A Response: Why Venezuela Isn't Iran

The folks at The Flying Carpet Institute respond to Josh Shahryar's article, "Venezuela: Twitter Revolution’s Next Stop?":

Some pundits have recently tried to compare the recent upper middle-class mobilizations against the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to the ones occurring in Iran since last summer’s Presidential election. As proof of the similarities, the author notes the technological aspects of the mobilization, such as activity on Twitter. He furthermore notes that Venezuela is "a population subjugated to ill-planned economics, a strongman unwilling to leave power, and a government ever more keen to restrict its citizens' rights to freedom of speech".

Venezuela: Twitter Revolution’s Next Stop?

This is a very superficial analysis of events that can be overturned with a range of empirical evidence. However, I will confine myself to some obvious facts. For instance, the Chavez Government hasn’t resorted to executions of opposition members like the Islamic Republican regime in Iran. The "curbed free press" of Venezuela isn’t actually that curbed. In no other country in the recent years has the ruling class shown its teeth so openly against a popular reformist government, through "Chilean" methods like assassinations, employer lock-outs, and pot-beating upper middle-class housewives. What Western media reports also fail to show are the (even if somewhat modest) attempts of the Chavez Government to support the growth of communal radio programmes that are intended to challenge the corporate media monopoly.

Let us now turn our heads to Iran. Here, the neoconservative Ahmadinejad regime, elected by the narrow confines of the system of Velayaat-i-faqih (ultimate clerical authority), has followed a policy not unlike the one followed by neoliberal governments throughout the rest of the world: it has privatized enterprises and tried to crush unionized labour by introducing contract labour. At the same time it has tried to cushion the results of its policies with populist measures. In Iran, those populist measures are called "free potatoes", in the US and elsewhere they are called "No more taxes!" or "charity".  Chavez was instrumental in forming the UNT trade union federation, the backbone of the Left in the Chavista movement. Ahmadinejad on the other hand, was responsible for the severe crackdown on organizations like the Tehran Bus Drivers´ Union.

So what does bring Venezuela and Iran together? One can and should criticise Chavez´s praises of Ahmadinejad. They have no relation to reality and are based on a completely absurd understanding of the situation. Ironically, they resemble the West’s depiction of Ahmadinejad as an uncompromising "radical", something that is far from the truth.  Islamic Iran has shown that it is able and willing to cooperate with the US and Israel on a number of issues when this suits its interest (Iran-Iraq War, Afghanistan, Iraq).

But it’s not the similarities of the systems that brought the two countries together. It’s the fact that they are both faced by an American onslaught. The Obama administration has shown its real colours by silently embracing the Honduran coup against Manuel Zelaya, making obvious that it is prepared to follow the same ends in Latin America as the previous Bush administration but with different means. Meanwhile, not a week goes by that doesn’t see verbal threats of sanctions (the US) or the possibility of an upcoming war in Lebanon (Israel) to finish off the Iranian challenge.

One should not forget that the US --- or anybody else in the West --- isn’t diametrically opposed to the concept of political Islam. Instead, what any imperial hegemon fears most is the concept of resistance, irrespective of its colours. To equate Venezuela with Iran is false. It implies that the Islamic regime is a consistent anti-hegemonic regime that empowers organized labour and supports forms of democratic self-organization, while enjoying genuine popular support among the mass of people.

Venezuela: Twitter Revolution's Next Stop?

EA correspondent Josh Shahryar writes:

First, it was watching retweets of news from Iran in Spanish. Then I slowly started seeing "hashtags" for both Iran and Venezuela in the same tweet. Finally, I saw the Twitter account of a collective. Reading the profile helped me grasp the enormity of what I was witnessing: a student movement like Iran’s is relying on the Internet to inform people of what is happening inside Venezuela.

A few months ago, as I was tweeting about a protest in Iran and live-blogging, I noticed former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations Diego Arria, a Venezuelan, tweeting information about the protest in Iran. While it surprised me to see such a revered diplomat taking key interest in Iran’s Green Movement, I soon also began to witness mass support from Venezuelan students for the Iranian cause. But most interesting and heartening to me was that they have been on Twitter and other social media outlets for more than a year fighting for their own rights as well.

For those who oppose the rule of President Hugo Chavez, theirs is a story much similar to Iran's: a population subjugated to ill-planned economics, a strongman unwilling to leave power, and a government ever more keen to restrict its citizen's right to freedom of speech. As protests rocked Venezuela two weeks ago, news of the protests made its way out not only on the backs of the traditional mainstream media outlets but also on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Photobucket, and other websites once used for entertainment, killing time, or just plain ol' finding a date.


This week, after coming back from a short vacation, the first thing I noticed on my Twitter account was the varying articles, pictures, and videos of Venezuela’s students protesting against the banning of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) and five other stations for not broadcasting a speech by Chavez. No need even to log onto my usual news websites: the story was right there in front of me. If anyone has doubts about the success of this movement, they do not need to look too far for evidence. Already Twitter users who have come out in support of Iran have started tweeting alongside their friends in Venezuela.

Furthermore, the movement is not disorganized. They have clear outlets on Twitter especially under the account "studentsvzla" and the eponymous website Venezuela Students Movement. They have a Facebook account "Chavez Tas PonCHAO" with more than 180,000 followers. Already on-line contacts are being established between supporters of the Green Movement online and Venezuelan students. When I asked for information on the recent protests in Venezuela, supporters of the Green Movement were the first to link me with up-to-date news.

The movement has been so successful that even Chavez himself has acknowledged its importance. An article in Business Insider reports:

Chavez has fought back by declaring that "using Twitter, the internet (and) text messaging" to criticize or oppose his increasingly authoritarian regime "is terrorism", a comment that recalls the looming threats of his allies in Iran, whose bloody crackdown on physical and electronic dissent may be blazing a trail for the Latin strongman.

Venezuelan journalist Nelson Bocaranda told El Nuevo Herald that the government has launched an army of Twitter users to bring down online networks and try to infiltrate student groups.

As in the case of Iran, the Venezuelan cause is slowly becoming more confrontational. But perhaps the most important lesson the Venezuelan movement online teaches us is the Twitter Revolution is not one that is going to remain confined to Iran or China. It is here, it is growing in scope, and it will soon be used by other groups fighting for their right to freedom of speech.