B. Mi respuesta a los patriotas/My
Reply to the Patriots
Introduction
Salarrué continued
throughout his life to feel a deep attachment to the land now known as the
Republic of El Salvador but once called Cuscatlán by its nahuatl-speaking
inhabitants. Indeed, he believed that the pre-Colombian history and mythology
of his country were more real than the presidents and politicians of the
Republic. As an artist of independent inclinations and also a humane and
compassionate individual, he was torn between the desire to support progressive
social movements and the need to remain outside of the rules and restrictions
of political parties. So, when called upon to take a side against the
government of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez following the massacre of an estimated
30,000 citizens by government troops in 1932, he publicly declared his
allegiance to the land rather than to any government in a courageous and
controversial open letter, “Mi respuesta a los patriots”/My Reply to the
Patriots, first published in the Repertorio
Americano in 1932.
My
Reply to the Patriots
My
friends have said to me, "You are so calm, you look at the world with
half-closed eyes. You live in a land of
enchantment, in an unreal world whose shores never feel the pounding of waves
from here below. For that very reason
you should speak out now, when our fatherland is going through uncertain
times. Focus your microscope and tell us
what you see and how it looks to you, it will surely help us, do it for the
sake of patriotism, for the love of our nation, plant your feet on the ground,
even if just for this once." And
then they laugh. I understand that they
say this partly in jest, as friends, with the affection we crazy pacifists
inspire, and partly in utter seriousness and that is why I have felt perplexed
and then I have felt misunderstood, seen as lazy and worthless, living in an
implausible world. And I am indignant,
for my honor as a man has been questioned and so, like the voice crying out in
the desert, I write this reply to the nameless patriots.
I
have no patria or nation. I do not know the meaning of the word. You who think of yourselves as practical, how
do you define patria? I know that to you it means a collection of
laws, an administrative machine, a patch on a gaudy-colored map. You practical ones call that the patria.
I, the dreamer, have no patria,
I have no nation, but I do have a homeland, made of earth, that I can
touch. I do not have El Salvador,
fourteen segments on a piece of glossy paper; I have Cuscatlán, a region of the
world and not a vague entity such as a nation.
I love Cuscatlán. While you speak
of the Constitution, I sing of the earth and of our race: the earth, that
swells and bears fruit; the race of creative dreamers who without discussion or
argument, work the soil, shape clay into vessels, weave blankets and build
roads. I am of this race; I am a
builder, a creator, a shaper of forms and also one who understands. Most of you play at patriotism, fighting
about who is wrong or right, about whether or not something is constitutional,
whether Pedro or Pablo will be president, whether this or that "ism"
will make the nation prosper. Prosperity
for you means having everything except our mother earth.
Dull-witted,
lazy, cruel and thieving capitalists confront no less cruel, petty and
rapacious communists. While these two
sides snarl at each other over every issue, we the dreamers ask for nothing
because we have everything. They fight
over the peels and leave us the fruit.
"The bread is mine, all mine," some cry, "let me sell the
bread." While others say, "No,
we are hungry and the bread is ours, because the land is ours." Meanwhile, we the dreamers grow the wheat
that beautifies the countryside; we delight in the music of the cornfield that
smiles with the breeze; singing, we gather the corncobs for the pigs to
chew. The owner of the coffee plantation
is a pedant who talks about the market, about the rise and fall of prices. He counts his money leaning over a table, he
sniffs at the sacks of coffee, but he has never lain in the fields and felt the
mystery of moonlit nights; he does not notice the beauty of the blood-red beans
as they slip through the fingers of the women who sing as they pick; he does
not appreciate the fragrance of the coffee blossom or know its legend. The owner of the sugar plantation has never
heard the comforting whisper of the cane fields or walked between the rows of
graceful plants. They all shout about
one thing: money. Some want to earn 500%
and others want higher wages. The
communist wears a red badge and would guillotine the wrongdoers, insists that
justice is the sharing of good bread and good wine, but has never known how to
share with those who have everything, who in fact have nothing. The Indian of the plow and the sickle, who
creates our agrarian landscape under a blazing sun, is content that he can,
with his rough and soiled hands, hands of God, feed an entire nation, a nation
that devotes itself to a madness called politics, a madness that is not only
fruitless but harmful. This Indian lives
the earth and is the earth and never talks about patriotism. Nor does he fear the foreigner who, short of
taking his life, can take nothing from him that is truly his.
