Deseparecidos

I wrote this a while back. It's weird. I didn't know if I'd use it on the blog. Welp, here it is:

The abuse of power is not unfamiliar to this world. Those that have regularly oppress those that have not, or even those that have less. This is not political. This is not propaganda. This is a statement. A statement about what exists. A statement about abuse. Abuse that stands as a monument of the human condition, both past and present. Who do we find at the heart of abuse but man himself; man too consumed with his own desire, his own will, his own ability, his own power, to see beyond the only perception he knows: his own. Here we find selfishness.

Recently my fellow interns and I went to an art exhibit in Antigua dedicated to those that have disappeared during the political turmoil of Latin America for the last half century. The Deseparecidos they are called. Here I found my tribute to abuse, my monument to the human condition.

Enter the first room to find a movie playing of a giant head, singing praises to God for delivering him and his brother through a massacre that occurred in his village. It plays on a loop, going on and on, forever singing praises, forever singing hope into what seems hopeless. The next room features a succession of pictures then mirrors, pictures then mirrors. The pictures are of women and men. Women who were pregnant at the time of disappearance and the men that loved them, also disappeared. As you walk from picture to picture reading about the children that should have been born or the lives that should have been lived, you catch glimpses of yourself in the mirrors. But now the reflection is not just of yourself, it’s of a life that has been lived, a person that is still here. Your reflection begs the question, “you’ve read about the lives that were not, so now what do you do with your life that is”. Moving into the next room you find paintings, sculptures, and various pieces of art all crying out silently against the evils of abuse. On a wall there is a mural of faces etched out of stone. Scattered in between the faces are victim’s accounts of torture, of different body parts they had burned or severed, of different ways they suffered. In another room there is a row of seemingly normal pictures. Below each picture is a seemingly normal sentence. It’s not until you put the picture and sentence together that you feel the revulsion of the violent message it portrays. There is a picture of a necklace wrapped around a dirty finger, below it reads, “Her fragrance lingered on”. You read the sentence, “time became a razor”, and look up to see a brick wall smeared in blood.

The exhibit goes on with more pictures that are hard to look at, more stories that are hard to read. At the end, after having made it through the show, I couldn’t help but think what has to happen next. Do I continue to look at my reflection in the mirror and can I still see myself the same? What about the life that is now? How can it not remember the lives that were not? Do I let the depictions of torture numb me? Can I help but feel cynical? Everything’s going to crap, governments suck, people suck. No, cynicism is easy. Will time be a razor for me? Well my life's pretty easy, how about an anesthetic, slowly numbing me to pain in this life? Or could my life possibly be like that song, forever playing on a loop, over and over, despite the wars raging around me or the world going to crap, still singing praises to God for his faithfulness, his love, and his hope?

At the heart of abuse we find man. At the heart of man we find selfishness. And as the only answer to selfishness, we find God.

That’s my song.