Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-10-08-Speech-3-009"
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"en.20081008.1.3-009"2
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"Words are extremely important, you know. It is with words that we can combat hatred and violence most effectively. I am sure that on many occasions you have felt the frustration of not being able to ‘do’, when ‘saying’ just seemed like spitting in the wind. I think perhaps that is something you will have experienced – it certainly happened to me when I was a member of the Colombian parliament – that you regret, for example, that you are not part of the government, the executive, where decisions are taken, cheques are signed and things get done. In a material world where what we cannot see does not exist, it is a frustration we all have to watch out for.
I think of us, of you and me today. If we could really grasp the true measure of the effect that our words have, perhaps we would be more daring, more courageous, more demanding in our discussions about how we relieve the sufferings of those who need us to fight for them. Victims of despotic regimes know that what is said here today conveys the weight of their suffering and gives meaning to their combat. You have always remembered their names and situations. You have prevented their oppressors from taking refuge in the fact that their crimes are forgotten. You have not allowed them to dress up with doctrine, ideology or religion, the horror to which they subject their victims.
When I was a prisoner, on several occasions I heard Raúl Reyes, the Farc spokesman, speaking for me. I heard him say on the radio: ‘Ingrid says this‘ or ‘Ingrid says that’. I was outraged to find that with my kidnapping, not only had I been dispossessed of my destiny by the guerrillas, but they were also taking away my voice.
It is with the awareness that I have found my voice again that I am speaking to you, to tell you how much the world needs Europe to speak out. In a world in which anxiety is becoming even more pressing, where our fear of tomorrow means we are in danger of closing in on ourselves, we need to open up, hold out our hands with generosity and start to change the world.
The consumer society we live in is not making us happy. Suicide rates, levels of drug use and violence in society are just a few of the symptoms of a global malaise that is spreading. Global warming and its wake of natural disasters is there to remind us that the Earth is sick of our irresponsibility and also our selfishness.
What is the relationship between this and the suffering of victims of brutality throughout the world? I think there is a very profound relationship. When I was in captivity, I got the chance to study the social behaviour of my kidnappers, obviously at some length. The guerrillas guarding me were no older than my own children. The youngest were 11, 12, 13, and the oldest were 20 or 25 at most. The majority – I would say 95% of them – were working as coca leaf pickers just before being recruited by the Farc. They are known as ‘raspachines’. They spend their time, from sunrise to sunset, turning coca leaf into coca paste, which will eventually be used as the base for cocaine.
These are young peasants who live in often very remote regions, but who, through satellite television, are very up-to-date with what is going on in the world. Like our children, they are bombarded with information and they dream, like our children, of iPods, Playstations, DVDs. For them, however, the consumer world they covet is totally out of reach. Moreover, their work on the drug plantations, though better paid than that of traditional peasants in Colombia, barely covers their essential needs.
They find themselves frustrated, unable to contribute to the needs of a family, pursued by the forces of law and order (naturally, because they are engaged in an illegal activity), often victims of the corruption and occasional violence of an unscrupulous officer, and subject to all the abuses, fraud and dirty dealings of the criminals who rule the region. This the empire of criminals, of the drug trade, of the mafia. They end up drowning their sorrows and the three pesos they have earned in alcohol at the makeshift bars where they find refuge.
When the guerrillas recruit, these young people feel they have found the solution to their troubles: they are fed, clothed and housed for life. They have the feeling of having a career, because they can rise through the ranks of the guerrillas’ military organisation. They also have a gun at their shoulder, giving them the status of respectability in the region, that is, in the eyes of their family and friends. That is why, where there is poverty, being a guerrilla is a form of social success.
However, they have lost everything. They have lost their freedom. They can never leave the Farc, or see their family again. They will become, without realising it (but I have seen it), the slaves of an organisation that will never let them go; they are cannon fodder in a senseless war.
Parliament, though, is the temple of words, of words that liberate. This is where all the big awakening processes of a society begin. It is here that the things that really matter to our people are conceived and expressed. If the executive authorities end up taking action, it is because, well before that, someone here, one of you, has stood up and spoken. You know as well as I do that whenever one of you speaks here in Parliament, evil takes another step backwards.
This body of some 15 000 young people, who form the bulk of the Farc troops, would never be where they are if our society had offered them real prospects of success. They would never be there if the values of our society had not become inverted and the thirst to own things had not become such an important part of living.
Our society is in the process of producing guerrillas by the bucket load in Colombia, fanatics in Iraq, terrorists in Afghanistan and extremists in Iran. Our society crushes human spirits and throws them out like the system’s waste: the immigrants we do not want, the unemployed who are such an embarrassment, the drug addicts, mules, child soldiers, the poor, the sick, everyone who has no place in our world.
We have to ask ourselves questions. Do we have the right to keep building a society where the majority is excluded? Can we allow ourselves to be concerned only with our own happiness when it produces unhappiness for so many others? What if the food we throw out by the tonne was redistributed in countries to those who are hungry? What if we looked for more rational models of consumption, to give others access to the benefits of modernity too? Can we conceive of a different civilisation in the future, where communication puts an end to conflict, to armed conflict, where advances in technology enable us to organise our time and space differently so that everyone on the planet has a rightful place through the simple fact of being a citizen of the world.
I truly believe that the defence of human rights demands the transformation of our customs and habits. We need to be aware of the pressure that our way of life is putting on those who do not have access to it. We cannot leave the tap of iniquity running and believe that the vase will never overflow.
