Telling a new story of Venezuela to the world
What first comes to your mind whenever you think about Venezuela? Is it a picture of a country with a communist regime, or is it lines of people as in this front-page of the New York Times.
The way we tell our stories and how we perceive the world ultimately guides our experience of it. As storytelling creatures, we have evolved to become incredibly influenced by the stories we listen to and the many variations of Joseph Campbell Hero’s Journey echoed throughout our lives.
“Stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal.” — Dr. Howard Gardner, professor Harvard University
In Venezuela, since the late 1990’s when Hugo Chavez stepped into power he came with the narrative of saving the Venezuelan people from the dictatorship of the “fourth republic” and with a deep passion to “redistribute” the rich resources of our country. Through this narrative, he was able to activate millions of people behind his cause and step into power until his final rest-day in early 2013.
Now that we’re striving to build a new country, Rondon and Pizzolante asked us, what is the story that we’re going build for this new country? What are we going to tell our children about the country we want for ourselves and for those we leave behind. That means being Venezuelan in these changing times and how can we promote this new narrative for those who come.
Is Venezuela this…
Or is Venezuela this…
Whatever we think of we must understand that first, Venezuela is not the Venezuelan government; Venezuela is constituted by the sum of its parts, and if we’re to build a new narrative we must re-understand what message we want to emit to the world about our culture and purpose.
In this new age of rapid technologies and polarization Pizzolante suggested the following formula:
If we want to truly create a new narrative for our country, our lives or even our businesses we need to structure the way we communicate, act and finally understand under which context we’re emitting our message.
We first must think in terms of our actions — do we act individually or as a collective group? are we organizing ourselves as a collective or is it a single person shouting in the room, and our way of communication — what medium we use and how we emit the message, are we using social media or are we talking to our neighbor?
We must also understand under which context we’re operating, and this is where things get tricky. The world is evolving rapidly and the context under which we operate will only grow more complex over the next years. Therefore, to counteract this context we need passion. Passion is what drove Mahatma Gandhi to free India from the British regime, it is what launched Nelson Mandela to end the Apartheid.
With a strong enough passion, and with the right tools we’re all able to build the new narrative we want for ourselves, and in this case, for the new country, we want to build.
Now, back to our first question, how do we create a new narrative for the country? what does it take to build a new perspective?
We don’t need to look too far, the new narrative is already being built by people like Susanna Raffali Medical Doctor and Humanitarian, in charge of Caritas an organization that feeds hundreds of Children in Caracas every year.
Or by Maickel Melamed (right), a runner with physical dystrophy who completed the Boston Marathon in 20 hours after years of struggle. Creator of the documentary “Vamos”.
The way we communicate our story is the way we ultimately shape it. According to Pizzolante we need to “build a new narrative based on the amazing stories we share of our people”.
“We need to build a new narrative based on the amazing stories we share of our people” — Italo Pizzolante
If we are to build a new country we need a different story, that is, we need to define what is going to be our compass for the recovery of the country and for the next 10 or 20 years to come. Do we want people to picture a NY Times front-page, or do we want for them to know more about Susanna’s or Maickel’s work, or even the work of “El Sistema” one of the world’s most impactful youth orchestras?
First, this story will need to be shared individually — every time someone asks us at the market “so, how is Venezuela doing?” are we talking about the Venezuelan government or the Venezuelan people?; collectively, that is organizing ourselves and creating new organizations that emit the message we want — it could either be creating your own humanitarian enterprise as Susanna Raffali did or by collaborating with your neighbors to make Arepas.
Second, it will need to be done with the new communication methods, using social media and the online news outlets, with its good side — delivering our message to millions of people, and its bad side — distortion due to “fake news algorithms”.
Finally, given the complex context in which we live in, it will need to be done with passion. By the words of Nelson Mandela, “There is no passion to be found playing small — in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
“There is no passion to be found playing small — in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” — Nelson Mandela
Building a new narrative is not going to be done overnight, it is made from the disciplined action of the passionate individual or the engaged collective acting out of a unifying purpose to build a new reality. Stories define how we frame our actions and ultimately determine the future we live in.
If you want to learn more about the amazing work they’re doing to make Venezuela a better place follow the work of the following sites:
- Cuatro Por Venezuela — https://www.cuatroporvenezuela.org/
- Caritas Por Venezuela — https://www.caritas.org/where-caritas-work/latin-america/venezuela/
Andres Crucetta is originally from Venezuela, currently based in Texas. He writes about Latin American issues, entrepreneurship and business through his blog andresecn.blog and in Quora.
