Considerado el más grande escritor hebreo contemporáneo, Amos Oz fue designado ganador del Premio Príncipe Asturias de las Letras 2007. Este año, la realeza española reconoce al escritor pacifista. Al crítico feroz de la ocupación y creyente de que la solución al conflicto entre Palestina e Israel se logrará con el reconocimiento de los dos Estados, independientes y soberanos en un mismo territorio. Premió a quien escribió en 1967 el artículo “Tierra de nuestros antepasados” para convertirse en el primer israelí en abogar por la paz.
http://www.eme-equis.com.mx/074MXAMOS.html
Premio Príncipe de Asturias 2007
En tierras llanas y praderas desoladas, de suelos movedizos cubiertos por la arena. A la distancia, las Montañas de Edom y un destello, el Mar Muerto. Ahí, en la ciudad de Arad, al sur de Israel, está la tierra que Amos Oz eligió para llamarla hogar desde hace más de 20 años, alejado de las grandes ciudades de Israel, donde todos esperan algo, ya sea al Mesías o a la catástrofe.
Considerado el más grande escritor hebreo contemporáneo, Amos Oz fue designado ganador del Premio Príncipe Asturias de las Letras 2007. Este año, la realeza española reconoce al escritor pacifista. Al crítico feroz de la ocupación y creyente de que la solución al conflicto entre Palestina e Israel se logrará con el reconocimiento de los dos Estados, independientes y soberanos en un mismo territorio. Premió a quien escribió en 1967 el artículo “Tierra de nuestros antepasados” para convertirse en el primer israelí en abogar por la paz.
Hoy el mundo lo reconoce por su labor pacifista. Por haber fundado en 1970 el movimiento Shalom Ajshav (Paz ahora). Pero dentro en su biografía está el pasaje de su participación como soldado en la Guerra de los Seis Días en 1967, y en la Guerra de Yom Kipur en las montañas del Golán, en 1973.
Autor de 18 novelas y más de 400 ensayos y artículos, entre los que se encuentran A Tale of Love and Darkness, Suddenly in the Depth of the Forest y Rhyming Life and Death, “ha contribuido a hacer de la lengua hebrea un brillante instrumento para el arte literario y para la revelación certera de las realidades más acuciantes y universales de nuestro tiempo, poniendo especial atención tanto a la defensa de la paz entre los pueblos como a la denuncia de todas las expresiones del fanatismo”, dictó el jurado desde Oviedo.
Amos Oz publicó sus primeros relatos mientras estudiaba literatura y filosofía en la Universidad Hebrea de Jerusalén entre 1960 y 1963. Hijo de emigrantes rusos y polacos, nació en la ciudad de Jerusalén en 1939. A los 15 años, en búsqueda de un estilo de vida radical, se mudó a un kibbutz (comunidades israelíes) donde vivió y trabajó durante casi 30 años. Ahí renunció a su nombre de nacimiento, Klausner, por el de Oz, que en hebreo significa “fuerza”, y dividió su tiempo entre su trabajo en el campo y como profesor de escuela. En esa época escribió su tercera novela, My Michael, sentado en el excusado de su casa. En un kibbutz, ser escritor representaba una amenaza. Ahí es más importante ordeñar a las vacas y sembrar la papa de la comunidad.
Camina frágil, como si pisara brasas calientes. Amos Oz se ha convertido en un símbolo de la tradición judía de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, pero a diferencia de la obra de escritores norteamericanos como Saul Bellow, Malamud y Philip Roth, quienes se han distinguido por tratar la realidad judía en sus obras, la tierra prometida de Oz sigue siendo Jerusalén, no Nueva York.
Oz suele caminar en el desierto. Junto a algún oasis, frente a un paisaje colmado de colinas desnudas habitadas por lobos y chacales, “donde el paisaje es igual ahora como lo era en el tiempo de los profetas y de Jesús”. Es ese el lugar que le da perspectiva sobre la ocupación y la guerra, y ese escenario resulta ser la metáfora ideal para describir su obra. “Mucho de lo que tengo que decir tiene que ver con el campo abierto, el desierto, un cierto tipo de montañas áridas alrededor de Jerusalén, los barrios, la calle, el jardín, el kibbutz. De otra forma me sentiría claustrofóbico”.
Una pantera en el sótano
Ambientada en 1947, en la Jerusalén de finales del mandato británico en palestina, Una pantera en el sótano nos cuenta la relación que surge entre un niño judío, Profi, y un sargento de la policía británica muy interesado por el Israel bíblico y la lengua hebrea. Profi acepta mantener con él un intercambio de clases de hebreo e inglés pensando que así podrá sacar información al “enemigo”, pero sus amigos le culparán de ser un traidor...
