Oscar Heck: The Venezuelan opposition is so racist and so segregationist and so heartless and inhuman that it blows my mind!

VHeadline commentarist Oscar Heck writes: Okay. I've been in Venezuela for several weeks now … and things are not being reported outside as the soo-called 'professional' reporters should be doing, especially reporters affiliated with the highly financed US and European-based mass media outlets.

Much of what is going on in Venezuela now reminds me of the Venezuelan US-financed disinformation and manipulative media campaigns of 2001, 2002 and 2003, during which time the often-violent Venezuelan opposition (opposition to Chavez) tried their damnest to rid Venezuela of Chavez through economic and media sabotaged, aided in great part by the monies of the Venezuelan elite, their organizations (such as the CTV, Fedecamaras and the CEV) and, of course, the US government, through the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID.

Why are these 'professionals' not reporting about the overt and public racist campaigns which are now taking place in Venezuela, especially through Globovision television station? If media campaigns such as these occurred in almost any country in the world today, the television stations involved would be summarily shut down and its producers and owners charged,, put to trial and possibly jailed.

Why is it not being reported?

There are so many issues going on at present in Venezuela … and among them, one which has had the opposition up in fake flames of unthinking and irrational rage. Of course, according to their own pro-US, pro-globalization, pro-UN, pro-WHO, pro-OAS, pro-WIPO, pro-capitalist and pro-exploitation-and-exclusion philosophy, they are being completely logical and intelligent and professional and educated and superior in their interpretation and understanding of the issue.

The issue is education … more precisely, the proposed discussions on propossed changes to the primary school and secondary school education curriculum .. which are now up for consideration, revision and review by the public (before the Education Ministry implements any changes).

• This issue has now got the opposition in a euphoric state of aggression against anything that smells of Chavez … as if, because they believe themselvees to be the cream of the crop, they must be right in fighting every aspect of the proposed (for discussion) changes.

Basically, the suggestion for changes revolves around changing the entire way children are taught.

That is, instead of, as in western civilization, where children are taught to compete for better marks and where students are taught by segregating information and clumping that information into domains and levels which aim at creating individualistic minds (through the segregation and disconnection of information), Venezuela is now proposing a system whereby students, from the earliest of ages are taught to correlate, compare and analyse information from multiple domains of information simultaneaously, while the system itself would not be based on a competitive (meaning exclusive) academic structure (leading some children being 'better' than others).

In addition, from a young age, children would be taught not only the empirical information (such as math, sciences, languages, etc.), but would be taught the material in direct relation to agricultural development, the trades, services, social structures, sports, the arts, political differences and ideologies, family life … and would include comparisons between conventional westernized hiistory (such as Columbus being a hero) and a more realistic view on history (such as Columbus was an invader and mass murderer of millions of innocent people) … and all this in conjunction to the present state of Venezuelan government and society and current events. Venezuelan local history would be taught in detail as well.

Now, what do you think?

Anyone with a thinking brain will realize that conventional westernized education (as exists in Venezuela at present) will lead to a society composed of conventional westernized structures, levels, exclusions and would include all human and social repercussions resulting from such as system. We can clearly see that the conventional and ever expanding western system of thought and structure has led to mass exploitation of the excluded, marginalization of the less knowledgeable (not meaning 'less intelligent'), the divisionalization of society as a whole (the poor and the wealthy and the other classes, the scientific community, the business community, etc.), the physical separation of human beings (slums versus gated communities), and the segregation involving who has more of something and who has less of something … with little consideration for the humanity in each of us.

I was taught that Christopher Columbus was a hero … which I found out 40 yeears later, was a complete lie. Growing up in Canada, I was never taught that we had massacred, raped and kidnapped so many innocent Natives or that residential schools and Indian reserves existed. I was taught that we French and English had “settled” the lands … we were never taught that wee slaughtered millions in order to steal the lands. What a lie.

Why?

What Venezuela is proposing is that every child be given the opportunity to learn about, observe, analyse and experience the overall conditions around themselves and around the world in such a way that the child can little by little create his or her own way in life in a practical and positive fashion without feeling less important within society, while comparing facts to the lies that are traditionally taught through the western education system and its media.

When I was in elementary school and high school I was hand picked to be in 'special programs' which involved simultaneous university studies. They all expected me to become a scientist or something. Since I had a great thirst for knowledge and a hard head, I studied everything I could. I loved it. Since mathematics and physics has always been two of my greatest interests, I just barged away and sucked it all in ... but I also had great interests in art and poetry and archaeology. They had me pass some tests and they wanted me to take up architecture in university … but instead, two weeks out of high school I went to live in the jungles of South America … and much later … I did mechanical engineering while I made my living as a painter. Finally, I never worked in engineering, but instead composed music and did investigation work and painted.

But ... many years later, by accident, I found out that what I really would have loved to do as a living was to be a welder. I bought a welding machine … and loved it. That would have been the best thing for me to do in life (as a living) … but no teacher would have ever suggested that I take on such a 'lowly' profession. Get it?

Now I write.

The proposed changes to the Venezuelan educational system would have permitted someone such as myself, such as yourself, to head toward a way of making a living that would really have suited us. I could have been a happy welder, making a decent living, and could have built up my other happy interests around my happy livelihood. (My first wife wouldn't have run off with another man either!).

I believe that if everyone had had such an opportunity, life today would be more peaceful and pleasant for most of us. There would be a whole lot less people taking anti-depressants (but that isn't very convenient for the pharmaceutical industry), less people would be committing suicide and there would be millions less unhappy workers, alcoholics, drug addicts and divorces (but that is not good for the economy!) … overall … a much mo more humane, productive, pleasant, yet less-profitable society.

Tragedy is profit. Peace is not!

How many taxi drivers do you know who were once engineers, doctors, accountants, or other professionals? I know lots.

Now ... here is the crux...

Venezuela's most anti-Chavez and racist television station (watched daily by most opposition people) just made a several-minute TV clip where they ask, "On Monday (Tuesday, etc.), when your child comes back from school, what will she say they have learned?"

The answers range from ridiculous things such as having done military drills to having learned how to be 'farmers' and having learned to 'share' with others, to learning that certain Black and Native historical figures are also Venezuelan heroes (versus the traditional white heroes which are taught about today).

Every aspect of this clip is overtly condescending, as if a farmer is less than a doctor, that a white is superior to a Black or a Native, and that sharing is not a good policy for it inhibits individualism and competitiveness.

It is perhaps the most racist and classist thing which I have ever seen produced by Globovision ... except for the time when they were making fun of Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe, saying that he looked like someone from 'The Planet of the Apes.'

• My point is … most people from the Venezuelan opposition are so racist and so segregationist and so heartless and inhuman that it blows my mind ... and these are the ones who had ruled Venezuela for the last 400 years prior to Chavez ... and these are the ones who want to rule Venezuela again ... and these are the ones who call themselves educated, intellligent and civilized.

Before you people out there believe anything the Venezuelan opposition tells you about the proposed changes to the Venezuelan educational system … watch Globovision … and then, judge for yourself !

Oscar Heck
oscarheck111@yahoo.com