Page 38 - the NOISE December 2012

DIssentIments of the natIon
by Javier Raya
versioned from the Spanish into Spanglish by Logan Phillips
The upheaval begins like this: yo disiento.
Yo disiento when I stop believing in your hymn:
no, patria, I am not a soldier born of every son,
I am not the son of any national concept.
And even as the earth trembles at its centers, Masiosare, I cannot be in favor of such bellicose accents.
When you say that the poverty index
is dropping while the señor who sells mazapanes around the corner from my office
yells to me I am hungry as if it were my fault,
right there, yo disiento.
When the image of the señor
selling mazapanes becomes confused
in my head with el señor de los cielos,
with the (drug) Lord of the Skies,
and you tell me we’re winning
the civil war, the war on drugs,
the fight against the narco, yo disiento.
When I see that it is easier in this country
to score weed, blow, pills, crank, crack
than it is to score an admission slip to the hospital, than it is to score a seat at the university,
yo disiento.
Yo disiento with your version of health
as being a sickness best cured with gunshots.
Yo disiento with your version of education
that leaves the brightest minds
of my generation
condemned to telemarketing jobs
or living with their parents until 30,
trying not to make too much noise while they’re fucking,
because––for years now––people have become accustomed to feeling
that it’s better not to make much noise,
that it’s better to pass by strangers
in the streets without saying hello, without a buenos días, that it’s better not to look at anyone in the streets,
in the subway or on the highway,
that being without morals makes us chingones,
that ignoring each other makes us stronger, that fear is the best preparation
for facing the social war
that you’ve provoked in us by criminalizing the youth, especially at night,
when ladies cross to the other sidewalk
because they see our long hair
and our university backpacks.
The only luxury for young people has been hope, including the expensive hope that you sell us on credit, nos ven la cara como se la vieron a nuestros padres
a sucker is born every minute, we were born like our parents, and you’ve stuck us in the mud of a middle class,
very middle and mediocre, like chickens heaped
in cages sucking on television
until we’re fat, until we’re zombies,
until we desire only a bigger TV
and a bigger TV to be able to see bigger lies
in HD, and a bigger car
to be able to go nowhere, because the highways are gridlocked, and a fear that grows bigger and bigger, sold and then paid for in small installments to only have to pay small payments
until all of us learn that it’s safer
not to make noise,
sit here quietly, no running,
no screaming, no pushing,
in order to feel equal, to feel in our bones
a fear that is equal and deaf.
Politics has robbed us of words:
pueblo has been bodybagged,
along with comunidad,
commitment and solidarity.
Anymore politics isn’t about opinions
that we create and share amongst ourselves, because anymore we don’t know how to think for ourselves.
Anymore society isn’t about speaking with each other, about creating community with each other,
rather it’s a state welfare program
of planning and scheduling
for community-based organizations composed
of intergovernmental and interorganizational networks for the restructuring and the rotting
of the conscience.
Yo disiento when you tell me that the 70,000 dead (and counting) are collateral damage.
Stalin thought like you do,
when he said that
the death of one man is a tragedy,
the death of millions is a statistic.
Yo disiento when you tell me that
the dead fit inside a number, inside a cost, a production cost paid for peace,
that peace can only be produced
using the fear of children
who are bent under their desks, singing songs
as bullets graze the walls and plunge into the chalkboard. Yo disiento when you tell me that violence
is the price of peace.
Yo disiento when you tell me that violence
is escalated in the name of happiness.
Yo disiento when you make me walk
with a knife in my pocket
through dark streets
watching through the corner of my eye the shadows
of others who are as afraid of me as I am of them.
Yo disiento when you make one person
afraid of another.
Disiento when you tell me that you respect
the diversity of opinion
while meanwhile we’re closing in on winning first place
for the number of journalists assassinated per square meter. When you call the youth porros,
huevones, ignorantes,
when you tell us to get a job
because we go into the streets
to take the streets
that were always ours to begin with.
Yo disiento because your plan isn’t perfect,
because you didn’t count on our cunning,
distinguished Mr. President, distinguished syndicate leader, distinguished oil-coated charro,
distinguished bureaucrat keeping time on tedium.
You want to teach me to feel like everything’s ok,
that everything is gonna be ok because you say it is.
Yo disiento.
I know that everything’s gonna be ok because I’m not alone
because we are many,
because there are many of us
who are gonna make everything be ok.
We’ll take a census of dissent,
we’ll raise our fists so that they can be counted, cada uno uno y diferente, gente no acarreada, no abanderada people taking the streets for the first time,
learning the slogans that’ll bring down your orders, dissenting––as we are more than able––
while wearing office clothes, carrying children,
carrying bags from the mercado,
las bolsas de mandado,
sin miedo porque estamos entre gente,
fearless as we are among so many people,
I am no longer afraid of people,
there are so many people are no longer afraid of people and we’re no longer afraid to be alive.
Because to be alive in Mexico is an act of subversion. Because to be alive in Mexico is a conspiracy of life,
an insurrection of life,
a dissent-iment when I say that my country
begins here, in this square meter,
and you are my country,
and you are my country
y tú eres mi país
and for this square meter I’m taking responsibility
and through this square mile they shall not pass.
In this square meter I am a danger to Mexico,
a danger to your Mexico of collateral damage
which we will never forget,
standing in this square meter of my country yo disiento and from so many square meters of dissent
you’re no longer going to be able to take us away.
a note on the translation
at the heart of Javier raya’s poem “Disentimientos de la nación
(spoken remix)” is a Spanish- language verb that has no exact translation into English. Disentir is
both dissent and disagreement, and it holds the same root as the verb sentir––to feel. Therefore
disentir is the feeling of disagree- ment carried into action through dissent, a sort of praxis born of the heart. This Spanglish version
of the poem intentionally main- tains the use of disentir in the hope that the concept will be useful to those speakers of English who, like raya, are “no longer
afraid to be alive.” Disentímonos, pues. — LP, Tucson, Arizona
38 • DECEMBER 2012 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us