Eduardo Galeano
The new millennium is just around the corner.
Nothing to take too seriously:
After all, the year 2001 of the Christians
is the year 1379 of the Muslims,
the year 5114 of the Mayas
and the year 5762 of the Jews.
The new millennium is born on the 1st of
January
thanks to a whim of the senators of the Roman
Empire,
that one good day decided to break the tradition
that called for celebrating newyears at the beginning of
Spring.
And the counting of years in the Christian era
comes from another whim:
One good day, the Pope in Rome decided to set a date to the
birth of Jesus
although nobody really knows when he was born.
Time makes fun of the limits we invent for it
so as to make us believe that it (time) obeys us.
But the whole world celebrates and fears those
limits...
It’s just an invitation: millennia come and millennia
go,
and the occasion is ripe for orators of inflamed
speeches
to tell us about the fate of humanity,
and for doomsday preachers to announce the end of the
world
and general chaos.
Meanwhile, time continues silently to tick towards eternity
and mystery.
The truth is that nobody can resist: on a date like this
one,
as arbitrary as it may be, we all feel the
temptation
to ask ourselves how will the time that will be be.
And God knows how it will be...
We have only one certainty: in the 21st century, if
we are still around,
we all will be people from last century, and worse,
we will be people from the last millennium.
Even if we cannot guess the time that will be,
we do at least have the right to imagine the time we want to
be.
In 1948 and in 1976, the UN proclaimed long lists of human
rights.
But most of humanity just has the right to see, to hear... and
to remain silent.
What about if we begin to practice the never proclaimed right
to dream?
What about if we hallucinate for a short while?
Let’s stare beyond infamy, let’s guess another,
possible world:
The air will be free of all poisons that come from human fears
and passions;
on the streets, the cars will be squashed by dogs;
people will not be driven by the automobile,
nor will they be programmed by computers,
nor will they be bought by supermarkets,
nor will they be watched by television sets;
the TV set will cease being the most important member of the
family,
and will be treated like the washing machine or the
iron;
people will work to live instead of live to work;
penal codes will include the crime of stupidity
that is committed by those who live to have or to
earn,
instead of living just to live,
like the bird sings without knowing it is singing,
and like the child plays without knowing that it
plays;
in no country will they imprison boys who refuse military
service,
but rather those who do want to serve;
the economists will not call standard of living
what really is standard of consumption,
nor will they call quality of life what is quantity of
things;
the cooks will cease believing that lobsters enjoy being
boiled alive; historians will stop believing that countries enjoy being
invaded;
politicians will stop believing that the poor enjoy eating
promises;
solemnity will cease being a virtue,
and nobody will take seriously anybody else
who cannot make fun of him/herself;
death and money will lose their magic powers,
and neither due to wealth or death alone will an SOB become
virtuous
and a gentleman;
nobody will be considered a hero or dumb
for doing what he/she thinks is fair instead of doing what is
most convenient; the world will no longer be at war against the poor, but
against poverty,
and the military industry will have no choice but to declare
bankruptcy;
food will not be a merchandise, nor communications a
business,
because food and communication are human rights;
nobody will die of hunger, because nobody will have
indigestion;
the street children will not be treated as if they were
trash,
because there will be no street children;
rich kids will not be treated as if they were money,
because there will be no rich kids;
education will not be the privilege of those who can buy
it;
police will not be the curse of those who cannot buy
it;
justice and liberty, those siamese twins condemned to live
separately,
will reunite, very closely, back to back;
a black woman will become president of Brasil,
and another black woman president of the US;
an indian woman will govern Guatemala and another,
Peru;
in Argentina, the Women of the Plaza de Mayo will become
examples, because they refused to forget in the times of compulsory
amnesia;
the Sacred Church will correct the errors in Moses’
Tablets,
and the Sixth Commandment will mandate to celebrate the
body;
the Church will also come up with another
commandment
that God had forgotten:
You shall love nature, of which you are part of;
the deserts of the world and of the soul will be
reforested;
the desperate will be welcome and the lost will be
found,
because they are the ones who dispaired from so much
waiting
and got lost from so much searching;
we will be contemporary neighbors
of all those who search for justice and beauty,
no matter where they were born, where they have
lived,
and regardless of boundaries in the maps or in time;
perfection will continue to be the bored privilege of
gods;
but in this crazy and tough world,
every night will be lived like it were the last
and every day will be lived like it were the first.
Free translation from the Spanish by Claudio Schuftan,
Hanoi.
Aviva@netnam.vn
