POLITICAL ACTIVISM

Most of the time, people don't truly know what it means to be a political activist. They usually imagine someone on a platform at political events or carrying a flag all day, but the reality is much more human and straightforward. Political activism is a motivation born within a person, where a conviction and willingness arise to promote, defend, and raise a voice for a specific cause. The profile of an activist is not necessarily that of a famous or popular person, but rather that of an ordinary person—a neighbor, a student, a friend, a relative, a father, or a mother—who feels the pain of others as their own and has the courage to say aloud what others only dare to think in silence.

Defending the freedom to express our ideas and opinions is essential to promoting any kind of change, and in doing so, we are defending our civic dignity. An activist raises their voice and encourages a group of people to generate a significant impact that leads to the possibility of achieving a goal and defending ideas and wills for the benefit of their community, city, or country.

Based on this explanation, engaging in activism might sound easy, and one might assume that promoting ideas freely or raising a voice to expose problems demanding a solution should not pose any risk. However, engaging in activism in Venezuela is an action that carries a high risk. It often comes with a very high price—one that sometimes is frightening to pay, given the repression of the regime, which actively tries to silence critical voices. The government treats activists as enemies who must be eliminated; they are often cataloged as inciters of hatred, treated as "Traitors," and are even unjustly arrested and judged on charges of terrorism and treason against the homeland.

It is truly painful to see how activists are persecuted not for committing a real crime, but for the simple fact of thinking differently. I am convinced that the goal of those in power is to sow fear, especially in young people, to try to erase any attempt at critical thinking so that no one dares to question them. They seek to make fear stronger, turning the act of speaking into a sentence of persecution.

What must be very clear in these difficult moments is that when ideas are sustained by deep conviction and determination, no matter how much they try to be repressed or silenced, there will always be methods to overcome the barriers and obstacles that attempt to extinguish and undermine our ideas. And that is why, with great determination, I decided to create this platform and raise my voice to publicize a reality that is neither heard nor understood by many. I am aware that doing activism from abroad is very different from doing it from within Venezuela. Many activists have already been victims of the regime's fierce repression, but the courage and bravery that these people—who are unjustly paying judicial sentences—demonstrated by determining to express themselves, gave me the impulse to follow their example of bravery and express myself freely and support a community of young Venezuelans in defending our ideas and exposing our problems.