In another
example of the fascism that is quickly overtaking our daily lives, Professor Carlos
Zerpa of de Colegio Universitario Francisco de Miranda was being “orally
tried” today for teaching in the classroom his views on the country’s
history which, horror of all horrors, differ from the “official”
Bolivarian rewriting of the country’s history.
Zerpa, a history Professor, was denounced to a Chavista-controlled student
union for his apocryphal views. The students are asking for him to be expelled
for the school.
In the words of Zerpa himself in his letter to the University before the “trial” to determine his fate began:
“A debate that obviates both the principle of the right to defend myself,
as well as allowing for methods which are foreign to academia in all societies
and takes us towards the instauration of a barbaric civilization. Accepting
without a quick reaction by the authorities of this institution such protests
undermines the principle of academic freedom, that you are obligated to respect
and protect, if not-we the Professors- are exposed to the danger of a system
told by Orwell in his famous novel “1984” where all thinking is blocked,
which would take us to say that the university is dying as a center for free
thinking…
…I make public the statements made in class during the anniversary week and
that are the object of this debate, where the official history was being put into
question: 1) The idea of Latin-American integration in a single nation called
Colombia is due originally to General Francisco de Miranda. 2) Simon Bolivar
does not appear as signing the decree of independence from the General Captain
of Venezuela 3) The title of Liberator was given to Bolivar in 1813 , that is,
before the battles of Carabobo, Pichincha, Bombona and Ayacucho and 4) The
invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte and the subsequent jailing of King Ferdinand VI
during six years would question the thesis of an international war for
independence, this has been proposed by a good fraction ofwell known historians….
…It seems as if making people think, is a counter-revolutionary act. Making
the students question things would appear to be also unacceptable. Promoting a
student with a critical attitude would be offensive. When the lights of
thinking begin to dim, we begin to enter a dark era that all educators have to
fight, being faithful to their role as propagators of knowledge.
I conclude-as any man of thinking that respects himself-both reaffirming my thesis
and bringing to the present the words of Galileo Galilei in front of the Inquisition “e pur si muove“