Obama vs Chavez: Sign of Change?

Obama’s “ Change “ slogan may be more far reaching than the campaign had foreseen. It will probably not be limited to a change in policies advanced by the Bush administration. There are a lot of things that will “change” because of Obama’s assumption of the US Presidency. A recent development on the international political scene will probably expose another resultant change in the making. A few days ago, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in a reaction to Obama alluding to his alleged support of the Columbian FARC rebel group, likened Obama’s ‘odour’ to that of President Bush. In 2006, President Chavez spoke at the UN’s General Assembly after Bush addressed the body and, alluding to Bush being the devil, claimed that he could smell the odour of sulfur that Bush had left at the podium.
President Chavez, and other so-called leftist leaders such as Fidel Castro of Cuba and Lula Da Silva of Brazil, have long enjoyed the support of the global Black community in particular and liberals in general. So his comments about President Bush were amusing and probably garnered him more support among a section of the Black and Liberal communities.

This support grows out of their polemic rhetoric which is directed towards governments and individuals who, coincidentally, are also perceived by a large section of the Black community to have acted, on many occasions, against its group interests. Thus, these leaders and the Black and liberal communities have been in a marriage of convenience, brought together by little more than a perceived common ‘enemy’. Their respective conditions reinforced the relevance of the other.
The shallow nature of this relationship is evidenced by the fact that the section of the Black community that supports these leaders, know relatively little about them beyond their so-called revolutionary rhetoric. Their Black supporters have employed a single criterion by which these leaders have been assessed, namely, their ability to verbally confront the governments and individuals who are perceived to be maintaining the status quo that these Blacks and Liberals reject as undesirable. But although this ‘marriage’, at first glance, may seem strong and healthy it is in reality pretty precarious because it is based on perception and not necessarily reality. The relationship is fuelled and kept intact by the perception that both parties face a common enemy. But what happens when one side no longer shares in that perception?
To bring the point closer home, what happens to the ‘marriage’ when the face of Bush is replaced with the face of Obama?
Will these leaders continue to enjoy the more or less automatic and largely uncritical support of the Black community?
It was amusing and perhaps even felt a little empowering when President Chavez called President Bush the devil but now that he virtually called President Obama the same, I don’t think the Black community is laughing. Obama promised “Change” and change is sweeping through even this relationship. To be fair, Chavez, in his characteristically fitful manner, a few days after his negative remarks about Obama, did a 180 degree turn around and called Obama “a man with good intentions”

Clashes between Obama’s administration and leaders such as Chavez will more likely than not lead to a greater degree of scrutiny of Pres. Chavez’s rhetoric and broaden the criteria by which such leaders are assessed. Perhaps then, their leadership will not only be adjudged by how boldly they stand up against undesirable world leaders and governments within the international arena but also by the domestic conditions under which their respective peoples live. For in truth, the fundamental desire of any electorate or people is not to have a leader whose main pre-occupation is verbally tearing other leaders down rather than enacting policies that raise the peoples quality of life. Once the Black community begins to exercise greater scrutiny of these leaders, some stark realities will be exposed. For one thing, they will realize that in many of the countries which these leaders preside over, race relations are such that Blacks experience similar levels of marginalization and discrimination as their counterparts in America.
Take Cuba as an example. Although Fidel Castro has enacted several policies aimed at eliminating racism and the inequalities it produces, significant discrimination still endures even from the government. Castro's own Communist Party and government fall short on the race front. Only four recognizably black faces sit on the party's 21- member Political Bureau, and only two sit on the government's top body, the 39- member Council of Ministers. And yet, black faces populate Cuba's political prisons. Racial discrimination is also a significant reality in Venezuela and Brazil.

Obama’s win, I hope, will introduce a change in the way these leaders are viewed and assessed by the Black community.