Postcard from Caracas

A couple dances at a bar in San Agustin, Caracas, Venezuela on July 14, 2023 © Maxwell Briceño.

Interview • Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar • September 26, 2024 • Leer en castellano

In the months since the July 28 elections in Venezuela, international media outlets have put out polarized coverage with a near exclusive focus on state politics. The ins and outs of daily life and the pulse of the streets in the South American country have been pushed into the shadows.

To shake things up a little, we decided to call Ariadna Mogollón, a filmmaker and researcher from Caracas who returned to her hometown almost a year ago after six years in Mexico. Mogollón has long been connected to feminist organizing in Caracas, as well as to the Bolivarian Revolution. She has held various roles within of government offices, especially in the culture sector, including at television channels, and for the mayor and governor.

“I consider myself very Caraqueña,” she said, with her characteristic laugh. When Mogollón agreed to sit down with Ojalá, she made it clear that she speaks from the vantage of the capital city. “Caracas is one thing, another is the reality in the interior of the country, in terms of infrastructure, basic services and mobility, and that’s a reality I’m less familiar with,” she said.

She insists the crisis in Venezuela be understood without losing sight of the fact that the whole world is in crisis. “I think at the global level there are two distinct realities, the daily reality of people going about their lives, and political reality,” she said. She emphasizes that the genocide perpetrated by Israel in Palestine is an event that structures and demonstrates the extent of the crisis at the global level. The narrative of crisis and dictatorship in Venezuela contrasts, according to the filmmaker, with communal attempts to sustain shared ways of life, as well as with the daily lives of residents.

I spoke with Mogollón on September 23 via video call; our conversation has been translated, shortened and lightly edited for clarity.

Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar: How would you describe the current situation in Venezuela, two months after the elections?

Ariadna Mogollón: After the elections there was a lot of tension, daily life was disrupted, but Caraqueños are used that, even when there are no political surprises.

In Caracas today there is public transportation, gasoline, and food. The school year is about to start, children are getting ready to go to school, their families are buying school uniforms. People are going to the beach, to the supermarket, they’re out jogging, going for walks, playing sports, going to bars, partying, and dancing salsa.

A youth raises his middle finger while riding public transportation in Caracas, Venezuela on September 7, 2023 © Maxwell Briceño.

This is a city that’s constantly on the move. I think the people of Caracas are in a moment where what we want is to have a normal life. We want kids to go to school, we want public transportation to work, we want to be able to fill up with gas. That’s the spirit I feel in the city now.

This return to normality in daily life obviously doesn’t mean there are no social and economic problems, but it’s clear the country is recovering economically. Venezuela is not the same country it was in 2017, or 2018, when there was nothing to eat, when there was a very intense economic crisis due to the blockade imposed by the United States.

There has been an economic recovery, but its a recovery that has been costly, that has deepened class divisions.

When your economic situation declines, but there is a health system that works and there is a functional education system, when at least those two rights are guaranteed, that’s one thing. But right now, in Caracas, both of these things have collapsed. In Venezuela, under the governments of Hugo Chavez, the health and education systems were strengthened, but with the blockade both systems crumbled. Their recovery has taken time and, from my perspective, has led to a deepening of class divisions.

Then there is the issue of salaries, the minimum wage is $3.50 a month, nobody can support themselves with that. This of course has had an impact on the economic life of families. A teacher, for example, has to look for other sources of income. Teaching has never really been a way to live well in this country, but the current salary is extremely low.

While the government gives monthly bonuses as a palliative measure, they do not make up for the lack of benefits, vacations, and so forth. Falling wages has been another cause of deepening of class differences.

RGA: How would you characterize the political tensions that exist, and how they’re experienced in everyday life?

AM: I think part of the population has basically decided to say “I don't care, I'm not going to talk about politics.” I also think there’s good part of the population that does not identify with either the government or the opposition.

There is an important figure that is rarely discussed, which is voting abstention [which reached almost 40 percent] in this last electoral process. Everybody talks about the votes obtained by Edmundo González, about the votes obtained by Nicolás Maduro, but nobody talks about abstention. There are many who are saying “I don’t feel represented, I don’t agree with what is being proposed, and I am not going to vote.”

