The great Uruguayan journalist, historian and writer Eduardo Galeano, author of The Open Veins of Latin America and the Memory of Fire trilogy, passed away last week. Needless to say, Galeano had no trouble passing the Palestine test:
Si yo fuera palestino
If I were Palestinian (2009)
Desde 1948, los palestinos viven contenados a humillacion perpetua.
Since 1948, the Palestinians have been condemned to live in never-ending humiliation.
No pueden ni respirar sin permiso.
They can't even breathe without permission.
Han perdido su patria, sus tierras, su agua, su libertad, su todo.
They have lost their homeland, their lands, their water, their freedom, everything.
Ni siquiera tienen derecho a elegir a sus gobernantes.
Even the right to elect their own government.
Cuando votan a quien no deben votar, son castigados.
When they vote for whom they shouldn't, they are punished.
Gaza esta siendo castigada.
Gaza is being punished.
Se convertio en una ratonera sin salida, desde que Hamas gano limpiamente las elecciones en el ano 2006.
It has become a dead-end mousetrap since Hamas won the 2006 elections fairly.
Algo parecido habia occurido en 1932, cuando el Partido Comunista triunfo en las elecciones de El Salvador.
Something similar happened in 1932 when the Communist Party won the elections in El Salvador.
Banados en sangre, los salvadorenos expiaron su mala conducta y desde entonces vivieron sometidos militares.
The people atoned for their misbehavior with a bloodbath and lived under military dictatorships from then on.
La democracia es un lujo que no todos merecen.
Democracy is a luxury deserved by just a few.
Son hijos de la impotencia los cohetes caseros que los militantes de Hamas, acorralados en Gaza, disparan con chambona punteria sobre las tierras que habian sido palestinas y que la occupacion israelita usurpo.
The homemade rockets that Hamas combatants, cornered in Gaza, shoot with sloppy aim at formerly-Palestinian lands currently under Israeli rule are born out of helplessness.
Y la desesperacion, a la orilla de la locura suicida, es la madre de las bravatas que niegan el derecho a la existencia de Israel, gritos sin ninguna eficacia, mientras la muy eficaz guerra de exterminio esta negando, desde hace anos, el derecho a la existencia de Palestina.
And desperation, the kind that borders on suicidal madness, is the mother of the threats that deny Israel's right to exist with ineffective cries while a very effective genocidal war has long denied Palestine's right to exist.
Ya poca Palestina queda.
Very little is left of Palestine.
Paso a paso, Israel la esta borrando del mapa.
Step by step, Israel is wiping it off the map.
Los colonos invaden, y tras ellos los soldados van corrigiendo la frontera.
The settlers invade, followed by soldiers who retrace the borders.
Las balas sacralizan el despojo, en legitima defensa.
Bullets shot in self-defence consecrate the plundering.
No hay guerra agresiva que no diga ser guerra defensiva.
No aggression fails to claim its purposes are defensive.
Hitler invadio Polonia para evitar que Polonia invadiera Alemamania.
Hitler invaded Poland to prevent Poland from invading Germany.
Bush invadio Irak para evitar que Irak invadiera el mundo.
Bush invaded Iraq to prevent Iraq from invading the world.
En cada una de sus guerras defensivas, Israel se ha tragado otro pedazo de Palestina, y los almuerzos siguen.
With each of its defensive wars, Israel swallows another piece of Palestine, and the feast goes on.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment