By Asdrúbal Alamilla on July 8, 2026 from Venezuela
We won’t give up, we won’t give in, we won’t lose heart! And we’ll keep working for our people! We’ll do whatever it takes for life! – Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, June 2026
We have witnessed countless moments when the world shatters, and in that fracture, the abyss of everything we did not want to see looms—the “I love you” left unsaid, the postponed embrace… June 24, 2026, was one of those days. Two tremors. Two open wounds on the map of Our America. Two questions hurled in the face of history: What kind of humanity rises when everything collapses? Which peoples deserve to be saved, and which are condemned to become an afternoon news story preceded by a double seismic event?
But the pain did not come alone. It came with the echo of centuries of colonialism. With the weight of wars—with or without bullets—and hunger, whether or not they occupied territories and hopes. It came with the question the empire has been asking us for five hundred years: “How long will you hold out?” And the Venezuelan people, as always, responded heroically. With their hands in the rubble. With their voices in an embrace. With their lives placed in the service of life.
Because there is something the empire’s seismographs do not record. Something that the misnamed sanctions cannot measure. Something the headlines cannot convey. That something is the collective memory that is not buried beneath the rubble. A memory that is praxis. That is the certainty that history does not end in catastrophe but in resistance. A memory that is not negotiated, that is not sold, that does not surrender.
The Venezuelan people have forged themselves through fire, sweat, and blood in that memory. Not in the schools of the empire, but in the streets, in the communes, in the shared meals. They have learned that solidarity is not merely declared: it is cooked, it is shared, it is embraced, it is listened to. They have understood that life is not defended with speeches but with concrete actions, with hands that clear away rubble while the world looks the other way.
That is why, when the earthquakes shook the north of the country, despite the panic, there was organization. There was no widespread chaos. There was coordination and a clear command structure. There was no despair. There was certainty amid the pain. The cooks of the Fernanda Bolaños Front left their homes and apartments—many of which had collapsed or were cracked—and set up makeshift community kitchens amid the dust. The young people transformed their classrooms, their sports courts, and their hangout spots into spaces of solidarity and organized logistics for those affected with an efficiency that no management school could teach. The elders offered their wisdom of survival and their calm. And so, everyone—absolutely everyone—shared what they had at their disposal: a glass of water, a blanket, a hug, a word of encouragement.
It wasn’t spontaneous. It was the result of decades of building popular power—a process that not only constructed homes and Comprehensive Diagnostic Centers (CDIs) but also shaped our sense of self: human beings capable of thinking collectively, acting together, and building shelter even as the earth continues to shake.
The empire has taught us to look upon the South with pity. To see in us only deprivation, only chaos, only failure. It has colonized our gaze so that we ourselves doubt our capacity to be the subjects of our own history. It has imposed on us the grammar of disaster: when the North trembles, it is a tragedy; when the South trembles, it is a failure. But that narrative is a lie. It is colonial thought in its purest form.
Because the truth is that the Venezuelan people have responded to this catastrophe with a dignity that should put to shame all those who predicted their defeat. They have demonstrated that grassroots organization is not an abstract concept but a daily practice, a way of life, a way of understanding that freedom is not a gift but a conquest.
While the empire holds 31 metric tons of Venezuelan gold in foreign banks—nearly 2,000 million dollars that could rebuild hospitals, roads, and homes—the Venezuelan people are rebuilding their daily lives (alongside their authorities and with conscious international support) with their own hands. This is the truth that the empire cannot see because it does not want to and refuses to see it. This is the truth that the media cannot report because it doesn’t pay the bills—and, moreover, they don’t know how to name it. Because they lack sincere words to describe a people who, against all odds, against all sanctions, against all prophecies, rise up and resist.
But there’s more. There is something that hurts more than the aftershocks of the earthquake. Something that settles in the soul like a slow-acting poison. It is cognitive warfare. The battle for meaning, the struggle over narratives. The fight to define what is real and what is not.
Because the empire does not need to occupy territory when it has already occupied meaning. When it has colonized the way people feel and think in order to interpret reality. When it has succeeded in making the world believe that the Global South is, by nature, chaotic, incompetent, and dependent. It is the same tactic colonialism used to justify the invasion: these peoples cannot govern themselves.
But the Venezuelan people have learned. They know that when the empire’s major media corporations speak of “chaos,” there is a community organizing in the shadows. They know that when they predict “collapse,” there are thousands of hands clearing away rubble. They know that when “failure” is announced, there is a revolution that does not surrender to a “like” or a “repost” promoting the spectacle of death to profit from lies.
