Venezuela was the first Latin American country I ever visited in 2001. It was a land awash with wealth as most of its neighbors like Colombians, Brazilians, and Ecuadorians endangered their lives to smuggle themselves into her borders in search of a better livelihood. From its capital Caracas to the oil city of Maracaibo to Barquisimeto, Valencia and my favorite city of water fountains Puerto Ordaz, the Latin joie de vivre was evident. Every man was a ‘hermano’ (brother) and the girls were cute and friendly, even when you couldn’t speak Spanish properly like myself.
We filled the gasoline tank of our Chevrolet truck at a petrol station near Capitolio with less than five dollars equivalent in the local bolivar for what would have cost above $100 then to fill, in any other country. When I expressed my shock to the driver, he calmly explained that everything petrol came from beneath the soil and seas of their patria (fatherland). Therefore, it was God’s gift to them and ought to be cheap in their land.
The dosage of God’s gift to this very patria is of extravagant proportions. Not only in petroleum but other natural resources such as natural gas, iron ore, gold, bauxite, diamonds amongst other minerals. The current world index in 2024, shows that Venezuela has the world's largest proven crude oil reserves with approximately 303 billion barrels. Ahead of renowned petroleum producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Canada, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Russia, Libya and United States of America.
It sits atop the world's eighth-largest natural gas reserves and the biggest in Latin America. Data compiled by the consulting firm ‘Trading Economics’ shows that Venezuela has the largest gold reserves in the whole of Latin America, and second only to the USA in the whole of the Americas.
It also has the second largest iron ore reserve in all Latin America.
It was very uncommon to find a Venezuelan as a low-class immigrant in any foreign country in her glory days. Venezuelan tourists in Curaçao and other countries were big spenders and every business establishment jostled to have them. Few years later after Nicholas Maduro took over as president, thousands of Venezuelan families have drowned in the Caribbean Sea or died in the Mexican deserts in desperate attempts to flee hardship at home. While countless thousands are languishing in immigration detentions centers across the northern hemisphere.
While in Bogota and Medellin Colombia last summer, I was appalled by the countless number of street settlers, beggars and hustlers who littered these cities. The taxi driver told me spitefully that they were mostly Venezuelans who have fled the terrible economic conditions from their home country. The same also applies to almost all the major cities in Latin America and now even in New York City. The disaster they have brought to their host countries has become a major issue in their local elections.
This new reality of Venezuela would break any sentient heart, because only a man who was familiar with an old woman in the peak of her youth, can truly comprehend the damaging impact of adverse times on the human body. I wondered how a wine so sweet could have gone sour so quickly. How could a land so endowed been brought so low? How could a place of plenty become so empty, and a land with such gifts, suddenly drifted into penury?
Although the answers to the Venezuelan question might be complex and often subjective, her misery is undeniably a direct consequence of the tragedy of enormous wealth in the hands of unwise power. My father often said ‘wherever there’s unguarded cheese, there’s likely to be rats as well. And if it’s a lot of unguarded cheese, then there’s a likelihood of giant rats”. Venezuela’s enormous natural wealth did attract giant local and international rodents with teeth of iron.
The imperial western powers and the international capitalist systems had a more enlightened nose as to the veracity of venezuela’s proverbial cheese. Their teeth of steel had such tenacity of bite, that only a strike of thunder might make them let go, if it ever will. To maintain their access to this ‘cheese’ required a manipulation of the country’s political systems and a pseudo hold on its leaders.
This was the status quo until an enigmatic figure in the person of Hugo Chavez took over the reins of power in February 1999 with an unbridled form of popularism called Chavism. Despite its shortcomings, it marked the first time that the ordinary citizens of this country did enjoy a free cake, albeit irresponsibly, in the lavish fiesta of their patria. Also, his reign brought about a disruption of unchecked access to Venezuela’s natural resources by these international interests, which provoked a concerted chain of reactions in the form of international sanctions and other punitive measures.
Then came President Nicholas Maduro and these measures were intensified, which led to chronic shortages of food and medicine, high inflation, international isolation, closure of businesses, unemployment, and deterioration of productivity. The desperation and frustrations led to high political corruption, unlikely new international alliances, authoritarianism, human rights violations, gross economic mismanagement and over dependence on oil.
Venezuela has become a metaphor of what happens to a third world country that is desperate to assert total control over its land and destiny; vis a vis an international system that is determined to maintain its status quo of control and usurpation. It reflects a leadership that is devoid of the intellectual sophistication to navigate the ship of statehood through such perplexing waters to bring its people to a prosperous haven. It has become a shining example of the superiority of management over endowment as a key factor in national progress and prosperity. Finally, Venezuela shows us clearly how the fortunes of millions of people can be so easily ruined when its enormous commonwealth is entrusted into the hands of a few self-centered megalomaniacs in the guise of popularism. It is akin to giving a thirsty baboon water with your precious silverware. The biggest challenge is to be able to get your silverware back after he might have drunk the water. This dilemma was what defined the battle of the ballot of July 28, 2024.
Amid these complexities, the greatest losers have been the Venezuelan people. They have been stripped of every single dignity of a desirable life and are forced to eke out their survival on the fringes of an apocalyptic hardship. Thousands have died in transit while escaping from once beloved patria into neighboring lands that they previously despised. Those that survived in their lands of refuge, have had to adjust to a new life of sub level infinities. Those that remained in the patria, struggle to conform to a new reality of misery.
And so, a nation and people that once thrived on the peak of a good life, now dwell on the valley of existence where hope is the only elixir on the menu. Hope became the only thing that makes them crawl forward still, though their limbs are gone. That yearning of a dry dying plant for a scent of rain, that makes its roots refuse to rot despite a dire draught. The silent voice that the ear hears, which makes it the last human organ to die. The only hope that true democracy offers, that someday they will be able have an opportunity to reverse their ill fortune through the power of their votes.
So, in the closing days of July 2024, over twenty-nine million people of this beloved patria, clung to the final hope of a democratic election to vote out their despair and usher in a new era. For the diaspora, it meant a dream to be able to return to the land of their beloved memory and reconstruct its walls again. For those at home, it represented a chance to be able to eat a decent meal again, use a soft toilet paper on their delicate parts, be able to buy their children a Christmas clothes and the honor of living life as a true Venezuelan should again. These were simple wishes, that in the last decades have become elusive.
The profundity of that desire compelled millions of souls to brave the sweltering sun and walk unthinkable distances just to cast their vote. But at the end of the day when the results were announced, it became obvious that Venezuela’s days in the valley would be long and arduous. Again, the people couldn’t recover the silverware with which they had given a thirsty baboon water to drink.
This election was the last hope of many to live or return to a better country. But as this writer once said “The irony of hope is that while it has the power to make a man sacrifice everything and endure anything; It also has the power to turn a prince into a beast, and an angel into a demon, once it’s taken away. A man estranged from his hopes and denied of any sane method of reaching his dreams, is nothing but a mobile body of infinite tragedies waiting to happen. And more tragic is the fate of the land where such a people abide”.
The streets of Venezuela burns before our eyes. But more worrisome is the arson of the souls that have yearned in vain in this valley of hope. Then I remembered the words of the prophet when he said “Hope deferred, makes the heart sick, (Proverbs 13:12 KJV).
Those hands who have expropriated the people’s silverware, should also know to appropriate the counsel of William Ralph Inge that “A man may build for himself a throne of bayonets, but he may not sit on it”.
Nixon Uzoma is a dual Nigerian and Dutch citizen. A philosopher, poet, and president of Onix Incorporated and Onix Curaçao B. V in the Dutch Caribbean Island of Curaçao.
