A 5.6 magnitude earthquake has struck Venezuela, shaking the Maiquetía airport and several buildings near Caracas. British aid flights are being prepared.
But let us not pretend this is merely a geological misfortune. This is a tremor of decadence, a fitting metaphor for a nation that has long since collapsed into the chasm of socialist mismanagement. The airport, a gateway to a country that once boasted the richest oil reserves in the Western hemisphere, now crumbles like the failed ideology that governs it.
British aid is noble, yes, but it is a bandage on a gangrenous wound. The real question is not when the next quake will hit, but when will the Venezuelan people finally shake off the yoke of Chavismo? History teaches us that empires fall not from external shocks but from internal rot.
Rome fell. The Soviet Union fell. Venezuela, too, will fall—but only when its people realise that earthquakes are acts of God, but poverty is an act of man.
Until then, the British may send planes, but they cannot send salvation.
