EL SALVADOR ELECTIONS: VIOLENCE IS OUR ONLY HOPE
After a long, long, day election-observing, I went to bed two nights ago leg-weary and heart-sick. Against all the predictions the FMLN and ARENA (party of death squad founder, Roberto d’Aubisson, for pity’s sake!) were neck and neck. The recent coup in neighbouring Honduras freaked people out? Unrest in Venezuela? The constant shadow of the USA eagle/vulture hovering, always hovering? Maybe so, but at its heart, something more profound: very few of us really want real change.
The dream is simple: simply expressed by Salvador Allende: “That every child have food to eat every day”. Who can be against that?
In practice, most of us are. ARENA or ‘the opposition’ in Venezuela are really nasty: lose at the ballot box, violence. Check Allende, check Monseñor Romero, check Venezuela. D’Aubisson is quoted as saying: “All we want is to live like the US people do!”
Who can be against that? Except for the fact that we northerners maintain our otherwise unsustainable lifestyle by global exploitation. Of resources and peoples. The nasty Salvadoran ‘elite’ will not give up their gated communities, monstrous cars, exploited servants. But then which of us will give up our Starbucks coffee, our I-phones, our pre-torn pants? And so the children go on being robbed of their birthright, the immeasurable wealth of the Two Thirds World, cynically and systematically expropriated by our Me First World. Sadly, force is the only way: no-one cedes significant power, or things and lifestyles, willingly.
So, today my legs are up and running again, my heart, a little more bruised, but ticking still. Wearing a Victor Jara 40th anniversary shirt (40 years looking for justice!), I set out to visit Oscar Romero in his tomb, to renew my vows to keeping on keeping on, to hard-working love, the only god that makes sense. Tomorrow happily back to the sanity of our crazy little Nicaragua which, while still being ripped off left and right by dying empires, insists on lifting tens of thousands out of impoverishment, on free healthcare and education for all, on an army with its own ecological brigade, and on a parliament that's well on its way to 50% women members.
Violent revolution, then? Impound I-phones and cars? Shut down Walmart and Coke? Machine-gun politic@s? All good ideas (especially the last!), but no, none of that. Something infinitely more powerful: the cataclysmic force of Mother Earth herself! When, in response to our stupidity and greed, she gets us properly between her teeth – rats in the terrier’s mouth - we’ll long for the days of primitive violence. The catastrophic weather across the globe is occasioned by a mere 0.5% rise in global average temperatures. What on earth will the supposed ‘safe’ level (2%), visit on us? Reminds me of my old S.O.B. song, celebrating the passing of George Bush and Dan Quayle:
“Well, it’s not just the likes of Bush and Quayle
It’s you, it’s me, it’s us
For Global Warming’s got us cold
Yet who here rides the bus?
So, unless we change our silly ways before it is too late
Like good old George and Danny-Boy
We’ll all be out-of-date!”
There's nowhere else to go, compañer@s. If ever there was a time to seize, this is it!!
After a long, long, day election-observing, I went to bed two nights ago leg-weary and heart-sick. Against all the predictions the FMLN and ARENA (party of death squad founder, Roberto d’Aubisson, for pity’s sake!) were neck and neck. The recent coup in neighbouring Honduras freaked people out? Unrest in Venezuela? The constant shadow of the USA eagle/vulture hovering, always hovering? Maybe so, but at its heart, something more profound: very few of us really want real change.
The dream is simple: simply expressed by Salvador Allende: “That every child have food to eat every day”. Who can be against that?
In practice, most of us are. ARENA or ‘the opposition’ in Venezuela are really nasty: lose at the ballot box, violence. Check Allende, check Monseñor Romero, check Venezuela. D’Aubisson is quoted as saying: “All we want is to live like the US people do!”
Who can be against that? Except for the fact that we northerners maintain our otherwise unsustainable lifestyle by global exploitation. Of resources and peoples. The nasty Salvadoran ‘elite’ will not give up their gated communities, monstrous cars, exploited servants. But then which of us will give up our Starbucks coffee, our I-phones, our pre-torn pants? And so the children go on being robbed of their birthright, the immeasurable wealth of the Two Thirds World, cynically and systematically expropriated by our Me First World. Sadly, force is the only way: no-one cedes significant power, or things and lifestyles, willingly.
So, today my legs are up and running again, my heart, a little more bruised, but ticking still. Wearing a Victor Jara 40th anniversary shirt (40 years looking for justice!), I set out to visit Oscar Romero in his tomb, to renew my vows to keeping on keeping on, to hard-working love, the only god that makes sense. Tomorrow happily back to the sanity of our crazy little Nicaragua which, while still being ripped off left and right by dying empires, insists on lifting tens of thousands out of impoverishment, on free healthcare and education for all, on an army with its own ecological brigade, and on a parliament that's well on its way to 50% women members.
Violent revolution, then? Impound I-phones and cars? Shut down Walmart and Coke? Machine-gun politic@s? All good ideas (especially the last!), but no, none of that. Something infinitely more powerful: the cataclysmic force of Mother Earth herself! When, in response to our stupidity and greed, she gets us properly between her teeth – rats in the terrier’s mouth - we’ll long for the days of primitive violence. The catastrophic weather across the globe is occasioned by a mere 0.5% rise in global average temperatures. What on earth will the supposed ‘safe’ level (2%), visit on us? Reminds me of my old S.O.B. song, celebrating the passing of George Bush and Dan Quayle:
“Well, it’s not just the likes of Bush and Quayle
It’s you, it’s me, it’s us
For Global Warming’s got us cold
Yet who here rides the bus?
So, unless we change our silly ways before it is too late
Like good old George and Danny-Boy
We’ll all be out-of-date!”
There's nowhere else to go, compañer@s. If ever there was a time to seize, this is it!!
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