Episodes
Last time I went to my favorite book shop down town in Aachen. I picked up a book with the title „ Mirrors” by Eduardo Galeano. Having read some of its short stories I immediately decided to buy it so that I could read them at ease. What interested me in the book most is its combination
of seriousness and humor. It is all about human beings struggling for justice. The contents are universal and seem timeless. Here are some of them. The first one especially has triggered something in my memory. As a child sitting with other children around fire during the winter in my village near Goba I think I must have heard a story of similar content told by Oromo elders.
Resurrection of Tùpac Amaru
Tùpac Amaru, the last king of the Incas, fought the Spanish for forty years in the mountains of Peru. In 1572, when the executioner’s ax severed his neck, Indian prophets announced that one day the head would rejoin the body.
And it did. Two centuries later, Jose´ Gabriel Condorcanqui claimed the name waiting for him. Transformed into Tùpac Amaru, he led the largest and longest indigenous rebellion in the history of the Americas.
The Andes were on fire. From the summits to the sea, up rose the victims of forced labor in the mines, plantations, and workshops. The rebels threatened the colonial dinner plate with victory after victory as they advanced at an unstoppable pace, fording rivers, climbing mountains, crossing valleys, taking town after town. They were on the verge of conquering Cuzco.
The sacred city, the heart of power, lay before them: from the heights they could see it, they could taste it.
Eighteen centuries had passed since Spartacus had Rome within his grasp, and history repeated itself. Tùpac Amaru decided not to attack. Indian troops, led by a chief who had sold out, defended the besieged city, and Tu´pac Amaru did not kill Indians. Not that, never. He knew it was necessary, there was no other way, but…
While he vacillated from yes to no to who knows, days and nights passed and Spanish soldiers, lots of them and well armed, were making their way from Lima.
In vain his wife, Micaela Bastidas, who commanded the rearguard sent him messages:
“You have to bring these sorrows to an end…”
“I have not the patience to put up with all this…”
“Many times I have told you not to waste time in those towns…”
“I have sent you plenty of warnings….”
“If it is our ruin you want, just lie down and go to sleep.”
In 1781, the rebel leader entered Cuzco. He entered in chains, under a hail of stones and insults.
Rain
In the torture chamber, the king’s envoy interrogated him.
“Who are your accomplices?” he asked.
And Tùpac Amaru answered:
“Here are no accomplices but you and I. You the oppressor and I the liberator, we both deserve death.”
He was sentenced to die by being quartered. They tied him to four horses, his arms and legs forming a cross, and his body did not break. Spurs dug into the bellies of the horses, which lurched in vain, and his body did not break.
They turned to the executioner’s ax.
It was a time of long drought in the valley of Cuzco and the noon was ferociously bright, but the sky suddenly grew black and cracked and unleashed one of those downpours that drown the world.
The other rebel leaders, male and female, Micaela Bastidas, Tùpac Catari, Bartolina Sisa, Gregoria Apaza… were quartered. And through the towns that had rebelled, their remains were paraded, then burned, and the ashes thrown to the wind, “so that no memory of them shall remain.”
****
The revolutionary human hand
In 1789, the Bastille was attacked and taken by a furious mob.
And in all France the producers rose up against the parasites. The population refused to continue paying the tribute and tithes that had fattened the venerable and useless institutions of the monarchy, the aristocracy and the Church.
It was not long before the king and queen fled. Their carriage headed north toward the border. The little princes were dressed up as girls. The governess, dressed as a baroness, carried a Russian passport. The king, Louis XVI, was her butler; the Queen, Marie Antoinette, her servant.
Night had fallen when they reached Varennes.
Suddenly, a crowd emerged from the shadows, surrounded the carriage, captured the monarch, and returned them to Paris.