MDadmin
I WAS completing last week’s column in the wee hours of Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, when I noticed the scroll on SKY NEWS that the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, had finally succumbed to the cancer he had battled in the past two years.
I felt so sad that I could not even muster the effort to write a short tribute to the man, the fighter and revolutionary.
In the week since he died, I have read tons of tributes to Chavez, but it is clear to me that he made a major contribution to re-igniting progressive politics, not only in Latin America but all around the world. He spoke of building 21st century Socialism in an age of neo-liberal triumphalism; his example led to the roll back of that reactionary capitalist ideological baggage in many parts of Latin America.
He instituted social programmes which benefitted the working people and the poor in his native Venezuela, while maintaining an internationalist outlook which saw the development of anti-imperialist links around the world.
