Our society is painfully giving birth to a new identity: that of the Venezuelan migrant. Painfully, because it is difficult to disassociate ourselves from Venezuelan egomania, from that messianic potential we believe we have, of being somehow the chosen people of Latin America. It is true that in the past Venezuela was the most promising country, with the best economy in South America and a certain democratic stability. A rickety stability forged on puntofijista1 truculence, certainly; but compared to the military dictatorships that consumed the rest of the continent, the country of Bolivar's sons could bask in its pretensions of superiority.
Perhaps this is what feeds our personal fantasies. We Venezuelans build positivist epics, supported by a rancid modernism: our brilliant, historical destiny, in the bosom of the homeland. Whether as employees, managers or artists, vergaetrianismo2 is a disease of the national spirit.
By all accounts, it's frustrating and infuriating to see your country destroyed by a bunch of thieves, corrupt and untalented scum. That goes without saying. But to speak of the Venezuelan exodus as something singular, as an unusual problem of pertaining only to our people, is to demonstrate the most supreme ridiculousness (another characteristic of homo venezolanus, by the way).
I do not believe I am the only one who is greatly bothered by this end-of-history, final discourse on migration. It is the extrapolation of modernistic logic, if-I-had-to-migrate-we-all-must-do-it, versus if-we-all-stay-we-would-fix-the-country, to continue believing in destinies or in historical teleologies.
It is the "the best are leaving" or "those who fight are staying" and other trifles. As if life, that individual and personal situation, could be governed by maxims dictated by others.
For as long as man has been man, he has been the victim of forced migrations. What used to be terror before the barbaric plundering and rape of our women, has now been transformed into destruction of the economy and generalized insecurity as a State policy. We have made some progress.
The reality is that we, Venezuelans, have never had a destiny. No people has ever had a destiny. They are fables worthy of a Venezuelan History booklet for the second year of high school and nothing more.
To believe that Venezuela is great, that its people are different from Chavismo itself, is stupid. Chavismo is not an alien disease that fell on the Venezuelan people as in the movie Body Snatchers. Chavismo is not the reason why you do not achieve your goals. Yes, Chavismo and its misguided economic policies are a hindrance, an impediment, a barrier to overcome, a bull to dodge. But it is not an ultimate justification.
There are people who had it harder than you. Without thinking too much, the Russian painter Vasili Kandinski comes to mind. He migrated from Russia to Germany, practically having to start all over again. When the Bauhaus began to take off, he was accused of producing "degenerate art" and had to leave again, this time for France. Did Kandinski spend his life talking about how great he would have been in Russia? No, he started painting. The rest is history.
So, I only write this to say that there is no moral to give. There is no Big Story to embrace about the misfortune of what is happening in Venezuela. Yes, the country hurts, and hurts a lot. It is healthy to feel that way and to express it. But it is not true that the solution for everyone is to "migrate" or "stay". There are very valuable people in Venezuela who resist through action and creation. People like Luigi Sciamanna. People who have decided not to let barbarism consume them, to force them to reflect in immediate terms, that is, to stop reflecting (because that is the project, in case there was any doubt). If the only solution is to "flee Venezuela", how does that leave people like Sciamanna?
No. He who will create, creates, even if it is under a rock. George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway wrote novels between, during and after two World Wars. Because he who writes, writes.
That is the best resistance we can do. The rejection of the Venezuelan Totalitarian State project is crystallized through reflection and creation. Art opposes barbarism, violence, the present of destruction.
That is why I leave you with this recommendation: it is fine to complain and let off steam, we all do it. But let's not let it be the only thing we do. In the end, it's what they want. Don't give them that pleasure. Put another way:
Migrating is horrible, it's tragic. Now get on with living your life.
Staying is horrible, it's tragic. Now get on with living your life.
(This is an old, unpublished text, written in 2017).
---
Puntofijista: refers to the political pact that structured Venezuela’s “4th Republic”, from 1958 to 1998.
Vergaetrianismo: Neologism stemming from a colloquial word: the untranslatable “Verga de Triana”, which would be something like Mr. Triana’s Dick. Nobody knows who the “Triana” referred to in this expression is.
Brilliant. Thank you
Gracias!