Venezuela at London anti-racist festival

Go forward with the same magic, the same music and with the same hope

Speech by the Venezuelan Embassy's Cultural Attache on the occasion of the Rise Festival in London on July 8, 2006

London Mayor Ken Livingstone passes the microphone to Venezuelan Cultural attache Zuleiva Vivas

I want to thank Mr. Ken Livingstone and his team members for their invitation to speak at this event on behalf of the people of Venezuelan.

I want very specially to offer enormous thanks and a warm welcome to everyone on behalf of President Hugo Chavez, who on his recent visit to London, enjoyed the hospitality of Londoners thanks to an invitation from the Mayor of this city.

It is with pleasure that I record the words of our President Hugo Chavez at the 7th Summit of the African Union in The Gambia a week ago, where Chavez gave due tribute to Mother Africa and remarked that Latin Americans and Caribbeans are a mixture of Africans, Amerindians and Europeans. Latin Americans and Caribbeans are not European nor are they northern Americans ... each day we are all the more conscious of our African and Amerindian roots..

Our people's history began with the Quechuan, Aymara, Inca, Aztec and Mayan civilizations, long before the arrival of the Conquistadores. Only after that came the mix with the Africans and the Spanish that has led to this beautiful mixture (of cultural heritages) that we are today. However our "mother" is Africa and pre-Hispanic These are the origins that predominate and appears in the faces and the smiles of our peoples.

In the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela we believe in the equality of all men and women ... it is what we proclaimed and what we practice, since we have delved deeply into rescuing our own roots that have filled America ... roots had been forgotten for years, postponed, lethargic, disdained.

Some in my country have thought to say that our racial mixture preserves us from the racism. How mistaken they are! Very much on the contrary, racial and class differences in Venezuela have been part of our history like a subterranean and murky river that was not spoken of, where the terrible exclusion of the poor persons was a sunless truth, where secular aggression of our native peoples, that shame, was concealed by hypocrisy and lies.

In Venezuela there has been an awakening of consciences where we strive each day for equality and social security, without distinction, that's why each document is sealed with the sentence: "Venezuela is for everyone."

After 300 years of colonialism of independent revolution a has taken flame in America, from the early days of the 19th century the new republics of Latin American and the Caribbean began to emerge. The second resurgence (of the flame) came in the 20th century with the birth of African republics. Now, our President Chavez says, we must breathe life into a third surge where we must all go forward with the same magic, the same music and with the same hope.

Only united, without any form of discrimination, with brotherhood, will we be able to change the world ... we will achieve what Simon Bolivar, our Liberator, called "the equilibrium of the Universe" ... a multi-polar world ... a world where we all may live in freedom, equality and peace.

Many thanks,

Zuleiva Vivas
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(reprinted from VHeadline)