07 March 2013, 06:34 PM IST
As a 16-year-old lad growing up in a small village, young Hugo just wanted to play baseball. Living in a small home that he shared with his schoolteacher parents and six siblings, he just dreamed of playing in the big league in Caracas. Then one day, he packed his bags, boarded a bus and enlisted in the army so that he could play baseball and beat poverty. At that age, Hugo never imagined that one day the world would put so many labels on him or even the mention of his name would evoke strong emotions.
Messiah. Second Jesus. Dictator. Warlord. Revolutionary. As in life, even in death the world can't agree on a single word to describe the Venezuelan leader who lost a two-year battle with cancer on Tuesday. Born Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías on July 28, 1954, in a family of mixed Amerindian and Spanish origin, Chavez didn't believe in half-measures. Like a true baseball player, he believed in hitting the ball into the crowds and making a home-runs. That's how he led Venezuela in becoming a more equal society and South America a more cohesive and integrated region.
Often mocked as an "afterthought" in international affairs, South America was literally the backyard of US in 1999, when Chavez stormed to power in Venezuela after a landslide in presidential elections. At that time, the South American nations were seen as some kind of banana republics: former dictatorships, which were now ruled by cabals of corrupt politicians in partnership with oligarchs who owned everything under the sun. As soon as he came to power, Chavez began to change the rules of game in Venezuela, mixing his leftist rhetoric with oil business that brought billions of dollars to his impoverished country.
Chavez's initiation into the leftist thought happened by accident. In the mid-1970s, Chavez was living a decent life in the army, playing baseball for a local team in Caracas, writing a column for a newspaper and judging beauty contests. Then one day, he stumbled into a stash of Marxist books in an abandoned car riddled with bullets. As he consumed the writings of Marx, Mao, Che and Fidel, Chávez became convinced that Venezuela needed a leftist government. "By the time I was 21 or 22, I made myself a man of the left," Chavez remarked once.
His initiation into leftism was easy but he had to undergo baptism by fire as he became active in politics. In 1992, as Chavez and other leftist army officers led a botched coup against the Venezuelan government, the former paratrooper landed in prison for two years. And in 2002, after Chavez had established himself as the president of the Bolivarian Republic who wanted to bring "21st century socialism" to his country and the region, a gang of right-wing politicians, businessman and armymen with help from the CIA oragnised a coup and detained him, before he was released under pressure from the people and allowed to resume office.
Since then Chavez was a man with a mission. In the next 10 years or so, Chavez used Venezuela's oil money for funding social policies like free housing, cheap groceries and excellent healthcare for the poor at home; he bankrolled economies like Cuba in return for getting thousands of doctors from there; provided cheap loans and financial aid to countries from Bolivia to Honduras; and he worked tirelessly to unite Latin America, especially South America, as a united entity. This often led to friction with the US, with which Chavez was quite comfortable doing oil business but not any deal for interference in regional affairs.
As he won election after election in Venezuela, Chavez's success had a ripple effect across the continent. In 2002, Brazil, the biggest country in the continent elected a leftist, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as president. Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay and Paraguay followed suit. Today, all South American nations have developed a unique model of development: mixing wealth with social justice. They don't see any contradiction in the two.
This is Chavez's real legacy. He put focus on the poor, for the first time in the history of Venezuela. He put a small country on the world map. He took on the might of the United States. He worked to make sure that the region was no longer America's backyard. By these standards, Chavez was an extremely successful leader.
Latin America is no longer an afterthought in world politics.
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