The Progressive received this pithy mini-essay from the great Latin American writer Eduardo Galeano, and we'd like to share it with you. Now age 74, Galeano for 50 years has been asking the hard questions and puncturing propaganda. In typical fashion, here he blends the historical with the contemporary, as he includes a question about the fate of the 43 Mexican college students who were abducted in Guerrero. He also muses about war, and the religious and nationalistic justifications for it. And he does it all in six sentences. —Matthew Rothschild
How long will we continue calling a "civil war" Generalíssimo Franco's coup d'état against a democratically elected government?
How long will Mexico's president continue governing from China?
How long will we continue calling the military dictatorships of Latin America "processes"?
How long will they continue calling "pressure" the tortures practiced in different parts of the world?
How long will the students of Guerrero remain disappeared as if by magic?
How long will it be before the wars that punish the world acknowledge they kill in order to plunder, even if they invoke God or country?
Eduardo Galeano is the author of many books, including Open Veins of Latin America, Memory of Fire, The Book of Embraces, Mirrors, and most recently Children of the Days. This mini-essay was translated by Mark Fried and first published in Spanish in PAGINA 12.