José Saramago (Azinhaga - Portugal - 1922) Nobel of Literature in 1998
I was lucky enough to witness, a few days ago, the recording of a documentary about the so called HISTORICAL MEMORY.
During two days, old men and old women talked in front of the cameras about their memories during the war and the post Spanish Civil War. The average of them were over 80 years old but their minds, like a valuable treasure chest, brought us back to those painful, dreadful and miserable days.
They were all relieved to talk and all of them [from one side or from the other] left the set with a smile on their lips. "It is so good to talk about that... it is so good to be listened to" was the sentence I heard the most.
And suddenly I realized how important those people are. How relevant their memories are for humankind.
War is a nightmare and real atrocities are made in its name: according to me there is no worse war then the war between friends, brothers, neighbours ... of the same religion and same blood.
I learned about courage, idealism, endurance, challenge, strength, faith, hope, despair, friendshipness, stupidity, nonsense, violence, betrayal ... but I learned that it was real.
Those voices, silent up to now, are a precious material that our History needs to keep, for HUMANS have to assume responsabilities of their acts. It is not a matter of "good ones" and "bad ones" as stupidity and violence can pop and bloom everywhere.
Who the hell are we to choose for them? Who the hell are we to reject their memories? Why do we keep taking things for granted?
It is a matter of equal opportunities and of choice; the way through which those voices can tell their STORIES and thus their truth, and we, the lucky ones, have to lean our heads with respect and admiration in front of those people, those kids who cried rivers, those old people whose voices are going to fade in the tunnel of time.
[photograph: Dorothea Lange]
