Newsnight falls for Chavismo
Newsnight is this week devoting its programming to Latin America, and what it repeatedly describes as the “world’s most underreported story” – namely, the electoral changes that have seen the continent move away from the Washington consensus of the 1990s to left and centre-left governments.
Newsnight’s angle is clear: they are reading the entire continental drift as a sop in the face of George W. Bush, reducing the political will of hundreds of millions of people into an anti-American tirade that is insulting, demeaning and largely meaningless. If the first programme is anything to go by, the entire week will simply serve a foregone conclusion: that Hugo Chavez is a hero who opposes the USA’s demonic hegemon and is carving out a path of equality and self-sufficiency for the global south, inspiring and funding left-leaning candidates and turning Latin America firmly towards a neo-socialist bent.
The attitude was summed up by the gloating of Newsnight present Gavin Esler, who has clearly bought into the whole Western attitude towards Latin America – what might be called “Guevarism”, after Che Guevara, the hero of the Cuban revolution whose poster lives on in the dorm rooms of youthful idealists. The romanticised notion that Latin America represents the cradle of political opposition, a breeding ground for socialist revolutionaries and popular movements, of Sandinistas and Zapateros and the heroic Tupac Amaru, is a convenient myth for armchair guerrillas who wouldn’t care to see the same occur on their own turf. Esler bungled an interview with Otto Reich so badly that the deeply unpleasant former Venezuelan ambassador – responsible in part for the funding of the Contras in Nicaragua during the violent Central American 1980s, and author of a recent National Review article that described Castro and Chavez as the new “axis of evil” – came across as the victim of a hatchet job. Every single comment was prefaced with wallowing claims, such as “Washington has lost Latin America”, and variations thereon. Reich’s laughable claim that America has always supported democracy throughout the Western Hemisphere were met with a limp accusation of long-standing interference – although to be honest, Esler seemed to lack even the basic knowledge of the subject at hand. His interview with Peruvian presidential hopeful, Ollanta Humala, tried the same tricks – encouraging Humala to attack George Bush, throwing him questions about the relationship his government would potentially have with the US… at no point did Esler actually ask what his domestic policies would be.
Earlier in the show, a hagiographic interview with Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, by Greg Palast was predictably biased and blinkered in the manner that Palast is notorious for. His fawning over Chavez, and softball questioning put to the president via a translator (hasn’t he spent enough time there by now to learn the language?), was reminiscent of a George Bush press conference, and put the lie to Palast’s puffed-up “investigative journalist” angle. The BBC’s big claims surrounding this interview – that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world – proved to be a bust; economically, this would be true if (as Chavez wishes) the price of oil were set at $50 a barrel, but this is highly unlikely. Yet the piece made no mention of this.
Whilst turning a blind eye to the increasing stories of human rights abuses in Venezuela, and Chavez’ desire his reign as long as possible – never mind the effect on democracy – the report did, however, trump a curious statistic: that under Chavez poverty in Venezuela is down by one third. This has traditionally been where Chavez’ power resides – in the hands of the poor, who see him as a saviour, an indigenous hero who after years of neglect has finally given the majority in the country a voice. It is true that the country’s oil wealth has allowed the introduction of Cuban doctors and health facilities to places that once had none; a massive, country-wide programme has seen literacy levels rise dramatically, while free schools and universities have brought education to millions. Yet whether or not poverty has actually increased is a cause of much furious debate. Some reports ay it has decreased; others news channels, such as vcrisis.com, quote the government’s own statistics which indicate that in Chavez’s first four years in office rose from 43% to 54% of the population.
Evidently both of these sources have certain biases, but it is far from certain that poverty is on the decline. Quite where Mr. Palast came up with his figure of a third is a mystery, and he cited no official statistics to back it up. It was yet another glaring example in a factually-shy report that treated Chavez as some kind of Messiah sent down from the heavens to tackle George Bush and wield the honourable sword of socialismo.
Hopefully the rest of the week’s editions will present a more nuanced account of the complex situation in Latin America, but it seems there is little chance. The BBC seems to have fallen for the kind of post-colonialism that often afflicts reporting from Africa – treating the entire continent as a homogenous mass, and fixing facts and figures around the conveniently romantic story. Perhaps an account of Chile – who, despite its socialist President, Michele Bachelet, is taking a far more sober and balanced approach to its dealings with the outside world – will redress the balance. Yet on this first programme, there is little hope that this will happen.
