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Ten Seconds in La Guaira, Venezuela

By Antonio de la Cruz (El Nacional)

HAVANA TIMES – A National Guard officer’s greeting to Maria Corina Machado changed nothing, and that is precisely why it deserves attention: transitions are lost when an image is mistaken for an institution.

On October 28, in La Guaira, María Corina Machado was making her way along roads damaged by the June 24 earthquakes. She had been back in Venezuela for three days. A National Guard officer approached her, greeted her, and spoke with her for about ten seconds. Someone recorded the encounter. Within hours, the footage was circulating on social media as though the uniformed officer had bowed before the opposition leader.

That scene changes nothing. No command changed hands, no order was disobeyed, no military barracks declared its allegiance. It was a gesture of courtesy between two people on a street where residents are still waiting for their homes to be rebuilt. Even so, dismissing it as meaningless would be another mistake. Transitions rarely begin with decrees. They begin with images that show a society that another way of behaving is possible.

In Venezuela, two forms of power coexist but do not coincide. One controls the guns, the budgets, the appointments, and the offices. The other enjoys the recognition of millions of people who turned out to welcome Machado on October 25 and who accompany her on every visit. The first commands because it can compel obedience. The second carries weight because people accept its legitimacy. The story of recent years is the distance between these two forms of power. The greeting in La Guaira matters because, for ten seconds, that distance seemed to disappear.

Consider the guard. If he offers a greeting, he risks disciplinary action, a mark on his record, or his career. If he does not, he risks nothing. The calculation made by a public official in a polarized country is not heroic: it is the calculation of someone who feels he could lose what he already has. That is why such a gesture should not be interpreted as an expression of allegiance or an act of disobedience. It raises a question: what would happen if........

© Havana Times