Venezuela 1/31/07

Approximately six months ago, a little boy was born in Caracas. He was the first son of a young couple.

In about five years, the boy will start his formal education. He will be taught that everything he has, he owes to Hugo Chavez, He will be taught to hate some people called “Yankee imperialists”. He will be taught that as a good Bolivarian Revolutionary Youth, it is his duty to report to his teacher anything that his parents or other members of his family say or do that is against Hugo’s Bolivarian Revolution.

He will learn to march, sing revolutionary songs and learn to be like men with names like Che and Fidel. He will be taught to assemble an AK-47 and to destroy his soul. He will be forced to volunteer his time and work the fields and never, ever complain.

His life will be a constant struggle to survive in a country where every institution exists to strip him of his individuality and free will. He will live in terror that the government agents will come to take his father away like they did to his friend’s dad.

He will get all his news and information from official government sources who will twist reality and he will be bombarded with Hugo’s propaganda 24/7.

If he’s lucky, his parents will find a way out of Venezuela and he will look back at his country to say goodbye, maybe never to return.

He may find himself in Miami or New York, learn a new language, and be free, but he will always dream of the green Venezuelan mountains he left behind.

And many years from now, he might even sit in a dark room at night and dream of returning to his country. Perhaps he will dream of taking up arms against the people who stole his innocence and his childhood. Perhaps he’ll use the future equivalent of a blog to spread the truth about the horrors of Venezuelan society.

Perhaps, he’ll cry for another little boy, in another part of the world that is about to suffer what he has suffered.