Words for the girl with pearls named Kamala Harris. Opinion

“A good man can feel shy even in front of a dog” (Anton Chekhov)

1. A former war reporter, currently covering the last week of the election campaign in the United States, told me on the phone that, after attending the Republican rally at the famous Madison Square Garden, he was returning to the hotel . Remained motionless in front of the computer for a long time. He said that, although he wanted to move his hands, his fingers were unable to press the keys, and he was able to begin to move them only after he opened his diary and came across the Chekhov phrase which I quoted above. Words that encouraged him to write the article he had belatedly sent to his newspaper. The explanation of all this difficulty was summarized thus: He had seen before his eyes, for six hours, how the strongest democracies could decay and rot on their own.

2. Sayings like this can be no more than a mere cliché and, in terms of impact, go no further than when it rains. For my part, the topic of the irreversible decline of empires was a hot topic in the history classes of classical culture, when Oswald Spengler was studied and his decadent vision was the basis of festival culture. hippieArnold J. Toynbee, more optimistic and more mysterious, asserted that civilizations die by suicide, not murder. In other words, the same thing the former war correspondent said last Monday afternoon.

What impressed him most was the disappointing level of jokes, including jokes about Donald Trump Jr. when he encouraged his supporters to go to the polls, saying that they should wait patiently as they The monkeys were third in line to vote. ark, and the rains may have already begun… according to Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to Puerto Rico as an island of floating garbage, and referred to Latinos as people who only want to have children. Like. Or the scream of Elon Musk, the world’s richest millionaire, who greeted the crowd by taking off his hat and letting out a kind of roar, imitating Tarzan’s scream with Johnny Weissmuller’s voice. The truth is that all this and much more was immediately picked up by the press, but what really heightened the uneasiness of someone who had seen killing and dying many times in war scenarios was the impossibility of ending the circus of arson in which he saw it. Have changed. American elections, as if their business was about to grow uncontrollably to the point of decline of no return. It was like watching the explosion of some device which he could not name and which seemed lethal.

3. But his painful conviction also came from the street, from the illogical and messianic arguments he heard being trumpeted on the boulevards bordering Madison Square Garden. Instead, the Democratic campaign went almost unnoticed that same night, as Kamala Harris hugged newborns and blew kisses to elderly women. It was a kind of performance in reverse, as if all the steps from one side to the other were part of some huge theatrical piece. The relevant question is the following: How many people would prefer the image of measured restraint to the spectacle of frenzied dancing and verbal sparring, stage by stage, the day after tomorrow?

4. The topic is so complex that it is impossible to keep hands from keyboard. In 2001, when the attacks on the Twin Towers occurred, many of us said, “Right now, we are all Americans.” Perhaps we should say it more often and more appropriately. We are not out of this dangerous game, we are not separate from this drift towards anarchy. As peripheral Europeans, we grew up immersed in the fantastical North American mythology of the Iberians. Science, music, literature, cinema, especially cinema, great achievements and companies, the skyscrapers of our imagination, the vastness of the plains, the forests, the mountains, the waterfalls, all the great films that they had as scenarios, they filled our Dreams of life, even when imperialist domination and rage filled us with rebellion and panic. But the United Nations established its headquarters in New York and NATO emerged not for aggression but for the purpose of defense. Let’s be clear, with each passing day, the UN is fast turning into a powerless forum with all its cards marked. And NATO, a powerful force, has no force at all because, if it used the force it has against other aggressors, the Earth would blow up. NATO delineates its own borders, but its own architecture prevents it from acting. Now, both one organization and the other, our greatest reference, until recently the umbrella of humanity, carry with them, in their paralysis, the face of the United States.

Conversely, the circus race toward the White House can’t help but laugh out loud at tyrants who curtail the freedoms of their fellow citizens in their own country. And, by copying, in democracies, this race provides extremist candidates, who now operate everywhere, a script that they attempt to reproduce perfectly. That’s why, in the midst of this race, I think of Kamala Harris, who cradles children and kisses strangers, in private, in the spotlight, I see her as an image of an angelic posture , who is trying to maintain an attitude of peace. Peace and calm, which many admire, but which the world no longer resorts to.

5. Those who do not have definite plans for interpreting the personalities of others begin with fragmented realities. I belong to that group of people who stand politely on the sidelines. When it comes to Kamala Harris, I’ve heard her proposals being denigrated, being told they don’t exist, about her lack of preparation, her mistakes, her radical phrases, her careless nature. I am being talked about. Of that fateful day, when, as Vice President in Guatemala, he bluntly told Guatemalans: “Please do not travel to the United States!”

However, I have researched his career and found various other values. I’m not going to describe them, they are in movies, in books and on the internet. One important thing reminds me of her biography: There was a time when Kamala Harris, when the siege against African-American women intensified, formed a resistance group with her friends. Out of self-love, they agreed that they would never go out without wearing clothes. Harris always wore a white pearl necklace over her dark blouse. Amid the frenzy that left the former war reporter disabled for a few moments, the image of these pearls would certainly not win him any votes. However, I think it will bring him respect.

In a world without shame, what is the use of respect? Shame coexists with truth and is replaced by strategies that structure information and establish reality. I believe that sooner or later we will wake up from this nightmare. A nightmare that does not reside between New York and Pennsylvania, but spreads throughout the world. When the Americans wake up from the nightmare, I believe that we Europeans, by the inexorable force of circumstances, will already have been forced to wake up on our own.