Posts Tagged ‘Latin America’
They passed away: Uruguay writer Eduardo Galeano and Gunter Grass (Nobel prize for literature in 2009
Posted on: April 16, 2015
They passed away: Uruguay writer Eduardo Galeano and Gunter Grass (Nobel prize for literature in 2009
Uruguayan writer and journalist Eduardo Galeano, author of “Las venas abiertas de América Latina”, among other masterpieces, died today, aged 74, in Montevideo, where he lived.
His best-known works are “Las venas abiertas de América Latina” (Open Veins of Latin America, 1971) and “Memoria del fuego” (Memory of Fire Trilogy, 1982–86), which have both been translated into 20 languages and transcend orthodox genres, combining journalism, political analysis, and history.
The author himself has proclaimed his obsession as a writer saying, “I’m a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia.”
Gary Younge posted in July 23, 2013:
Most mornings it’s the same. At the breakfast table Uruguayan-born author, Eduardo Galeano, 72, and his wife, Helena Villagra, discuss their dreams from the night before.
“Mine are always stupid,” says Galeano. “Usually I don’t remember them and when I do, they are about silly things like missing planes and bureaucratic troubles. But my wife has these beautiful dreams.”
“There is a tradition that sees journalism as the dark side of literature, with book writing at its zenith,” he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais recently.
“I don’t agree. I think that all written work constitutes literature, even graffiti. I have been writing books for many years now, but I trained as a journalist, and the stamp is still on me. I am grateful to journalism for waking me up to the realities of the world.”
Those realities appear bleak.
“This world is not democratic at all,” he says. “The most powerful institutions, the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and the World Bank, belong to three or four countries. The others are watching. The world is organised by the war economy and the war culture.”
And yet there is nothing in either Galeano’s work or his demeanour that smacks of despair or even melancholy.
While in Spain during the youth uprisings of the indignados two years ago, he met some young protesters at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol. Galeano took heart from the demonstrations.
“These were young people who believed in what they were doing,” he said. “It’s not easy to find that in political fields. I’m really grateful for them.”
One of them asked him how long he thought their struggle could continue. “Don’t worry,” Galeano replied. “It’s like making love. It’s infinite while it’s alive. It doesn’t matter if it lasts for one minute. Because in the moment it is happening, one minute can feel like more than one year.”
Galeano talks like this a lot – not in riddles but enigmatically and playfully, using time as his foil.
When I ask him whether he is optimistic about the state of the world, he says: “It depends on when you ask me during the day. From 8am until noon I am pessimistic. Then from 1pm until 4 I feel optimistic.” I met him in a hotel lobby in downtown Chicago at 5pm, sitting with a large glass of wine, looking quite happy.
His world view is not complicated – military and economic interests are destroying the world, amassing increasing power in the hands of the wealthy and crushing the poor.
Given the broad historical sweep of his work, examples from the 15th century and beyond are not uncommon.
He understands the present situation not as a new development, but a continuum on a planet permanently plagued by conquest and resistance. “History never really says goodbye,” he says. “History says, see you later.”
He is anything but simplistic.
A strident critic of Obama’s foreign policy who lived in exile from Uruguay for over a decade during the 70s and 80s, he nonetheless enjoyed the symbolic resonance of Obama’s election with few illusions.
“I was very happy when he was elected, because this is a country with a fresh tradition of racism.”
He tells the story of how the Pentagon in 1942 ordered that no black people’s blood be used for transfusions for whites. “In history that is nothing. 70 years is like a minute. So in such a country Obama’s victory was worth celebrating.”
All of these qualities – the enigmatic, the playful, the historical and the realist – blend in his latest book, Children of the Days, in which he crafts a historical vignette for each day of the year. (That’s exactly what Grass did for each year in the 20thcentury)
The aim is to reveal moments from the past while contextualising them in the present, weaving in and out of centuries to illustrate the continuities.
What he achieves is a kind of epigrammatic excavation, uprooting stories that have been mislaid or misappropriated, and presenting them in their full glory, horror or absurdity.
His entry for 1 July, for example, is entitled: One Terrorist Fewer. It reads simply.
