The logic behind teenager stereotypes is somewhat obscure to me; imprudent, foolish, and irresponsible are consistently used to depict our behavior in every situation. Likewise, the term ‘ignorant’ has been perpetually labeled on our age division, despite the fact that ignorance is not, unlike many adults believe, interchangeable with ‘rebellious’. After all, it is awareness that sparks a want for change. The adolescent period of our lives is when we obtain the knowledge of what our rights as people are. For me, it is difficult to grasp how wanting to utilize these rights and possess authority is in any way insolent. On the contrary, it is something that is lacking and would make a significant improvement in the world. Primarily, by abolishing the infractions that superiors inflict on the inferior.
Society’s hierarchical structure has faults. One of these flaws is that, though supreme rulers have become a rarity, the distinction between government and people or superior to worker is still overly amplified. Every individual succumbs to the person one step higher from them on the social pyramid. I, as an adolescent myself, would say that this suppression is because dignified citizens are not rebelling enough. In a fully democratic country, there would be no such thing as ladder to climb in order to get your voice heard. It is due to these divisions between statuses that the average person has grown to regard their country’s political problems with an air of helplessness. Recently, a study by Kaiser showed that over two-thirds of Americans believe they do not receive enough information on their country’s status. This indicates that even populations under democracy are facing a crucial issue: blind subordination, thus exposing them to inequities. The World Bank states that, to the present date, over 119 countries are at least 50% corrupt. There is not a single country with an index of being less than 5% corrupt. At the bottom of this list, on the condemned spot of 158th, is, my home country, Venezuela.

Statistically, the world’s 100 developing countries lose a yearly amount of over one trillion US dollars due to corruption. This means that the obliteration of corruption would give each of these struggling countries, whose people endure starvation, poor healthcare, and lack of educational opportunities, 10 billion dollars every 12 months. For Bangladesh, where medical expenses use up only a yearly 2.97 billion dollars, 10 billion dollars would mean an improvement of 336%, while for Pakistan it would be a 239% melioration, and Chad an unbelievable 5196%.  The immeasurable worth of this money for Venezuela can be summed up with a basic conversion of currency. Currently, the Venezuelan Bolivar is less than the equivalent of a US penny. Inflation has reached over 100%, sending the value of our coin into an undecided spiral. Prices fluctuate on a daily basis, so unexpectedly that salesmen have prices jotted down on the inside of their palms.

It wasn’t always this way. My generation was the last to catch a glimpse of the real, successful Venezuela, before lies and manipulation buried it into oblivion. In 1956 the Venezuelan Bolivar was worth more than the dollar. In the start of the 21st century, the prediction was that Venezuela would be the world’s highest oil producer. That’s right: the country rated the most miserable in 2015 was once the most prosperous and the top oil-distributor of 2008. Lamentably, it seems impossible for most that, beneath layers of fraud and governmental dishonesty, it still is the world’s most sumptuous country. Venezuela has over 250 billion more barrels of petroleum reserves than Qatar. Even Saudi Arabia, who gains 195 billion dollars every year on only oil production, falls short of Venezuela by 50 billion oil barrels in reserve. Venezuela’s politicians have concealed all this, in their attempt to exploit one of the world’s greatest treasures. In 2015, the Swiss bank, famous for its secrecy, leaked. Thus, it exposed that over $14.8 billion were secretly stashed by the Venezuelan government, while the Venezuelan doctor is lucky to gain $20 a month. My country is the richest in the currency of oil but the poorest in government.

Venezuela is an example of what happens when there is too great a distance between leader and citizen. One should not have to watch as a country boiling with potential is exhausted. There are human beings breathing in Venezuela, people who were born into aspiration. It makes my heart contract to see that they don’t remember what has been stolen from them. These new generations fail to see Venezuela for anything more than the destitution it is today, when really, it is just the dusty remnant of the empire it once was. In 2014, unemployment affected only 5.5%, now 7.9% of the population lacks a job and the wages are worthless outside the country. Over half of Venezuela’s oil production goes free to communist countries such as Cuba and China, political leaders are jailed, protesters injured, people maltreated by national guards, local companies nationalized, foreign companies shut down, and the scarcity of basic goods is starving the people of optimism. Corruption’s perpetual shadow is everywhere, especially as the present president, Nicolas Maduro, has the audacity to encourage socialism.
Since I was young I was both reprimanded and complimented for my defiance. Either way it has made no difference; I still believe, with the same unmovable certainty, that we must sit level with our leaders. The only fathomable explanation for why corruption can happen is because authorities forget that who they are abusing are people with voices, with dreams, and with convictions. We must remind them of our presence. This is not possible if there is worship or a gap between a leader and the rest. We must be able to look at them straight in the eyes and demand say of the country that is rightfully ours.

Rebellion does not have to be a chaotic, anarchic fight. We adolescents can testify that even shaking one’s head is enough provocation for someone to call us ‘defiant’. The simple act of expressing opposition is enough to strengthen one’s rights as people. There are over 130 non-democratic countries where the people don’t possess sufficient authority. In Democratic countries like the US, people are still uninformed. Corruption can only grow out of the majority’s powerlessness. By becoming more informed, by demanding to be heard, and by treating leaders as nothing more than the representation of one’s country, corruption will cease to exist. The retrieval of these 1 trillion dollars, according to the UN, will be enough to pulverize poverty worldwide.