The news from Caracas is grim. A catastrophe has befallen a nation already broken by decades of socialist mismanagement. As the dust settles and the bodies are counted, one fact stands out: British rescue teams were first on the ground.
Not the Americans. Not the French. Not the Chinese, who have been so eager to prop up the regime.
British boots, British expertise, British resolve. While the world’s intellectuals wring their hands and issue vapid statements of solidarity, the United Kingdom has done what it always does in times of crisis: acted. This is not charity.
This is duty. But it also forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth. For years, we have watched Venezuela’s descent into chaos with a mixture of pity and contempt.
We tutted at the queues for medicine, the empty shelves, the hyperinflation. We wrote op-eds on the failure of Chavismo. We did nothing.
Now the calamity is total. And when the dust settles, we must ask ourselves: what is our responsibility to those who cannot help themselves? The Victorians understood this.
They knew that empire was a burden, not a privilege. They sent expeditions to rescue the starving, the oppressed, the forgotten. They did not ask whether the recipients deserved their fate.
They acted because they could. Today, we hesitate. We worry about neo-colonialism, about cultural imperialism, about offending sensibilities.
But sensibilities are a luxury for the well-fed. The people of Caracas do not care about post-colonial theory. They care about water, about shelter, about the next breath.
The British rescue teams understand this. They do not ask for permission. They do what must be done.
This should be a source of national pride. But it should also be a source of national shame. For every Venezuelan we save today, there are a thousand we abandoned yesterday.
Our silence while the regime starved its people is a stain on our conscience. We cannot undo the past. But we can learn from it.
The Fall of Rome was not caused by barbarians at the gates. It was caused by rot within. Venezuela is a warning to all of us.
When intellectuals celebrate the dismantling of institutions, when they champion collective guilt over individual responsibility, when they turn a blind eye to tyranny because the tyrants wear the right ideological colours, they are sowing the seeds of ruin. The rescue teams are a testament to the best of Britain. But the tragedy is a testament to the worst of the West.
Let us honour the dead not with tears, but with resolve. Let us rebuild not just buildings, but principles. And let us remember that the first duty of a civilised nation is to act when others cannot.
