Patiño's Promise

What a visit from a young Venezuelan activist taught me

During Homecoming Week, Stanford was privileged to host Roberto Patiño, a Venezuelan student activist and leading democracy advocate, for a week of discussion on the international struggle for democracy. A 21-year-old engineering student and leader of Caracas’ Student Federation, which actively works for democracy in Venezeula, Roberto interacted with professors, students, and community members in a variety of campus venues, impressing many of us with his passionate and articulate advocacy for democratic change in one of Latin America’s most personalistic regimes.

For me, it was a rare opportunity to interact with someone my age who already has become an important actor on the world stage. I and other members of Stanford in Government (SIG) were excited to host Roberto for this very reason. Witnessing Patiño’s passion—and its tangible results, such as images of a sea of 500,000 Venezuelan demonstrators—inspired me. I was reminded of a favorite quote of mine, by Robert F. Kennedy: “This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.” Kennedy’s words—and Roberto’s actions—remind us that young people have an important role to play in shaping the kind of world in which we want to live.

I saw others come to this same realization many times throughout the course of Roberto’s visit. Talking politics over pizza during a midweek SIG policy lunch, Roberto shifted easily between personal stories of the student democratic movement he heads, to an informative Powerpoint presentation, to showing pictures and clever videos encouraging Venezuelans to vote. Several of my fellow students lingered afterwards to keep asking questions. They kept at it during a number of other dinners, lectures, and seminars in which Roberto continually and cheerfully discussed and debated issues of democratic governance and student activism. Not a night went by that I didn’t log onto Facebook and see someone’s status mentioning how blown away they were by Roberto’s passion and commitment.

Nor were students the only ones affected. Professors and other community members seemed equally moved by his articulate defense of democracy at his public lecture, and later at a private seminar both of us attended with the US Ambassador to Mexico and former SIG chair, Carlos Pasqual ’80. Some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent social media companies also offered a great deal of encouragement, and I hope will provide practical assistance in Roberto’s technology-enabled democratic struggle. I saw how excited Roberto was to meet with people who understood his cause and stood ready to help, and saw how they also warmed to his infectious enthusiasm and sense of purpose.

It was Roberto’s first time in the Bay Area, so I and other SIG members had the opportunity to show him around in between public events and meetings. A few students took him sightseeing in San Francisco and, of course, we brought him to Stanford’s Homecoming football game against Washington State. The genuine fun we had talking about politics and other topics strengthened our connection to Roberto's world and made me remember why I’ve always enjoyed cross-cultural exchanges. Now, this isn’t merely an abstract, academic debate about democracy promotion: this is our friend, Roberto, putting his life at risk for a cause we can all better understand.

Too often these days, it seems that young people are counted out. We don’t vote, we don’t demonstrate, we don’t care enough, the pundits tell us. Yet in a week at Stanford, Roberto reminded us that many young people do vote, and some even launch nationwide campaigns to register and mobilize millions of voters. In a week, Roberto reminded us that changing the world still demands the qualities of youth—and youth of quality.

—Zev Karlin-Neumann '11 (History/Political Science)

Stanford in Government (SIG) is a 47-year-old nonpartisan student organization dedicated to increasing political awareness at Stanford and connecting students with opportunities in public service. SIG was a founding organization of the Haas Center in 1985.