Alma Guillermoprieto: The Last Caudillo

He cared about people. He defied Venezuelan racism and leapt over his country’s class barriers. Having come from abject circumstances himself, he brought significant improvements in health, education, and public welfare to the poor, right in the neighborhoods where they live. He was defiant. He was macho. According to former President Jimmy Carter and other sober-minded observers, he reduced poverty by dramatic percentages. He repeatedly poked the United States in the eye and ran away like a mischievous schoolboy, giggling. He adored himself. But other rulers with similar records have failed to be Chávez and withdrawn from public office before an indifferent audience, or been forced out by crowds who would have torn them limb from limb. It is safe to say that Chávez, now dead and about to receive the funeral of a saint, will in his afterlife influence the politics and social mores of his country for years—perhaps decades—to come, like the Latin American leader he most resembled, Juan Domingo Perón of Argentina. Or rather, as Perón and his wife Evita have, for in his complicated appeal (and his manner of dying, too) Chávez resembles both.

Mein Blog befasst sich in einem umfassenden Sinn mit dem Verhältnis von Wissen, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Ein besonderes Augenmerk richte ich dabei auf die Aktivitäten des Medien- und Dienstleistungskonzern Bertelsmann und der Bertelsmann Stiftung.