“In the year 2008, the government of the United States decided to erase Nelson Mandela’s name from its list of dangerous terrorists. The most revered African in the world had featured on that sinister roll for 60 years.” He named 12 October Discovery, and starts with the line: “In 1492 the natives discovered they were Indians, they discovered they lived in America.”
Meanwhile 10 December is called Blessed War and is dedicated to Obama’s receipt of the Nobel prize, when Obama said there are “times when nations will find the use of force not only necessary, but morally justified.”
Galeano writes: “Four and a half centuries before, when the Nobel prize did not exist and evil resided in countries not with oil but with gold and silver, Spanish jurist Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda also defended war as ‘not only necessary but morally justified’.”
And so he flits from past to present and back again, making connections with a wry and scathing wit.
His desire is to refurbish what he calls the “human rainbow. It is much more beautiful than the rainbow in the sky,” he insists. “But our militarism, machismo, racism all blinds us to it. There are so many ways of becoming blind. We are blind to small things and small people.”
And the most likely route to becoming blind, he believes, is not losing our sight but our memory.
“My great fear is that we are all suffering from amnesia. I wrote to recover the memory of the human rainbow, which is in danger of being mutilated.”
By way of example he cites Robert Carter III – of whom I had not heard – who was the only one of the US’s founding fathers to free his slaves. “For having committed this unforgivable sin he was condemned to historical oblivion.”
Who, I ask, is responsible for this forgetfulness? “It’s not a person,” he explains. “It’s a system of power that is always deciding in the name of humanity who deserves to be remembered and who deserves to be forgotten … We are much more than we are told. We are much more beautiful.”
Note 1: A post I published on Galeano.
To quote Oscar Guardiola-Rivera: veins are still open
Mexico’s Subcomandante Marcos, Zapatistas leader, steps down to younger generation
Posted on: May 29, 2014
Mexico’s Zapatista rebel leader resigns
May 26, 2014
The head of the Zapatista rebels in southern Mexico, known as Subcomandante Marcos, has announced that he is leaving the group’s leadership.
In a statement, he said he no longer spoke on behalf of the movement.
He added he was stepping down because of “internal changes” within the 20-year-old, far-left guerrilla group, and denied rumours that he was unwell.
The group has been fighting for greater recognition of the rights of indigenous people in the state of Chiapas.
“I declare that the one known as Insurgent Subcomandante Marcos no longer exists,” Rafael Guillen Vicente, better known by his nom-de-guerre Subcomandante Marcos, said on a Zapatista website.
“The voice of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) will no longer come from my voice,” he added.
For some time there have been rumours that he was in ill health, but he rejected those out of hand, saying that such reports had been spread by the rebel army for their own benefit.
‘Unexpected’
His announcement comes just a day after he was seen in public for the first time in many months, when the enigmatic masked rebel attended a memorial for another key Zapatista leader in Chiapas, one of the poorest regions of Mexico.
The BBC’s Will Grant in Mexico City says there appeared to be little outward sign that the rebel leader was about to retire from public life.
Subcomandante Marcos has reinvented himself in the past, launching himself as an alternative presidential candidate one year.
But it seems likely his time at the forefront of an organisation which once rocked the Mexican political establishment to its core has come to an end, our correspondent adds.
Subcomandante Marcos led an armed uprising in Chiapas on New Year’s Day 1994.
The rebellion sparked several days of sustained fighting with the federal government, leaving dozens of people dead.
A peace pact was later signed but the Zapatistas’ demands were never met and they created their own autonomous justice, health and education systems in several communities.
World also posted this May 26, 2014
Subcomandante Marcos, an iconic revolutionary figure in Latin America and a symbol for anti-globalization movements, said he was stepping aside for younger leaders to take his place.
“The voice of the Zapatista National Liberation Army [EZLN] will no longer come from my voice… Marcos no longer exists.” Subcommandante Marcos
Marcos posted a lengthy message May 25. He denied rumors that he was ill, as well as the government’s assertion that he is a former philosophy professor named Rafael Sebastian Guillen. He appeared in public days earlier for the first time in months, or possibly since 2009.
Chiapas, Mexico
January 1, 1994
The EZLN, known as the Zapatistas, launched on Jan. 1, 1994, the same day as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which the group opposes.
It set off 12 days of clashes with the Mexican army that claimed at least 140 lives.
The government eventually signed a peace treaty with the group.
