SAYINGS

By Eduardo Galeano Reprint | | Print |

This column is available for visitors to the IPS website only for reading. Reproduction in print or electronic media is prohibited. Media interested in republishing may contact romacol@ips.org.

MONTEVIDEO, Jul 12 2005 (IPS) - \’\’NEW YORK, MADRID, LONDON: TERRORISM STRIKES ANEW.\’\’ This was the headline of many of the world\’s newspapers reporting the recent explosions in London. They didn\’t mention either Afghanistan or Iraq. Weren\’t –aren\’t– the bombings there terrorist attacks as well, which in the case of Iraq occur daily? asks Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of \’\’The Open Veins of Latin America\’\’ and \’\’Memories of Fire\’\’. In this article, Galeano writes that the military industry needs to produce fear to justify its existence. It is a vicious circle: the world becomes a slaughterhouse which becomes a madhouse which becomes a slaughterhouse … Iraq, bombarded, occupied, humiliated, becomes the preeminent school for crime of our day. Its invaders, who call themselves liberators, have set up there the world\’s most prolific nursery of terrorists. \’\’The Devil provides the weapons.\’\’ At last a true saying. God couldn\’t be such a bastard. It must be the Devil that provides the weapons, or at least the weapons of mass destruction, the real ones, the ones Iraq didn\’t have and that are ripping the world apart: the bombardment of lies from the factories of public opinion; the chemical weapons of consumer society that are maddening the climate and polluting the air; the poison gas from the factories of fear that make us accept the unacceptable and turn indignity into a feature of destiny; the deadly impunity of the serial killers become heads of state; the double-edged swords of the major powers which multiply in tandem poverty and arguments against poverty while they sow anti-personnel mines and sell prostheses, and rain from the sky bombs and contracts for the reconstruction of the countries they annihilate.

In 1776 the Declaration of Independence of the United States affirmed that all men are created equal. Then a few years later the first Constitution refined this notion, establishing that for the purposes of the census, each black would be counted as three-fifths of a person. What fraction of a person are Iraqis counted as today? Some people are more equal than others? So they say.

State terror, the prolific father of all terrorisms, finds the perfect alibi in the terrorisms that it generates. It sheds crocodile tears each time the shit hits the fan, then feigns innocence of the consequences of its actions. But the owners of the world do not need to worry: the atrocities that the fanatics and madmen commit provide them their justification and grant them impunity.

***

”Lies have short legs.” Not so: lies have very long legs. So long they outrun the denials of the liars. After shouting to the four winds that Iraq was a danger to humanity, Bush and Blair admitted publicly that the country they invaded and annihilated had no weapons of mass destruction. In subsequent elections in the US and UK, the people repaid them with re-election.

***

”Crime doesn’t pay.” Alas, not even such proverbs know what they are saying. The world spends no less than 2.2 billion dollars per day –yes, per day– on the military industry, industry of death, and day by day that figure rises. Wars require weapons, weapons need wars, and wars and weapons need enemies. There is no more lucrative business on the face of the earth than this practice of industrial-scale assassination. Its subsidiary, the industry of fear, devoted to the manufacture of enemies, is today the primary source of profits for entertainment and communications companies. In Hollywood there isn’t a single film that doesn’t feature an explosion as its screen writers pile fright upon fright: as if earthly terror was not enough, they add threats from other planets. The military industry needs to produce fear to justify its existence. It is a vicious circle: the world becomes a slaughterhouse that becomes a madhouse that becomes a slaughterhouse… Iraq, bombarded, occupied, humiliated, becomes the preeminent school for crime of our day. Its invaders, who call themselves liberators, have set up there the most prolific nursery of terrorists, fed by hopelessness and desperation.

***

”The early bird gets the worm.” Does this mean the guerilla leaders? The successful bankers? In reality, the saying calls on the poor labourers to wake up early, and comes from the times when it was work that paid. But in today’s world, work is worth less than garbage.

Of the two motors of the universal system of power –the system that was called capitalism back when I was born– only one works now: greed has disappeared, at least for labourers. Today no one has the faintest hope of getting rich by working. The twin engines of power now are fear and fear: fear of losing one’s job, fear of not finding a job, fear of hunger, fear of homelessness. The unions used to defend the workers, back in times that now seem pre-historic. The most famous multinational companies, Walmart and MacDonald’s, openly and unapologetically deny workers their right to unionise and throw into the street whoever dares to attempt it. For the international organisations that fight for human rights, this scandalous violation provokes no response. The atrophy of the unions, or their outright prohibition, has started to become normal. The labour movement, the fruit of two centuries of workers’ struggle, is in crisis around the world, as are all the instruments of collective and peaceful defence of people who live off their labour and who now, abandoned to their fates, to survive are obliged to accept whatever their employers want: twice the hours for half the pay.

The unions, weakened and persecuted, can do little to help, and God, it would seem, is busy elsewhere. President Bush needs Him day and night for his divine mission of planetary conquest, in which God guides his every step. How do they communicate? By mail, fax, telephone, telepathy? That is a state secret.

***

”The Devil provides the weapons.” At last a true saying. God couldn’t be such a bastard. It must be the Devil that provides the weapons, or at least the weapons of mass destruction, the real ones, the ones Iraq didn’t have and that are ripping the world apart: the bombardment of lies from the factories of public opinion; the chemical weapons of consumer society that are maddening the climate and polluting the air; the poison gas from the factories of fear that make us accept the unacceptable and turn indignity into a feature of destiny; the deadly impunity of the serial killers become heads of state; the double-edged swords of the major powers which multiply at the same time poverty and arguments against poverty, while they sow anti-personnel mines and sell prostheses, and rain from the sky bombs and contracts for the reconstruction of the countries they annihilate. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)