Social Media Is the Weapon and the Streets, the Battlefield

Simon Sinek, a motivational speaker, expressed his opinion on Inside Quest that the Millennial generation is selfish, entitled, narcissistic, and that we deserve everything we wished for. Sorry to discourage you Simon; I am a Millennial, I believe that I deserve what I work for, and I don't consider myself selfish nor entitled. I was born on October 2, 1991, in the City of Caracas, Venezuela. Back in the 1990s, Venezuela was a different country than it is now.

Venezuela has been experiencing 18 years of corruption, dictatorship, populism, and socialism. The country was known for its natural beauty, rich oil reserves, and happy people; today it is known as a country that’s been protesting for more than 100 days, where numerous people have died as a result, people are eating food out of the garbage, the oil is not being used to create goods, and the insecurity doesn't let you do much. The government is taking advantage of the power and stealing every single penny. Corruption and crime have been something of the day to day life.

Revolution: a forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system. The opposition is working day and night to overthrow the illegitimate government that Venezuela has. Different political leaders are in prison for expressing their opinion and fighting for what they believe; teenagers, students, professors are also facing prison time for fighting or, worse, are being killed by the hand of the National Guard for protesting. It's 2017, shouldn't freedom be for everyone? The United Nations are drafting diplomacy but not actions, the US is giving an opinion, but only some actions.

The people inside of Venezuela are taking action into their own hands. The next generation of leaders is growing every single day; a group of political Millennials are leading the revolution, social media is their weapon and the street the battlefield. Because of the lack of freedom of the press in the country, social media has become the medium that gets people informed. The country is facing censorship in every single way: newspapers are being sanctioned if they publish something against the government, radio station are being closed for having an opinion and news station won't show what is truly going on for fear of being sanctioned. With everything that is going on, it doesn't let the international news get informed about what is happening. That’s why social media has become the best weapon for information because it makes the people of Venezuela become journalists in some way, posting what is happening and making the international news informed.

I believe that after the next president (either Henrique Capriles Radonski, Henry Ramos, Maria Corina Machado, just to name some) will come the Millennial generation followed by Juan Requenses, Freddy Guevara, Juan Andres Mejía, Miguel Pizarro, and Jose Manuel Olivares to name a few. What they have in common is their generation and love for the country that they want to make it better.

Most of the people that are fighting in Venezuela are young; they're in front of the lines, returning Molotov bombs and rocks, making sure that the National Guard doesn't interrupt with the pacifist protest that the opposition is having. As a Venezuelan and Millennial, we learned from a young age how politics work. Millennials are the future of change because governments all over the world are collapsing either economically or civilly and Millennials won't support chaos.

Millennial and younger generations, we have the greatest weapon that no any other past generation had: we have social media and technology.