Silent Strikes in Venezuelan Universities Favorite 

Date: 

Mar 5 2014

Location: 

Venezuela

In Venezuela, the far right opposition has protested against the leftist regime of Maduro. Violence has swept through the capital, Caracas, and other cities throughout the country. Meanwhile, the Western world has had its eye on Ukraine, and received relatively little news coverage of what is actually going on in Venezuela. An epidemic of misinformation has spread as a result. This misinformation and lack of attention has placed Venezuela in a neglected situation. The Post modern Euro-American world has been preoccupied with Ukraine insofar as it is located in a hot spot between the European Union, and Russia (a major oil exporter to the rest of Europe). Hence, we now how a clearer picture of why Venezuela is receiving little attention. There is less economic incentive and impending military threat.
Since the crisis in Venezuela began, private-autonomous universities have temporarily shut down. A few far right protests endangered students at these leading universities and so they have been collectively closed until the violence subsides. Cecilia Garcia, rector of the Central University of Venezuela was the first to shut down her educational institution (a leading one at that) and other universities such as Carobobo and Andes have suspended classes until everyday life stabilizes again.
This has created what the media have called, "Silent" strikes. The beauty of these strikes is that they speak loud and clear that - the government and far right opposition must come to a peaceful resolution - without even saying a word. University students may be out of school for now, yet many of them have joined the protests with the far right. They are calling for a reform in their countries political system that they feel is too closely partisan with state media. University students and others from the far right do not believe that the government is doing enough to create a egalitarian and democratic society in their country.
This weekend, I spoke with a Venezuelan student who was visiting her cousin in New York. When I asked her about the crisis, she told me, "It's really bad. People are being killed...you know, the media is all run by the state in Venezuela, you can't work in media unless you support the regime. The rest of the world is watching the Ukraine right now and it could not be worst timing for us. Everybody tweets about the protests but you never know what the truth is because anybody can tweet anything."
After this conversation and my reading, it behooves me that Western Euro-American media has ignored Venezuela for this long. Other South American nations could do more to help, but they have remained silent themselves. The time is now for the world to document what is going on in Venezuela, not tomorrow.

Posted by ActOutMax on