Born the Day Before Yesterday

By Desquite

Well met in my soul. Love is a political act, a blow to the establishment and to any form of oppression perpetuated by the oligarchy. April 28th commemorates the anniversary of the social uprising, a popular expression that overthrew a silent regime that had remained in power for decades. A cultural event was held to commemorate the date and to defend two ongoing struggles: the war zone that armed actors have turned the Cauca into, and the defense of the monument to resistance, which stands imposing in the urban landscape.

I love the monument to resistance and its significance for social struggle. The morning sun strongly caressed the resilient hides of those who have remained steadfast in the fight. It was a celebration, a carnival, where music resonated and calls for freedom filled the air. A family of activists, with a baby in arms, painted a banner announcing the memory and the importance of not forgetting. The skillful hands, or rather, the left hands, of a symphonic concert kicked off the cultural event. The cream of protest art was present: rap, freestyle, graffiti, dance, and poetry. It was the grand representation of each and every one of the popular sectors. Among the crowd, around the monument, each of the fallen comrades in the struggle watched with a smile as the ideal of the fight was perpetuated.

I was there to witness Edson Velandía singing the wittiest trovas in the jargon of my paternal family, and to see Adriana Lizcano represent the most sublime of peasant art. However, I ended up with my head full of new struggles, of global struggles, of environmentalism. It turns out that the Americans want to invade Latin America, surrounding the Pacific rim with military bases distributed on islands that are sanctuaries. They want to militarize Gorgona. I would like to delve deeper into the denunciation, but I lack context. I love the planet and all the beings, sentient and non-sentient alike, that build our biosphere. The struggle lives on in the women who feed the people in community pots, in the ex-combatants of the M-19 who, already in their eighties, wave giant flags.

The rain, a symbol of fertility, flooded Puerto Resistencia, a community that resists bullets and is not afraid of rain. The party continued into the early hours of the morning, and people surrendered to the guaguancó to the rhythm of salsa. Drunk, wild, and fiery, salsa and lack of control. The roads turned into rivers of fire. Revelry as a form of resistance.

By my side, fellow fighters; in front of me, fellow fighters; behind me, fellow fighters. I love the woman I walk with, I embrace her as Velandía finishes his presentation. Activist 1, Activist 2, and Activist 3, we run to get an interview.

—We are an alternative media outlet— I say timidly.

—How can we find you on social media?— one of them asks.

—But why do you want to find us on social media if we are already here?

Velandía grants us the interview and invites the youth to march this May Day, to march for the elderly, for their dignity and their pensions. Soaked by the rain and with sore backs, we return to clandestinity, for some joints and a drink on the head. With our hearts burning in revolution, in insurrection, in subversion.

Three years ago we overthrew a regime, but we are on the brink of the far right attempting to return to power. The popular sectors know it, the oligarchy knows it. This is a declaration of war, a media war, since cameras and microphones are our only weapons. The right is rotten and all its champions are trash. Ah, but I love them, how much I love them, they are the firewood with which we will keep the eternal flame.