Trusting el Sur (the South)

I was listening to Bernardo Álvarez, the Venezuelan Ambassador to the US, yesterday on CNN’s “Amanpour” program, and I was drawn into the question of Cuban involvement in Venezuelan politics.

Some background on the significance of this question:

Philip Seib writes in his book, The Al Jazeera Effect (see summary from “the war and media network”), that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has been “the moving force behind Telesur, a regional channel on the model of Al Jazeera (x, 2008).” Seib quotes Chavez as saying the networked would be aimed at “counteracting the media dictator ship of the big international news networks (33, 2008).” In 2006, Telesur and Al Jazeera signed an agreement to share content and technical expertise, demonstrating again the potential for problems arising from anti-US coalitions. This is especially notable given Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent overtures of friendship towards liberal leaning South American leaders (i.e. Brazil).

In September 2008, as a result of US-Venezuelan tensions, President Chavez announced he would expel American Ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy – Chavez accused Duddy of plotting to overthrow him – and recalled Ambassador Álvarez from the US (see more).

Back to the Cuba question…

There have been accusations of Cuban involvement in Venezuelan politics. In my mind, this sounds like arationalization of Chavez’s anti-American behavior, and his oppression of civil and human rights in Venezuela.

Seib believes that state influence on media content, as Chavez exhibits with Telesur, “seems to be an unlikely path toward greater media democracy (35, 2008).” I agree. But the problem, as I see it, is not one of Internet Freedom, although I plan to discuss this in a later post. Rather, the problem is one of trust, inhibited by conflicting cultural perspectives of the same catalysts.

As a super-power (if no longer a hegemon), the US has very different considerations in foreign policy decision making than states with less deterrent power (power to stop another state from doing something that is not in the interest of your state). These considerations are notably different from those of developing states, such as in Latin America.

As Seib describes the state-controlled media: states that “lack economic and military clout can use media to assert collective identity (35, 2008),” which makes it easier for these states to protect their interests in the international political forum. This manipulation – of media content by states in order to assert their national (or regional) interests internationally – is a problem, and it is a direct result of manipulating states’ cultural perspective of their power. In many ways, it stems from Jacques E. C. Hymans’ concept ofnational identity conceptions, or NICs (discussed in my earlier post, The Banning of The Burqa).

As I see it, the question of Cuban involvement is a manifestation of the lack of regional trust, resulting from the actors’ conflicting perspectives of a given situation, which is in turn the result of the states’ respective NICs.

Alvarez himself stated that Cuban involvement has been in the medical sector, which should dispel the notion of Cuban anti-American influence on the Venezuela government. However, the US NIC filters this information, choosing so see this alliance as another manifestation of Anti-American coalition-building.

Given these considerations of national identity, cultural perspectives, media use, and trust games, I’d like to ask: is ‘world peace’ possible? Can we overcome our enculturation and socialization to see the bigger picture and shared interests? Can states with such vastly different cultures and values cooperate?

I’d like to say yes; after all, wasn’t that the lesson of the Cold War? We can avoid destruction and military competition based on ideological differences. But does this extend to cultural, or ‘civilizational’ differences (described in my earlier post, The Banning of The Burqa)?