On Saturday, Oct. 10, while most students were attending Homecoming weekend celebrations at Tufts, getting ready to go out in the city or taking part in the HONK! Festival Parade and Oktoberfest in Davis and Harvard Squares, a group of students found themselves in a conference room celebrating the second meeting of Estudiantes Venezolanos en Boston (Venezuelan students in Boston).
Venezuela has been plagued by innumerable political, social and economic problems in recent years. President Hugo Chávez has been at the center of intellectual discussions worldwide and the country has been struggling under very controversial political circumstances. However, there has not been a clear candidate to oppose the current president and offer Venezuelans an alternative to the current climate. Opposing parties have proved to be highly disorganized to say the least, and those who disagree with the current regime lack a unified group to represent their viewpoints.
Fed up college students took a stand in 2007 and began the Movimiento Estudiantil Venezolano (Venezuelan student movement), which arguably has been given the highest approval rate by the population out of any other political movement or party apart from Chávez's in recent years. The Movimiento Estudiantil Venezolano has proven to have the strength to bring the population together to do anything from rejecting the 2007 Constitutional Referendum to demanding the release of political prisoners.
A new education law, Ley Organica Estudiantil, was passed this summer; it restructures the educational system to promote the current government's socialist projects. As Jacqueline Farias, a high-ranking government official, has said, the new law seeks to create the Chávez's of the future.
College students outside of Venezuela have not played a role in the movement up until now, but Tufts junior Joanna Hausmann's initiative to bring a group of students together to fight for their country may just change that. The founder and president of Estudiantes Venezolanos en Boston, Hausmann summoned a group of her friends, all students from Tufts University, Brown University, Babson College, Boston College, Brandeis University and Bard College, to meet, to voice their concerns about Venezuela and to look for possible ways to help the country.
Students in the group acknowledge that Chávez has put Venezuela on the map, but most agree it has been for all the wrong reasons. Internationally, he has managed to promote a positive image that contradicts the negative thoughts and feelings that many Venezuelan students have about him and his government.
The members of Estudiantes Venezolanos en Boston decided that one of the group's main goals is to inform the participating students and others about what is really happening in Venezuela. With the help of several Venezuelan professors in the area, the group hopes to create a symposium that addresses the core problems affecting the country and gives students the chance to voice their concerns to more knowledgeable individuals.
The group had the opportunity to meet two Venezuelan students from the Movimiento Estudiantil Venezolano who happened to be in the area during that weekend in October. This meeting allowed students in Boston to share their thoughts about what is happening in Venezuela as well as offer suggestions about what can be done to steer the country in a better direction. In exchange, the students from the movement shared how it organizes itself and explained the movement's hopes for the future.
Students want to see a better Venezuela in years to come. They do not see a change in regime as the final goal but, rather, as an obstacle that must be overcome in order to lead the country towards a better future. The group looks forward to bringing about non-violent protests, which can be seen as a passive-aggressive strategy. They are also exploring ways in which they could help send groups of students to popular sectors of the country in order to attend to the citizens' needs, as well as creating groups to serve as witnesses and defend the votes of the population in the upcoming elections in December 2010.
Discussions are still in a preliminary stage, but the group seems highly driven and energetic. One thing is certain: Students in the Boston area may no longer be residing in Venezuela for various reasons, but they have pressing concerns for their country and are willing to fight for the place where they grew up. Hopefully, Estudiantes Venezolanos en Boston will be able to change the country's current reputation for being politically controversial and make it known for its natural resources, the beauty of its landscape, the warmth of its people and the many other reasons why, time and again, natives and immigrants have fallen in love with Venezuela.
