Together or at odds

If you look at Venezuela and Colombia on a map, reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, you see that in the end it will be impossible to avoid the many opportunities that integration would offer. It is clear that either the two countries will join, or one will take hold of the other, or someone else will stick them together… by force and according to their own geopolitical interests. Which would you prefer?

Consider the countries of Europe today: with all their differences - linguistic ones being the least - less than sixty years after the war, they have submitted to a political-economic community and are drawing up a common constitution for the humble purpose of trying to maintain their level of development. Their example contrasts with the pettiness of our political leadership in Colombia and Venezuela, yesterday’s and today’s.

There is no doubt that both our countries are in very bad shape, but instead of trying to capitalize on the possibilities of a true union of markets, which could help us at last find that lost course never found, our leaders – if they can be called that – spend their time feeding and fanning tensions, hiding their own ineptitude.

In today’s world it is not easy to come up with a plan that can simultaneously satisfy the urgent needs of our people of dreams, while providing the credibility that the markets demand. A strong commitment to total integration, beginning with establishing a harmonized monetary, exchange and trade policy, must be one of the main components of any such plan capable of offering us a better future.

How do we accomplish this? I wish I knew, but I confess I have no idea… except that it requires leadership capable of subordinating today’s pettiness to tomorrow’s grandeur, though this appears very difficult in a world in which the increasing demand of our people for instant gratification is surpassed by that of most of our politicians.

Nevertheless, since it is true that every crisis brings opportunity… if we consider the magnitude of the crisis in our countries, who knows if suddenly, when so many material needs meet up with so many spiritual needs, conditions will finally be there for us to awake from our lethargy and fulfill the historical mandate for a Great Union.

El Universal, Caracas November 6, 2003

Of course, there is always a fourth alternative – the worst between brothers: a new bipolar world with a great Colombo-Venezuelan wall as a border.