OPINION:
Jean-Paul Sarte famously quipped that “hell is other people.” He clearly never visited Hugo-Maduro’s Venezuela — where you have to laugh because otherwise, you’ll cry. That is, if the government gives you permission to laugh.
In the Chavismo dictatorship of Venezuela making fun of Hugo Chavez, the country’s former socialist jefe — or his successor, Nicolas Maduro — is not a good idea. That is, if you want to continue to make a living slinging jokes. Or stay alive.
In Venezuela comedians have to apply for joke permits to perform humor — and if their jokes come at the expense of South America’s Great Leap Forward, it could be curtains.
Alex Goncalves, a popular stand-up comic, told NPR he was chased out of town by an angry mob of Mr. Maduro’s Chavistas after a show. “We (had) to run to the car and go, like criminals,” he said. “These people have no sense of humor.” Mr. Goncalves had become a joke criminal, a trend we are now starting to see in a humorless “woke” United States.
It’s not unlike the scene on many college campuses in America — where a sense of humor is becoming as rare as a kegger at the Vatican.
Even Jerry Seinfeld, arguably American’s most beloved and non-controversial comedian, has become too “offensive” to risk a monologue. But at least Mr. Seinfeld isn’t being hounded out of town by angry mobs. America’s very own feminist Chavistas did show up recently at a sold-out show in San Jose, California, to protest Louie CK.
Mr. Maduro’s government has also put the kibosh on a hugely popular television show, Chataing TV the day after a skit mocking corrupt government bureaucrats aired. Mr. Maduro denied he had anything to do with the show’s abrupt cancellation. But in an Orwellian country like Venezuela, nothing happens that isn’t approved by the government, just as nothing the government disapproves of is allowed to happen.
These goings-on aren’t much reported here, which also isn’t very funny. In fact, it’s tragic.
According to the World Health Organization, Venezuela is imploding; more than two-thirds of the population is unable to get enough food to meet basic daily nutritional needs. WHO says the average person in Venezuela lost 24 pounds in 2017 — up from 19 pounds the year prior.
The people are literally starving to death in what was one of South America’s most prosperous oil-rich countries — before Hugo-Maduro got their hands on it.
One of the purposes of comedy is to transform horror into humor. Venezuelan comic Ricardo Del Bufalo uses the nightmare all around him to extract that last honest emotion from his audience; laughter. “All the time, it is more difficult to do comedy,” Mr. Del Bufalo said after one of his Caracas performances. “There is a lot of censorship in radio and just recently they arrested two firefighters for mocking President Maduro, comparing him to a donkey. I have begun to worry about which joke I can make and which one not.”
WHO also reports that diseases which were formerly rare — such a tuberculosis, diptheria and malaria — are now at “crisis” levels (more than 400,000 officially acknowledged cases of malaria in 2017 — as opposed to 36,000 in 2009) and almost 90 percent of HIV/AIDs patients have to do without life-saving drugs, because they are no longer available or simply unaffordable.
“There are no broad-spectrum antibiotics, not even basic antibiotics to treat basic pathogens” that afflict children, says Caterine Martinez of the Ready Families organization in Venezuela. “We don’t have X-Ray machines We don’t have CAT scanners or an MRI scanner . the municipal blood banks don’t have reagents, therefore we have kids who are getting blood transfusions and are getting infected with hepatitis C and could even be injected with HIV.”
And despite all this, comedians in Venezuela continue to assuage the pains of their broken society by making it laugh.
Venezuela has become one of the most physically dangerous places in the world, with a murder rate 15 times the global average. There were 26,000 homicides last year — and that’s just the official count, which for obvious reasons is probably much less than the actual count.
The police are either not around, or not interested — because they’re not being paid — or actively part of the criminal element themselves. The country has become a nightmarish free-for-all, the end result of Hugo-Maduro’s promising free everything for everyone.
Desperate women — including teenage girls — are resorting to selling their breast milk and hair (as well as their bodies) just to survive. Electricity is intermittent; there is no work — and little prospect of any help as the Maduro government denies anything’s wrong and if it is, it’s all America’s fault.
Millions of people are fleeing Venezuela — heading for neighboring Colombia and other places where there is at least food, running water and basic medical care — and where they don’t have to get the government’s permission before cracking a joke.
If more Americans knew about the tragedy unfolding in Venezuela, they might not feel so enchanted by the rhetoric of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Maybe not be so excited about the plans of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the newly minted socialist representative from New York’s 14th Congressional District. Maybe it’s time for some American comedians to examine what our very own Chavistas want to foist upon society
Are comedians the final bulwark of liberty, the final philosophers before authoritarianism takes over? Many have remarked that the more pain you go through on stage the better your act will get. Hopefully the talented stand-ups in Venezuela will be able to get one last killer joke in before they are shipped off to the Gulag.
• A.J. Rice is the CEO of Publius Public Relations.
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