Dear Santa,
Christmas is close, but I hardly feel it. I hardly feel it in this tiny studio apartment I'm doomed to be by myself this break. I know you know why I'm here: you're Santa Claus and you are always on top of things. Regardless, I'm still going to tell my story... I have nothing else to do, really.
2012 has been a pretty darn hard year for me, my mom, my family, my country. I graduated from high-school (for the second time) in the boarding school I went to last year. I didn't exactly know what to do with my life when I received my diploma back home in Caracas, so I decided to come here to America to gain perspective and experience. To buy me some time and discover myself, or whatever that means.
I went back home last summer, sad to encounter a country barely on its feet. I was so used to the mess, my mess, everybody's mess, that I couldn't notice the severity of our situation. It was until I came back that I understood how unsteady my country was compared to others.
From the outside, Venezuela can be summarized in a few words: socialism, oil, Chavez and hostility. Despite that we are much (much) more than that, this political darkness has effectively clouded our good sassy nature in the outside world's eyes. Venezuela is on edge, it is broken.
We are in a crisis that at first I believe started to be political. President Chavez instilled a discourse 13 years ago of hatred&love: love to him, hatred for everyone who dares defy his government. A discourse that has polarized our society in colors. Chavistas in red, opponents in any other color. This crisis, however, has escalated to something even more abstract and poisonous than simple rainbow symbols. It has become somehow permanent, impregnated in our society.
Chavez's political strategy revolves around manipulations. People living in slums, in the edges of society, are vulnerable to distortions. They've learned to blame whoever is against Chavez, the "oligarcas," for all the obstacles and adversities they have come across with. Plenty of Venezuelans pinpoint their insecurity, faulty paycheck (if any) and fear for assaults to the political powerless who still have some money. As if the economic and social injustices are responsibility of the people themselves, rather than of the politicians in power. Chavez has managed to drive all the burden of mistakes and broken promises towards the Non-Chavistas.
Political genius.
Unprivileged people now believe they have the right to claim what is theirs and snatch whatever they think they deserve in whichever way they think appropriate. Assaults, kidnaps, murders, robberies, and what not, have swamped Venezuela ever since I can remember. No one is safe in the traffic, the workplace, not even home.
And I've learned that the hard way.
I never thought I could be more embarrassed, scared, mad and worried than when I was facing 6 armed men entering my humble home last summer. To my surprise, I was incredibly calm and on my feet, unlike my mother who was shaking in my arms. My nanny and her son were in another room, separated from us, while we were being interrogated (harassed) by these men, insisting on some imaginary money we were sure to have. Bolivares, dollars, euros... Anything. What money! I cried. They didn't hesitate to turn our house and lives upside down in minutes, to take whatever they could find valuable. They simply terrorized us. I was kidnapped in my house for 6 long hours, until they got tired and broke into the next-door house. This is nothing but an example, an everydayness in Caracas.
Ridiculous.
Part of the population believes the other half took their well-deserved life away from them, so they are entitled to steal and kill. The rest, afraid that they may be the next, hide under bulletproof windows, electric fences, security cameras, bodyguards. It is needless to say that social classes have strongly divided us all. Venezuelans, from both sides, have taken matters into their own hands, as they cannot longer count on the government to act or care. Some have guns in their hands; most, poor and rich both, can only pray during the nights. No one wants to be caught in the middle of a gunfire, no one wants to receive a call from a kidnapper asking for money. Venezuela is divided by fear and desperation.
There's no one to blame. I can understand why those men broke into my house. They believe they have no other option if they ought to survive. I understand why people hide behind whatever their money can buy. And I'm terribly saddened by it, scared. I'm saddened by how much we accept our circumstances and by how much we expect politicians to solve it all. I may have pinpointed the president, but there is no one to condemn, really. No point. This disconnection now pervades within us.
I'm tired of being concerned for my country. I don't want to see a man in a motorbike and automatically jump in fear anymore. I don't want my mother to keep the lights on all the time, afraid of what might come. I want this to be the last Christmas I spend far from home because it is safer.
Santa, I know you know what is that I wish, but again, I have nothing else to do but to type.
For this Christmas I wish for him to do in Venezuela what he did in Palestine&Israel, the Favelas and Africa. I wish to see Venezuelans unified. I wish they can see how similarities are much more important and numerous than capricious discrepancies. I want Caracas and Venezuela to be unbroken.
Mr Claus, I am writing to you because I know politics is not the answer; people is what we need. I believe that the power art, portraits and most importantly, ideas have proven to possess, can (and will) change something, if not everything. I've seen it in the eyes of those women, teachers, taxi drivers: they regained hope in themselves and in others. I want that.
Please Santa, bring JR to Venezuela. I'll give you cookies.
