The Earth, in a splendid piece of comic timing, decided to give Venezuela a rather violent shake just as the country was already wobbling on the precipice of total collapse. A 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck near the coast, rattling windows, nerves, and the last remaining shreds of national stability. In response, the UK government, ever the gallant gentleman, has pledged £50 million in ‘emergency reconstruction loans.’ Because when your house is on fire, what you really need is a mortgage.
Let us savour the exquisite cynicism of this gesture. Venezuela is currently experiencing what can only be described as a five-course meal of catastrophe: economic meltdown, political paralysis, mass emigration, and now a geological encore. The country’s infrastructure is held together with hope and duct tape. And Britain, in its infinite wisdom, offers loans. Loans that will accrue interest. Loans that will likely be paid back in tears and bolivars that are worth less than the paper they are printed on.
But let us not be churlish. Perhaps this is a form of performance art. Perhaps the £50m is actually a dartboard in Whitehall where ministers throw money at a map of the world, and this time they accidentally hit Venezuela. Perhaps it’s a tax write-off. Whatever the reason, it is a masterpiece of tonal deafness.
Meanwhile, the earthquake itself was a masterclass in dramatic timing. It struck at 6:15 PM local time, just as Venezuelans were presumably sitting down to their evening meal of government-issued rice and existential dread. The epicentre was in the Caribbean Sea, near the state of Sucre, but the tremors were felt as far away as Caracas, where citizens reportedly dashed into the streets and immediately tripped over economic crises. No major casualties have been reported, which is either a miracle or a sign that the universe has lost interest in Venezuela.
And what of the response from President Nicolás Maduro? He took to state television, as he always does, to blame the earthquake on an imperialist plot involving seismic weapons and saboteur squirrels. ‘They are shaking our land to destabilise our revolution!’ he claimed, before presumably offering the British government a discount on future oil deliveries as gratitude for their loan.
Let us also consider the irony: the UK, a nation that is currently arguing about whether to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, is now lending money to a country where people are fleeing in droves. Perhaps the plan is to use Venezuelan debt to fund the resettlement of Venezuelan refugees? Now that would be efficient capitalism.
But I digress. The £50m is earmarked for ‘reconstruction,’ which in diplomatic parlance means ‘building things that will collapse in the next quake.’ It is a gesture. A platitude. A fiscal band-aid on a bullet wound. The true cost of rebuilding Venezuela is incalculable, not just in bricks and mortar but in trust and hope. Loans will not restore that.
So, to the UK government, I say: well played. You have once again proven that charity is just a tax on morality. And to Venezuela, I offer my deepest sympathies. I would donate my gin, but I suspect it would end up being resold on the black market for a price that would make your loan terms look generous.
Stay shaky, Caracas. The quake may be over, but the aftershocks of British benevolence are only just beginning.