We are all human beings, with the same needs and desires. We should begin by recognising the right of others – the person we see under the bridge, those we do not even want to look at because they spoil our environment – to want what we want.
Then there are our hearts. We are all capable of the best, but under group pressure, we are also all capable of the worst. I am not sure we can feel protected against our own capacity for cruelty. When I observed those holding me, I always wondered whether I could act like them. It was clear that most of them were under great pressure, the kind of pressure that group demands placed on them.
What can protect us from that? What will ensure we do not violate human rights, firstly within ourselves – when we accept it, close our eyes or make excuses – and secondly within the world? How can we protect ourselves from this? Our best shield will always be found in our spirituality and our principles. However, it is with our words that we must fight; words make the most extraordinary sword.
Words have a genuine hold on the real world. Sartre felt it from childhood. Françoise Dolto expressed it beautifully when she said that humans were beings of words, and that words could care, heal and bring to birth, but could also cause sickness and kill. The words we say have the force of the emotions within us.
That is why I keep repeating that dialogue is essential if we are to bring an end to war in the world. Whether this war is the war in my country, the Colombian war, or if it is happening in Darfur, Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo or Somalia, the solution everywhere will always be the same. We need to talk; it is essential that we recognise others’ right to be heard, not because they are right or wrong, not because they are good or bad, but because by talking we can save human lives.
I want to convey to you the certainty that fills me. There is nothing stronger than words. We must shower the world with words, to touch hearts and change behaviour. It is by drawing on the treasure in our souls that we can speak on behalf of everyone. It is with the words that spring from the depths of our being that we will build peace. It is with words that we will protect the freedom of everyone; it is through words that we will start to build a new civilisation, the civilisation of Love.
Allow me to speak to you about Love. You know that since my release, I have constantly thought about the fate of my unlucky brothers, those who are today chained to trees like animals, who remained in the jungle when I left. Come with me to where they are.
I am sorry, I am so embarrassed.
Follow me to where they are, under the cover of huge trees that hide the blue sky…
I was stunned to discover – and this is something quite personal, I am giving you a glimpse into my private life here – that my daughter had kept herself going during my absence on a store of words I had uttered without really thinking over the course of our lives. I did not imagine at the time the hope and strength these words would give her when I was far from her, in captivity. She particularly remembers a letter I had forgotten I had written, that I sent her on her fifteenth birthday. She tells me that she read that letter on each birthday…
… suffocated by vegetation that closes in on them like a vice, drowned in the incessant humming of nameless insects that do not even allow them the right to rest in silence, besieged by all sorts of monsters that pursue them…
I am sorry, I cannot do this. I am really sorry.
…besieged by all sorts of monsters that relentlessly pursue them, so their bodies are racked with pain.
At the present time, it is possible they may be listening to us and waiting, ear pressed to a radio, for these words, our words, to remind them that they are still alive. For their captors, they are just objects, goods, even less than livestock. On a daily basis, they are for them, for their kidnappers, for the guerrillas, a tiresome chore, they do not provide any immediate return, and they are an easy target for their irritation.
I would like to say each of their names to you. Please give me the gift of a few minutes as a tribute to them, because as they listen to us call out to them, they answer the roll call by their hearts beating a little faster, from the depths of their jungle tomb. We will have succeeded for a few moments in freeing them from the heavy humiliation of their chains.
ALAN JARA, SIGISFREDO LOPEZ, OSCAR TULIO LIZCANO, LUIS MENDIETA, HARVEY DELGADO, LUIS MORENO, LUIS BELTRAN, ROBINSON SALCEDO, LUIS ARTURO ARCIA, LIBIO MARTINEZ, PABLO MONCAYO, EDGAR DUARTE, WILLIAM DONATO, CESAR LASSO, LUIS ERAZO, JOSE LIBARDO FORERO, JULIO BUITRAGO, ENRIQUE MURILLO, WILSON ROJAS, ELKIN HERNANDEZ, ALVARO MORENO, LUIS PENA, CARLOS DUARTE, JORGE TRUJILLO, GUILLERMO SOLORZANO, JORGE ROMERO, GIOVANNI DOMINGUEZ.
I also think of that extraordinary woman, AUNG SAN SUU KYI, who is paying with her life for her people’s right to freedom, and who has begun a hunger strike to make herself heard. She needs our words more than ever to lift her up.
Of course, I also carry in my heart the cross of another of my fellow countrymen, Guilad Shalit, who was taken hostage in June 2006. His family is suffering like mine suffered, knocking on every door, moving heaven and earth to secure his release. His personal fate is mixed up with political interests that are nothing to do with him, and over which he has no control.
GUILAD SHALIT, AUNG SAN SUU KYI, LUIS MENDIETA, ALAN JARA, JORGE TRUJILLO, FORERO,...
These names resounding within these walls carry the weight of evil. They have to know that until they are released, each one of us will feel like a prisoner.
I desperately hope that the applause that rings out from this Parliament can carry our love, all our strength and all our energy to them, across the space that separates us. May they know that we are totally committed. May they be sure that we will never keep quiet and will never, never stop our action until they are all free!
Thank you.
…and that each year, because she had changed a bit, she always found something new in it that spoke to the person she was becoming…
The doctors have a name for this: it is post-traumatic stress syndrome. It has to be dealt with. That is all it is. I am sorry.
So I was saying that each time she found something new in these letters that spoke to the person she was becoming, what she was going through. My God, if only I had known! I would have been so careful to scatter her path with more love and more security."@en1
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