Inspiration Found in Adversity

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Maria Corina Machado is an emerging figure in the turbulent political climate of Venezuela. She is currently making headlines as she has been challenging Maduro's presidency as the founder of an election-monitoring group for over two decades. While she has won the primaries, Maduro had barred her from running for presidency. Although this occurred, Maduro allowed a retired diplomat, Edmundo Gonzalez to run and throughout the voting period Machado and her colleagues trained more than 1 million volunteers to protect the election. As a result, Gonzalez won with about two-thirds of the vote. Discouragingly, Maduro refused to concede. The country is in a current state of limbo with a president who refuses to leave office and the future seems uncertain. However, Machado had said something that shifts the lens on how we face adversity.

She states, "I went around the country saying, 'I have nothing to offer but work. I have nothing to offer you but [the possibility] that we're going to get together, and we're going to put this country back on our feet. So we're going to do this right.' And people cried and prayed." The author commentates that, "This is the opposite of populism: Instead of giving people easy solutions, Machado talks about complex problems that won't be solved for a long time. And some people, at least, have listened." This perspective of understanding the role of sustained effort and how loss does not mean a loss forever is extremely profound. While it's possible that Machado may have seen many failures throughout her career due to Maduro's regime, these setbacks had not stopped her and she is now teaching the people of her country to do the same. There is much power in working towards a better future, one step at a time.

Author

Anne Applebaum

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