For How Long? / Rebeca Monzo

A friend who lives outside my world called to ask the question we’ve all been asking almost daily: How long do you think this is going to last? I answered: Unfortunately, this is like church marriages: ’till death do us part.

What could I wish for more than for the end to arrive right now. I don’t have a lot of time left and I have lost lots, perhaps the most important time in the life of any human being. But I try not get my hopes high up. As a nation we have allowed many things to be taken from us, among them, the most important ones: our dignity and our civility. There is induced fear that has driven most to accept without public argument the unfair and extreme measures imposed on us. This, together with the daily hardships to which we are subjected due to the lack of money, food, etc., has prevented people from thinking that by the simple fact of doing nothing against, but also nothing in favor, it would likely be enough

The censorship imposed and to which we are all subjected isn’t enough; most people self-censor themselves creating a sort of civic paralysis that corrodes us inside. We are sucked into our daily hardships. If we add to this the lack of communications with the outside world, the lack of short wave radios, the extremely expensive international phone service, the almost impossible access to the Internet, we are basically isolated. On the other hand, the information we get about the earthquake in Japan and its consequences, the brutal repression of the Libyan dictator against protesters, etcetera, etcetera, we feel selfish for thinking about our day-to-day. Even so, we keep asking the same question: for how long.

Translated by Jay Stgo

March 18 2011