For many years, Venezuelans understood instinctively what was meant when someone invoked la situacion in conversation. The rich started leaving the country because of la situacion. One would be crazy to drive at night, given la situacion del pais. The main features of this 'situation of the country,' in the years around President Hugo Chavez's death in 2013, were an economy in free fall, empty supermarket shelves, and the normalization of new forms of criminality'such as 'express kidnappings,' or abductions in which ransoms were paid by speedy bank transfers and the victims released within a couple of hours. People no longer speak so much about la situacion. But they have begun using a word that rhymes: la represion. Since the July 28 election, in which plausibly two-thirds of voters rejected incumbent President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuelans have entered a 'silent tunnel,' the historian Edgardo Mondolfi told me. They breathe fear, watch what they say, and mind their own business. To...
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