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The year 2011 just started and it has really been an intense year.
Let’s not forget that on January 1, the second decade of the XXI century started. The year 2011 is a year to be at the forefront.
Many events took place in the first decade of the century!
Right now I am recalling the words of our father Simón Bolívar: “I expect a lot from time; its huge womb contains more hopes than past events; and future events will be greater than past ones.”
And why have I recalled this brilliant thought when I write and think about the past, the present and this new decade?
I ask you, compatriots who read me, to pay attention to this detail: 200 years ago, in the beginning of the second decade of the XIX century, a Great Revolution started in Venezuela but it died 20 years later in Santa Marta. Later, 100 years ago, in the beginning of the second half of the XX century, a Revolution trying to restore Venezuela’s independence also died.
In fact, the Restoring Revolution led by Cipriano Castro was stabbed and betrayed by Juan Vicente Gómez and Venezuela was caught in the talons of the Imperial Eagle and its lackeys of the Caracas’ bourgeoisie.
Today we are surprised by the dawn of the second decade of the XXI century and a Revolution on the March: This is the fifth major Revolution in our history.
The first was the Great Indigenous Revolution.
The second was the Great Independence Revolution.
The third was the Great Federal Revolution.
The fourth was the Great Restoring Revolution.
And this is the Fifth Revolution, the one that carry us as today as “la weak straw”: The Great Bolivarian Revolution!
We could say it along with the verse Down with the chains as a common factor of the General Strategic Guideline: Early in 1811, the old and heavy chains of the Spanish colonialism began to fall. Early in 1911, new chains were riveted around an unfortunate Venezuela …
And now in 2011, the old and heavy chains of the Yankee colonialism are there on the floor; they were broken by the Great Bolivarian Revolution!
And this second decade has to allow us expel these chains from Venezuela and help us disappear them from Our America.
But as we all must know, the imperial threat against our beloved Homeland is alive and latent; the the lackey and servile fifth column will not rest in its attempt to produce Venezuela’s collapse.
That’s the reason why I wrote that year 2011 has really been an intense year.
All the people, the middle class, the youth, students, workers, farmers, the private and public economic sectors, the political parties, the different levels of government, authorities and members of all the branches of the Venezuelan state must make an effort to read properly and make the best possible interpretation of the every-day events so that we do not get carried away by irrational outbursts.
A good example of these irrational outbursts is the recent statements made by the leader of the bourgeois leadership grouped in that nest of snakes called Fedecamaras with regard to the announcement I made a few days ago about my final decision not to increase the Value Added Tax (VAT).
This gentleman said that “something was hidden behind” this decision, that “this government can not be trusted at all” and so on. And he said this after he rant and rave about the government a few days earlier, when a modest increase in the tax was announced. Oh, how irrational!
Fortunately there is majority of minds and voices that are based on reason in the face of events. And it must remain so in a country that has become a school and shows increasingly clear signs of a great political maturity.
We have then the year 2011 with us! This is a year to be at the forefront! And we started it with vigor and energy as good horses.
We received the new year 2011 in Barinas. Later, we went to Brasilia to visit Lula, Dilma and other good friends. Even Hillary Clinton was smiling and eager to talk with no mediators.
The New National Assembly started sessions with Fernando Soto Rojas as President. He and his long guerrilla path have been vindicated and so has Dilma.
This is a good year to celebrate 200 years of the beginning of the First Republic and the Second Great Venezuelan Revolution, and to continue making our Great Fifth Revolution a concrete, spiritual and material reality.
The Great Bolivarian Revolution!
Down with the chains!
We shall overcome!
Hugo Chávez Frías / January 9, 2011
