Chavez and the Second Coming?

Charles Cameron:

March 11th, 2013 at 4:29 pm

Okay:
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Reza Kahlili (see here for my own estimate of the fellow) has a version of the same video up on WND and writes: 

Chavez, in a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, talked of his belief in the Coming of Mahdi, according to the video, and said, “The ultimate war of them all is the war in Gaza.”
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In the video, which is not dated, but appears to have been captured during a signing of agreements at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Nov. 27, 2009, Chavez told his audience “Quds (Jerusalem) is a holy place for all of us Christians. I spoke with (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad about the day that Islam’s Quran says both (Mahdi and Christ) will return. Jesus, holding hands with the 12th Imam, Mahdi. … Then peace will come upon the world. I tell Christ and Mahdi to come sooner, rush now, come sooner … because we witness the threats posed to the world, my God!”

I much prefer this partial translation to the more stilted one on the tape, which reads thus:

Al-Quds in Jerusalem is a sacred place for us real Christians of the world
We are going over the verses of the Quran with Ahmadinejad and the holy verses tells
That at the end of times, Mahdi, the Hidden Imam will come back holding hands with Jesus
Yes he (Jesus) will return with Mahdi
Only then will peace be spread at all corners of the world
I ask Jesus and the Mahdi, the Hidden Imam to hasten their arrival. Please hurry your arrival. The world is truly filled with so much danger that we can no longer await their return.
The new world that will soon be created will be joyful as today all the hatred in the world is concentrated in Gaza.
I believe that all the wars of history will culminate in Gaza.
We fight for Palestine. This struggle is for Venezuela and in fact, for all of Latin America.

I think there are defects in this translation, that the “new world” will be “born” rather than “created” for instance — but you get the drift…
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A hat-tip to Joel Rosenberg, about whom I hope to blog shortly, for pointing us to Kahlili’s piece on his own “flash traffic” blog. 
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If Kahlili is correct as to the place and date of this particular speech, then it was given on a planet not so very far away on, as it happens, my birthday. All of which proves, of course, Yoda am I.

Charles Cameron:

March 11th, 2013 at 4:56 pm

FWIW, the source of my own version of the video, Freedom Messenger FB page, has a cartoon depicting Chavez thus:

Guillermo:

March 11th, 2013 at 7:13 pm

The translations proposed here are completely wrong. Chaves does not say “I believe that all the wars of history will culminate in Gaza”, he says that in Gaza today converge all conflicts and strugles, meaning that the solution to the problem of Gaza has a high priority for mankind. Besides that, any person with a little knowledge of Chavez’ rethorics knows that “I ask Jesus and the Mahdi, the Hidden Imam to hasten their arrival. Please hurry your arrival” is just an expression fo hope, like when we say “God willing” and nothing more.
 

Charles Cameron:

March 11th, 2013 at 7:39 pm

Hi Guillermo — Good to read you here.  
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I asked around for help with a translation before posting here, but should have thought of you and contacted you directly.  I’d be very interested to read your translation of the whole clip if you had the time…
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As to Chavez’s comments being “just an expression of hope .. and nothing more” — I think that’s a partial truth.  That’s the way his words would be read by Venezuelans not interested in Islamic eschatology, no doubt — but they send a very different signal to those for whom that eschatology is a live religious and political concern.
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I see the situation as paralleling that described by Hugh Urban in his book The Secrets of the Kingdom: Religion and Concealment in the Bush Administration:

Much of Bush’s public discourse, as Bruce Lincoln has shown, involves a form of “double coding” of religious themes in relatively innocuous-sounding rhetoric. That is, they often contain specific references to particular biblical passages, hymns, and Christian themes, which are clearly heard by those who are steeped in Scripture but largely missed by most American listeners. Thus Gerson “filled George W. Bush’s delivery system with phrases that, while inoffensive to secular voters, directed more specific religious messages to the faithful. Examples …  included ‘whirlwind’ (a medium for the voice of God in the Books of Job and Ezekiel), a ‘work of mercy,’ … and phrases like ‘safely home’ taken from hymns and gospel songs.”

I don’t think that’s particularly surprising or malign, I just think it’s a rhetorical technique for addressing multiple audiences. And obviously Chavez knows it will win him the applause he does in fact receive.
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So my point isn’t about what Chavez himself believes — I wouldn’t even know if he really thinks of himself as an “authentic Christian” though he calls himself one — it’s about what Richard Landes calls the “semiotic arousal” that’s a standard feature of the apocalyptic mind, and which Chavez plays into.