Rodolfo R. Pou. Architect, Politician & Businessman |
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The age of wisdom, and also of madness; the age of belief and unbelief; the age of light and darkness; the spring of hope and the winter of despair. We owned everything, but we did not have anything … “- History of Two Cities. Dickens.
The reality that drew 160 years ago, Charles Dickens, inspired by the French Revolution, could also reflect at face value, the scenarios and realities of the inhabitants of the New World, throughout the twentieth century. His old typographies, also thunder certain lines, when they are opposed to the circumstances, heroes and martyrs, cowards and despots, today.
And it is in this contradictory framework of civic uncertainty, compared to the endless ambition of the people who choose not to be static, preferring to undertake to the utopian and possible, that we want to make a “STOP”. Stop and identify the place we have arrived. One from where we are witnessing the greatest social, cultural, political and, above all, human decline of this young Century.
Throughout the last thirty months, the tenants of this American nation, especially those that make up diaspora membership, have been contained in a closed circuit, reliving the same day and week, as if it were “Groundhog Day”. From the day that, today President Trump decided to run for president, every week, we woke up to the same question. Even when? What more idiocies, insults, lies and insults, should we listen to this man? The national leaders and in this case, the global ones, are due to their peoples in general, not to their sectors, ethnic groups or races. These should grow up before the responsibility that determines the destiny, when it chooses us as a leader. But things are not like that, in Trump’s sphere. Even their own co-supporters do not know what to do. However, that does not exempt them. Silence is consent.
Fixed the concept of a day of Groundhog, which translates to the Marmot, which is very referenced in American society, and that arises from the 1993 film “Groundhog Day”, as a concept. There, the protagonist woke up to relive the identical and similar episode, the previous day. A kind of corkscrew or circle, where each day, at dawn, one is pushed back in time, and is forced to relive yesterday, again. That is how we are, those of us who reside in the United States. Especially, those of us who come from nations with citizens of color.
From the ridiculous, to the most grotesque. From the offensive to the insulting. From the exclusive, to the absolute. That is the improvised script of a person who has decided to star in the biggest and most absurd “Reality Show” of all history. One based on the virtual reality of a single optics, whose complexity and scope, has managed to eliminate the spectator, converting all, in secondary actors, stagehand and extras, its plot without meaning. And for sample, this week. Like all the others. But this, more.
In the debates to define a “Migration Policy”, more in line with the needs of the United States, this week, a bipartisan cadre of Senators, interacted with President Trump, on the subject. As he is unaware of and is not interested in learning about social or economic policies, much less migratory ones, the legislative body must state that, within the legislation, a certain number of “Specific Visas” should remain, such as those that facilitate a stay for refugees from natural disasters. , war conflicts or political persecutions, he questioned lightly and frivolously, “so we need more Haitians. Take them out. ” But his feeling did not stop there. By extending the focus towards Africa, the leader of the free world extended and ruminated. “Why do we have all these people from latrine countries, coming here?”
Expressions and decisions based on emotions are not awards or providences, they are really instincts. And that is why, every leader must think with his head and heart before, with blood and skin, by expanding his lips and issuing judgment. Courage is knowing when to remain silent. That is born among the historical leaders. We also love compassion and know how to ensure collective well-being. Freud taught us well, “one owns what is silent and the slave of what he speaks.” Trump must have done it. But the truth is that it can not. That’s him. No matter how much they excuse him, he is the president of those who live in the American nation.
Very often, it lacks value, to the president of the United States. There is a lack of audacity and above all it lacks the courage of man, of adult, of being human. If something proved this week, it is that words have consequences. And this may be the trigger that confirms that thinking. Well, in the midst of it, we were all impacted by the words in private, that belched the self-designated “stable genius”, by defining the members and nations of the continent from which human life emerged, such as those of a latrine.
Every country carries among the members of its population, undesirable and inept, but not for that reason, it should be generalized and defined a complete nation, with derogatory and disparaging prejudices. The crime of an individual does not define his family, just as a crime does not define the entire nation from which the guilty party comes. And what happened this week, it should not be a surprise to anyone. It is part of a behavior that we have seen in the public light, throughout these thirty months, and apparently true, for more than thirty years, in offices of skyscrapers. Underground currents of racism and racial or cultural contempt.
The one who speaks the loudest is not the one who possesses the truth. And I take this window to inform on a bird’s eye view, that Latinos have been in North America for longer than English speakers. That the Hispanic influence can be felt everywhere, from the names of our cities and states to the food we eat. That few people, however, know the great impact that Latinos have had on the course of US history. and that maybe it’s time to be told. Diasporas must be defined, expressed and, above all, participate. We are not only here, to live well and send remittances to our families. You have to activate.
The local communities, coming from those African nations, must make public their contributions to the nation of Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton. As we also Hispanics, whether as a collective or as a diaspora, make public and of greater knowledge, that Hispanics played valuable roles in the War of Independence of the United States, helping to establish and preserve the union, defend the country in war and strengthen the national economy during peace.
Could George Washington have won the Battle of Yorktown without the friendly hand he received from his Cuban supporters? Yes of the Cubans. How would the balance of power have changed during World War II without the quarter of a million Hispanics who served? The same thing you just read. 250,000 brown-skinned Hispanic soldiers fought in the Second World War in favor of the United States. How much longer would it have taken to revitalize the housing market in the United States if it had not been for the purchasing power of Latin American immigrants from countries latrines?
In short, to be read by those who feel identified with the words we have been hearing for 30 months. Or for those who have listened since then, the desire to dilute the growing tendency towards the coloration of the American nation. Let it be known, that Puerto Ricans are not ungrateful, nor maintained, nor lazy. Nor are the Mexicans as a people traffickers, murderers, or rapists. As not all Nigerians live in huts, much less all Haitians have AIDS.
And with regard to the thousand-year-old latrine in Africa, which is home to 54 nations, it is important to note that this continent has given us copper smelting and iron technology; ancient architecture in the cities of Nubia and Giza, with pyramids like those of Cheops and Khafre; religions that would justify buildings such as the Great Mosque of Djenné; the diversity of the Serengeti, the vastness of the Sahara and the unimaginable of the Nile. Cities such as Tunisia, Mogadishu, Dakar, Nairobi, Tripoli, Luxor, Cairo and Marrakech. Magical lands such as Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, the Congo and Madagascar are also part of the dark continent latrine.
Africa has given us leaders for humanity, such as Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Shaka Zulu. Marathon runners The creative arts The figures, the colors, the sounds and the drums, all came from there. Governance and the concepts of gender equity, the oasis and the mirage, were born there. The interpretations of Omar Sharif, Charlize Theron and Djimon Hounsou. And the rhymes, falcetos and arpeggios of K ‘Naan, Cesaria Évora, Sade, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Youssou N’Dour, produce echoes in the shit holes of that continent.
And the slaves that were required to make the New World, the rich continent that is, all came from there. Of countries and lands designated as latrines.
