In a spectacle that would make a Victorian philanthropist blush with pride and a satirist weep with joy, the BBC's man in La Guaira has confirmed that British aid has finally, triumphantly, arrived in Venezuela's most devastated communities. Or, to put it more accurately, a few pallets of powdered milk and sterilised bandages have been photographed next to a man in a high-vis jacket pointing at them. The aid, funded by the UK taxpayer, has apparently reached 'worst-hit areas' – a phrase that, in the lexicon of humanitarian newspeak, means 'places where the camera can frame the logo against maximum squalor'.
Let us not be churlish. Any calories delivered to starving bellies are a victory for decency. But one cannot help noticing the beautiful, ballet-like choreography of this operation. The aid is British, the reporters are British, the story is British. The only thing that isn't British is the crisis itself, which remains stubbornly, inconveniently Venezuelan. It is like a man drowning in a river, and a neighbour on the bank offering him a neatly pressed towel and a cup of Earl Grey, while a film crew captures the neighbour's noble profile.
I am not suggesting cynicism. I am suggesting a lighter brand of cynicism, perhaps a Sauvignon Blanc of cynicism, because the full-bodied red of rage would be too heavy for this hour. The UK government, having spent the better part of a decade turning its own public services into a dramatic re-enactment of the Somme, has gallantly dispatched a symbolic cargo of compassion to a country 4,000 miles away. This is not hypocrisy. This is brand management. Every crate of dried lentils is a press release. Every backpack full of vitamin-fortified biscuits is a line in the Foreign Secretary's next keynote speech.
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government – a regime so incompetent it makes the Keystone Kops look like McKinsey – has predictably tried to claim the aid is a 'Trojan horse of imperialism'. They are not entirely wrong, although the horse appears to be a very small, unthreatening Shetland pony laden with Calpol sachets. The irony is that both sides are performing for the same audience: the international media. One side provides the moral satisfaction of giving. The other provides the moral satisfaction of rejecting. And the people who actually need the aid get to watch this pantomime from the gods, clutching their empty bowls.
I spoke to a man in La Guaira who was queuing for a bag of rice. He had a face like a crumpled map of all the world's sorrows. 'What do you think of the British aid?' I asked. He looked at me for a long time. Then he said, 'Is it hot?' I didn't understand. 'The tea,' he said. 'Does it come with hot water?' I told him I didn't think so. He shrugged. 'Maybe next time.' There is a lesson there, buried under layers of surrealist metaphor. The lesson is: aid is not about what you give. It is about what you understand. And the UK understands headlines.
So let us raise a glass of airport gin – the only truly international currency – to the delivery of British aid to Venezuela. It may not solve the crisis. It may not even reach most of the hungry. But by God, it will look brilliant on the evening news. And in the end, isn't that what humanitarianism is really about? The warm, fuzzy feeling we get when we are reminded that we are not, in fact, the worst people in the world. Cheers.
