The Minister of People’s Power for Culture, Ernesto Villegas, affirmed that “there is undergoing a deliberate attack on Venezuela, framed in a hybrid war strategy,» to undermine the fundamental values of the Nation, this in the face of a media campaign to the detriment of the country’s women, during an interview with a Russian media outlet, Sputnik.
Villegas stressed that the denounce made by the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is a «correct diagnosis» of a strategy that seeks to erode national cohesion and the cultural identity of the country. A plan that has sought the «undermining, weakening of the Venezuelan cultural identity, of the national cohesion that comes from it in order, according to those who pull the strings, to be able to subdue the self-esteem and the vocation of a common destiny among Venezuelans.»
He contextualized the phenomenon within a broader scheme of cultural attack and pointed out that they are trying to build a «for Venezuela,» a concept that explains the devirtualization of the essence of what is Venezuelan: «They are trying to create a kind of parallel nation-state. The philosopher Miguel Ángel Pérez Pirela has described it well in a masterful article that I recommend, where he speaks of the Para-Venezuela. A kind of ignorance of the real, concrete, everyday Venezuela,» he indicated.
He also asserted that «there is an anti-Venezuelanism disguised as anti-Chavezism. It is very important because a part of anti-Chavezism, I won’t say all of it, because I know people who do not necessarily share our political position and who love Venezuela and love Venezuelanness, they even contribute to it through the arts, through different disciplines of human endeavor. But there is an anti-Chavezism that hides a very neocolonial anti-Venezuelanism, very, in quotes, ‘globalist’, which puts foreign interests, particularly those of foreign powers, of the United States, of decadent Europe, above national interests,» he explained.
Venezuelan women, at the center:
One of the central points of the conversation was the role of Venezuelan women as a symbol of cultural resistance and social cohesion. Villegas emphasized that they are the backbone of national identity, not only for their role in the construction of society, but also as guardians of ancestral knowledge:
“The Venezuelan woman, not only for her daily role in the construction of our society, not only for the role of our heroines in the different historical processes that she has had to live, but the Venezuelan woman is the one who carries forward as the guardian and recipient of ancestral knowledge”, he declared.
The minister described the use of the derogatory term ‘veneca’ as dangerous, since it dehumanizes and objectifies the Venezuelan woman: “Reducing female Venezuelanness to the term ‘veneca’ is contributing to that deformed vision of our people in which women only have a decorative role and even as a sexual object”, he said.
For Villegas, the defense of the Venezuelan woman is part of the fight to preserve the cultural identity of the country: “The president is coming out in defense not only of women considered individually, but he is coming out in defense of our cultural identity, of the cement that unites us as a nation”, he assured.
Integral cultural response:
The minister highlighted that the National Government has designed a comprehensive strategy to counteract cultural attacks through the “Gran Misión Viva Venezuela, mi Patria Querida” (Great Mission Viva Venezuela, my beloved homeland), a program that includes eight vertices aimed at the rescue and promotion of Venezuelan cultural identity, with a special focus on women: “It is the fundamental policy of the Government of President Nicolás Maduro Moros, precisely for that, to enhance and value our identity roots,” explained Villegas.
The role of women within this mission is fundamental: “The Venezuelan woman is the backbone of Venezuelan identity,” Villegas reiterated. He also added that the attacks against the female nationality seek to attack this essential aspect of national identity and reflected on xenophobia towards Venezuelans in the region, pointing out that this is part of a broader agenda of cultural stigmatization.
“Hatred or phobia of Venezuelans comes even from the times of the Colony”, Villegas recalled, highlighting that these campaigns seek to divide and weaken the Venezuelan nation in the regional context. Villegas stressed that culture is a key tool for resistance and strengthening national identity: “As long as there are productions that denigrate Venezuelans, there will be voices from the Bolivarian Revolution that will come forward”, he said. The official reported that his office is promoting a national poetry contest dedicated to the exaltation of the Venezuelan female figure.
Cultural heritage in dispute:
The minister also addressed the issue of cultural appropriation, highlighting that fundamental symbols of Venezuelan identity, such as the arepa and the casabe, are the subject of international cultural disputes. In this regard, he stressed that this phenomenon is not accidental, but part of a strategy to weaken the sense of belonging of Venezuelans towards their culture: “Not knowing that the term ‘arepa’ comes from eastern Venezuela, from the Cumanagoto indigenous people, is not knowing the very existence of Venezuela as a national project”, he said.
“In the case of the arepa, it is a food that is much more than a food, whose name even comes from eastern Venezuela, it is the Cumanagoto indigenous people, who give the term aripo, both to the budare, (which is) the metal plate on which the arepa is prepared, as to the arepa itself”, explained the minister.
The process of defending these cultural elements is underway in international organizations such as UNESCO, where Venezuela has submitted files for the recognition of the arepa and the casabe as cultural heritage of humanity: «The technicians of this organization will evaluate the request made by Venezuela and must proceed to the registration of the Venezuelan arepa in the lists of the material heritage of humanity, (…) as well as the casabe, whose multinational file was promoted jointly with other countries of Latin America, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti and Honduras,» concluded Villegas.
