Hope, prayers, and solidarity for pro-democracy activists taking part in today's elections in Venezuela

In remembrance of Génesis, Geraldine, Anthony, Robert, Bassil, and the many others.

 Civil society and the democratic opposition face a great challenge: Ensure all votes of Venezuelans are counted, and the results respected. This election in Venezuela is being held under a dictator who has said he will not hand over power, and is doing all he can to steal it.

Nicolas Maduro has warned that if he loses the election there will be a bloodbath in Venezuela.

Maduro is a dictator, the Venezuelan government is a narco-tyranny with some extremely nasty actors that have demonstrated over the past 25 years the willingness to kill large numbers of Venezuelans to hang on to power.

The Venezuelan dictatorship has been trained by the worse thugs in Havana, Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing. They are experts in the use of violence and terror to hang on to power.

The best chance to defeat them is neither through appeasement or violence, but through strategic nonviolent resistance. I have been witnessing it over the past weeks, and hope to see it continued today, and in the days to come, when Maduro attempts to hang on to power.

My hope is informed by the late Czech dissident Vaclav Havel's definition of the word that is not equated with success but rather the certainty that what one is doing is both good and coherent. In 1990 in the book, Disturbing the Peace, Havel explained how he viewed hope.

“Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpromising the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

My prayers, hope and solidarity with Venezuelans in the pro-democracy movement in their ongoing struggle for restoring democracy in Venezuela.

Gloria al Bravo Pueblo!