King Charles has expressed his sorrow over the deaths of 14 children in a tuition centre roof collapse in Pakistan. The UK, ever the sentimental philanthropist, has offered rescue aid. But let us not mistake charity for a solution.
This tragedy is a microcosm of a world in decline, a world where the structural integrity of a building is sacrificed for profit, where children are crammed into unsafe spaces in the desperate pursuit of education. We in the West, with our nanny states and health and safety regulations, tut-tut from a distance. Yet our own empires are rotting from within.
Intellectual decadence, political decay, the fall of Rome replayed with different costumes. The Victorians would have understood: the strength of a nation is not in its quick cash or temporary aid, but in the resilience of its institutions. Pakistan’s tragedy is our tragedy, a warning of what happens when building codes are ignored, when human life is just a line in a ledger.
The King’s sorrow is genuine, I am sure. But sorrow without introspection is just another emotion in a world grown fat on feelings and thin on reason.
