The mass of people swayed about the room, transforming it into a circle of lights, candles and confetti with the sounds of Latin dance music reverberating out onto Rainier Avenue South.
Two instructors directed the dancer's moves across the 30-foot square dance floor overlooked by Che' Guevara posters and surrounded by literature on Latin American revolutionary figures such as Fidel Castro and Simon Bolivar.
More than just stage props, the posters were there for a reason. New Freeway Hall, headquarters of the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) and Radical Women was at it again, birthing the seeds of another revolution. Not exactly the sort of place you'd expect to see such a gala of tango dancers, but exactly the kind of place you'd expect to see a springboard fundraiser for two Seattle-area youths bent on seeking the truth about the state of South and Central American politics.
Both Jonathan Matas, 21, and Elias Holtz, 22, are attending the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students to be held in Caracas, Venezuela Aug. 9-15. The festival is held once every five years, each time in a different country.
It grew out of the ashes of World War II when thousands of youth and students assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1948 to proclaim that the youth would never again allow the horrors of imperialistic aggression to terrorize the world.
"I thought it would be a really great opportunity to bring the salsa dancing community down to the hall, and also the activist community, bring these two communities together," said event organizer, Holtz, who graduates in the fall from the Art Institute of Seattle. "We wanted to do something fun and social but also have an element of education about this conference because not a lot of people know about it. It's kind of an exciting event. There's not anything that really parallels it as far as an international gathering."
It is fitting this year's event will be held in oil-rich Venezuela as it is the latest hotbed of revolution; recently seeing major political changes and the launch of a regionally-focused, multi-national television news station billed as a counter-balance to western media.
Lower class power grab
In December 1998 Hugo Chavez Frias won the presidency of Venezuela after campaigning for broad reform and the redistribution of the wealth and government control of the oil industry. Chavez's argument that the existing political system had become isolated from the people won broad acceptance, particularly among Venezuela's poorest classes.
Chavez inherited a nation where more than 80 percent of the population lived in poverty, despite being the fifth largest supplier of oil in the world.
With such base line changes, there was bound to be opposition. During a mass demonstration spear-headed by the disenfranchised businesses of the country in April 2002, 18 civilians died and more than 150 others were injured. Amidst the confusion a group of senior military officers temporarily forced Chavez out of office, but a massive series of demonstrations led by his supporters returned Chavez to power shortly thereafter.
Pointing his finger at the United States, Chavez created Telesur, or Televison South, as a counter-balance to the Venezuelan and international airwaves dominated by United States government and media interests.
According to Chavez, the media owned and operated by businesses that enjoyed a stable relationship with the deposed bourgeois ruling class of Venezuela for more than 50 years had shed an overly negative light on his reforms. This in turn led to much of his country's discontent and the failed coup against him in 2002.
"There is an extraordinarily fresh wind blowing across the whole of Latin America including as far north as Mexico," said Roberto Maestas, director of the Chicano/Latino Civil Rights organization, El Centro de la Raza, located on Beacon Hill. "For so long the U.S. has supported the most barbaric and brutal dictatorships. Once the dictatorships started to bite the dust there was a major shift to the electoral process and it has had some impressive successes combined with the militancy of the streets.
"The U.S. media keeps creating confusion for people in our country by putting a negative light on these democratic movements. Supposedly our country supports democracy, but only if the elected represent and are puppets of the United States. That's the score. That's the whole history of Latin America."
Seeking the straight story
"We thought it would be a really great opportunity to meet young delegates from all over the world and hear their stories about what they're dealing with down there," said Holtz, who organized a film series called 'Real Resistance' at New Freeway Hall last year with Jonathan Matas
Matas, a student at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and Samantha Hiatt of Seattle, also benefited from the dance fundraiser. "What we had heard of this festival is it is kind of like the Olympics where you exchange pins," said Holtz. "There is a certain amount of exchange of gifts from the delegates. And we're both political artists so we designed, and are printing up, a poster to hand out down there: A message from the Freedom Socialist Party."
On a parallel note, and not by coincidence, it is the aim of Telesur to tell the story of the struggles of South and Central America, and not only to foreigners, but to its own people. The guiding principle of the Caracas, Venezuela-based network is to "see Latin America with Latin American eyes, not foreign eyes", according to the network's Uruguayan director, Aram Aharonian.
Telesur has been billed by some as the Aljazeera of Latin America, and Venezuelan Information Minister Andres Izarra recently said the network's ownership was 51 percent Venezuelan, 20 percent Argentine, 19 percent Cuban and 10 percent Uruguayan.
Telesur, which has no regular commercials, began regular broadcasts in mid-July, transmitting news, documentaries and other programs to various countries across Latin America. The network is available in North America via the New Skies Satellite 806.
Fighting U.S. propaganda
The United States House of Representatives responded to Telesur's airing by passing an amendment "to initiate radio and television broadcasts that will provide a consistently accurate, objective, and comprehensive source of news to Venezuela." The legislative move was done to counter Telesur's "anti Americanism," in the words of Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), who sponsored the amendment.
Thus far, Telesur is clearly conveying a different message: a heavy pro-Cuban slant is evident in the news and other segments, including a lengthy film about Guevara, as seen from Castro's viewpoint. Items critical of the United States and key allies such as Britain and Colombia have also received plenty of airtime, and statements from Colombia's leftist guerrillas have been given prominence.
However, Chavez made it clear the station was not a puppet voice of a dictatorial regime, and that his government had taken steps to ensure its independent operation. To that end, Chavez ordered the station's upper level management to step down from their governmental duties in order to exclusively focus on running the station.
"When you see the images of the poor learning to read through a literacy campaign and the health programs that are attending to the sick children, people will find a way to tune in [to Telesur] whether they buy a TV for a particular neighborhood so they can all watch," Maestas said. "I guarantee you what is now offered by the media of Latin America is a whole lot like the media of the United States, which is a business, it's advertising, it's money. The major media have the luxury of distorting the truth, determining what is news and what isn't news and they do it and there is no balance.
"People think there is a balance, but it's all balanced over the interests of the status quo. It plays to the interests that control the economy, but if you have an alternative media that is going to be talking to the millions of dispossessed, I assure you that people will find a way to see it, to learn from it."
In many ways, the unspoken, bottom line message conveyed by Telesur and the World Festival of Youth and Students are the same: Latin America is breaking free from Western influence and establishing its own identity for better or for worse.
"There's going to be tens of thousands of young people, including some of our kids, going to the World Festival in Venezuela," said Maestas. "They're going to go back to their countries and say, 'you know what? All these lies and major media of all the countries in Latin America, with the exception of Cuba, are dominated by money.'"
Share your thoughts with Chris Butterfield by writing him through editor@sdistrictjournal.com.
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