I’ve just been reading Robert Conquest’s Reflections on a Ravaged Century, and marvelling at his descriptions of intelligent people cozying up to and making apologies for Stalinism in the 1930s and beyond. The impulses that drive that sort of thing aren’t dead, even if nowadays they lead to vastly more ridiculous results, such as in Anne Applebaum’s Slate article about recent trips by “super” model Naomi Campbell and actor Sean Penn to chum around with Venezuelan nuevo-caudillo Hugo Chávez.
It’s yet another story of frivolous celebrities in search of “radical chic,” but it’s an especially disgusting one in light of recent student demonstrations protesting Chávez’s attempts to alter the constitution to allow him to be elected president indefinitely and to increase government control over universities, the media and other institutions. The changes are all part of implementing what Chávez calls “participatory democracy” (as opposed to “representative democracy”). I’m not sure quite what participatory democracy is, but it probably works along the lines suggested by the famous graffito of May 1968 Paris: “Je participe, tu participes, nous participons, ils décident.” (“I participate, you participate, we participate, they decide”).
Wouldn’t it be much more “radical” for a celebrity to go demonstrate in the streets with students than have a photo op with an authoritarian mountebank? Yes, but it would be considerably more dangerous. Recently, a student was shot and killed by unknown gunmen during a demonstration at an anti-Chávez demonstration at a university in Western Venezuela. Chávez’s reaction was to threaten to revoke permits for future demonstrations and to order immediate investigations . . . into the protests’ leaders! As Jeff Spicoli said to Mr. Hand, “You dick!”
I wonder if Penn is even aware of the protests. Campbell seems not to have learned anything about the country other than that it has stunning waterfalls. Applebaum is undoubtedly right:
As for Venezuelan politics, or the Venezuelan people, they don’t matter at all [to Campbell and Penn]. The country is simply playing a role filled in the past by Russia, Cuba, and Nicaragua—a role to which it is, at the moment, uniquely suited. Clearly, Venezuela is easier to idealize than Iran and North Korea, the former’s attitude to women being not conducive to fashion models, the latter being downright hostile to Hollywood. Venezuela is also warm, relatively close, and a country of beautiful waterfalls.
Update (Nov. 7): Gunmen have attacked another student demonstration, this time in Caracas, killing at least two students.
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