The half-page, feature length article by Peter Sherwell about the current situation in Venezuela that appeared in The Sunday Telegraph on 29th November follows an established pattern of unsympathetic and negative reporting in European and North American media, some of it touched on in my book Chávez: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. While this [...]

At the heart of Rod Stoneman’s book lie questions about power. Specifically, the power to construct reality, and to create both ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’.
My first tangible encounter with apartheid was probably Richard Attenborough’s 1987 film, Cry Freedom. The moving images brought to life my incomplete, abstract knowledge in powerful ways. Apartheid, for me, was to [...]

Chavismo and democracy
The assertion that Venezuela has become a more democratic society under Hugo Chavez is bitterly contested. We can pass over the repeated claims that Chavez is a brutal dictator who has turned Venezuela into a communist state - the people making such allegations are certainly not troubled by the burden of proof. But [...]