposition students were getting 3 votes. In some faculties the rate reached as high as 10 to 1. Of the 26 seats at stake chavismo got only 4 seats. Then again, you know, the CNE was not directing these elections. Results taken form El Nacional, subscription only.
So, what does this tell us?
The immense majority the future managers, technicians, professionals of Venezuela, at least the quality ones since bolivarian universities do not seem to be graduating anyone outside of social work and propaganda/education careers, will not share Chavez socialist nincompooperies. Even more damming since the students that were voting got into the ULA AFTER Chavez became president. These results appear everywhere in more or less the same margins, from 2 to 1 to 3 to 1. Bolivarian university elections are not reported so we do not know what is going on there but I doubt the opposition is even allowed to offer a list of candidates, at least as far as I know and I would be delighted to stand corrected.
How is Chavez planning to build a country with social workers form the UBV and the Cubans that crawl everywhere? The best and brightest that Venezuela is forming at UCV, ULA, UCLA, UDO, USB, UC (I am not even getting into private universities) at great cost will eventually find their way out of the country, supplying for cheap with qualified personnel anything from Burger King franchises in Florida to technical staff in Manhattan.
And of course it does make us understand much better why we see huge students protests while chavismo attempts at counter protest are limited and paltry. Even the UBV students that got into the UBV because they could not get anywhere else want at least rudimentary education so that they could get a job in some business where they might make a better life for their children. But the way things are going, with the slow strangulation of the private sector, even the UBV graduates will not find enough janitorial jobs in the public administration. These students are not stupid: they might not dare to join the protesting students associated loosely with an anti Chavez feeling, but they are not militantly hitting the streets in favor of Chavez either.
I suppose that there is a lesson for Chavez in those results but we know from experience that he will not even look for it. What we know is that he will do his best to end the university autonomy which for all its fault has managed to still semi educate students in Venezuela, and create a few brilliant ones as we are seeing these days. Under any circumstances chavismo will always prefer red dressed mediocrities.
-The end-
Well, if the government was hoping to gain some time so it could bolster the election of its supporters it did not work out. The results are in and at the ULA chavismo has been trashed (as it is always trash in ANY university that is not "bolivarian", the universities where to get in you basically need only to wear a red shirt).
The results are lapidary for chavismo: the opposition got 26,832 votes and chavismo got 8,514. That is right, for every vote chavismo was getting, the opposition students were getting 3 votes. In some faculties the rate reached as high as 10 to 1. Of the 26 seats at stake chavismo got only 4 seats. Then again, you know, the CNE was not directing these elections. Results taken form El Nacional, subscription only.
So, what does this tell us?
The immense majority the future managers, technicians, professionals of Venezuela, at least the quality ones since bolivarian universities do not seem to be graduating anyone outside of social work and propaganda/education careers, will not share Chavez socialist nincompooperies. Even more damming since the students that were voting got into the ULA AFTER Chavez became president. These results appear everywhere in more or less the same margins, from 2 to 1 to 3 to 1. Bolivarian university elections are not reported so we do not know what is going on there but I doubt the opposition is even allowed to offer a list of candidates, at least as far as I know and I would be delighted to stand corrected.
How is Chavez planning to build a country with social workers form the UBV and the Cubans that crawl everywhere? The best and brightest that Venezuela is forming at UCV, ULA, UCLA, UDO, USB, UC (I am not even getting into private universities) at great cost will eventually find their way out of the country, supplying for cheap with qualified personnel anything from Burger King franchises in Florida to technical staff in Manhattan.
And of course it does make us understand much better why we see huge students protests while chavismo attempts at counter protest are limited and paltry. Even the UBV students that got into the UBV because they could not get anywhere else want at least rudimentary education so that they could get a job in some business where they might make a better life for their children. But the way things are going, with the slow strangulation of the private sector, even the UBV graduates will not find enough janitorial jobs in the public administration. These students are not stupid: they might not dare to join the protesting students associated loosely with an anti Chavez feeling, but they are not militantly hitting the streets in favor of Chavez either.
I suppose that there is a lesson for Chavez in those results but we know from experience that he will not even look for it. What we know is that he will do his best to end the university autonomy which for all its fault has managed to still semi educate students in Venezuela, and create a few brilliant ones as we are seeing these days. Under any circumstances chavismo will always prefer red dressed mediocrities.
-The end-
Sunday, March 04, 2007
What Venezuelans voted for: lousy public education
One of the most vaunted Chavez prowess among the sycophantic and not so sycophantic crowds that support him is that Chavez is making education available to all, and that through his Mision Robinson, Ribas and Sucre he allows many people to be reincorporated inside the educational system, stop being illiterate and eventually get some form of college degree. Well, maybe.
The table below, taking from today’s El Nacional Web site tells us a very different story.
Yes, even if you cannot understand Spanish well, you did see that school rolls in Venezuela decreased by 585 000, that is a 7.26% points from the highest figure of 2004-2005. Down to 7 486 191 from 8 071 959 in 2004-2005. These numbers, we are told by El Nacional, are taken directly from the accounts and justification memo of the Education Ministry.
Huh? Less kids suddenly? That many less kids suddenly? Was there a war, an epidemic or something?
The article is not very helpful in explaining why such a stunning result. The only thing it tells us is that to find such a sharp drop in education enrollment we must go back to 1994 where a 1.8% drop was observed (during the banking crisis of Caldera II, where at least there was a economic reason whereas between 2005 and 2006 supposedly we were witnessing the Chavez economical miracle, at least according to some!). It also reminds readers that Chavez in public stated that his administration was educating 16 million students, more than double of what the Education Ministry acknowledges. Will a journalist dare to ask Chavez on such a contradiction?
