Chávez is not all to blame for Venezuela’s plight
I started reading The Fall of Venezuela (14 December) expecting that the Guardian would offer me a well-reasoned analysis. Then I found this statement: “[Venezuela] was once one of Latin America most prosperous societies.”
Really? In the best of times 40% of the population lived below the poverty line, many without access to education and healthcare.
The 1999 From the Archives segment of the article refers to the “failed military coup” that put Chávez in power – but your article is silent about the 2002 failed coup-d’état, planned by wealthy business interests, the private media and the United States, that ousted Chávez for two days before being returned to power by popular demand. The reality is that Chávez’s Venezuela has been under constant internal and external attack because it dared to raise the issue of economic equity, a dangerous thing to do in this continent.
How can the Guardian take such a reactionary line on Venezuela while reserving all its open-minded liberalism for the rest of the developed world?
Ada Bello
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
• I felt that your article A slow-motion catastrophe (14 December) painted a rather incomplete picture of the crisis in Venezuela. Repeatedly switching back and forward between Hugo Chávez’s election in 1998 and the current crisis, the article evidently conflated the two events, skipping over 20 years of history in between.
Under Chávez, literacy rates and GDP per-capita rose dramatically while poverty and inequality plummeted. Additionally, the article said little about the country’s over‑dependence on crude oil, besides a reference to Chávez’s attempts to diversify the economy, though this is probably the greatest contributing factor.
While I’m not going to rush to defend Nicolás Maduro, it is reckless to disregard the threat posed by Venezuela’s far right which, in the past two decades, has been responsible for attempted coups, the stirring up of racist rhetoric and seldom-reported violence against black Venezuelans from some protesters.
Above all, no long-term solution to Venezuela’s woes can come from the threats of invasion being thrown around in Washington.
Noah Sandweiss
Bloomington, Indiana, US
West may write history, but China is shaping it
It is no surprise that China is attempting to reshape the global information stream (14 December). Just like the Dutch, British and US dominant global powers before it, the continuing rise of China will transform all aspects of the global status quo. The disruption, as before, is both inherent and intentional, unplanned and planned, by accident and by design. It is always multifaceted and hydra-headed.
The Dutch had the printing press, the Bible, the East and West Indies companies and their trading posts. The British had the Bible, the East India company, the Enlightenment and their colonial possessions. The US had post-second world war dominance, global corporations and Hollywood.
The winner might write the history; it is the rising power that makes it and shapes it in real time and then writes it until the next turn of the world system.
Stewart Sweeney
North Adelaide, South Australia
• What was not discussed in your very interesting and well-researched article about China is why western democracies expect no reciprocity for media outlets. It is remarkable that Chinese media are allowed to broadcast their propaganda across the world, but no non-Chinese media are allowed to operate in China. This is similar to the lack of access of western journalists to Xinjiang and Tibet but Chinese journalists are allowed unfettered access across our countries. Do our politicians regard this unequal state of affairs as reasonable while there is an intensifying geo-political struggle with such a repressive regime?
Nigel Hungerford
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Brexit will affect all Britons, not just English
Fintan O’Toole’s aptly titled Brexit Fantasy (30 November) is a superb analysis of the psychodrama that is Britain’s relationship with Europe, especially with Germany. But O’Toole’s conflation of “England” with “Britain” is surely a troubling usage for those Britons who don’t identify as English.
Eric Nellis
Langley, British Columbia, Canada
