(Charly García) Quién sabe, Alicia, este país no estuvo hecho porque sí... Te vas a ir, vas a salir, pero te quedas ¿dónde más vas a ir? Y es que aquí sabes el trabalenguas trabalenguas, el asesino te asesina, y es mucho para tí. Se acabó ese juego que te hacía feliz... No cuentes lo que viste en los jardines, el sueño acabó; ya no hay morsas ni tortugas. Un río de cabezas aplastadas por el mismo pie juegan cricket bajo la luna. Estamos en la tierra de nadie (pero es mía). Los inocentes son los culpables (dice su Señoría, el Rey de Espadas) No cuentes qué hay detrás de aquel espejo: no tendrás poder, ni abogados, ni testigos! Enciende los candiles que los brujos pueden volver a nublarnos el camino. Estamos en la tierra de todos en la vida; sobre el pasado y sobre el futuro, ruina sobre ruina, querida Alicia! Se acabó este juego que te hacía feliz...
Two contradicting visions of the world.
I’ve been reading a text book, strange yes I know. But this text book was actually the text for the first university level Spanish class that I took where I actually learned something. The class was supposed to be about writing, but the subject matter was Human Rights. The book is a collection of literary pieces that were written first hand of human rights abuses or about such abuses.
I picked up the book again because I enjoyed the class, I needed something to read, and we didn’t read everything in the book during class. We spent most of the time focused on Human Rights abuses in Argentina, as the above song so gracefully articulates.
The parts that were left out of class include some amazing writings. I’ve enjoyed reading the authors’ stories from all over the world. But one thing is constant. Fanaticism. Most of the dictators of this last century in South America would be classified as right wing, fascists, and rightly so, but there are a few examples of left wing fascism and fanaticism as well. The stories include the same instances of absolute human brutality from both ideaologies. Tit for tat.
I watched Gandhi, the biographical movie of the amazing man that basically single-handedly overthrew the English in India. Anyone who has watched, read or knows anything of this man knows he was a fanatic. 100% unwavering in what he believed and what he knew to be true. However, he was a fanatic about peace.
Our world is very similar to those lived in by Gandhi and the Latin American authors that I am currently enjoying. We witness this same fanaticism, this same fascism, this blood thirsty, revenge bent bull shit that ravaged the southern continent for so many years. The ideologies that created those dictatorships are still currently fighting for dominance in the world. Most of those dictatorships were right wing, currently the right wing rules… We are surrounded by fanaticism.
We lack one type of fanaticism in this world today, the one kind that can make a true, staying change, pacifism. We need more Gandhis, and less of whatever those other people are…
Peace. Love. and Revolution.