Cowboy in Caracas: A North American’s Memoir of Venezuela’s Democratic Revolution By Charles Hardy
Charles Hardy arrived in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1985 as a Catholic priest and missionary to the poor. Caracas, Hardy tells us, is like a bath tub with a dirty ring encircling a silver drain: the poor live high on the brown hillsides and service the rich in the gleaming center. Hardy spent eight years living and working in the impoverished hillside community of Nueva Tacagua. From this period Hardy draws his most compelling essays for his book, Cowboy in Caracas.
In the book's second chapter, Hardy makes real to the reader the shame of living without running water or functional toilets. Hardy, his neighbors, and hundreds of thousands of poor Venezuelans like them, must use newspaper to wrap and dispose of their body waste wherever they can. Reflecting on the experience, he writes: "In the morning, when neighbors walked out of their homes with newspaper in their hands, no one spoke to each other. It was just a moment of ignominy. No word was adequate for what we felt, and even a 'good morning' would have hurt."
The rest of book is a mix of similar vignettes and political essays. Early in the memoir portion, Hardy explains his commitment to advocate for the oppressed, and his essays showcase the depth of his commitment. He marches alongside the poor in support of President Chavez. He takes a diabetic woman to the hospital during a government curfew. He stands up to armed soldiers to protect lives and property in Nueva Tacagua. Each of these stories testifies to Hardy's bravery and compassion.
Unfortunately, the book falters when Hardy leaves memoir behind for political analysis. The task of memoir is simple: find interesting stories from your life and share them well. Political analysis, in contrast, should have some substance. For example, when Hardy analyzes the rise of Hugo Chavez, he doesn't attempt to verify his supporting anecdotes or facts. At one point, he shares with the reader the following story that a taxi driver told him. One day the taxi driver was driving two generals. One general said that rich businessmen had once invited Chavez to an expensive dinner where they asked him to appoint a list of cronies to government ministries. Chavez said no and left. To his credit, Hardy tells the reader that he doesn't know if this actually happened. He merely thinks that it "could have."
Hardy speculates elsewhere. Soon after Venezuela approved its constitution in 1998, a horrible landslide struck Caracas. Nueva Tacagua and many other hillside shantytowns were washed away. To convey the gravity of the situation, Hardy writes: "At one moment the International Red Cross estimated that maybe 50,000 people died that night. Some weeks later during an international flight between the United States and Venezuela, the news program on the airline mentioned 100,000. Both figures may be exaggerated..." Note that Hardy does not mention the date or airline, or whether or not he actually saw the broadcast. This is lazy research. Hardy also quotes anonymous businesses executives, airline stewardesses, wealthy looking women he shared flights with, and yet more taxi drivers in support of his political analysis. A high school journalism teacher would return this level of reporting to a student with "see me after class" written in red.
I don't mean to suggest that Venezuela's elites are not responsible for much of the misery and suffering in present day Venezuela. They are. Pervasive cronyism and the elites' longtime stranglehold on the Venezuelan body politic have directly contributed to modern day poverty. (Full disclosure: my sister's husband is Venezuelan. His uncle, Carlos Ortega, is an opposition leader to President Chavez). But, because of Hardy's poor documentation of his anecdotes, his subsequent analysis and assertions aren't credible.
Later in the book, Hardy writes, "Chavez was also called 'a dictator.' In all my years in Venezuela, there had never been more freedom." For a memoir this assertion is fine--in his daily life there may be more freedom. For political analysis it's too simplistic. More likely, there is more freedom now for some and less freedom now for others. This book was published in 2007. In May of this year Chavez shut down the primary broadcast television network in the country for its criticism of the government (he later granted it a cable operator license). In September, Chavez said he will shut down any school, private or public, that fails to teach the new national socialist school curriculum according to prescribed teaching methods. As a memoir, Cowboy in Caracas is a great read. Few North Americans are capable of writing about Latin America's poor with the authority of experience. As a source of political analysis, I would encourage the critical reader to look elsewhere. Even if you're sure you support Chavez 100 percent, find something a little more rigorous. Get out of your comfort zone. Read something that consistently names the people it quotes. Read something with a decent bibliography. Heck, read something with a thesis and supporting facts.