Bolivarian revolution goes to Manchester and Cambridge
- 26 October 2006
After a
successful start at SOAS, the Ronny Pante speaking tour went north towards
Manchester on Tuesday October 24. Here the University of Manchester Students
Union had organised a meeting for the Venezuelan student leader to speak at.
There were more than 25 students present and Ronny explained the impact the
Venezuelan Revolution is having on the education system. He stressed that it is
not only a question of winning free education for all, but also of transforming
the teaching methods and contents and above all of politicising the students
and getting them more involved in society in general. He explained how in the
past there was a conscious effort to keep students away from politics and to
give graduate professionals the feeling that they were part of an elite,
separate from the people. A new law on social service for universtity students
was aimed at counteracting that, he said.
After Ronny's speech there was a lively debate. Quite a lot of the it was on the question of how far the revolution has gone and wether it can be mantained solely on oil revenues. Ronny explained that this debate was also taking place in Venezuela itself and it had given rise to an open discussion on socialism as the only way forward.
Finally, Ronny thanked all those who had helped organise the meeting, particularly Patrick Smith who is the campaigns officer of UMSU, and Rob Owen who is the president of the union, and made a passionate appeal for all students to get involved in the Stop the Fees demonstration in London on October 29th.
The day after,
the tour proceeded to Cambridge, where a group of students have set up a Hands
Off Venezuela society. Here the debate covered a wide range of subjects,
including the elections in Ecuador and Venezuela's bid for a temporary seat in
the UN Security council. Asked about Venezuela's relations to North Korea,
Ronny said that Venezuela was against weapons and war and had condemned North
Korea's nuclear weapons test. But he insisted that the main point was that
Venezuela's revolutionary government was in favour of the principle of the
rights of peoples to self-determination, and that the US was being hypocritical
on this issue, turning a blind eye to other country's nuclear weapons just
beacuse they are friendly to her.
When asked about
the role of oil revenues in sustaining the social programmes, Ronny explained
that this is obviously an important factor, but that without the political
will, oil revenues on their own would not guarantee anything. He gave the
example of Cuba, a country which has been blockaded by the US for more than 4
decades, with very limited resources after the fall of the USSR, and which
still dedicates most of its limited resources to mantaining first class health
and education systems.
The meeting ended with a group photo of the participants making the two open hands sign which shows support for the campaign to reelect Chavez with 10 million votes in the December 3rd presidential elections.
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