By José Gandue @Gandour
A few days ago, while listening to an Argentinian radio program Revenge will be terrible, I heard Alejandro Dolina say something terrifyingly true: The Devil has a stupid face. Upon hearing those words, I don't know why, I thought about what was going to happen. in the peace plebiscite that was being held in Colombia. I won't be so stubborn as to say that I knew at that moment that the campaign of fear and disinformation was going to win: I was, like millions of people in this country, confident that the Yes vote would get more votes and that the peace agreement between the government and the FARC was going to be popularly confirmed. But those kinds of words don't come free into our lives, and that's where my fear about what was really going to happen began.
Opponents of the peace agreement They created the dirtiest, most distorting, and most harmful advertising possible. The problem is that they themselves believed it and preached it with conviction. Through their self-indoctrination, they managed to indoctrinate many with the most incredible arguments: They managed to frighten the population with convoluted theories about what would happen if the "Yes" vote won., The arrival of communism was imminent, the immediate positioning of the evil forces of hell, mandatory homosexuality for all and the Venezuelanization of the territory. The inconceivable was becoming possible and gaining followers who, quietly, didn't tell their neighbors how they were going to vote. That's why everyone else was celebrating prematurely. That's why the fall was so dramatic.
Yesterday I remembered something I once read by Mario Benedetti (I think, sometimes my memory plays tricks on me, forgive me if I'm wrong), about an election in Uruguay in the eighties. It was an election where everyone believed the Broad Front was going to win, since the enthusiasm of the streets belonged to them, It was the youth cheering proposals for the future, it was the optimism that always overflows among progressive sectors on these kinds of occasions. But no one was counting on the participation of those who, faced with carnival, close their windows and hide behind the curtains. and they look suspiciously at what is happening below. Those whose spirits are already aged and who do not accept the joys of the rest of humanity. Those who do vote, who are never absent from the lines at the polls and They make no fuss so that naivety can confidently continue on its path. I insist, the devil has the face of a fool, and that's why we trust him. The devil almost always wins, because He knows the loyalty of his own and the childishness of his opponent.
There were more of us, and we let them win. Now we say what every Colombian always says in these circumstances: This is a shitty country. Now we blame them. We look ahead and spit, believing that will make us feel better. We don't understand what happened; they knew what was going on from the beginning. We failed, not them.
What now? Now it's time to get involved, to get to know our neighbors, talk to them, and keep working for peace. Time to start the journey anew. without knowing when we will have another opportunity And without having any idea of what's coming. But that's precisely why we need to get involved., Build instead of crying while others do their demolition work. We need to stop thinking naively and believing that the other person is a fool without any basis in reality. And here comes another satanic phrase: The devil is in the details., These are the same things we cannot neglect if we want things to go well.
Shake it off, friends., Nothing has happened. Or if it has happened and it hurts, but it is simply a battle that we did not expect to lose. This is not a shitty country, This country has you, those who believe things can be done better., and that they must have learned the lesson of what happened yesterday. This is the opportunity to truly awaken and create the conditions for what we believe to work. Ever onward to victory, ever onward to peace without rest. That should be our motto.