Esta obra, publicada en México apenas en 2006, en una coedición del Fondo de Cultura Económica y Ediciones Siruela, es una muestra de la narrativa del escritor israelí, de la que publicamos un fragmento con la autorización de la editorial.
Uno Muchas veces en la vida me llamaron traidor. La primera fue a los doce años y tres meses, cuando vivía en un barrio a las afueras de Jerusalén. Fue durante las vacaciones de verano, faltaba menos de un año para que el gobierno británico se retirase del país y naciera, en medio de la guerra, el Estado de Israel.
Una mañana vimos en la pared de nuestra casa, debajo de la ventana de la cocina, escritas con unas letras gruesas y negras, unas palabras que decían: ¡Profi, boged shafel! [¡Profi, vil traidor!]. El término vil despertó en mí una inquietud que hasta hoy, mientras estoy sentado escribiendo esta historia, me sigue interesando: ¿puede haber un traidor que no sea vil? De no ser así, ¿por qué se molestaría Chita Reznik (reconocí su letra) en añadir la palabra vil? Así que, entonces, ¿en qué casos la traición no es vil? El mote de Profi se me quedó desde que era pequeño. Es el diminutivo de profesor, por la manía que tengo de jugar con las palabras. (Todavía me encantan las palabras: coleccionarlas, ordenarlas, mezclarlas, darles la vuelta, formarlas.
Más o menos como hacen los que aman el dinero con las monedas y los billetes, o los que aman el juego con las cartas.) Mi padre había salido a las seis y media de la mañana a comprar el periódico y se encontró con la pintada debajo de la ventana de la cocina. En el desayuno, mientras untaba mermelada de frambuesa en una rebanada de pan integral, hundió de repente el cuchillo casi hasta el mango en el fondo del bote y, con su voz pausada, dijo:
—Muy bonito. Vaya sorpresa. ¿Qué ha tramado Su Excelencia para que nos honren con esta distinción?
Mi madre dijo: —No la tomes con él desde la mañana. Ya tiene bastante con que los niños lo incordien.
Mi padre iba vestido de color caqui, como casi todos los hombres del barrio en esa época. Tenía los ademanes y la voz de una persona que siempre tiene toda la razón. Sacó con el cuchillo una compacta masa de frambuesa del fondo del bote, cubrió uniformemente las dos mitades de la rebanada, y dijo:
—La verdad es que en nuestros días, casi todos usan el apelativo traidor con demasiada facilidad; pero, ¿quién es traidor? Ciertamente, alguien sin honor. Uno que a escondidas, por la espalda, a cambio de algún dudoso beneficio, ayuda al enemigo en contra de su pueblo. O para perjudicar a su familia y a sus amigos. Es más despreciable que un asesino.
Y, por favor, termínate el huevo. El periódico dice que en Asia la gente se muere de hambre. Mi madre arrastró el plato hacia ella y se comió el huevo y el resto de pan con mermelada, no por hambre sino por amor a la paz. Dijo:
—El que ama no traiciona.
Estas palabras de mi madre no iban dirigidas ni a mí ni a mi padre; a juzgar por su mirada, parecía estar refiriéndose al clavo que había en la pared, encima del refrigerador de la cocina, que no cumplía ninguna función.
Dos Después del desayuno, mis padres salieron deprisa hacia la parada del autobús para ir al trabajo. Me quedé solo en casa, con un océano de tiempo por delante hasta la tarde, ya que eran las vacaciones de verano. Lo primero que hice fue recoger la mesa; lo que tenía que estar en el refrigerador fue a parar al refrigerador, lo de la alacena a la alacena y lo del fregadero al fregadero, porque me gustaba quedarme despreocupado durante todo el día. Fregué todos los trastes y los coloqué boca abajo en el escurridor. Luego pasé por todas las habitaciones cerrando ventanas y bajando persianas para tener una guarida hasta la tarde. El sol y el polvo del desierto podrían dañar los libros de mi padre, que cubren las paredes, y entre los que se encuentran algunos ejemplares muy raros. Leí el periódico de la mañana y lo dejé doblado en una esquina de la mesa de la cocina; guardé el prendedor de mi madre en su cajón. Hice todo eso, no como un traidor que quiere expiar su vil comportamiento, sino por amor al orden. Hasta hoy tengo la costumbre de recorrer la casa por la mañana y por la tarde para poner cada cosa en su lugar. Hace cinco minutos, cuando escribí que bajaba las persianas, dejé un momento de escribir ya que me acordé de cerrar la puerta del cuarto de baño, que quizás quería quedarse abierta, a juzgar por el gemido que oí al cerrarla.
