Speaking of Homeland / Fernando Dámaso

  1. According to the dictionaries, your homeland is the country where you were born. Thus, it’s determination rests on a high dose of chance. Starting from here, come all the meanings the word has been given, including its sacredness.
  2. For some, country is humanity. For others it is their family, friends, or the house where they were born; and also the neighborhood, town or province. For others, more romantic, they think of their homeland as sunsets, starry nights, the ocean, a river, the forest. Some see a homeland as the place where they triumphed, where they have accomplished things, or where they fell in love. And there are some for whom their country is a source of pain, others for whom it is a joy.
  3. As we see, there are as many concepts of country as there are individuals and all are valid and respectable. There are countries for every taste and feeling. Homelands have nothing to do with politics or ideology. They are outside of all that.
  4. To speak of a socialist country is as absurd as speaking of a capitalist, feudal or slave country, which never existed and which, fortunately, no one ever thought to designate as such.
  5. Although, historically, this practice has been repeated in the name of all kinds of interests, it is not healthy to manipulate so casually something that is intimate and personal.

October 9, 2010