Venezuela y la Revolución Bolivariana : los usos de la historia y los costos de un pensamiento habitual

Abstract

The article is a critical reflection on the role of history in the practice and regulation of politics in contemporary Venezuela. After examining the tense interplay between myth and history in the configuration of the dramatic Bolivarian cult, the author analyzes the ways in which the official revolutionary establishment reorganizes the past, taking into account their political effects on Venezuelansociety. The current web of contrasts woven by different social sectors in the representations of national history completely reveals a plural, incomplete history that is capable of liberating the institutionalized ways of labeling the past. This makes it possible to conceive other identities critically over time, and, on that basis, to build political actions capable of establishing a new relationship between past and present in national history.