Lori Sinanian
Zohrab Kevorkian emigrated from Aleppo to Venezuela in 1955, and
raised a family in a small town called Cumana. Many immigrated to
Venezuela and settled their part of a small Armenian community, starting
a movement of Armenians from the Middle East to South America.
Can you visualize visiting a country that gives off a feeling as
though it is another world once described as comparable to Sir Thomas
More’s ‘Utopia.’ Now, envision ‘the perfect imaginary world’ that no
longer is a ‘perfect imaginary world.’ How could a perfect world all of a
sudden not be? The term ‘perfect’ contradicts itself, and means nothing
without further explanation.
Aside from not being aware of the evident differences between the
development level of worlds at the age of 11, I noticed the social norms
based off of groups of individuals through the conversations they were
having, for which I couldn’t understand, but I was able to grasp and
comprehend what was obscure. My duration in Venezuela was կարճ.
If the stored thoughts in the back of my mind are allowing me to
remember correctly, I was there for approximately 12 days, 8 years ago.
But the length of my excursion was arbitrary and not something I was
thinking about or counting down. I was visiting my mother’s side of the
family, the Kevorkians. While musing back into time of those stored
thoughts of mine, I’m remembering different shaped floating clouds in
the light colored blue skies of Venezuela. I remember not being able to
identify the shape and it causing frustration as if it were my only
wonder, my only concern, and the only thought on my mind.
With the advancement of technology, and the largely populated world
using time towards social media platforms, we’re on our phones opening
our Facebook apps for one last shot of social adrenaline before day’s
end, engrossed in stories from our favorite digital mediums that allow
us to feel melancholy to jollity, annoyance to pleasure every minute of
the day. Venezuela is an under reported story that needs to be told.
How does a popular movement address governance decision making
without getting bogged down in the minutia in process and structure?
Leadership will play out and power will play out whether we recognize it
or not. But it has to happen in a principled way or else different
forms of unprincipled behavior and counter movement building come into
play — this is Venezuela. This connects to a cinema of history and
struggle — whether that be Electric Yerevan from two summers ago or
Venezuela, now. This could be the story of any third world country.
During Electric Yerevan, the parallels were equivalent to Venezuela. The
bus rates increased, the corrupted government did not respond to the
people, the arbitrary rates and fees increased for the basic necessities
of life. Venezuela, a country that once gave me fond memories is now a
relatable segue to our homeland, Հայաստան.
One of the richest parts of the world and yet there are people
standing in lines for food because of shortages — an oxymoron; an
economic horror story. A country that made all of the wrong decisions
with its oil money that caused a fundamental destruction of an entire
society. The bloviate of never-ending, alternative spectrums, a timely
topic that is of immense importance and infused with ongoing
changeability on a daily basis, a political context we should
understand, the bourgeois press that doesn’t cover all truths, the
mediums that provide an outpost of pure truth when it comes to defending
a radical group, the pro-government controlling media, and the vaster
media — the other side of the divided — that is private and
anti-government. These are the many different boundaries that are
causing a divide. It’s a legislative standoff between the
anti-government and the pro government — two groups that are
incompatible because of different legalistic clashes; mayhem; life in
reserve mode; a downward spiral. This is not a conspiratorial activity.
This is a rational phenomenon. The objective is to put an end to this
regime.
Venezuelans have become radicalized, fighting for justice of their
own — vulnerable people — persecuted for their faith in democracy and
free will. The future of Venezuela is bleak. Venezuela has been in a
dictatorship for more than 15 years of redundant clashes between the
people and the government. The anti-Nicolas Maduro ire is being
manifested through anti-government demonstrations in opposition to the
regime on a daily basis, and the demonstrations won’t stop until Maduro
is no longer in power. Venezuelans are marching for intrinsic human
rights, for the exhaustion of repression by the military force that
protects a socio-communist lie, the exhaustion of being humiliated for
begging for a bag of food, not being able to purchase any form of
medication, i.e. from contraceptives to treatments for cancer, though
there’s a minuscule chance to find these -necessary- items on the black
market, but what does that matter if the inflation is in the
triple-digits? The basic necessities of life are taken away, the
government is stealing the wealth of a nation and lining its own
pockets, a government that is not responding to human dignity.
The national police and the national guard are going against their
people with gas bombs, shotguns, water cannons that shoot a
high-velocity stream of water that can be physically injurious, snipers
angled towards demonstrators while hidden guards are overlooking the
edge of building structures. Peaceful protestors are using Molotov
cocktails, face masks made out of plastic water bottles, construction
helmets, and large pieces of wood or tires as materials for shields. A
victim of his country was doing his humane duty. Through the power of
his voice he was asking for justice. He was attacked by National Police
and shot in his back. He’s alive, and in the hospital, not able to feel
his legs and with no medication or supplies for recovery due to lack of
resources of a failed communist system.
The young man is Manuel Khatchadourian and he is 17 years old. He can
no longer afford to stay in the hospital. If you’re in need of surgery
be prepared to bring your own tools that includes bringing your own food
to the hospital and a cell phone that has enough battery life for the
flashlight to work while they sew you back up. The next step is
recovering without any form of medication to help lessen the pain. It’s
even worse than a war zone hospital. You can potentially envision an
alternative option for those who take life for granted in the U.S., but
Manuel doesn’t have an alternative option. For Manuel, this means,
that’s it.
‘Cesta Basica,’ also known as a market basket, is the minimum resource
one needs in their home to live off for a month. It consists of a
limited amount of basic produce i.e. bread, vegetable oil, coffee,
vegetables, eggs, meat, chicken, and fish –for 3 people, for an entire
month. A person is required to earn 20 times the minimum wage in order
to purchase it. The inflation is at a staggering percentage rate of
500%. How does a country get to the point where they fail to control
inflation? Every month, the inflation of the ‘cesta basica’ rises an
average of 16 percent. That means 772,614.30 bolivars. Without providing
what the number converts to, I believe that it’s a large enough number,
even difficult enough to say aloud in under 5 seconds, try it. When the
amount is converted to U.S. currency, it’s technically impossible to
see the hardships of Venezuela for Americans because with the number it
converts to, one would think Venezuelans are well off. Even if you make a
little bit of money the amount you make is increasingly worthless
because of inflation. The revelation of the value of Venezuelan currency
dropping is a daily occurrence. To put things into perspective, the
cost to make fake monopoly money is more than to make a bill of the
official currency, the Bolivar. Adding to the economic crisis, people
are dying as a result of violent protests and lack of basic resources,
individuals are becoming mentally ill and are in desperate need of basic
life necessities. It’s a constant day to day occurrence, for 3 years
now of psychological warfare. The detrimental psychological toll is
rising. Residents of Venezuela are becoming prone to no longer caring
about the destructive political system, and instead are looking for any
kind of goods they’re able to get their hands on. School days and office
hours are even cut short to save electricity from a country that is
still exporting oil and bringing in billions of dollars.
Where’s the international community? Venezuelans reached out to
Organization of American States (OAS) to potentially find resources from
elsewhere, whether that be Colombia, Panama, Argentina, Brazil, Canada,
Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru,
Uruguay, and the United States. The countries were responsive and
willing to help the people of Venezuela but the government denied the
sincere requests with a message that “All is well in Venezuela.” As a
result, because the government declined helped, the Venezuelan people
began to rant and the next step of the opposition is protesting on the
streets of everywhere, of people of all classes.
“It’s weird because we’ve never seen anything like this. We lost the
meaning of being a Samaritan,” Viken Yacoubian, an Armenian from
Venezuela.
"Asbarez," June 29, 2017
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