A dear friend left me a poignant message a couple of days ago. She was reading my novella, The Poet & The Angel at a section of the book when the Poet talks to Angelina about the gypsies. The Spanish government of the day used the Civil Guard as their anvil in the unremitting persecution of the gypsies. They were hated by the authorities. Lorca's words, his poetry and his plays in their defense earned him the enmity of the higher authorities. He loved and admired them a great deal.
My friend cried when she read this section of the book as she felt this mirrored exactly what is happening to Latinos in Trump's America, the targeting of these communities, their incarceration, their treatment as a species that is sub human.
Be aware that this level of treatment is something that is mirrored in history by the Nazis and all authoritarian regimes who hate "the Other". We see this in many regimes today as well: China, for instance, in its treatment of the Uighurs and Kazakhs.
This is not a time to be passive in the face of this inhumanity as silence equals complicity.
Here is a passage from the book that my friend is referring to:
“But why hate the gypsies? What is it that the people fear? Why do they hate them so ardently? Do they fear the sound of their laughter without purpose or intent, the silver wafting of their voices into the heart of heaven? Do they hate the sound of their music, that great lament that speaks of the ‘duende,’ or the demon in their tortured souls? Do they fear the fact that the ‘Gitanos’ bow to no earthly god, nor do they recognize any authority beyond their own as they wander from land to land obeying the dictates of their hearts and the seasonal migrations of their families, which are everything to them? Is this what the people fear?
“Have people become so enslaved by convention and custom, so mindlessly following this creed or that, so intent upon the approval of a largely mindless society that they have subdued the whispers of their hearts, where divinity lies, and where ‘truth’ calls them? Have they become caricatures of this dictator or that to the extent that they have become dwarfs, imposters occupying their bodies without the enlightenment of their souls, minions on the puppet strings of their masters? Yes! This is mostly true. But the gypsies? They refuse to surrender to a law they do not respect and a creed that is not their own. They refuse to bow to the falsity of convention. Their hearts are the wild places that we too once occupied, before we traded our souls for barrenness. That is why they are feared most of all."
My friend cried when she read this section of the book as she felt this mirrored exactly what is happening to Latinos in Trump's America, the targeting of these communities, their incarceration, their treatment as a species that is sub human.
Be aware that this level of treatment is something that is mirrored in history by the Nazis and all authoritarian regimes who hate "the Other". We see this in many regimes today as well: China, for instance, in its treatment of the Uighurs and Kazakhs.
This is not a time to be passive in the face of this inhumanity as silence equals complicity.
Here is a passage from the book that my friend is referring to:
“But why hate the gypsies? What is it that the people fear? Why do they hate them so ardently? Do they fear the sound of their laughter without purpose or intent, the silver wafting of their voices into the heart of heaven? Do they hate the sound of their music, that great lament that speaks of the ‘duende,’ or the demon in their tortured souls? Do they fear the fact that the ‘Gitanos’ bow to no earthly god, nor do they recognize any authority beyond their own as they wander from land to land obeying the dictates of their hearts and the seasonal migrations of their families, which are everything to them? Is this what the people fear?
“Have people become so enslaved by convention and custom, so mindlessly following this creed or that, so intent upon the approval of a largely mindless society that they have subdued the whispers of their hearts, where divinity lies, and where ‘truth’ calls them? Have they become caricatures of this dictator or that to the extent that they have become dwarfs, imposters occupying their bodies without the enlightenment of their souls, minions on the puppet strings of their masters? Yes! This is mostly true. But the gypsies? They refuse to surrender to a law they do not respect and a creed that is not their own. They refuse to bow to the falsity of convention. Their hearts are the wild places that we too once occupied, before we traded our souls for barrenness. That is why they are feared most of all."