Venezuela President Hugo Chávez

Diaspora Update:

Chávez Brings Hope to Afro-Venezuelans; Ambassador Gives New Meaning to African Art

By Karen Juanita Carrillo
SeeingBlack.com Diaspora Writer

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Chávez Brings Hope to Afro-Venezuelans

"There's not a better moment for us than now, under our president, Hugo Chávez Frias," said Máryori Márquez, assistant to the director of culture in Venezeula's Sucre City. Marquez explained that only under Chávez have Blacks been able to celebrate their culture and their ethnicity.

She spoke at "Desde África Venimos/We Came from Africa," a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the end of Black slavery in Venezuela. The end of the two-month-long celebration occurred May 21-24 in Caracas.
Representatives from a network of Afro-Venezuelan groups spent March 24 through May 24 hosting an international array of Desde África Venimos conference participants, most of whom came to Venezuela to learn about that nation's African diasporic culture. The end of the conference featured visits with Venezuela's Pres. Hugo Chávez Frias; lectures from the esteemed Afro-Venezuelan historian, Professor José Marcial Ramos Guedez; meetings with representatives of the nation's leading oil company, PDVSA; and opportunities to meet with local community organizations, to talk with participants in the nation's literacy programs, and to see how Cuban doctors are providing free medical care to some of Venezuela's poorest communities.

The Desde África Venimos celebrations have led to calls to have Venezuela's constitution officially recognize Blacks as a distinct ethnicity; calls to create at least 10 special schools that emphasize the study of Afro-Venezuelan culture; and calls to create a "Permanent Commission on Afro-Venezuelan History" designed to help all Venezuelans recognize, learn, and appreciate Afro-Venezuelan culture.

"This is a project that has been widely accepted in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela," she said. "We look at this as the beginning of multiculturalism and pluriculturalism in Venezuela. Up until now, there's been respect for minorities but only for those minorities officially recognized. Now, Afro-Venezuelans also want to be recognized: Blacks were always seen as a part of the nation, but we want it to be known that we have a history, a culture, a sense of being that must be respected. Not only because of our music, our dance, our drums, our Santería—but because of all the things that make us a people."

Chávez was first elected president in December 1998 after initially trying to seize power as the leader of a military coup. Chávez and his political party, the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), won their elections with 56 percent of the vote. And although he faced a temporary coup from April 12-14, 2002 and corporation-led strikes that attempted to cripple his administration, Chávez— who looks to Simón Bolívar, the anti-Spanish colonialism leader, as his spiritual leader, and to Cuba's Fidel Castro as his here-and-now confidante—has used his mandate to draw on the profits from Venezuela's oil reserves for the promotion of health care and literacy among the country's poor, and to advance the country's economy. Like Castro, Chávez has won the hearts of his country's poorest. In a nation where 67 percent of Venezuelans live below the poverty line, Chávez's policies have turned the lives of ordinary Venezuelans around.

The president's populist appeal has particularly won over his nation's Blacks—an estimated 12 to 15 percent of the population. Chávez is still facing the threat of being ousted before the end of his six-year term presidency by opposition forces, who are currently trying to use an August 2004 referendum vote to make him leave office. But for the majority of Venezuelans, and for its Black population in particular, Chávez is exactly what the country needs.

"Representatives of Venezuela's Afro-descendants are so positive about the current reforms in government [under Chávez]," Márquez noted, "that we are now also trying to have legislation drafted that will mandate the acceptance and the recognition of the traditional and current human rights of Black Venezuelans. "He's completely open to this initiative, we just have to work to make this come true, we have to develop this. Because this won't just benefit a few people, it would be to everyone's benefit."

Ambassador Gives New Meaning
to African Art

His paintings are bright, vibrant, layered—and intense. And since he was named Nigeria's Ambassador of Art in 2001, 28-year-old Ibiyinka Alao has used his youth art classes, his exhibits at sites like the World Bank headquarters and his lectures to talk about and show the passion of modern African art to audiences who may only be accustomed to viewing classical African art—an art Alao views as static.

"Most of the media talk about African art's antiquities. They don't talk about the art of today," Alao said. "So when you have African governments and African people talking about the problems we have today, no one sees us because they're looking at Africa as a dead experience, as a thing back in time.

"We have to get people to talk about the living African experience. Through modern African art the world will see that we are living; we're here, now."

Alao, who currently resides in Harlem and is lecturing throughout the New York City area to promote his work, already has over 300 original completed art works under his name. The United Nations, World Bank, Nigerian government and other institutions have purchased some of his original works.

Alao became a well-known in Nigeria in 2001 when he entered a United Nations poster contest and had his painting selected more than 300 entries from 61 countries. After winning the contest, the United Nations Population Fund declared Alao the "World's Best Artist."

Since then, Alao has wanted to talk about and promote modern African art. In various exhibits and during lectures, he talks about how vital art has been in his own life, and how essential it can be in promoting African lives today.

"I think I was an artist before I was ever born," he reflected. "Being an artist is a soul thing. Being a human being means you are an African or a British person or whatever. But if you're an artist then above all else, you're an artist." Alao remembers wanting to create art since at least the age of five. But although he's an artist now, Alao admits that it took him years to confess his desires to paint and draw. In the Yoruba language he grew up speaking, the word for artist—"oluya"—is literally the word for a madman. Alao had no desire to tell people he wanted to grow up to become a madman. So he studied architecture at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (formally University of Ife) and thought he'd be willing to work in that field for the rest of his life.

But when he was a child, his father, Ezekiel Bamishaiye, had encouraged him to paint the colors he seemed to be so entranced by. And Alao recalled that when his mother, Grace Bosede, sewed garments, he was fascinated by the intricate layer upon layer of colors and designs she could produce. "I've always loved details—from the time I was a kid," Alao mused during an interview. "Now I look at this as my chance to use all these colors and all these details. It's as if I am unfolding and re-showing all of those embroidered things my mother used to sew."

The young painter explained that the themes and stories in his paintings are so elaborate because he wants them to tell stories and convey images about everyday African life.
In "Ayetika/Irony of Life" (2000) he shows how four different lives—that of a destitute woman and her sick child; of an elderly fisherman who tries to comfort her; and of three men who are having fun, playing music, and not aware of the woman, her child or the older man—can intersect, and yet not necessarily affect each other. The scene is an every day occurrence in all parts of the world: showing how people can maintain their joy and not notice the pain of others.

Alao creates his paintings based on such potent images, then carefully places his figures on the canvas and surrounds them with the colors that will highlight their roles in the story. He meticulously chooses his colors and brush strokes to emphasize the characters of the people he's portraying. "After I've gotten the idea, the time it takes to make the painting itself is what I call the healing process," he explained. "All of the colors will take a lot of time, so the time it takes to put the color details in helps me to understand the process."

Some of Alao's works are scheduled to be on display at New York's Empire State Building from January 2005 through March 2005. Alao also has a website for those who want to keep up with his work: www.ibiyinkaalao.com.

When Alao leaves the United States to return to Nigeria, he will be granted a few acres of land by the government. The young Ambassador for Art says he plans to use the land to build a children's center, and encourage more African children to express themselves through art.

-- June 14, 2004

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