And they know, above all, that the truth lies not in the headlines but in the streets, in word of mouth. Not in the statements of “influencers” but in the hugs happening right now. Not in commodified statistics but in the life that persists.
That is why, in the face of the prophets of failure, the peddlers of chaos, the architects of oblivion, the Venezuelan people respond with the only possible answer: organization, resistance, and the daily victory of remaining human in adverse conditions.
The earthquake did not find Venezuela alone. It found Venezuela embraced by Our America. It found sister nations—beyond their governments—reaching out, sending what they had, sharing what they could.
It was not conditional aid. It was unconditional solidarity. It was the embrace that peoples give one another when they understand that their destiny is shared, that their struggle is one, that their humanity is non-negotiable.
Because when peoples show solidarity, they do so not out of charity but out of recognition: they know that Venezuela’s struggle is their struggle, that Venezuela’s resistance is their resistance, that Venezuela’s victory will also be theirs. That Venezuela is the hope for another, possible world.
And in this solidarity lies a profound lesson: the North sends aid; the South sends brotherhood. The North offers resources; the South offers an embrace. The North imposes conditions; the South shares a destiny. It is not a matter of quantity but of quality. It is not a matter of generosity but of justice.
But solidarity is not just what comes from outside. It is also—and perhaps above all—what springs from within. What is born in the heart of the community councils, the Communes, the social movements and organizations, in the everyday reality of embraces, in the certainty that life is defended with life.
There is a word that the empire cannot translate. A word that names what is happening in the streets of Venezuela. That word is juntanza. Juntanza is what women do when they organize sancochos in the midst of the dust. Juntanza is what students do when they turn their classrooms into collection centers. Juntanza is what a community does when it looks out for one another on a street, in a plaza, or at a roundabout and rebuilds the social fabric amid the rubble.
Juntanza is the Venezuelan people’s response to the empire that seeks to isolate, fragment, and destroy them. “Juntanza” is the practice of freedom, the demonstration that another world is not only possible but is already being built. Because the Venezuelan people have understood that true independence is not decreed: it is built every day, in every battle against fake news, in every act of resistance against imposition, in every affirmation that life is worth more than profit.
The grief for those who are no longer with us is shared. Homes will not rebuild themselves. Grief will not disappear through decrees or statements typical of a responsible government like ours. But there is something the earthquake has been unable to destroy: the living memory of a people who know how to rise up again and again. That memory is an unyielding bastion; it is a trench of struggle that is redefined time and again in bodies and territories.
Venezuela faces a hybrid war; it remains blockaded and besieged. It has faced an economic war that has claimed lives. It has endured multifaceted media harassment, unjustified international condemnation, and the hypocrisy of those who preach democracy while financing chaos. It endured the kidnapping of its President and First Lady and was the victim of an unprecedented bombing six months ago. And yet, there it stands. Wounded but standing. Beaten but resilient. Insulted but dignified.
And in this resistance, there is a victory that the empire cannot acknowledge: the victory of a people who have decided to be the subjects of their own history, not the objects of others’ decisions. The victory of a revolution that has demonstrated that socialism is not a utopia but a daily practice, a way of organizing communal life, a way of facing adversity with open arms.
Let’s talk now about mental health. Because there are wounds that cannot be seen but still hurt. Because there are pains that have no name but are still felt. The Venezuelan people have been subjected to a constant siege. To a war that destroys not only infrastructure but also the sense of self. To a blockade designed to impoverish them. And in the midst of this siege, collective mental health has become yet another battleground.
But the Venezuelan people have also responded on this front. They have come to understand that health is not merely the absence of illness but the presence of life. They have come to realize that healing does not come only from hospitals but from hugs, from solidarity, from the certainty that they are not alone.
In the temporary camps, relief centers, solidarity rescue and support brigades, or in shared glances, there is a form of therapy that no psychologist could prescribe. There is a cure that no medication could provide. There is a healing that comes only from the practice of living together, from the certainty that shared pain is less painful, from the assurance that hope is not naive but human and militant.
Because collective mental health is not built on diagnoses or pills. It is built on organization, on solidarity, on the daily practice of freedom. It is built on the certainty that, even if everything collapses, life remains possible.
