Fight or flight? For young people in Venezuela, that is the question

Dressed in tee shirts and red-blue-and-yellow hats or shrouded in the tricolor Venezuelan flag, young people, women and retirees demonstrate by the thousands, carrying signs saying “Don’t shoot!” and shouting Sí se puede, sí se puede, “Our weapon is the constitution!” and “Who are we? Venezuela! What do we want? Freedom!” At least 79 people – including passers-by and security forces – have died in the daily exercises of democratic participation that began in April. Among the dead are a 17-year-old protester who was shot dead in mid-June. Once called la generación dormida – “the asleep generation” – Venezuelans born in the prosperous, democratic 1980s are now very much awake. As living conditions shift from precarious to intolerable, they face a critical decision: do they stay or do they go?. More…