Television review: Red Oil
Article published: Monday, March 9th 2009
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At first glance, Red Oil looks like a superficial pro-Chavez piece of propaganda. But this documentary develops into a fascinating investigation into the substance that has fuelled – quite literally -Venezuela’s revolution.
It focuses on the transformation and arguable manipulation of nationalized petroleum company PDVSA under the presidency of socialist Hugo Chavez. While not heavy on analysis, it nonetheless gives a valuable insight into one of the most compelling and controversial political stories of the last decade.
It is impossible to overstate the significance of oil to Venezuela. This is a country that is sitting on the world’s 8th largest reserve, where a bottle of water is more expensive than the same amount of petrol.
The world’s second largest oil company was originally nationalized in the 1970s to protect the fortune of Venezuela’s richest families from an avaricious US, rather than out of any noble aims of wealth redistribution.
Then arriveth Chavez: liberator of the poor and oppressed to his supporters, authoritarian and regressive demagogue to his detractors. The PDVSA was designated motor of the machine to build a new society. And like much of his firebrand politics, it was to have divisive effect on the Venezuelan populace.
Halfway through the documentary things start to get interesting as we are given an engaging view into the workings and changes in the oil company post-Chavez.
PDVSA execs proudly boast how it invests enormously in social projects’ designed to alleviate the worst poverty in the country by improving literacy and providing free healthcare. But critics decry an unproductive hemorrhage of vast amounts of capital. And the documentary questions whether initiatives such as subsidized oil for low-income Americans are nothing more than cynical politicking given that many Venezuelans are yet to experience tangible benefits of the people’s oil’.
In 2002 Chavez mockingly announced the sacking of the company’s executives via his television show; their replacements were seen as purely political appointments. The response was an unprecedented wave of strikes – primarily engineers, management and technical staff – that paralysed not only the company but the entire country. In somewhat romantic and certainly vague terms we are told how the workers managed to keep the wheels of the machine turning and meltdown of the economy was averted.
Yet the darker and more sinister side of Chavez’s socialism is exposed: many of those who took part in the industrial action were sacked in a move that was flagrantly designed to politicize PDVSA. This amounted to some 18,000 – roughly half of the workforce.
These facts are not refuted by his supporters. One man talks calmly about how the company is merely an extension of the government before declaring that anybody not committed to building socialism is an enemy.
Building socialism’ is a recurrent theme, frequently invoked by Chavistas throughout the film. But we are never given an explanation of how a more equitable socio-economic model could function beyond rhetoric and empty phrases.
One of the film’s most lasting impressions – and indeed, an indictment of Chavez’s brand of populist socialism – is seen during one of the company’s mass lunch time meetings, which are eerily reminiscent of scenes from George Orwell’s 1984.
"The revolution will not be won with words," one worker declares with zealous glee, "but with guns". And as Britain observed under Thatcher, the pillaging of labour and political rights can be just as effective in a societal battle as any number of bullets.
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