The Zapatistas have championed rights for indigenous populations, the poor, women, and farmers.
The Mexican government created laws to give more rights to indigenous people in 2001, but the group rejected it and set up autonomous justice, health, and education systems and sustainable farming in impoverished rural areas.
The impact of the departure of the mysterious Marcos on the Zapatistas is uncertain but likely minimal.
He has shunned the spotlight for years, and recently others have spoken on behalf of the group. The Zapatistas have also established links with like-minded groups around the world.
Related Stories
Is Afghanistan Strategic? Ever more so, though too late for the USA…
Did you hear of Carlos Bulgeroni?
There is great avidity for the oil and gas originating from Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kirghistan, and particularly Kazakhstan)
He is an Argentine entrepreneur, founder of Bridas, the 4th largest oil company in Latin America.
In 1992, Carlos snatched a couple of pipeline oil and gas concessions from Turkmenistan. One of the pipeline was to end in Multan (Pakistan port) and must cross Afghanistan from north to south and passing in the valleys of Afghanistan close to Kandahar. This was the $3 bn Daulatabad project.
Unocal (12th largest US oil company) and founded by Roger Beach join in the project. Unocal brought in the Saudi oil company Delta Oil in order to bypass the signed deal with Bridas.
Another planned pipeline was the Chardzhou pipeline joining Turkmenistan to Gwadar (Pakistan port on the Gulf) and crossing Afghanistan and passing close to Herat.
Otherwise, the pipelines had to cross Russia, Iran, and pass by Azerbaijan and eventually end on the Mediterranean Sea (Turkey and Syria)
In 1994, the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan fully supported the new militia forces of Taliban (Students in religion) in Kandahar on the premise that this force is not tribal and can bring security and stability to Afghanistan.
These students attended religious madrassa tightly linked to the Indian Koranic school of Deobandi, a sect that prohibits the cult of saints. This sect is mainly a Wahhabi brand of Sunni sect as predominant in Saudi Arabia.
Taliban did bring security and stability at the expense of everything else: freedom of opinion, of expression, of education, and denial of women’s basic rights… and demolishing all the monuments that are not related to their Wahhabi brand of Islam.
The only lukewarm condition of the US was to kick out Ussama bin Ladden and his Qaeda from Afghanistan.
The Taliban were happy to oblige, but they failed to reckon with the large web of Ussama in the Afghan’s fabrics.
Ussama decided to punish the US and started to plan the blasting of the World Trade Center (1996) and partially succeeded.
In September 11, 2001, the Twin Towers fell. Most of the kamikaze were Saudi Wahhabi.
Mind you that Ussama made sure that the strong leader Massoud of the Tajik forces in North-East Afghanistan is assassinated: He was trying to prevent the US from finding a unified front to launch its ground invasion.
Too late. Russia got hold of 90% of the oil and gas concessions in central Asia and signed deals with China to buy of the oil and gas for the next decade.
The central Asia pipelines are crossing Russia toward china and many of them are done and functional.
Note: The late Saudi Turki Al Faisal was the chief of Saudi secret services GID at the period and this monarchy has been supporting the terrorist Islamic factions for over 3 decades.
Currently, these factions are pissed off with their “monarchy and the 5,000 princes” who used and abused of them for so long and refuse to admit them back home after serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Syria… Saudi Arabia is about to brace for a civil war, with trained and extremists “revolutionaries”, more obscurantist than their monarchy.
Yesterday, the monarch Abdullah announced that the former minister of the interior and GID chief Mokri, the youngest son (35 of them) of the founder Saud bi Abdul Aziz, to become the third in line for the monarchy.
Uruguay in Latin America: Voted the Best country this year
How many Reasons do you You Need To Move To Uruguay?
Looking for a new adventure? Maybe you should head down south.
1. They have the BEST President ever.
This is Jose Mujica, better known as Pepe.
He’s considered the ‘poorest President’ because he donates 90 percent of his salary to those in need.
Here’s Uruguay, right next to Argentina and Brazil.
Home to 3.3 million awesome Uruguayans.
He even drives his own car, an old light blue Volkswagen Beetle.
He and his wife are super chill.
And even pose to passersby during their vacations.
His speeches are always pure perfection. youtube.com
“To live you need freedom, and to have freedom you need time.”
