Memoria del fuego
History is not only written by the victors, it also tend to obliterate the point of view of the voiceless in favor of the great political and economical figures of each time.
Or so they say.
Fortunately, historians from the XXth and XXIth centuries such as Gérard Noiriel, Howard Zinn or Eduardo Galeano made a point to contradict this type of thinking by offering a thoughtful study of the working classes in France, the USA and South America, respectively. Through them, a new left-wing lecture of the struggles, sufferings and victories of the downgraded was suddenly available to complement — and sometime contradict — the great national stories.
Eduardo Galeano is an Uruguayan writer, journalist and novelist born in 1940 mostly known for being a “football intellectual” and a man “obsessed with remembering the past of America”[1] His two best known works are Las venas abiertas de América Latina (Open Veins of Latin America, 1971) and Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire Trilogy, 1982). Both of which explore the bloody, violent and saddening history of his continent of birth. His death in 2015 marked the end of an era at a time when his work seems more relevant than ever.
History is a prophet who looks backwards: in favor of what happened, against what happened, and announcing what will be. — Eduardo Galeano
Indeed, since the end of the XIXth century, South America has survived 15 successive overturns [2] A good proportion of which, since the 50s, has been orchestrated and financed by the USA (but also France and Great Britain) in their effort to defend their economical interests and to destroy any communist or socialist insurgency in the Americas [3] Military dictatorships and their long list of exactions against political opponents (especially from the left) has become an unfortunate but integral part of this continent background.
South America has survived 15 successive overturns [2] A good proportion of which, since the 50s, has been orchestrated and financed by the USA.
For a glimpse at the aforementioned and never ending political turmoil, here is a list of dates and countries in which a coup d’état took place up to the early 2010s:
1889 — Brazil ; 1924/1925 — Chili; 1930 — Brazil; 1943 — Argentine; 1953 — Colombia; 1954 — Paraguay; 1963 — Equator; 1964 — Brazil; 1968 — Peru; 1970 — Bolivia; 1973 — Chile; 1976 — Argentina; 1992 — Venezuela; 2002 — Venezuela; 2010 — Equator.
Chilling.
Without even touching the subject of the native communities that have been almost wiped out, chased down and enslaved for the past 500 years. No rest for the wicked.
To understand such a violent, racist and exploitative past requires to also understand the economical, geopolitical and religious elements that all contributed to it. In order also to remember and — hopefully — learn from our repeated mistakes.
Memories of Fire (Trilogy) aimed exactly at that. Each of its three books consists in a succession of poetic, mythological, historical or biographical paragraphs. One per year from the early creation myths of the first South American nations to 1984, the end of an 11 years military dictatorship in Uruguay and thus, the end of Galeano’s political exil.
Each of [Memories of Fire] books consists in a succession of poetic, mythological, historical or biographical paragraphs.
Genesis, the first volume, revisits the early moments of the New World. It tells of the legends and culture of the pre-Columbian societies and exposes the way they got wiped out by the European colonialism of the early 15th century.
Faces and Masks starts where its predecessor had ended, with the beginning of the 18th century and what was promised to be a time of enlightenment by the European philosophers and then newly appointed political figures. A pretense of civilization that never concerned itself with the fate of women, slaves, first nations, working poor and starving farmers in the distant Americas.
Century of the Wind enters the modern times with stories that ranges from the early industrialization of the 19th century to the later years of the 20th century. Capitalism rises as quickly in North America as governments fall in the South. Wars, more or less cold, are made in the name of industrial profits.
Through a diverse collection of viewpoints — both large and small , both artistic and political — Galeano invites us to revisit the History of a continent that is also the History of humankind with all its contradictions, violence, fury, injustices, cowardliness but also all its beauty, love, freedom, friendship and hope. All that is left for us is to consider the path we wish to take now with our past in mind.
