Hitler founded a school of military thought. From then on, preemptive is the claim made by all digestive wars, when countries devour countries.
September 3. THANKFUL PEOPLE
A year after the invasion of Poland, Hitler had gobbled up half of Europe and was still on his headlong rampage. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France had already fallen or were about to fall, and the nightly bombings of London and other British cities were under way.
In its edition for today in 1940, the Spanish daily ABC reported that “one hundred and sixteen enemy planes” had been shot down, making no attempt to hide its satisfaction at “the great success of the Reich’s attacks.”
On the front page Generalissimo Francisco Franco smiled triumphantly. Gratitude was one of his virtues.
September 4. I GIVE MY WORD
In the year 1970, Salvador Allende won the election and was sworn in as president of Chile.
He said, “I will nationalize our copper mines.”
And he said, “I won’t get out of here alive.”
He kept his word on both counts.
September 5. FIGHT POVERTY: KILL SOMEBODY POOR
King Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, was born today in 1638.
The Sun King dedicated his life to glorious wars against his neighbors and the meticulous care of his curled wig, his splendid capes and his high-heeled shoes.
Under his reign, two successive famines killed more than two million Frenchmen.
The figure is known thanks to the mechanical calculator invented by Blaise Pascal half a century before. Known too is the cause, thanks to Voltaire, who some time later wrote: “Good policy relies on this secret: knowing how to let die of hunger the people who allow the rest of us to live.”
September 6. THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
The cook convened the calf, the suckling pig, the ostrich, the goat, the deer, the chicken, the duck, the hare, the rabbit, the partridge, the turkey, the dove, the pheasant, the hake, the sardine, the cod, the tuna, the octopus, the shrimp, the squid and even the crab and the turtle, who were the last to arrive.
When all were present and accounted for, the cook explained, “I have brought you here to ask what sauce you would like to be eaten with.”
One of the invitees responded, “I don’t want to be eaten at all.”
The cook then adjourned the meeting.
September 7. THE VISITOR
About this time in the year 2000, one hundred and eighty-nine countries drew up the Millennium Declaration, by which they committed themselves to solving the world’s most pressing problems.
Only one goal has been reached and it did not figure on their list: they managed to multiply the number of experts required to take on such a challenging agenda.
According to what I heard in Santo Domingo, one of those experts stopped by a chicken farm on the outskirts of the city belonging to Doña María de las Mercedes Holmes, and asked her, “If I tell you exactly how many chickens you have, will you give me one?”
He turned on his touch-screen tablet computer, initiated the GPS, connected with the satellite camera through his 3G cell phone and booted up the pixel-counting function.
“You have one hundred and thirty-two chickens.”
And he caught one.
Doña María de las Mercedes did not leave it at that. “If I tell you what your work is, will you give me back my chicken? Okay, you’re an international expert. I know because you came without anyone calling you, you entered my chicken farm without asking permission, you told me something I already knew and then you charged me for it.”
September 8. INTERNATIONAL LITERACY DAY
The state of Sergipe, in Brazil’s Northeast: Paulo Freire begins a new workday with a group of very poor peasant farmers he is teaching to read and write.
“How are you, João?”
João does not reply. He tugs on the brim of his hat. A long silence. Finally, he says, “I couldn’t sleep. All night long I couldn’t close my eyes.”
No more words come, until he murmurs, “Yesterday, for the first time ever, I wrote my name.”
September 9. STATUES
José Artigas lived his life fighting astride a native pony and sleeping under the stars. When he governed the lands he freed, his throne was a cow’s skull and his only uniform a poncho.
He went into exile with nothing but the clothes on his back, and he died in poverty.
Now, in Uruguay’s most important square, an enormous bronze founding father mounted on a charging steed contemplates us from on high.
This triumphant champion decked out for glory is identical to every other statue of a venerable military hero the world over.
He claims to be José Artigas.
September 10. THE FIRST LAND REFORM IN AMERICA
It happened in 1815 when Uruguay was not yet a country, not yet called Uruguay.
In the name of the people’s rebellion, José Artigas expropriated “the lands of the bad Europeans and the worse Creole Americans,” and ordered the land shared out among all.
It was the first land reform in America, half a century before Lincoln’s Homestead Act and a century before Emiliano Zapata broke up Mexico’s haciendas.
“A criminal act,” the offended parties cried. Then to add insult to injury, Artigas informed them, “The least fortunate shall benefit most.”
Five years later, a defeated Artigas marched into exile and in exile he died.
The lands were taken back from the least fortunate, but inexplicably the voices of the vanquished still say, “Nobody is better than anybody else.”
September 11. A DAY AGAINST TERRORISM
Wanted: for kidnapping countries.
Wanted: for strangling wages and slashing jobs.
Wanted: for raping the land, poisoning the water and stealing the air.
Wanted: for trafficking in fear.
September 12. LIVING WORDS
On this day in 1921 Amilcar Cabral was born in the Portuguese colony of Guinea-Bissau, in West Africa.
He led the war of independence for both Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.
His words:
“Watch out for militarism. We are armed militants, not the military. None of this is incompatible with the joy of living.”
“Ideas don’t live in the head alone. They live also in the soul and the heart and the stomach and everywhere else.”
“Learn from life, learn from our people. Hide nothing from our people. Tell no lies, expose them. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories.”
In 1973 Amilcar Cabral was assassinated.
He wasn’t around to celebrate the independence of the countries he had worked so hard to bring about.
September 13. THE ARMCHAIR TRAVELER
If I remember correctly, Sandokan, prince and pirate, the Tiger of Malaysia, was born in 1883.
Sandokan, like the other characters that kept me company as a child, materialized from the hand of Emilio Salgari.
Salgari was born in Verona and never sailed farther than the Italian coast. He never visited the Gulf of Maracaibo or the Yucatán jungle or the slave ports of the Ivory Coast. He never met the pearl fishermen of the Philippines or the sultans of the Orient or the pirates of the high seas or the giraffes of Africa or the buffaloes of the Wild West.