Friday, May 18, 2007

Two events of the last week of my life have shown me the sad condition that our world has grown arrived to: the condition where those with wealth and power are given the privilege of the protection of their ludicrously consumeristic, materialistic life while the 80% majority of people who struggle to survive are not only not protected, but constantly fought to be kept in their position of subordination, poverty, and hopelessness.
I found myself in the center of San Salvador, all the streets leading to the center of the city were blocked off by the police as an association of vendors in the central of the city took control of the streets to protest an action taken by the police and the government to kick them out of their places in the street where they sell their products. The police and the government try to justify their action by saying that the vendors in the streets don´t allow cars to pass by and creates a mess in the city. But really, it results that the police and the government are carrying out an order to get rid of the 60,000 people in El Salvador who sell pirated DVDs and CDs and shoes because after having signed CAFTA, the free trade agreement between the US and central America, one of the main stipulations is that the governments of Central America had to gurantee that they would protect property rights of the rich and powerful in the United States. And thus, the 60,000 poor vendors who quite inspiringly have struggled to find a way of life to provide for their families in an economy where 30% of the GDP comes from money sent back from the US and where corruption in the government runs rampid, are told that their lives are less important than the extreme wealth of the rich and the multinational corporations based in the US. So the police violently kicked them out of their spots where they struggle day after day in the heat and noise and gas fumes of the central of the city, and they began a riot, justifiably so.
The next day I was in a bus, going to a funeral of another woman in our program who died from AIDS and from the state of the rich who don´t give a shit about her life, and I got robbed by a few young kids. So how are the two events related? Well the government here wants us to believe that all the problems in this society are related to the gangs and the violence represented in this case by these two young kids. Yet, the 60,000 people who have struggled to find an alternative are being told by the government that they should return to the streets. The government can´t possibly be telling them to find another job, because they as well as the rest of the population know that there is no work, so pretty much they´re telling them that we dont want you stealing from the rich in other countries, we wnat you instead to steal from the poor in this country. Oh yeah, and then we´re going to blame all the social ills in our country on you. Injustice lives on....

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