There are texts that should not have to be written because they tell us about realities that should not exist, that embarrass us, that hurt, that awaken memories of times that we believed were buried in the past.
There are words that are summoned by the paper because remaining silent is to approve. Immobility can hide guilt, makes you feel bad, dirty as if you were part of the injustice; and remaining silent makes you an accomplice of injustice.
There are words like welcome, which in an airport, glow in the hands of the demonstrators because they clean the affront, because they ennoble, because they are a balm for the wounds inflicted by torture, war, and barbarism. There are words that mean hope for the persecuted, the discriminated against, those born in the lands where barbarism dwells, those who escape violence and poverty.
There are statements that make tremble those who lived the horror in their bodies, those who will never forget –no matter how many years have passed– what torture is, whether in the Tiger Cages in Vietnam or the interrogation centers in General Pinochet’s Chile.
There are statements so repulsive that not even a dictator like the Chilean general dared to assert, that torture is useful, that I consulted with specialists and they say that it is useful. And modern Pontius Pilate, the new ruler washes his hands and leaves the decision already endorsed in the hands of the specialists.
There are words that are still sacred, for the sake of humanity, for our need to continue to feel that we are human beings, words like SANCTUARY: refuge, a sacred place where the persecuted is safe from the reach of oppression and barbarism.
There are spaces of light and spaces of shadows. Of shadows, the Government House, once luminous and today a fortress that in seven days has been enclosed by impassable executive orders that keep the people away, recently inauguratedspace of power that makes us tremble because the new order is an order reminiscent of a hideous past.
There are small but luminous spaces like the modest house of the undocumented, which should be a sanctuary for his family, a haven where you can hear the singing and the laughter of the children, a shelter for the friend in need.
And those houses, plus the homes of the American neighbor, the African American neighbor, the Muslim neighbor, the Hispanic neighbor must be transformed into sanctuaries for all the persecuted, the rejected, those who are denied the right to sleep, to rest, to see their children smiling and playing, feeling that they finally belong, that they are accepted, loved, or simply that they are finally granted the right to live in peace.
Fortunately, there are people who wash the affront, who fight for the United States to be a kind country, a compassionate country, a country of respect, of rights, a country where human beings are worth more than the paltry value of a coin. Young people who remind us that the time to impose by force is well passed,that today is the time of morality, of ethics, of not isolating oneself, ofopening oneself to the world and the ideas.
Fortunately, there are those who are not afraid to speak their minds, hopefuls who advance the sanctuary airport after airport, wall after wall, border after border, until one day the whole world become a boundless sanctuary against injustice.
The writer of this article was a political refugee for many years. He knew the prison and the torture. He knew what is like to walk the roads with his family in tow; his children are children of refugees as well as the children of so many families in the States United, the sons of those who escaped from one or another dictatorship, from one war or another war. But like them, he found solidarity: he was protected by the Geneva convention, and more importantly, like otherrefugees, he was lucky enough to meet another human being, a stranger who offered him a hand and said: welcome brother, cross the barriers, come with me, my friendship is your sanctuary.
And with all due respect, Mr. President – although I hope this will never happen – if one day you were persecuted for your ideas, remember the storm that you unleashed, and rest assured that, like today, we will rise as one man to defend you and we will claim: SANCTUARY!
Translated by Priscilla Gac-Artigas, Fulbright Scholar, Professor of Latin American Literature