There is a word that the empire fears. A word that names what happens in Venezuela when the people organize. That word is popular power. Because popular power is the answer to colonialism. It is the rejection of guardianship, of protectorates, of dependence. It is the affirmation that the peoples of the South can govern themselves, can decide their own destiny, can build their future without asking permission.
People’s power is what makes an earthquake not the end but the beginning. What makes a catastrophe not a defeat but an opportunity. What makes a besieged people not surrender but rise up. People’s power is the practice of freedom. The demonstration and the certainty that history is written by the people, not by empires.
On June 24, 2026, the earth shook in Venezuela. And the empire, true to form, tried to turn the tremor into a death sentence. It tried to write the ending to a story that does not belong to it. It tried to convince the world that the Venezuelan people had reached their limit.
But it was wrong. As it always is wrong. Because it does not understand that peoples who have been oppressed for five hundred years do not know defeat. They know resistance. They know organization. They know active hope—not the hope that waits passively, not the resilience that depoliticizes pain, but the kind that builds shelter while the earth is still shaking. The kind that searches for survivors beneath the rubble while the world watches us.
Let no one be deceived! Venezuela is neither a geopolitical corpse nor a global flashpoint. It is a living people that rises up and persists, that insists on reinventing itself and re-existing through love. A people that feels and thinks, which has demonstrated, once again, that the blockade does not break the will, that sanctions do not annihilate consciousness, that lies cannot bury the truth.
Because the truth of Venezuela lies in its streets, in its communities, in its embraces. It lies in the women who organize life while the world condemns them to silence. It lies in the young people who are building the future with their own hands as they clear away the rubble. It lies in the grandparents who remember other battles and know that this one, too, will be won.
This is not optimism. It is history. It is faith. But above all, it is evidence. The Venezuelan people have demonstrated peacefully, time and again, that resistance is possible. That organization is effective. That solidarity is powerful. That is why, in the face of those who predict the end, the Venezuelan people respond forcefully through popular, military, police, and institutional unity. In the face of those who herald defeat, they respond with the victory of rebuilding; in the face of those who try to bury memory, they respond with moral strength.
Let’s be clear. The empire is not going to save us. It never has. It never will. Its aid is conditional, its solidarity is self-serving, its generosity is hypocritical. The empire has stolen our gold, has blockaded us by land, sea, and air, and has sought to condemn us to starvation. And now, when the earth trembles, it offers us its “aid” while continuing to withhold our resources. We expect nothing from the empire. We do not need its permission to rebuild. We do not require its approval to move forward. We have our hands, our organization, our memory, and our shared identity. And that is enough.
Because the Venezuelan people have learned that true independence is not negotiated. That sovereignty is not begged for. That freedom is not begged for. It is conquered. It is built. It is defended every day—with every embrace, with every community project completed, with every piece of rubble cleared away during this historic moment we have weathered—while also taking into account the support of the patriotic and nationalist private sector. Not because it is a miracle. Not because it is an exception. But because it is the result of decades of building popular power, of education for freedom, of organization for life, its reproduction, and its care.
The Venezuelan people know that solidarity is not an abstract concept but a daily practice. That organization is not a utopia but a reality. That freedom is not a gift but an accumulated, endogenous, and popular achievement. And in this demonstration, there is a lesson for everyone: the peoples of the South are not passive victims. They are active agents of their history. They are protagonists of their destiny. They are builders of their future.
That is why, from the heart of Our America, from the dusty streets of La Guaira, from the communal meals prepared by the community members of La Guaira, Caracas, Aragua, Carabobo, Miranda, and Falcón, from the embraces of solidarity across the entire greater homeland, the Venezuelan people raise their voices. Not to ask for alms. Not to beg for compassion. Not to bargain away their dignity. But to affirm, with the force of facts, that life, against all odds, always finds its course. That resistance always finds its way. That victory always comes, even if the empire tries to deny it. And Venezuela—free, sovereign, and independent—remains the hope of Our America, standing up to colonialism with its “we invent or we fail” spirit and without copying or pasting models.
Today, in Venezuela, the concept of humanity is called resistance. In every embrace, in every outstretched hand, in every shared tear, the history of a people who refuse to surrender is being written. And that history, even if the empire tries to erase it, will remain etched in the memory of the peoples of the world forever. Because the earth may tremble, but the people rise up. And that is a truth that no empire will ever be able to destroy. All of Venezuela, united, will prevail!
Source: Network of Intellectuals, Artists, and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity (REDH)