Left sign: “We want peace!”
Right sign: “Don’t mess with my guarimba!”
As you can see, Señora Tontica has a bit of cognitive dissonance going on. It’s a common thing with Venezuelan disociad@s.
Good evening, and welcome to another dose of VenOpIronía. I wasn’t feeling particularly festive today, seeing as a lot of grotesque putschist shit is still going down in Venezuela, so FLFB is not happening. What is? Moar guarimbas — oh sorry, “peaceful protests” (note the quotes, there for a reason). And moar irony. Obviamente.
But don’t take my word for it…see for yourself:
In the video above, a senior citizen tries to cross a trash barricade thoughtfully put in place by young opposition demonstrators. One of them at first “offers” to help him cross it, then abandons him to his fate. The man tries to climb over it, but his elderly bones just won’t make it. In the end, he has to give up and go back the way he came, hurt and bewildered. Meanwhile, the snippy young thing walks away grinning like she’s pulled off a coup. Not quite, sweetie…not quite.
Here’s another example of those fine young cannibals in action, this time in none other than New York City:
This one got arrested for throwing things at the Bolivarian demonstrators. Here’s the story from Aporrea:
An opposition demonstrator was arrested by New York police after violently assaulting a journalist in Union Square.
According to New York-based Venezuelan activist Williams Camacaro, spokesperson for the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle, the opposition demonstration, amounting to some 200 people, became violent, shouting obscenities, pushing and throwing objects, at a group of 20 citizens from several countries who questioned their arguments and their motives.
The demonstrators, most of them young Venezuelans of the upper class, “began to yell at us, asking how much Maduro was paying us, but they lost control completely when we asked them where they got the dollars to study in the US,” said Camacaro. The Venezuelan students receive a sum of preferential dollars, awarded by the Bolivarian government, to pay for their tuition, maintenance, medical insurance and other foreign costs.
Lourdes Vela, activist and community journalist, said that “the crowd came at us when we started chanting slogans in support of the democratically elected Maduro government. A woman started throwing pieces of ice at my face and was there when the police intervened. They handcuffed her and took her into custody. She was beside herself.”
“It’s impressive the level of violence and hatred there is in these persons. If the police hadn’t been there, they would have lynched us. There were many more of them than us, and it took the police a lot of work to contain them,” said the activists.
According to the authorities, the woman faces charges for assault, and her court date is set for May 13, 2014. “In the video you don’t see even a quarter of what happened. Her attitude was extremely violent, to say the least. Luckily, we have videographic testimony to show in court,” Vela added.
Univisión reporters on the scene caught the aggression on video and showed it on their evening newscast, but the opposition website La Patilla got it all backwards, with the title “Chavista detained in New York for trying to sabotage a protest against Maduro”, citing the known paid propagandist Casto Ocando of the Miami Herald as their source. The “news” was spread virally via Twitter, without any verification.
The twisted “news” from La Patilla and the Miami Herald drew many comments on Twitter from opposition supporters, calling for the “deportation” of the “horrible Chavista”, without any clear idea of whom they were accusing. “That bitch should be declared persona non grata in the US, send her to Venezuela in a dog carrier so she learns some respect,” commented Angel Castillo. Another commenter, Van Lesster, wrote, “Deport that lowlife so that she can roll in shi…pardon, the homeland.”
From Ohio, Edward Mercado, a Venezuelan activist, reported that opposition demonstrators also tried to attack him and stop him from talking to Fox 19 during a protest in his city. “I was at the protest to ask for the right to speak, as a Venezuelan against violence, but they insulted me and tried to take the camera from the Channel 19 crew,” Mercado said.
Translation mine.
So you can see several layers of irony at work there, eh? An escualida assaults a pro-Madurito demo in Manhattan, and gets arrested (as she should) for that. “Peaceful” oppo demonstrators also attacked a FUX Snooze crew, of all people. Yeah, that’ll get you sympathy!
But funniest of all are the escualidos’ responses to the Angry Escualida from Manhattan: Taking one of their own for a Chavista, they really let fly with the insults, which of course are downright gendered. What I translated as “lowlife” is actually malparida, a word for which there is no English equivalent; it means “a woman who has miscarried”, and I guess can be quite the insult, as it has all kinds of abortion- and slut-shaming connotations. I decided to go with another meaning, less gendered (as there is also a male equivalent, malparido): “misborn”, “misbegotten”, or “low-born”. Which, in current slang, translates very loosely to “lowlife”, and captures the classist nature of escualido insults pretty well, I’d say. After all, they have a seething contempt for all classes but their wealthy and privileged own.
And greater contempt hath no man than one who would do something like this:
On Thursday, in the state of Carabobo, a young man was killed while trying to clean up the barricades in the streets so he could exercise his right to free transit, according to the Attorney General of the Republic, Luisa Ortega Díaz.
During a press conference, the public servant said that the citizen had been killed by a gunshot.
“The aggressiveness of a group of Venezuelans has occasioned all these violent deeds which have occurred during the last several days throughout the land,” Díaz emphasized.
Translation, again, mine.
Killed by a gunshot for trying to push some junk and debris out of the way so he could get to where he was going. Ain’t that some shit?
I guess it really is true what the oppos say. There really IS no guarantee of life or freedom in Venezuela…at least, not in those areas dominated by the “peaceful” opposition!
