Quote:Puerto Rico is dying.
Let those words sink in.
Three and a half million people are without power, water, fuel, food, and support. This isn’t some uninhabited atoll. This is where I grew up. This is where my family lives. This is my home.
And my home is dying.
I have been desperately trying to come up with the right words to express what I feel and what I think for the better part of a day. My social media has as of late provided me with a space to write my remarks, observations, and more often than not, rants about the situation on Puerto Rico. I shared my anxieties when hours, then days passed without a word from my family. I cried in silent sobs at the pictures that slowly started to come out of the island. Despair began to unite the large Puerto Rican diaspora as we comforted each other, and waited as the absolute silence became more and more unbearable.
“Have you heard from…â€
“Does anyone have any information about my hometown…â€
“My mom, she’s not well, I can’t reach her…â€
“I can’t find my partner…â€
It was only last Friday when I had proof of life from my family in my hometown of Arecibo. And it was on Sunday that I was finally able to speak to them over the phone. Speak… more like share moments of absolute joy and tears of happiness. Of feeling born again. And with that memory fresh in my mind, I sat down to write.
Nothing came except tears. I’m crying as I write this.
Quote:There are many reasons to oppose colonialism. And there are many images which seer into the mind the utterly destructive nature of colonialism. My own favorite example is a horrific picture from the “Belgian†Congo of a despondent Congolese man on the sunny porch of some Euro-style home looking with total forlornness at the severed hands and feet of his children. As was policy at the time, they probably did not work hard enough for the rapacious chocolatiers and paid the price with their limbs. Only one word emerged from my lips the first time I saw that picture: revolution. This is what the word was meant for. No human relationship that so devalues a child’s life (and by extension, their parents’ and their entire culture) deserves to stand. It must be destroyed forever. Fanon’s knife needs to be drawn on occasion.
Some might say the recent Puerto Rico crisis is nowhere near the alarming brutality of those times. Regularly counseled patience and indoctrinated to believe the US ultimately has its interests at heart, too many Puertoricans have abandoned their own dignity to apologize for the relationships´ many failures. There are now more Puertoricans on the mainland (4.9 million) than living on the island (3.5) and PR has more people than 21 US states. So one would think the news of Hurricane Maria would be regular, the media coverage vigorous, and the convoys of aid immediate. No such luck. 1.5 million people now lack potable water. Since last week. The pictures of devastation are sobering. And as of last night (the 26th), the first reported deaths due to generators failing (there still is no electricity) have been relayed. This is an enormous crisis. There are many who suspect that there is no surprise here. That the slow starvation of Puertoricans out of their homes, over to the US where they will then “assilmilate†and call themselves “Americans†proudly while the vultures buy and chop up the island into manageable pieces for their rich cronies, has been the goal for years and is de facto the plan. There will be plenty of quislings to help them, too. If we needed any more proof (we really don´t) of the US attitude and intentions to PR, it´s here today.