Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The face of Simon Bolivar

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/07/24/world/americas/24reuters-venezuela-chavez-bolivar.html?hp
  Thanks to forensics and imaging work done by people working for Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, the world now has a 3-D, realistic image of what Simon Bolivar, ("el Libertador") looked like when he was living He was clearly Spanish, from the aristocracy, and quite handsome. It's fascinating that Chavez idolizes Bolivar as he does. I wonder what Bolivar would think of Chavez if they could meet? I suspect Bolivar would praise Chavez: After all, Bolivar was a military man, an autocrat with dictatorial tendencies, and his ego was as big as the American continent. Both considered themselves essential to the salvation of the nation and region at large. And both created a heavy dependence on a paternalistic state.

2 comments:

Mellie said...

I would like to point out that Chavez didn't in fact have any dictatorial tendencies. He was an elected leader. People politically opposed to redistributing wealth to the poor made up all sorts of false accusations, but the reality is that Venezuela has been praised by the Carter Center for having the best electoral system in the world.

Unknown said...

It doesn't say Chavez is a dictator,it merely states that bolivar has doctoral tendencies