Some possible reasons
The most benign one, that the accounting of the ministry of education is so sloppy that it forgot to include the Misiones enrollment. Note: these misiones are supposedly designed for people who fell OUT of the system earlier and wish to come back into it; thus we are mostly talking about adults in the misiones. The ministry results are supposedly representing the “normal “ school rolls.
The worse explanation of course is that the lack of real jobs and the fake recovery can be clearly seen in the drop in school enrollment. People simply cannot afford to enroll their kids or worse, need them to help scavenge for food and survival…
A more serious charge could be that many parents are getting weary of a public education which looks more and more like a brainwashing system to create the new "socialo-bolivarian man" or some like crazy idea. Private school could become an alternative to the "Escuela Bolivariana".
I will let the reader decide and inquire further, however there is an incredible telling sign that the Venezuelan educational public system is failing, and badly failing. If we look at the figures the drop for the public sector is in fact 9.61%, HIGHER than the global 7.26% reported above. Meanwhile the private sector of education INCREASES its enrollment by 23.96%!!!!!! In a single year!!!! This stunning increase can only be explained one way: quality in public education keeps going down and/or parents refuse to have their kids brain washed in public schools.
Now, I did read this after I read and translated Milagros Socorro Op-Ed piece which I just posted below. The question is of course what would happen to these numbers once the study of Chavez thoughts from his prodigious intellect are made required course work in public education? Will parents vote with their kids feet toward private education?
No wonder a few days ago we heard again the threat of intervening private education (at least in universities but for the past two years there have been constant threats to at least force some "bolivarian" curricula in private schools). It is one way to resist chavismo, to enroll your kids in private education, if you can afford it. And as usual the victims are the poor who cannot escape public education and must leave their kids there, no matter how awful that education might be. Their other choice eventually becoming school desertion. So much for Bolivarian Schools so widely advertised during the 2006 campaign just as kids dropped out in droves.
Stunning!
PS: note added later. The evolution of school rolls can be found here, pre 2004 and here further in the past. These trends seem to indicate that the drop reproted in El Nacional might be a real drop if not quite verifiable as posted in the comment section. Weird!
-The end-
The table below, taking from today’s El Nacional Web site tells us a very different story.
Yes, even if you cannot understand Spanish well, you did see that school rolls in Venezuela decreased by 585 000, that is a 7.26% points from the highest figure of 2004-2005. Down to 7 486 191 from 8 071 959 in 2004-2005. These numbers, we are told by El Nacional, are taken directly from the accounts and justification memo of the Education Ministry.
Huh? Less kids suddenly? That many less kids suddenly? Was there a war, an epidemic or something?
The article is not very helpful in explaining why such a stunning result. The only thing it tells us is that to find such a sharp drop in education enrollment we must go back to 1994 where a 1.8% drop was observed (during the banking crisis of Caldera II, where at least there was a economic reason whereas between 2005 and 2006 supposedly we were witnessing the Chavez economical miracle, at least according to some!). It also reminds readers that Chavez in public stated that his administration was educating 16 million students, more than double of what the Education Ministry acknowledges. Will a journalist dare to ask Chavez on such a contradiction?
Some possible reasons
The most benign one, that the accounting of the ministry of education is so sloppy that it forgot to include the Misiones enrollment. Note: these misiones are supposedly designed for people who fell OUT of the system earlier and wish to come back into it; thus we are mostly talking about adults in the misiones. The ministry results are supposedly representing the “normal “ school rolls.
The worse explanation of course is that the lack of real jobs and the fake recovery can be clearly seen in the drop in school enrollment. People simply cannot afford to enroll their kids or worse, need them to help scavenge for food and survival…
A more serious charge could be that many parents are getting weary of a public education which looks more and more like a brainwashing system to create the new "socialo-bolivarian man" or some like crazy idea. Private school could become an alternative to the "Escuela Bolivariana".
I will let the reader decide and inquire further, however there is an incredible telling sign that the Venezuelan educational public system is failing, and badly failing. If we look at the figures the drop for the public sector is in fact 9.61%, HIGHER than the global 7.26% reported above. Meanwhile the private sector of education INCREASES its enrollment by 23.96%!!!!!! In a single year!!!! This stunning increase can only be explained one way: quality in public education keeps going down and/or parents refuse to have their kids brain washed in public schools.
Now, I did read this after I read and translated Milagros Socorro Op-Ed piece which I just posted below. The question is of course what would happen to these numbers once the study of Chavez thoughts from his prodigious intellect are made required course work in public education? Will parents vote with their kids feet toward private education?
No wonder a few days ago we heard again the threat of intervening private education (at least in universities but for the past two years there have been constant threats to at least force some "bolivarian" curricula in private schools). It is one way to resist chavismo, to enroll your kids in private education, if you can afford it. And as usual the victims are the poor who cannot escape public education and must leave their kids there, no matter how awful that education might be. Their other choice eventually becoming school desertion. So much for Bolivarian Schools so widely advertised during the 2006 campaign just as kids dropped out in droves.
Stunning!
PS: note added later. The evolution of school rolls can be found here, pre 2004 and here further in the past. These trends seem to indicate that the drop reproted in El Nacional might be a real drop if not quite verifiable as posted in the comment section. Weird!
-The end-
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