AUT: Fwd: Poem for new year by Galeano

[Robin Alexander <ueintl@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Hi Everyone!

This will be my last e-mail message of the millennium to all of you.  Happy
holidays!
In Solidarity,

Robin

>REMEMBERING
>
>  Eduardo Galeano
>
>  The new millennium is just around the corner.
>  Nothing to take too seriously:
>  After all, the year 2001 of the Christians
>  is the year 1379 of the Muslims,
>  and the year 5762 of the Jews.
>  The new millennium is born on the 1st of January
>  thanks to a whim of the senators of the Roman Empire,
>  that one good day decided to break the tradition
>  that called for celebrating newyears at the beginning of Spring.
>  And the counting of years in the Christian era
>  comes from another whim:
>  One good day, the Pope in Rome decided to set a date to the birth of
>Jesus
>  although nobody really knows when he was born.
>  Time makes fun of the limits we invent for it
>  so as to make us believe that it (time) obeys us.
>  But the whole world celebrates and fears those limits.
>  It's just an invitation: millennia come and millennia go,
>  and the occasion is ripe for orators of inflamed speeches
>  to tell us about the fate of humanity,
>  and for doomsday preachers to announce the end of the world
>  and general chaos.
>  Meanwhile, time continues silently to tick towards eternity and mystery.
>  The truth is that nobody can resist: on a date like this one,
>  as arbitrary as it may be, we all feel the temptation
>  to ask ourselves how will the time that will be be.
>  And God knows how it will be.
>  We have only one certainty: in the 21st century, if we are still around,
>  we all will be people from last century, and worse,
>  we will be people from the last millennium.
>  Even if we cannot guess the time that will be,
>  we do at least have the right to imagine the time we want to be.
>  In 1948 and in 1976, the UN proclaimed long lists of human rights.
>  But most of humanity just has the right to see, to hear. and to remain
>  silent.
>  What about if we begin to practice the never proclaimed right to dream?
>  What about if we hallucinate for a short while?
>  Let's stare beyond infamy, let's guess another, possible world:
>  The air will be free of all poisons that come from human fears and passions;
>  on the streets, the cars will be squashed by dogs;
>  people will not be driven by the automobile,
>  nor will they be programmed by computers,
>  nor will they be bought by supermarkets,
>  nor will they be watched by television sets;
>  the TV set will cease being the most important member of the family,
>  and will be treated like the washing machine or the iron;
>  people will work to live instead of live to work;
>  penal codes will include the crime of stupidity
>  that is committed by those who live to have or to earn,
>  instead of living just to live,
>  like the bird sings without knowing it is singing,
>  and like the child plays without knowing that it plays;
>  in no country will they imprison boys who refuse military service,
>  but rather those who do want to serve;
>  the economists will not call standard of living
>  what really is standard of consumption,
>  nor will they call quality of life what is quantity of things;
>  the cooks will cease believing that lobsters enjoy being boiled alive;
>  historians will stop believing that countries enjoy being invaded;
>  politicians will stop believing that the poor enjoy eating promises;
>  solemnity will cease being a virtue,
>  and nobody will take seriously anybody else
>  who cannot make fun of him/herself;
>  death and money will lose their magic powers,
>  and neither due to wealth or death alone will an SOB become virtuous and a
>  gentleman;
>  nobody will be considered a hero or dumb
>  for doing what he/she thinks is fair instead of doing what is most
>  convenient; the world will no longer be at war against the poor, but against
>  poverty,
>  and the military industry will have no choice but to declare bankruptcy;
>  food will not be a merchandise, nor communications a business,
>  because food and communication are human rights;
>  nobody will die of hunger, because nobody will have indigestion;
>  the street children will not be treated as if they were trash,
>  because there will be no street children;
>  rich kids will not be treated as if they were money,
>  because there will be no rich kids;
>  education will not be the privilege of those who can buy it;
>  police will not be the curse of those who cannot buy it;
>  justice and liberty, those siamese twins condemned to live separately, will
>  reunite, very closely, back to back;
>  a black woman will become president of Brasil,
>  and another black woman president of the US;
>  an indian woman will govern Guatemala and another, Peru;
>  in Argentina, the Women of the Plaza de Mayo will become examples, because
>  they refused to forget in the times of compulsory amnesia;
>  the Sacred Church will correct the errors in Moses' Tablets,
>  and the Sixth Commandment will mandate to celebrate the body;
>  the Church will also come up with another commandment
>  that God had forgotten:
>You shall love nature, of which you are part;
>  the deserts of the world and of the soul will be reforested;
>  the desperate will be welcome and the lost will be found,
>  because they are the ones who dispaired from so much waiting
>  and got lost from so much searching;
>  we will be contemporary neighbors
>  of all those who search for justice and beauty,
>  no matter where they were born, where they have lived,
>  and regardless of boundaries in the maps or in time;
>  perfection will continue to be the bored privilege of gods;
>  but in this crazy and tough world,
>  every night will be lived like it were the last
>  and every day will be lived like it were the first.
>
>
>  Free translation from the Spanish by Claudio Schuftan, Hanoi.
>  Aviva@xxxxxxxxx
>
>
>________________________
>
>Blair Alpert-Sandler
>blairs@xxxxxxx


Robin Alexander
UE Director of International Labor Affairs
One Gateway Center, Suite 1400
420 Fort Duquesne Blvd.
PGH., PA. 15222-1416

412-471-8919
412-471-8999 FAX

Labor and related news from Mexico is reported bi-monthly in Mexican Labor
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