I
who, according to you, live in some other world, am closer than you to the
heart of the earth, my roots go deep and my desire to flower reaches up to the
sky. If one day the land of Cuscatlán
were to rise up and call to her children, I would be one of the first she would
embrace, not the politicians and ideologues of this thing called the patria: El Salvador, with its symbols,
its shields, its flags and imaginary boundaries. No, I am not a patriot nor do I wish to be
one. I hold a patriotic banana in higher
esteem than I do a patriotic man, so don't talk to me about being
honorable. And I do not work for the
paper Patria, I work for Life: for
living, for the land, for my home, as Espino would say. In my home, complete with dreams, I live a
real life, a life that is savored, like sacred wine. I neither plow nor plant nor harvest; I
officiate before the altar and give thanks in the name of the dreamers
gathering invisible fruit plucked from the tree of life and the vine of
tradition.
What
is this thing called patria that I do
not see? You ask me to come down to your
level and I do not know where to plant my feet; everywhere I look I find
quicksand. If I were to invite you to my
homeland, you would find ample room to run and sweat, you could plunge your
hands in fresh clay and fill your lungs with clean air. In that patria
of yours I breathe only hate, cowardice, misunderstanding.
What
I wouldn't give to bring you to this land of mine! Those few who were here with me have gone; I
find myself practically alone. Alone
with the pensive Indian and the dreaming woman.
Miranda Ruano, who wrote Voces del
Terruño (Voices from the Homeland), a book no one reads any more, is gone;
Ambrogi speaks of nothing but Quiñónez; the Andinos write about "Politics;"
Bustamante works for the court; Castellanos Rivas is now a private secretary;
Guerra Trigueros no longer hears the stars falling in the eternal fountain;
Julio Ávila has gone into business; Llerena doesn't speak out; Gómez Campos
owns a store; Paco Bamboa is getting a Ph.D.; Salvador Cañas is busy
"preparing" his students; Masferrer no longer sings; Gavidia has a
radio talk show; Chacón sells insurance; Rochac talks about finances;
Villacorta complains about the treasury; Vicente Rosales associates only with a
select few; Miguel Angel Espino's fountain has dried up. In short, I find myself alone in the land of
reality, except for Mejía Vides, who wants to go off and paint by the water
(like Gauguin in Tahiti) and Cáceres, who dreams and complains in the offices
of Atlacatl.
Yes,
what I wouldn't do to bring you to this country of mine, that is not illusory,
like yours, but hill after hill and rolling meadows where roosters crow at
daybreak; where there is no statute pertaining to this or that, but rather the
pleasant shade of a tree; where there is no clause or sub-paragraph number
four, but rather a spring to quench your thirst; where the rain, the moon and
the wind are the rule of law.
Poetic,
yes, it's true; but poetic regarding the dust of the earth and not prosaic and
insipid regarding outdated concepts and antiquated doctrines. Poetic under the blue sky and not petty
buried beneath an "ism."
As
you requested, I have come down to earth and planted my feet on solid ground,
but on my earth, not yours, which is neither solid nor earth, but dark
smoke. I have done it because you
insisted, because you finally managed to distract me from my "impractical
blue rapture" and you even managed to insult me for a moment. Hear this once and for all: I have no nation
and recognize no one's nation. My land
is greater than this slice of absurdity you offer. Much greater.
Not even the planet;
not even the cosmos . . .
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