No, really, he’s the coolest President.
Here he is being all happy with a guitar signed by Aerosmith.
2. It was once dubbed “the Switzerland of America,” mainly for its banking stability.
So your savings will be safe!
4. Same sex marriage is legal – and celebrated.
5. So is marijuana legal
6. It is one of the VERY few countries in Latin America where abortion is legal.
7. The opposition to the abortion law wanted a referendum but less than 10% of the population supported it so the law was maintained.
8. Its beaches are one of the best kept secrets in South America.
Very very very nice beaches.
9. But there’s more to see than just sand…
Uruguay is one of the leading meat producers in the world, as that is its main industry.
10. It’s estimated that there are 3.5 cows per every person in the country.
Which means you can either have a bunch as pets or eat a lot of meat.
12. They have a replacement for coffee: It’s called mate and it will amp you up when you drink it.
13. There’s a little town called Cabo Polonio where there’s no electricity ON PURPOSE. Perfect place to get over your Instagram addiction, huh?
14. But if you’re looking for less silence, Punta del Este is considered one of the best party cities in the world.
15. Their music will get you out of any chair. youtube.com
Hit play and test yourself.
17. They not only hosted the first World Cup but also won it. And they’re hoping to win again next year.
They have so much confidence they’ll win that when they qualified they made fun of Brazil. youtube.com
Because why not?
19. Uruguayan men are a very well kept secret. Just look at Forlan’s abs…
20. And so are Uruguayan women, like Natalia Oreiro.
21. But above all, they’re considered the nicest and warmest people in South America.
The Economist published this Dec. 21, 2013:
Country of the year: Uruguay in Latin America
HUMAN life isn’t all bad, but it sometimes feels that way.
Good news is no news: the headlines mostly tell of strife and bail-outs, failure and folly.
2013 has witnessed glory as well as calamity. When the time comes for year-end accounting, both the accomplishments and the cock-ups tend to be judged the offspring of lone egomaniacs or saints, rather than the joint efforts that characterise most human endeavour.
To redress the balance from the individual to the collective, and from gloom to cheer, The Economist has decided, for the first time, to nominate a country of the year.
But how to choose it?
Readers might expect our materialistic outlook to point us to simple measures of economic performance, but they can be misleading.
Focusing on GDP growth would lead us to opt for South Sudan, which will probably notch up a stonking 30% increase in 2013—more the consequence of a 55% drop the previous year, caused by the closure of its only oil pipeline as a result of its divorce from Sudan, than a reason for optimism about a troubled land.
Or we might choose a nation that has endured economic trials and lived to tell the tale. Ireland has come through its bail-out and cuts with exemplary fortitude and calm; Estonia has the lowest level of debt in the European Union. But we worry that this econometric method would confirm the worst caricatures of us as flint-hearted number-crunchers; and not every triumph shows up in a country’s balance of payments.
Another problem is whether to evaluate governments or their people.
In some cases their merits are inversely proportional: consider Ukraine, with its thuggish president, Viktor Yanukovych, and its plucky citizens, freezing for democracy in the streets of Kiev, even though 9 years ago they went to the trouble of having a revolution to keep the same man out of office.
Or remember Turkey, where tens of thousands protested against the creeping autocracy and Islamism of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister-cum-sultan. Alas, neither movement has yet been all that successful.
Definitional questions creep in, too. One possible candidate, Somaliland, has kept both piracy and Islamic extremism at bay, yet on most reckonings it is not a country at all, rather a renegade province of Somalia—which has struggled to contain either.
As well as countries yet to be, we might celebrate one that could soon disintegrate: the United Kingdom, which hasn’t fared too badly, all things considered, since coming into being in 1707, but could fracture in 2014 should the Scots be foolhardy enough to vote for secession.
And the winner is?
When other publications conduct this sort of exercise, but for individuals, they generally reward impact rather than virtue. Thus they end up nominating the likes of Vladimir Putin, Ayatollah Khomeini or, in 1938, Adolf Hitler.
Adapting that realpolitic rationale, we might choose Bashar Assad’s Syria, from which millions of benighted refugees have now been scattered to freezing camps across the Levant.
