Journalist Flor Salazar examines in her blog post how Western media sidelines the voices and everyday experiences of Venezuelan civil society.
When it comes to reporting on the Venezuelan case, contradictory ideas can coexist. It is important denouncing illegitimate attacks without disregarding human’s voices.
January 3 caught the world off guard. I, for example, was still recovering from the new years celebration when a phone call woke me up.
“Caracas is being bombed!” yelled my cousin on the other side of the line. It took me several seconds to process the information.
Being a Venezuelan journalist in the diaspora had taught me scepticism. Sure, for months we heard of the threats in the Caribbean echoing, meanwhile in national television Chavez loyalist mocked the U.S government.
My first instinct was not checking official medias from Venezuela, but social media and independent online publications. Afterall the state has imposed a heavy censorship in the few outlets still operating. Ironically, X remains as a relatively popular space to find information.
I hung up and started scrolling. An attack of such magnitude called not only for X and social media attention, but international media outlets were covering it too. That when the dizziness sat in.
Hours past and the official announcement came, Nicolas Maduro and his wife were extracted by the United States as an order from President Donald Trump. Is this good news? I wondered. Is our nightmare finally over?
Suddenly Venezuela was making headlines, not footnotes. For decades Venezuelan migrants have been denouncing the cruel conditions they were subjected to, but even the stories that told the horrors of the political torture center El Helicoide, where not worthy enough of more than 5 minutes of public spotlight.
In the following days the conversation shifted quickly from “The United States has kidnapped Venezuela’s President in an imperialistic move” to “Trump only wants oil”. No media seemed as interested in covering the human tragedy as they did to talk about international law or the world stock market.
Accuracy and humanity are not in conflict, they are inseparable
In my 8 years abroad, in my auto-imposed exile, I have noticed that western media tends to portrait Venezuela has the stage for an ideological clash of right versus left, a sovereign democratic country that is under constant attack of foreign sanctions.
Reality is unkinder and more complicated than that. Almost 8 million migrants, according to UNHCR, are testimony of a failed state that has been in power for nearly three decades.
The migratory crisis is only one of the terrible consequences of a criminal state that has kidnapped all the institutions and suffocated its citizens.
A country that has been ravished and exploited by its rulers does not have the luxury, let alone the privilege, of questioning the actions of the only figure that provides them with hope.
It is a mistake to depict Venezuelans as naïve. A society willing to bargain away its oil is not acting out of ignorance but out of exhaustion. At this point, every civic, political and human attempt has been made, and people have reached the point of desperation. This is not a flaw, but evidence of how brutally their options have been stripped away.
This does not mean that Trump should be exalted as a savior. It should instead force us to ask harder questions: how dire must conditions have been for citizens to justify a violation of their own national sovereignty? Why are Venezuelans so often deliberately silenced? What has become of the political prisoners still being held behind bars?
When a country has endured collective trauma, the media has the responsibility to respond with empathy. Journalists must aim for the truth, but they also must allow victims to speak for themselves without the burden of stereotypes.
Venezuela is still far from being free from captors. There is still no democracy, freedom of speech nor guarantee of civic rights. This is a moment that calls for journalist and international media to seeks the truth behind power motivations while creating safe spaces for those who had been oppressed.
Text: Flor Salazar
