News of the Day / Reinaldo Escobar

This Monday, early in the morning, I turned on the TV to find out what was happening in Tripoli. The lead international story, read by the announcer at 7:30, was that the United States was going to dismiss the charges against the former head of the IMF. In the expanded report we learned that in Cairo there had been protests against Israel, that Syria had announced elections, and that there had been a tribute to those killed in the attacks in Norway.

Minutes later, as if it were of minor importance, the speaker presented “a summary of the latest events in Libya”: An excerpt of a speech by Gaddafi calling on the people to resist the colonizers, the intervention of Hugo Chavez, and a report by a Cuban correspondent in Tripoli who limited himself to saying that there had been no confirmed reports, and that the sound of gunfire in the background was fading. In the background we saw images of Green Square crowded with people celebrating, but there was no explanation. The flags being waved by the multitudes were tri-colored.

To learn more we had to wait until 6:30 in the evening, when the Roundtable show, under the title, “Libya under the bombs of NATO,” offered, finally, the official version of events.

All this reminds me of those cave drawings where an arrow reaches the antelope as a magic talisman in anticipation of a successful hunt. The difference is that in our cave, those who have a monopoly on information paint, for us, the arrow flying in the wrong direction, perhaps with the primitive belief that facts will arrange themselves as in the drawing.

22 August 2011