Don’t Expect Student Protesters to Embrace Oppressed Venezuelans
Selective compassion seeks the “correct” kind of marginalized people
American college students brim with compassion for the oppressed people of the world.
Witness the protests and encampments in support of the Palestinian people. And the more expensive and elite the campus, the greater the compassion.
You’ll find a lot more protesting at Columbia, Brown, and Harvard than at their less prestigious counterparts.
Protests at high-profile universities can focus the world on the plight of marginalized people who might otherwise be ignored. They can generate political and financial support.
And now, with a new school year upon us, all those middle and working class students at state schools and junior colleges have another opportunity to be tutored in compassion by our nation’s future senators and hedge funders. It’s time for Ivy League and Ivy-adjacent students to bust out their Sharpies and poster board and start cooking up some catchy new chants. That’s because a new humanitarian crisis demands their compassion.
The crisis affects a nation of about 30 million people as well as another 8 million who have fled their homeland in recent years.
And the crisis features issues that animate America’s student protesters.
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Marginalized people
The citizens of this once prosperous Latin American nation have seen their economy shrivel by 80%, and hyperinflation has devoured workers’ paychecks. Last year nearly seven million people reported that they had run out of food. In recent years, desperate people have even resorted to eating zoo animals.
Citizens endure chronic shortages of food and other basic necessities while often facing waves of violent crime. Many of the most marginalized people come from indigenous and LGBTQ communities.
Patriarchy
The nation had long been ruled by a male autocrat, who then handpicked his successor—another man—named Nicolás Maduro. The people rose up and backed a woman leader named María Corina Machado, but Maduro banned her from holding public office. Machado remains the leader of the opposition, and backed her ally Edmundo González to run for president. If González were to win, Machado would likely become the de facto leader of the nation.
Democracy
Recently, the nation held an election. Although exit polls show the opposition winning by a landslide, Maduro declared victory and moved to punish his political rivals. The attorney general recently announced he is investigating Machado and González for alleged “incitement to insurrection.”
Fascism
Maduro controls the media, imprisons dissenters, and sics his gangs of thugs on anyone who dares to cross him. Today, Machado and González remain in hiding.
You might think the Venezuelan people’s struggle against Nicolás Maduro would be an easy sell at American universities. You might think the cause would transform campuses into seas of red, blue, and yellow. Unfortunately, we can be pretty sure that very little Sharpie ink will be spilled for these oppressed people.
Here’s why.