If we were swayed by influence per head of population, we might plump for the Senkaku (or Diaoyu) islands, the clutch of barren rocks in the East China Sea that have periodically threatened to incite a third world war—though that might imply their independence, leading both China and Japan to invade us.
Alternatively, applying the Hippocratic principle to statecraft, we might suggest a country from which no reports of harm or excitement have emanated. Kiribati seems to have had a quiet year.
But the accomplishments that most deserve commendation, we think, are path-breaking reforms that do not merely improve a single nation but, if emulated, might benefit the world. Gay marriage is one such border-crossing policy, which has increased the global sum of human happiness at no financial cost.
Several countries have implemented it in 2013—including Uruguay, which also, uniquely, passed a law to legalise and regulate the production, sale and consumption of cannabis. This is a change so obviously sensible, squeezing out the crooks and allowing the authorities to concentrate on graver crimes, that no other country has made it.
If others followed suit, and other narcotics were included, the damage such drugs wreak on the world would be drastically reduced.
Better yet, the man at the top, President José Mujica, is admirably self-effacing.
With unusual frankness for a politician, he referred to the new law as an experiment. He lives in a humble cottage, drives himself to work in a Volkswagen Beetle and flies economy class.
Modest yet bold, liberal and fun-loving, Uruguay is our country of the year. ¡Felicitaciones!
Adonis Diaries 
Titbits #101
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 27, 2021
Titbits #101
Posted on December 25, 2017
Note 1: I take notes of books I read and comment on events and edit sentences that fit my style. The page is long and growing like crazy, and the sections I post contains months-old events that are worth refreshing your memory.
I’m stunned with talks and essays on “Futuristic trends”, intended for the “developed Nations”. Totally forgetful of the behaviors of the 6 billion wretched people, working hard to save a train ticket for the city.
Wretched people are cognizant of the power of monsoon. Rich people assume that well-built homes withstand these calamities. They can’t see the 10-meter waves crashing on: all windows and doors boarded.
Opinions: Either “You know” or Don’t know “scientifically” the subject matter.
Position on issues: You care, and get engaged or don’t give a hoot. And keep your silence
If the Style is different, then it’s Not the same idea
The game is far more fun when done voluntarily: You step in the field and declare “I want to play”
Être un professionnel est au-dessus de ma patience
Kurds in Syria have No one to protect them but the State of Syria. The sooner they demand from the USA to vacate their military bases in North Syria, the higher the perception of confidence and integrity.
Temperature rise makes the ocean water too warm and prevents ocean water movement to travel from cold parts to warmer parts. Consequently, the diluted oxygen in water could no longer travel and the ocean stagnated and marine organism died.
Une façon comme une autre de vendre sa salade: l’Amérique est terre d’élection des puritains, alcooliques et de “enfoncez-vous-bien-dans-la-tête”.
Les riches partagent avec les pauvres des intestins nauseabonds: Personne ne se rendrait compte de cette verité si les riches prennent en charge la maintenance de leurs domiciles, par eux-meme
“Wars of choice“, decided by the 1% elite class in the “war industry” and the plunderer of other nations raw materials and oil.. and open market…
Visit Latin America, the non-Arab Africa, or the Philippines and you discover the dancing gait of people, the colorful dresses, and the generous genuine smiles. The entire posture of the body, the gesture, and the gazing are seductive.
J’aime le grand air et marcher les champs, mais pas travailler la terre
Ce serait heureux de vivre dans un climat ou les fruits et la nourriture ne demandent pas de mains-d’oeuvres. En tout cas, qui Ne façonne pas des gens violents et déprimés, ce qu’on appelle une terre qui “forme ces characters”
Faut savoir choisir ou’ on dine: Tu ne veux pas la sauce d’aujourd’hui et la viande d’hier
Elle avait des mouvements de grande violence d’amour, mais pliait d’abords ses vêtements
Le jeune homme travaillait l’itinéraire le soir: il est bon que les adults continuent à croire que la jeunesse est un miracle.
Il ne pouvait que tourner en rond sur la place de l’Etoile pour éviter l’orgueil des automobilistes: dans le monde moderne, si on s’arrete on est foutu.
J’aime bien ta conversation: tu te charge de tous les clichés et ca soulage
C’est facile d’être audacieux dans ce pays: Dit ce que tout le monde peut voir en s’en donnant la peine.
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