“Those of us who are here love Mexico and it is impossible to remove ourselves from the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students and the mass grave which the state of Guerrero has become.” Elena Poniatowska. Photo: Francisco Canedo, SinEmbargo
This is a translation of an article about the PEN Americas Summit, which took place in Mexico City February 13-24, 2015. This article was written by Monica Maristain, and published in the Mexican online publication SinEmbargo on February 24.
A capricious Sunday morning. A hot sun. Then an afternoon breeze and late evening hail make mischief in the middle of an unexpected storm and national euphoria over the Oscar awards won by our compatriots Emmanuel Lubezki and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
There is something in the air. A ceremonial question period that inflames and a silence that hits as only the absence of thunderous sound spreads among the guests at an awards ceremony organized by PEN International as part of the PEN Americas Summit at Casa Lamm, Roma, Mexico City, Mexico, Planet Earth.
Each and every recipient is there. The Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli, Chicano activist and storyteller Sandra Cisneros, editor Braulio Peralta, Argentinean essayist and academic Laura Valenzuela, journalist Carmen Aristegui [CNN México]... the list is long and impressive.
There was no shortage of winners: the PEN Mexico awards, 2015 edition, which recognize journalistic and literary work and excellence in human rights, were presented by Elena Poniatowska, who has been with the organization for decades.
"Mexico is a grave for human rights," says Federico Mastrogiovanni. Photo: Francisco Canedo, SinEmbargo
We see her behind everything, as though she didn't want to be the focus of attention. Despite that, her presence attracts everyone's view and, when she finally speaks, provokes everyone's applause.
"Those of us here love Mexico and it is impossible to remove ourselves from the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa “normalistas” and the mass grave which the State of Guerrero has become. We believe that if we act against impunity, corruption and the hypocrisy of our government, the whole country will be grateful to the PEN Club, and every parent in Guerrero, Michoacan or Ciudad Juárez will be able to go to sleep with the security of knowing that their children are safe at school, in the park, or in the street,"said Elena Poniatowska, author of La noche de Tlatelolco (The Night of Tlatelolco), hoarsely and passionately.
An anonymous reporter for Aristegui Noticias was awarded for his work in revealing how the President of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of the Federal District recruited women for sexual services with public money.
An Italian journalist based in Mexico, Federico Mastrogiovanni, whose investigation of enforced disappearances in Mexico is in an essential book/documentary titled Ni vivos ni muertos (Neither living nor dead), shocked the audience with a speech as painful as it was irrefutable.
"It is a terrible logic, the truth before all truth. The delinquents deserve to die and the journalists ask about it, but this matters not in the least to the criminals”, reflects Pablo Ferri. Photo: Francisco Canedo, SinEmbargo
"Mexico is the tomb of human rights," he said. And everyone present silently watched the sky and the ground, observing nothing, colliding with a broken mirror that is this country,condemned to ignominy and impunity by a few over many.
The human rights activist Darío Ramírez, director of the Article 19 Association for Mexico and Central America. And journalist Pablo Ferri; we learned, thanks to his research, that the Mexican Army executed 22 civilians in the town of Tlatlaya, State of Mexico.
All these people were honored by PEN International and PEN Club Mexico, organizations of writers who fight, defend and promote freedom of expression in the world.
Live Life
A sunny Sunday morning. Nobody knows that in the night, there was a hailstorm, but everyone knows this part of the total Mexican reality: 118 journalists killed, 43 missing students. Numbers, perverse numbers that are multiplied and blind to a punch in the chest.
We can not deny that collective grief tinged the air and made it thick. But to pretend when rotund figures as those contained almost as mantra by poet and storyteller Jennifer Clement hear: Where are the 43? /Who were the 3? / Where are the 61? /Who were the 77? ... so on to the final question: Where is the 1? / Who was the one? ...
Because that is perhaps the questions to ask are: When did this all start? And the fundamental one: When will it end?
This is an awards ceremony, a “question period,” and a protest, because after the sun comes hail and behind the calm is the storm that lurks unresolved that doesn't show itself, but menaces the actual and potential victims, i.e. almost all of us.
We live in difficult times. / We bring food to the table, /We bring wine and bread each day. /We have a servant, good clothing, / We take the car, go to the movies. /The sun sets, the moon illuminates our dreams. This is the sweet voice the poet Pablo Medina, who has arrived from San Miguel de Allende to remind us that We live on the razor's edge, / drink the syrup of illusion.
Where is the fate,
Where the coat of truth?
Who wants to wake up in exile,
in the crosshairs of a rifle, in the silence of the snake?
The Perverse Mathematics
There are no fine words to describe the tragedy. Ioan Grillo, an English journalist based in Mexico, knows this well. He has done more calculations, but hasn't closed the books.
As one of 49 writers, journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders from around the world, the author of El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency, reflected:
The unclosed books and the profound reflections of Ioan Grillo. Photo: SinEmbargo
"One could say that if there is 27,000 homicides in Mexico in a year, why should journalists get special treatment? At the moment, I don't know how to answer that. But I feel that if our companions are dying, the least we can do is put their names in a report. And the death of a journalist is not only the death of a partner; it's part of a systematic attack on freedom of expression.
“So, my contribution to the 'PEN question period' has to be: How can we change this?
“If people take action, it will help.
“In France, three million people took to the streets to defend freedom of expression, after twelve people were killed. That is 250,000 for each corpse. If 250,000 people took to the streets for each of the 118 journalists killed in Mexico, that would would be 29 and a half million. And this will change things".
So went Sunday afternoon, as the sun faded, and the wind came. The missing are still unaccounted for, and for the dead, our dead, there is no resurrection.
Original article (in Spanish) here
The diarist with John Ralston Saul, International President of PEN International