Laura Vidal

La Lupa Digital: Centroamérica y México | Las Lupas Digitales | Substack Este boletín teje conversaciones de esperanza activa y resiliencia digital, enraizadas en los territorios de quienes llevamos a cabo acciones de cambio social en la región 💫. Click to read La Lupa Dig...

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inspiratoriocentroamerica.substack.com?r=7ujeen&utm...

Este es un experimento narrativo muy poderoso y una invitación a pensar de modo inteligente y realista en lo que significan los 'éxitos' y las esperanzas en alternativas tecnológicas que tienen sentido en el día a día de la gente.

La lupa digital está compartiendo historias de 'tecnología para la esperanza'. El escenario es #México 🇲🇽

Son historias complejas, difíciles, pero que muestran que la tecnología es algo que creamos juntxs y no algo que imaginaron un grupo de gente en una oficina en California.

This Friday: A Discussion with Venezuelans and Iranians in the diaspora about how to be in solidarity in this moment of crisis & change

Learning Resistance through Global Solidarity

We’re not Fighting Alone.

www.eventbrite.com/e/understand...

Venezuela y el colonialismo menor Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Tom Yorke (nombre ficticio) es un reconocido profesor norteamericano de una de las universidades más prestigiosas de Estados Unidos, afiliado al partido demócrata e ident…

Read the whole text here (in Spanish)

rafaeluzcategui.blog/2026/01/19/v...

"The task is not to silence intellectuals or shield suffering from criticism, but to restore an ethical hierarchy: in concrete conflicts, the first and last word must belong to those living them."

"When distance becomes authority and abstract principle becomes disciplinary measure, solidarity turns from a bridge into a system of tutelage."

"Naming this dynamic is not a rejection of international solidarity, but a rescue of it from colonial, imperial, hegemonic drift. True solidarity does not immediately translate, correct, or rank suffering. It starts by giving priority to the voices of those living the violence."

"The scholar Hannah Arendt warned that human rights become empty formulas when detached from real conditions of belonging. The “right to have rights” is not moral abstraction—it is a situated political condition that depends on recognition and agency. "

"This leads to what she calls “epistemic violence”: the creation of knowledge that erases, distorts, or invalidates the experience of the subaltern. Distant academic knowledge defines what counts as rational, while lived experience is marginalized."

"Spivak warns that simply letting the oppressed “speak” ignores the power structures that determine who is audible. The intellectual who claims only to facilitate is still mediating—which can reproduce #EpistemicImperialism under a veneer of solidarity."

"Drawing on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s idea of the subaltern, the subaltern is not just the oppressed, but the one excluded from dominant circuits of representation. They are not unheard because they don’t speak, but because their speech is not treated as meaningful."

"This is not neutral. It reflects who gets to be heard and recognized in global debates about authoritarianism, geopolitics, and human suffering—often at the expense of people actually experiencing it."

"For years, academics, public intellectuals, activists, and analysts—mostly from the global North and metropolitan Left—have produced interpretations of the Venezuelan conflict that circulate with greater international legitimacy than the voices of those under the regime."

[🇻🇪 Rafael Uzcátegui. Human Rights defender]

"The #Venezuelan case offers a particularly clear lens to examine what might be called “minor colonialism”: how distant, well-meaning discourse can shape global understanding of a crisis more than the voices of those who have to live through it."

Iran medics describe hospitals overwhelmed with dead and injured protesters Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed and injured by the security forces, with more than 70 bodies brought to one hospital.

"A medic at one Tehran hospital said there were "direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well", while a doctor said an eye hospital in the capital had gone into crisis mode"
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"Until that machinery is truly dismantled, suffering continues. Real relief—for prisoners, families, and those in solidarity—only comes with the freedom of all political prisoners."

"What we’re seeing now is crisis management: controlled adjustments meant to satisfy new international overseers without dismantling the repressive apparatus that keeps the population in fear."

"But there is still no firm commitment to the unconditional, non-discriminatory release of *all* political prisoners."

"This leaves some judges and prosecutors “orphaned,” and opens the possibility that some political prisoners may be released to ease pressure and generate positive headlines."

"After the detention of Maduro and Cilia Flores—who exerted strong control over the judiciary—the internal balance shifted. The Rodríguez faction betrayed them, but the status of other coalition members remains unclear."

"They are a renewable resource: people are arrested, extorted, stripped of assets, sometimes released—then others are detained. This machinery produces economic, political, and even diplomatic gains."

"Each power bloc has its own judges, prosecutors, repressive groups, and prisons—and therefore its own prisoners. Political prisoners function as currency."

"Many chavismo actors have their own political prisoners. Among detainees and those released, it’s common to ask: Who was your jailer? Who had you? Different officials have licenses to imprison and extort civilians, soldiers, and foreigners."

[🇻🇪 Luis Carlos Díaz, Journalist and Human Rights Defender]

"One often-missed complexity of political prisoners in Venezuela is this: they are not prisoners of “the government” as a single entity. They are prisoners of the different factions that divide power."

La comunidad internacional tiene una última gran oportunidad en Venezuela de mitigar la crisis que su propia ineficacia ocasionó La situación actual de Venezuela obliga a una reflexión profunda y honesta sobre el rol que ha jugado, y que aún puede jugar, la comunidad internacional.

Full statement here (in Spanish): cepaz.org/la-comunidad...

"The world must act not based on convenience or political appetite, but with coherence, responsibility, and people at the center. This is a last real chance to mitigate the human cost of this crisis."

"This requires three measurable steps:
• immediate cessation of reprisals against civilians and human rights defenders,
• unconditional release of political prisoners,
• independent humanitarian protection with verified monitoring. "

"A reoriented multilateralism could still play a vital role: supporting a democratic transition anchored in human rights, protecting civilians, preventing violence cycles, and creating conditions for the popular will to be expressed and respected."

"Today’s debate must go beyond legalistic arguments over unilateral actions. It must critically assess failures of the same international system to protect Venezuelans and prevent harm—even as it remains fragmented and conditioned by geopolitical interests."