I believe that there is generalized exhaustion due to polarization, and because we can’t talk about national politics. When these conversations do take place, many times there is no actual discussion, rather they become violent. From my perspective, this has meant that the deepest political debates increasingly take place internally, in spaces considered safe, instead of in public. In terms of daily, material life, we are fed up with political tension, and the feeling that all of this is going to come up again at the dinner table at Christmas with our families.

Pedestrians walk among bubbles blown by a street vendor in Sabana Grande, Caracas, Venezuela on October 5, 2023 © Maxwell Briceño.

In my own experience, the process of violence occurs on the part of the opposition after one positions oneself politically. When someone says—or when I have said—“I support the government of Hugo Chavez,” if there is someone from the opposition there, the response is violence no matter which context we’re in: a bar, a political event, a feminist meeting, a university gathering.

This is an interesting moment, because there are spaces opening up for discussion and critical analysis of national politics. These are smaller spaces, like study groups, but they are spaces for dialogue, for political analysis, for political reflection from a leftist point of view, and that is very valuable.

RGA: And what can you tell us about the feminist movement?

AM: Because of the political situation, ever since the Chavez government there has been a division in the feminist movement: there are right-wing feminists and left-wing feminists.

From my point of view, what we have now is a kind of feminism that is praxis oriented and focussed on issues of reproductive rights, on the distribution of contraception, and sexual education. These are very practical and tangible things that are needed in Venezuelan communities. Venezuela has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in South America and abortion is legal only if it is to save the woman's life. Maybe we can explore this more in another conversation.

During the Chávez administration, the Ministry of Women was created, which is today called the Ministry for Women and Gender Equality. At one time this ministry focused on building a mass movement and providing small scale credit for women's enterprises in popular settings, which is totally necessary. It is essential that women have access to micro-credits to develop their businesses, this is a key state policy, but that is all there is to it. There is no educational work, there is no work toward transformation, of thought or reflection from a feminist point of view.

A couple kisses in the middle of Catia Boulevard in Caracas, Venezuela on February 14, 2023 © Maxwell Briceño.

RGA: What is your understanding of how communes are trying to sustain life and their organizing right now? And for those who don't know, what are communes, and how do they work?

AM: The communes have a political outlook, they’re not middle class neighborhood organizations that are like “let's fix up the building, let's make sure we have water, let's get the elevator working and spruce things up.”

The communes are a project of community political organization; everything in the commune is approached from a political point of view. In the communes its understood that everything, from health, to pedagogical processes to art, sport, infrastructure, mobility, and leisure, are linked to political organizing. When one visits a commune this is immediately evident.

A week before the elections, we visited a commune in 23 de Enero called Comuna El Panal. They have a factory that produces pet food for residents of the community and they are starting a project to produce pork and tilapia.

In another area there is a sports complex with basketball courts and they are about to open a pool so children can receive swimming lessons. They have a whole plan for remodeling the homes in the commune as well as a communal laundry system that also produces cleaning products.

Within the commune there is university training, and young people can obtain a university degree, there’s also a communal radio.

All this responds to a political project in which historically excluded populations are guaranteed access to sports, education, health, recreation; access to things that are in fact basic needs.

This communal project would disappear if the right wing was to win. The first thing the right wing would do if it came to power is destroy the communes, which is also where the core vote in support of the government are located. There is a political project in the commune, and that is what is in dispute with the right.

RGA: From your perspective, what is next for Venezuela?

AM: I think the tension in realpolitik will continue, it is clear to me that the government [of Maduro] will continue, and that tensions with the United States and the European Union are going to continue. I don’t think that the United States can return to the logic of an absolute blockade. If Trump wins, this could change and it is possible that we return to a total blockade. Let's hope not.

On the other hand, I don’t think a social uprising is imminent in Venezuela. What people want is to live a normal, ordinary life; and that normal, ordinary life, for a good part of the population in this country, is tied to the continuation of the communal project.