9 August 2026. English translation. The Spanish original is here. https://luisbrittogarcia.blogspot.com/2026/08/venezuela-no-es-iran.html
We must understand that there is no independence other than that which is won nor any sovereignty other than that which is defended … Venezuela must relearn how to be Venezuela
Think about it. Consider yourself, those you interact with, and you’ll reach the same conclusion I have. Since the signing of the disastrous Economic Package with the International Monetary Fund in February 1989, never before has our country experienced such a unanimous feeling of bewilderment, simmering rage, and revulsion at having others decide for us.
In October 2025, according to a Hinterlaces poll, 83% of respondents stated they would be prepared to face a foreign military invasion. The attack came, we were denied the opportunity to resist, and now we face an invisible invasion. An insolent foreign entity that barely appears on screen, yet tramples us, crushing one after another the executive, legislative, judicial, and moral attributes of our sovereignty, stealing $13 billion worth of oil from us in a single semester—an amount whose whereabouts remain unknown—and reshaping our country so that the plunder continues indefinitely.
Comparisons are odious, but even more odious is avoiding them to avoid self-examination.
For my part, I preach that anger is a more valuable natural resource than the oil and gold they plunder from us, because it is infinitely renewable and more fruitful than resignation. I admire all the countries that have shaken off the yokes of empires. I am grateful to those who reproach us for seemingly having stopped doing the same. I don’t even invoke the sacred rage of the Decree of War to the Death, which liberated what are now six countries. The assertion that we are not like this or that country reiterates that freedom and sovereignty don’t fall from the sky nor are they defended on their own. They are conquered through the extreme pedagogy of the unbearable.
Venezuela is not Iran. Nothing could be truer. Since 1941, the Persian nation had lived under the dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlavi. The nationalist Majlis movement succeeded in having Mohammed Mossadegh appointed prime minister in 1951, and he nationalized the oil industry. The hegemonic powers blocked the sale of hydrocarbons to Iran. In 1953, the CIA and MI6 instigated street demonstrations, a military coup ousted Mossadegh, and Shah Reza Pahlavi was confirmed as dictator. He handed over the oil to Europeans and Americans and presided over a repressive autocracy. Only in 1979, after an interminable 37 years of brutal monarchical dictatorship and the continuous theft of oil by foreign powers, did waves of Iranians depose the puppet and confirm that autonomy is not surrendered: it is defended. They intensified the affirmation of their cultural identity. They faced the targeted assassination of their scientists and leaders until they became impregnable. They won wars against neighboring Iraq, instigated and armed by the United States, and now against the Empire itself. They divided their defensive system into “mosaics” capable of continuing to resist when others had fallen. We are not like the admirable Iranians. But they show us the arduous path to becoming so.
We are not like the Cubans. When José Martí arrived in Caracas in 1881 and visited Bolívar’s statue first, it had already been 57 years since we had achieved independence for what are now six countries. The Liberator (Bolivar) included the goal of the emancipation of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola to the Amphictyonic Congress of Panama in 1826, and planned to crown it with an expedition that our secessionism thwarted. The Apostle (Martí) and Cuba still had a bitter lesson to learn. For Martí it was death in his first battle. For his homeland, the humiliation of an independence interfered with by the 1898 US invasion, and a sovereignty violated by the Platt Amendment. And there still remained the bitter lesson of 60 years of dictatorships and corruption condoned by the United States, until the Commander (Fidel Castro) arrived and put an end to it. The Apostle (Martí) never felt humiliated because in his time Cuba was not like Venezuela. He sacrificed his fragile existence in the Promethean attempt to overcome it, and his legacy pierces the conscience like a red-hot iron.
China is not like Venezuela. From 1848 onward, it was assaulted by England to force it to buy opium. Through the infamous treaties, the Western powers sowed China with military bases and puppet governments. From 1931, the Japanese invaded Manchuria; the rest of the world threatened, blockaded, or ignored it. Only after a bitter century of humiliations was it able, in 1948, to resume the arduous path that led to becoming the world’s leading power.
No, Venezuela is not Algeria, it is not Vietnam, it is not Korea, it is not Afghanistan, it is not India, it is not Pakistan, it is not Somalia, it is not Yemen. It preceded them. In 1810, we had a “Foolish Fatherland” that had to learn to conquer until, in 1825, it taught the world a lesson. Today, with so many admirable nations, we must understand that there is no independence other than that which is won, nor any sovereignty other than that which is defended.
Once again, the current metropolis loses its hegemony. Its bases are demolished, its mercenaries put to flight. Its Congress denies funding for its senseless aggressions, its energy resources slip away, its fraudulent, unbacked currency vanishes, and emerging powers surpass it in economy, social benefits, science, culture, and defense. The path forks between the road to extinction and the road to Utopia.
What Venezuela must relearn is how to be Venezuela.
