Venezuela and State Terrorism: From Social Representation to Discursive Production

Abstract

A few months ago a wave of demonstrations began against the government of President Nicolás Maduro as a result of the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice having the intention of assuming the powers of the Parliament, mostly occupied by the opposition to the Maduro government. Thus, an institutional struggle was set up whose counterrevolutionary background is supported by US interventionism. This interventionism has operated under the argument of the crisis of the Venezuelan State in economic and political terms, but whose objective is erected under the search for global control by said country. In this context, a diversity of positions regarding the conflict has emerged that oscillates between the positions that legitimize the Maduro government and those that condemn it. Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2017) recently wrote a text in which he analyzes the Venezuelan scene after the death of Hugo Chávez and shows deep concern about the image that the United States has created of that State. Consequently, an aspect that draws the attention of this analysis is when it emphasizes the discursive approach that the European and American media have adopted to condemn the figure of Venezuela. But why is this signal so important?