Eduardo Galeano
I dedicate this tribute to the living memory of two Carlos: Carlos Lenkersdorf and Carlos Monsivais, dear friends who are no longer, but they remain. ***
And I start by saying thank you: Thank you, Marcelo, for this gift, this joy. I say thanks on behalf of itself and on behalf of many southerners who never forget their gratitude to Mexico the country of his exile, refuge of the persecuted in the years of filth and fear of our military dictatorships.
And I want to emphasize that Mexico deserves, for this and for many other reasons, all our sympathy, now that this land dear is a victim of the hypocrisy of universal narcosistema, where some put the nose and others are dying, and a state war and others receive the shots. ***
This generous act I am honored to come to him who came. Mexico City is at the forefront in the struggle for human rights in a range that goes from the sexual diversity to the right to breathe, which already seemed lost. And much
I am honored to receive this gift, because much has to challenge in our country full independence is still largely a task to do, that brings us together every day. ***
In the city of Quito, the day after independence, an anonymous hand wrote on a wall: Last day of despotism and first of the same.
And in Bogota, shortly after, Antonio Nariño warned that patriotic rebellion was becoming masked ball, and that independence was in the hands of men from starchy and much button, and wrote: We have moved from masters. And the Chilean
Santiago Arcos checking, from prison:
"The poor have enjoyed the glorious independence as long as the horses in Chacabuco and Maipú charged against the king's troops. ***
All our nations were born lied. Who renounced independence, fighting for her life had been played and the women, the illiterate, the poor, Indians and blacks were not invited to the party. I advise taking a look at our first constitution, which gave legal status to such mutilation. The Constitutions granted the right of citizenship to the few who could buy it. Others, and others, remained invisible. ***
Simon Rodriguez had a reputation as a madman, and so they called it: the crazy. Saying crazy things, like:
, we are independent but we are not free. The wisdom of Europe and the prosperity of the United States are, in our America, two enemies of freedom of thought. Our America should not slavishly imitate, but to be original.
Also:
-Teach children to be inquisitive, to become accustomed to obeying reason: not as the limited authority, or custom as fools. When he does not know any tricks him. He who does not have anyone to purchase. Don Simon said
follies and it was crazy. Back in 1820-something, mixed schools for boys and girls, the poor and the rich, Indians and whites, and joined the head and hands, because they taught to read and add, and also working with wood and earth. In their classrooms were not being heard Latinos sacristy and defied the tradition of contempt for manual labor. Experience did not last long. A cry of angry voices demanding the expulsion of the satyr that has come to corrupt the youth, and Marshal Sucre, president of the country we now call Bolivia, demanded his resignation.
Thereafter, he traveled by mule, pilgrimage on the Pacific coast and the mountains of the Andes, founding schools and asking questions unbearable to the new owners of power: "You
that mimic everything that comes from Europe and the United States, why do not you imitate originality, which is most important?
This old tramp, bald, ugly, potbellied, the boldest and most lovable of the thinkers of America, was ever more alone and died alone.
At eighty years, wrote:
"I wanted to make the earth a paradise for everyone. I made a hell for me. ***
Simón Rodríguez was a loser. Depending on the scale of values \u200b\u200bof this world, which consecrates the success and failure does not forgive the men like him deserve no memory.
But does not Mr. Simon live in the power of dignity that our America today travels from north to south? How many speak through his mouth, but do not know, as he spoke in prose that Molière's character who did not know who was speaking in prose?
Do not Don Simon continues to teach us a century and a half after his death, that independence is another name of dignity? It is true that still weighs, and much, colonial heritage, which welcomes the creation and curses back and admire, such as complaints Don Simon, the virtues of the monkey and the parrot. But it is also true that they are increasingly young people who feel that fear is a prison humiliating and boring, and dare to think freely with their own heads, feel with their own hearts and walk with their own legs. ***
I do not believe in God but do believe in the human miracle of the resurrection. Because maybe they were wrong those mourners who refused to believe in the death of Emiliano Zapata, and believed that he had gone to Saudi on a white horse, but it is only wrong on the map. Because the view is that Zapata is still alive, though not so far, not in the sands of the East: he walks riding around here, just near here, wanting justice and making.
And mark you what has happened with another loser, José Artigas, the man who made the first land reform in America, before Lincoln and before Zapata.
almost two centuries ago, he was defeated and condemned to solitude and exile. In recent years, Uruguay's military dictatorship he built a grandiose mausoleum, trying to lock him in jail marble. But when the dictatorship tried to decorate the monument with some of his sentences, he found none that were not subversive. Now the mausoleum has dates and names of battles, and no sentence. Involuntary homage, unintentional confession is not dumb Artigas, Artigas is still dangerous. Curiously
: with so many living who speak without words, in our land they say is dead silent.
*** Blessed are the losers, because they made the insolence to love their land, and thereby risked their lives. But it is seen that patriotism is the honorable privilege of the dominant countries: only those who rule have the right to be patriots. In contrast, the dominated countries, condemned to perpetual obedience, patriotism can not exercise on pain of being called populists, demagogues delusions: our patriotism is considered a pest, dangerous fever, and the masters of the world we take consideration of Democracy, have a nasty habit of averting the threat of fire and blood.
Blessed are the losers, because they refused to repeat the story and wanted to change it.
Blessed are the losers, and cursed be those who confuse the world with a race track and thrown to climb the heights of success licking up and down spitting.
Blessed are the angry, and damn the undeserving. Damn
successful dictatorship of fear that compels us to believe that reality is untouchable and that solidarity is a fatal disease, because the neighbor is always a threat and never a promise. Blessed
is the hug, and cursed be the nudge.
*** Yes, but ... many losers, right?
When a journalist asked me if I'm an optimist, I answer honestly:
"Sometimes. Depends on time.
always seemed rather inhuman optimists full time.
I think the disappointment is a human right, and somehow it is also proof that we are human, it would not suffer the disappointment if we had no breath.
Admittedly not very encouraged by the fact that you have the habit of rewarding fucking reamers for other people and the exterminators of the earth, water and air. And yet, the most exciting adventures of transformation of reality tend to stop half-way, or lost and lost, and often end badly.
Let's face it, I say, but one should ask: When these collective experiences end up pretty bad, do you really end? Is there nothing to do, we just resign and accept the world as it is, like destiny? A few years ago it became fashionable to the theory of history. More than one is swallowed the toad, though common sense shows us, with powerful simplicity, that history is born anew each morning.
best thing about this matter of living is the ability to surprise that life has. Who could foresee that Arab countries would live this hurricane of freedom that are now living? Who would believe that Tahrir Square would give the world this lesson in democracy? Who would believe what they believe the boy may now planted in the square for days and nights, when he says: Nobody is going to lie anymore?
the end of the day, when history say goodbye, or so it seems that she is telling us, or at least muttering, until then, until lueguito, we are seeing.
And I leave you, now it's time, as history taught me saying thanks, saying goodbye, to lueguito, we are seeing.
* Remarks on 22 February 2011, at the ceremony Medal 1808, the head of the Government of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, gave the writer Eduardo Galeano
Taken from La Jornada: http: / / www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/02/23/index.php?section=opinion&article=014a1pol
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