Newsnight’s angle is clear: they are reading the entire continental drift as a sop in the face of George W. Bush, reducing the political will of hundreds of millions of people into an anti-American tirade that is insulting, demeaning and largely meaningless. If the first programme is anything to go by, the entire week will simply serve a foregone conclusion: that Hugo Chavez is a hero who opposes the USA’s demonic hegemon and is carving out a path of equality and self-sufficiency for the global south, inspiring and funding left-leaning candidates and turning Latin America firmly towards a neo-socialist bent.
The attitude was summed up by the gloating of Newsnight present Gavin Esler, who has clearly bought into the whole Western attitude towards Latin America – what might be called “Guevarism”, after Che Guevara, the hero of the Cuban revolution whose poster lives on in the dorm rooms of youthful idealists. The romanticised notion that Latin America represents the cradle of political opposition, a breeding ground for socialist revolutionaries and popular movements, of Sandinistas and Zapateros and the heroic Tupac Amaru, is a convenient myth for armchair guerrillas who wouldn’t care to see the same occur on their own turf. Esler bungled an interview with Otto Reich so badly that the deeply unpleasant former Venezuelan ambassador – responsible in part for the funding of the Contras in Nicaragua during the violent Central American 1980s, and author of a recent National Review article that described Castro and Chavez as the new “axis of evil” – came across as the victim of a hatchet job. Every single comment was prefaced with wallowing claims, such as “Washington has lost Latin America”, and variations thereon. Reich’s laughable claim that America has always supported democracy throughout the Western Hemisphere were met with a limp accusation of long-standing interference – although to be honest, Esler seemed to lack even the basic knowledge of the subject at hand. His interview with Peruvian presidential hopeful, Ollanta Humala, tried the same tricks – encouraging Humala to attack George Bush, throwing him questions about the relationship his government would potentially have with the US… at no point did Esler actually ask what his domestic policies would be.
Earlier in the show, a hagiographic interview with Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, by Greg Palast was predictably biased and blinkered in the manner that Palast is notorious for. His fawning over Chavez, and softball questioning put to the president via a translator (hasn’t he spent enough time there by now to learn the language?), was reminiscent of a George Bush press conference, and put the lie to Palast’s puffed-up “investigative journalist” angle. The BBC’s big claims surrounding this interview – that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world – proved to be a bust; economically, this would be true if (as Chavez wishes) the price of oil were set at $50 a barrel, but this is highly unlikely. Yet the piece made no mention of this.
Whilst turning a blind eye to the increasing stories of human rights abuses in Venezuela, and Chavez’ desire his reign as long as possible – never mind the effect on democracy – the report did, however, trump a curious statistic: that under Chavez poverty in Venezuela is down by one third. This has traditionally been where Chavez’ power resides – in the hands of the poor, who see him as a saviour, an indigenous hero who after years of neglect has finally given the majority in the country a voice. It is true that the country’s oil wealth has allowed the introduction of Cuban doctors and health facilities to places that once had none; a massive, country-wide programme has seen literacy levels rise dramatically, while free schools and universities have brought education to millions. Yet whether or not poverty has actually increased is a cause of much furious debate. Some reports ay it has decreased; others news channels, such as vcrisis.com, quote the government’s own statistics which indicate that in Chavez’s first four years in office rose from 43% to 54% of the population.
Evidently both of these sources have certain biases, but it is far from certain that poverty is on the decline. Quite where Mr. Palast came up with his figure of a third is a mystery, and he cited no official statistics to back it up. It was yet another glaring example in a factually-shy report that treated Chavez as some kind of Messiah sent down from the heavens to tackle George Bush and wield the honourable sword of socialismo.
Hopefully the rest of the week’s editions will present a more nuanced account of the complex situation in Latin America, but it seems there is little chance. The BBC seems to have fallen for the kind of post-colonialism that often afflicts reporting from Africa – treating the entire continent as a homogenous mass, and fixing facts and figures around the conveniently romantic story. Perhaps an account of Chile – who, despite its socialist President, Michele Bachelet, is taking a far more sober and balanced approach to its dealings with the outside world – will redress the balance. Yet on this first programme, there is little hope that this will happen.
posted by DN at 1:08 PM
1 Comments:
I think you will find that the program did put the country's oil wealth in the context or barrel price. they used a graphic which showed a map with a smallish barrel representing the comparative size of Venezuela's reserves compared to Saudi's which then swelled if the prices were set at $50. They also mentioned the fact Venezuela was yet to join OPEC, although they will host the next meeting and are desparate to gain entry...
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