Episodes<\/p>\n
Last time I went to my favorite book shop down town in Aachen. I picked up a book with the title \u201e Mirrors\u201d by Eduardo Galeano. \u00a0Having read some of its short stories I immediately decided to buy it so that I could read them at ease. \u00a0What interested me in the book most is its combination<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Resurrection of T\u00f9pac Amaru<\/p>\n
T\u00f9pac Amaru, the last king of the Incas, fought the Spanish for forty years in the mountains of Peru. In 1572, when the executioner\u2019s ax severed his neck, Indian prophets announced that one day the head would rejoin the body.<\/p>\n
And it did. Two centuries later, Jose\u00b4 Gabriel Condorcanqui claimed the name waiting for him. Transformed into T\u00f9pac Amaru, he led the largest and longest indigenous rebellion in the history of the Americas.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The sacred city, the heart of power, lay before them: from the heights they could see it, they could taste it.<\/p>\n
Eighteen centuries had passed since Spartacus had Rome within his grasp, and history repeated itself. T\u00f9pac Amaru decided not to attack.\u00a0 Indian troops, led by a chief who had sold out, defended the besieged city, and Tu\u00b4pac Amaru did not kill Indians. Not that, never. He knew it was necessary, there was no other way, but\u2026<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In vain his wife, Micaela Bastidas, who commanded the rearguard sent him messages:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to bring these sorrows to an end\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not the patience to put up with all this\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMany times I have told you not to waste time in those towns\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have sent you plenty of warnings\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it is our ruin you want, just lie down and go to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1781, the rebel leader entered Cuzco. He entered in chains, under a hail of stones and insults.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rain<\/p>\n
In the torture chamber, the king\u2019s envoy interrogated him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are your accomplices?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
And T\u00f9pac Amaru answered:<\/p>\n
\u201cHere are no accomplices but you and I. You the oppressor and I the liberator, we both deserve death.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
They turned to the executioner\u2019s ax.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The other rebel leaders, male and female, Micaela Bastidas, T\u00f9pac Catari, Bartolina Sisa, Gregoria Apaza\u2026 were quartered. And through the towns that had rebelled, their remains were paraded, then burned, and the ashes thrown to the wind, \u201cso that no memory of them shall remain.\u201d<\/p>\n
****<\/p>\n
The revolutionary human hand<\/p>\n
In 1789, the Bastille was attacked and taken by a furious mob.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Night had fallen when they reached Varennes.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, a crowd emerged from the shadows, surrounded the carriage, captured the monarch, and returned them to Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Episodes Last time I went to my favorite book shop down town in Aachen. I picked up a book with the title \u201e Mirrors\u201d by Eduardo Galeano. \u00a0Having read some of its short stories I immediately decided to buy it so that I could read them at ease. \u00a0What interested me in the book most … Continue reading “Episodes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bariisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bariisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bariisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bariisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bariisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bariisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bariisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bariisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bariisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}