Bertol Brecht said that “the worst illiterate is the politically illiterate. He does not hear, he does not speak, he does not participate. He does not know that the cost of living, the price of beans, bread, flour, clothing, shoes and that remedies depend on political decisions. The politically illiterate takes pride and expands his chest saying that he hates politics. He does not know that from his ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned minor and the worst of all evils: institutionalized poverty.” It is worth asking if today, in this new modernity, there is not an even more devastating character: the “self-misinformed.” With naivety, the new generations of “digital natives” have swallowed the story that virtual media were going to provide them with “true” freedom of information. That events cannot be understood without their history does not mean that historical analysis serves as moral justification. Thus we become managers of reality, instead of creators of realities.
Transgression is a formidable tool of power. It is not only how it is transgressed, but when and from where. We live in a permanent state of emotional alert, reality fragments from scandal to scandal and moods are manufactured thanks to the cynicism of dominant media that prevent us from perceiving what is really important. Like the “formidable success” of the economic rescue of a bankrupt country, through the expertise and talent of a voracious oxygenated pumpkin-colored child. What cynicism!
Continuing to debate why the poor vote in favor of the interests of the rich is now a question of not knowing how to name what we cannot imagine. Sunday’s elections fester. They voted with the “sandwich” in hand, that of the child who does not want to share the snack at recess. Explanations, if any, are sought for the couch. Political scientists are missing.
This October 30, Diego would have turned 65 years old. A bitter day, with nothing to celebrate. With the villero pride inserted in the guts, surely, he would have given us some “little pearl.” He never forgot to return to where he came from. He kept returning to the place he never left. Someone like him, black and villero, could only be “integrated” to the extent of the success that sustained him. The furious class resentment, the hatred of raceless racism that is exercised with the most exquisite cruelty in our country, has no regard. He was given the same space of tenderness and cynicism as the famous American blacks: some sports and some music.
We know that definitive death only occurs with oblivion. This tiring country will always remember you, Diego. If one day you return to the sea of your childhood you should know that that sea has not forgotten you. No matter how many times you have traveled around the world, that sea will always have you in its memory. In Milei’s time, any kind of pleasure, like remembering you, serves as a weapon against his tyranny.
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