Spies

Lately I've been talking with my parents a lot; trying to recover the time I've "lost" working during the last years. One story, I always remember, happened during the terror years of the argentinian dictatorship of '76 to '83 (which was forced to an end with the malvinas/falklands war). One day, I was eight; a neighbour lied to the police saying my father was trafficking with stolen engines, when in reality he was just a mechanic. She, that neighbour, lied that to the police to use the system to eliminate (to arrest and kill) my father, only because she didn't wanted trucks parked in the street we lived. During the terror years that was a common practice, the anonymous telephonic delation over a lie to send the machinery of terror to kill a person that the informer didn't like. So the police, very violent military police, broke our door at night and my father was beaten, I cried and ran to my parents room, my mother took me back to mine, she was trying to defend my father, and also our belongings, from being stolen by the M.P. My mother proved her vision and character that day, she kept for decades every single receipt for everything bought, she also fought like a lion trying to defend her husband, but he was severely beaten. During those minutes a policeman entered my room, I was crying because of the noise and screams, he was there, and when I wanted to run again to my parents room, that policeman (I was eight years old) pointed me with his gun... I was a child but understood danger, and the black infinite hole of a gun, so when he saw terror in me:... he smiled.
So the M.P. didn't took any of our possesions, my mother tried to get an answer to where he was taken; finally she left me with another neighbour of her confidence, and she went with him to the police station, she did a lot of psychological work to assure the police will not make my father "disappear", she achieved that, but my father passed several months in jail, without a trial, obviously. I remember every detail of the jailhouse, I can do a map right now. It was the fourth police station (comisaría cuarta) of my town, Paraná, Argentina; many people had months in detention there, until, apparently forgotten or not visited by their families, they were suddenly "missing", one more of the thirty thousand we had in Argentina. My mother took me with her every single day to the police station during four months, we expended every minute, and more, of the visiting hours, each day. I saw many tough men in there, crying after they saw me, by remembering their sons or daughters, and telling my father he was a lucky man, because his family visited every day, and delayed the visiting hours until a policeman took us, my mother and I, out of his arms.
The system, the machinery of terror was like that, it liked the spies and liars to maintain the fear, to keep population under control. Everyone treated at its neighbours, and even friends, with caution, trying to not release information, or trying to be cool with everyone, because of fear of letting go their true self. Aquaintances sometimes were better than friends, people slightly knew by you suddenly offered you a home to live, while, let's say, your family didn't wanted to have you near. Even the priests violated the secret of confession many times. The human nature tested to the extreme. Self-censorship, and absence of criticism, due to forced distrustfulness and inhibition, only to have you under control, work for peanuts, and make rich a few. The scars are still in the society, and in myself. Only the born after the dictatorship are more free in spirit, but less committed to society values. I recently started to truly open myself to strangers, since about the end of 2006; and I am nothing less than thirty four now. I might be the last one in the country in achieving that; I feel like :-)

This evolutionary art image is "Spies", like the eyes of the woman behind the curtain, across the street (I will never forget her name) who sent the state terrorism and human abjectness to enter my home.

I awake to find no peace of mind
I said how do you live
As a fugitive?
Down here, where I cannot see so clear
I said what do I know?
Show me the right way to go

And the spies came out of the water
But you're feeling so bad 'cos you know
And the spies hide out in every corner
But you can't touch them no
'Cos they're all spies

They're all spies

I awake to see that no one is free
We're all fugitives - look at the way we live
Down here, I cannot sleep from fear, no
I said which way do I turn?
Oh I forget everything I learn

And the spies came out of the water
But you're feeling so bad 'cos you know
And the spies hide out in every corner
But you can't touch them no
'Cos they're all spies

They're all spies

And if we don't hide here
They're gonna find us
And if we don't hide now
They're gonna catch us when we sleep
And if we don't hide here
They're gonna find us

And the spies came out of the water
But you're feeling so good 'cos you know
That though spies hide out in every corner
they can't touch you, no
'Cos they're just spies

They're just spies
They're just spies
They're just spies
They're just spies

Coldplay, "Spies".