Letter to My Disappeared Son
By: Ramiro Padilla Atondo
Columnist, Sin Embargo
Translated by ME
Son, first of all I apologize. I know that this apology is coming too late, but I think it's the only way to do it.
Though you're not my biological son, you are my son by being born in this land. So it hurts, I get an infinite rage knowing that your dreams have been cut short, precisely by those which we pay so that you could fulfill them.
I also know that much of the responsibility falls on me, as on any citizen who has not cared much for the country's direction, I prefer watching TV to reading, I am gullible to anything coming from the idiot box.
I knew from the beginning that those who swore to take us to a better world, are but a business club for those who do not care about the average citizen like you and me. They are already on the other side, the side of impunity side of the untouchables.
And you know why? Because I've allowed. I am easy to buy. I'm a pushover. So when they go to my house in a campaign, I perpetuated the image of the idiot, submissive Mexican who still believes in the eternal promises that never come.
Why this happened, has caught me deeply. You're a boy and you're a boy like many that rose ut to walk in the mountains, like the ones shot and burned. Both are victims of a broken system, a system like Saturn, has started to devour his children.
Demanding a better country should not be a cause of death. Joining a cartel should not be an option to circumvent poverty. But this is what we were taught. .We live in a country that lives the culture of the minimal effort If you're a soap opera actor or president (which are generically interchangeable) or on his political shortlist, you know you do not have to work. Just walk around and have your picture taken at public events, to prove that you're working.
We live in a country where being poor and demanding your rights is synonymous with being a vandal. You as a poor student must understand that you have no rights, even the right to life.
The sad thing is that I, your father, I understood this too late. It gives me an infinite shame knowing I could have done something and did not.
But you know what? It is never too late. This parasitic class has to go. They are mistaken if they believe they have control of the country.
The simulation has an expiration date, and now they are paying a very high price. Every day that passes without them knowing it was you will turn into a very heavy burden for them to carry.. The house of cards they built will collapse. .
And although they bet on delay and the people forgetting, we, the majority, have four words, no forgiveness, no forgetting. They will try to divert attention, they will try to blame a few and then say it was resolved.
But do not forget. The world is with us. And for the first time in ages, we are united.
And this I do for you. For my other children. It's my country too, and have the right to decide what goes on in it..
I bid asking forgiveness from the bottom of my heart, and promising you that I will not stop fighting until I know it was you, and that justice is done.
Let me end with this quote by fBerltolt Brecht:
"First they took the Jews, but I was not Jewish, I did not care.
Then they took the communists, but as I was not a communist, nor really care.
Then they took the workers, but I was not labor, nor really care.
Later they took the intellectuals, but as I was not intellectual, nor really care.
Then followed with the priests, but I was no priest, so I did not care.
Now they come for me, but it's too late.
(DD. I would have added
“Son, we care and will not let that happen again”)