The fourth wave
by Miguel Antonio Bernal
“Let’s howl,” said the dog …
The Book of Voices
The sewers of power celebrate the year 2020 with their rats. COVID-19, their new host, has no complaints about hospitality and the treatment it has received from the prevailing system in our country.
Thousands of homes from Darien to Chiriqui mourn the deaths of loved ones. The disastrous health and hospital situations lent themselves to death, not only due to COVID-19. While the sick increased and the infected multiplied, the coffers of the corrupt swelled from their positions of political and economic power. It was good business for the crematoria, too.
Early on, brotherhood and solidarity were forced to give up their spaces to the fear and uneasiness promoted by authoritarianism, while uncertainty and sadness saw freedom, justice, and equality disappear.
Frustration, resignation and disappointment close a year that ends without us renewing hope. We aren’t acting without hesitation against the bad apples who, through manipulation of the media, false dialogue, lumpen populism and all the other tricks, seek to convince us that we can’t do anything and that nothing is going to happen.
For this reason, I insist that with the new year, far from crossing our arms and continuing as spectators, we reestablish and revalue our actions. With them, our ardent hopes and our civic dignity. We must do these things to truly modify, improve, control or change many things.
We need a much more active and decisive civic rejection of the daily abuses by those with political power and their backers.
If we do not use 2021 to renew our will for citizen political action, start moving in firm, decisive and collective ways, if we do not achieve profound changes, the corruption and the corrupt will gain even more ground. It will give rise to what some call “re-corruption processes”.
Let’s not delay any longer the moment to assume our responsibility in the face of impostors, the mediocre and the base. Else they will continue to hijack and destroy our present and rape our hopes for the future.
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