The Venezuelan National Assembly, which is controlled by the government, approved last night around midnight a controversial educational project which Hugo Chávez seeks to accelerate the "Bolivarian Revolution" in his country with.  This project is one of many proposed by the Chávez government, in an offensive to fight off what they call "counter-revolutionary" forces within its country. That's why you currently see dozens of media outlets being shut down all over Venezuela.

The project, criticized by the opposition and by an overwhelming share of the public, will increase the level of control that the State has over schools and universities.  It was approved by a large majority in the Venezuelan Congress, after a long legislative marathon-session. 

Last Wednesday supporters of Hugo Chávez attacked nearly 50 independent journalists who were covering the protests against the legislation, led by University leaders, students, and religious leaders. (picture courtesy of O Globo) 

The goal of the law is to entirely change the system of Venezuelan education, from pre-school to the University level, introducing what the text of the bill calls, the "Bolivarian Doctrine". The idea is to shape the education curriculum around socialist principles, transforming the schools into centers for "community organizing" (sounds familiar?) under the supervision of paid government employees. The law effectively gives the federal government the power to define the career paths that University students should follow.

This plan, just like every other plan made by Chávez's dictatorship, will fail.

Dictatorships are very predictable.  First, they target and attack the independence of the branches of government.  Then they go after the free press. Lastly they finally attempt to indoctrinate a new generation through control of the education system.  The latter is the phase in which Chávez's dictatorship currently finds itself in.

The problem is that this, along with everything else in a dictatorship, never works.  The educational environment must be one in which debate is created, and contradictory views can be expressed.  Humans need this existence of divergence in order for our minds to flourish.  Without debate, doubt is never created, and doubt is fundamental to the process of education.  A "doctrine", as is being imposed, only serves to stifle debate and it impedes a good education.  The reason why it never works is because under a doctrine, you end up producing a generation of lost values.  During the 60s and 70s in Brazil, the military imposed the study of "civic values" into the education system, and the outcome was a generation of students who understood civicness, nationalism, and love for their country, as characteristics that were a monopoly of the military.  Symbols like the national flag, national holidays, and the national anthem, were seen as "property" of the military; the same military that they greatly despised. That generation of students has spent decades since then trying to reclaim those symbols of national pride.  In China, the Cultural Revolution produced the destruction of a generation, and we all know what happened in Russia. 

Chávez is doing exactly what is expected of him. Revolutions are for the most part, very predictable as well. They are very rarely *truly* successful because its leaders usually betray the very ideals that spurred the beginning of the Revolution in the first place. The Revolutionaries always point to the "counter-revolutionaries" as the agents of evil, and use them as the reason for their most radical plans. The problem is that once a Revolution betrays its essence, and the public learns of it, a counter-revolution is just a matter of time...and it's usually time waiting for the emergence of a new leader.

The Venezuelan public knows what's going on. They're not happy about it. It's only a matter of time until a new leader emerges and the counter-revolution begins. Truly democratic states go through election cycles. Others are not as fortunate and must go through revolutionary cycles instead.