The left-wing organization that occupied the Venezuelan Embassy at Washington, D.C. fell into the same trap that motivated the U.S. to support so many coups and dictators: a sense of superiority that’s only colonialist and racist.
Remember when “check your privelege!” was the motto of a certain left-oriented generation of American social activists? Well, it seems that for those gringo leftists, as long as you are in the “right” side of the history you can act as those imperialist of the recent past and you should be except of criticism.
Except that not really.
Quoth Michael Khayan:
Today, another foreign group has decided that it, too, has moral authority over its Southern neighbors. Code Pink, not the vast majority of Venezuelans, knows what’s best and that means supporting Latin America’s 21st century Augusto Pinochet. Blinded by its political appropriation of Venezuelan politics, Code Pink’s resemblance of a previous generation of right-wing hawks is exemplary of Horseshoe theory, which suggests that, the farther along the political spectrum one goes, the more one extreme resembles the other.
For Code Pink, there’s room for change and redemption now that they’ve been ousted from the embassy. The United States has proven that taking an authoritarian leader’s side is not irreversible. Take the example of Panama under Manuel Noriega: despite covert help that allowed Noriega to ascend to his role as leader of Panama, the United States was ultimately responsible for deposing him and helping to usher democracy into the country. A 180-degree turn where Code Pink begins to support Guaidó is an unreasonable expectation, but that doesn’t mean that its energies aren’t better served outside of the embassy.
By abandoning their attempts at illegally occupying another sovereign country’s land, Code Pink members could campaign for a presidential candidate that reflects their opposition to foreign intervention. Tulsi Gabbard, for example, lends legitimacy to an isolationist American foreign policy through her background as a veteran, as well as her role as a policymaker in Washington. Although she draws controversy in the Venezuelan sphere due to her parroting of Maduro’s “Hands Off Venezuela,” volunteering or working for her presidential campaign is a much more sensible, democratic and legal alternative to denying Ambassador Vecchio his rightful place within the embassy.
The United States has a strong record of democracy at home, and those with a pacifist ideology have a year and a half to promote and elect one of 24 Democrats that could reverse the current policies they disagree with. If Code Pink were truly serious about its mandate of ending Trump’s interventionism, they would do so on the campaign trail and at the ballot box. Fighting Venezuelan nationals outside of their own embassy will do nothing to flip votes in Florida or Michigan. Instead, it will alienate voters away from their so-called “pacifism” and facilitate eight years of John Bolton and Elliott Abrams.
To choose such a brute method of protest is being ignorant and ungrateful of the peaceful and democratic solutions that the United States offers to policy dissidents. The group supports Maduro, a man that has attempted to dissolve his country’s legislature after an unfavorable election and whose presidency is a fraud. The group has accused president Trump of hate speech, yet they speak down to Venezuelans with the same racial vitriol they claim to oppose. Code Pink believes that Venezuelans based in D.C. are somehow less worthy of accessing and controlling their sovereign territory than a group of white Americans. 21st century socialism and colonialism seem to go hand-in-hand.