Durante todo ese verano mi padre y mi madre salían a las ocho de la mañana y regresaban a las seis de la tarde. La comida me esperaba en el refrigerador y tenía todo el tiempo del mundo para mí. Podía, por ejemplo, comenzar a jugar con un pequeño grupo de cinco o diez soldaditos escuchar una especie de sonido profundo y sordo, parecido al sonido que sale de la última tecla, la más baja del piano. Es un sonido que arrastra una estela de ecos opacos: como si hubiera ocurrido una desgracia y ya no se pudiera remediar.
Volví a la cocina. Leí en el periódico que estábamos viviendo una época decisiva y que, por tanto, teníamos que ser fuertes. Decía también que las medidas del Mandato Británico proyectaban una pesada sombra y que el pueblo hebreo debía resistir y superar la prueba. Salí de casa y miré a mi alrededor, comprobando, como hacen los de la resistencia, que nadie me observara: algún desconocido con gafas de sol, ocultándose detrás de un periódico, escondido en la sombra de algún portal de las casas de enfrente, pero me pareció que la calle estaba en lo suyo.
El frutero levantaba un muro con cajas vacías. El chico de la tienda de los hermanos Sinopsky arrastraba un carrito que no hacía más que chirriar. La desamparada anciana Pani Ostrovska no dejaba de barrer el trozo de acera junto a su puerta, seguramente lo hacía por tercera vez esta mañana.
La doctora Grifius, que seguía soltera, estaba sentada en su terraza escribiendo unas fichas; mi padre la animaba a reunir datos y a intentar escribir sus memorias acerca de la vida de los judíos en su ciudad natal, Rosenheim. Pasó el repartidor de queroseno en su carro, muy despacio, las riendas adormecidas sobre las rodillas, haciendo sonar su campanilla y cantándole al caballo una canción nostálgica en yiddish. Ahí me encontraba yo parado, observando de nuevo, minuciosamente, la negra inscripción ¡Profi, boged shafel!
Hay un detalle insignificante que tal vez pueda esclarecer los hechos. Por las prisas o el miedo, la última letra de la palabra boged parecía casi una r, de modo que podía parecer que no era un vil traidor sino un vil boger [adulto].
Esa mañana hubiera dado todo lo que tenía por haber sido un adulto.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Ojalá la bóveda celeste reflejara la vida política. En el Sureste Inglés la inestabilidad atmosférica es palpable; y pareciera que la República Mexicana quisiera copiar esta condición. Tal cual si apreciáramos un cuadro en alto relieve, la capa exterior sólo nos permite ver las nubes más grises. Sin embargo, si nos molestamos en concentrar un poco nuestra atención percibiremos las blancas exhalaciones de Gaia, que tienen como fondo a un claro cielo matutino.
Grisáceas en su exterior, estas nubes han sido infladas de cortinas de humo informativas (invaden las pantallas televisivas, pasan por las frecuencias Hertzianas, y últimamente rematan en algunos medios impresos) que describen a una sociedad aburrida, tomando prestada la palabra favorita de una audiencia infantilizada. ¡Mírenlos nomás! Acarreados, borregos, nacos, renegados, tercos, insensatos. Acepten ya que perdieron, que fue una elección limpia, y váyanse a sus casas de una vez por todas. Sí, libre de suciedad como el aniquilamiento del noticiero Monitor de José Gutiérrez Vivó. Detrás de este oscuro panorama se pueden ver blancos cúmulos que ordenados avanzan en procesión, con la voluntad inquebrantable que les da el convencimiento de la autenticidad de sus demandas. Ligeras por naturaleza, aceleran su vuelo para llenar el corazón histórico de los movimientos políticos en México. Hasta ahora se notan tranquilas, pues se saben arropadas por la clara tela celeste que han tejido esos hilos de limpias utopías.
Más terrenal, de pronto soy sorpresivamente asaltado por las incisivas preguntas de las afanadoras de mi pisito, que me llevan al filo de mi limitado conocimiento sobre cambio climático. Una de ellas se queja de la fría madrugada de anteayer que calaba hasta el meritito tuétano; la otra mucho más informada, me actualiza avisándome que las lluvias que inundaron las "midlands" Inglesas son las más intensas desde que se llevan los registros instrumentales, y que ya han causado 7 decesos. ¡Ah, caray! Ni la mismísima BBC me mantiene tan al tanto. Intento escabullirme deseándole a Pam unas "soleadas" vacaciones en la península Ibérica, y salgo raudo no sea que me hagan sudar mucho más que mis sinodales este Viernes.
Dirijo entonces mi pasos a mi cubículo, y observo lo que Pam muy acertadamente describió: nubes de desarrollo vertical, la convección atmosférica en una de sus máximas expresiones. Para aquellos que somos costeños esto nos puede ser raro, no tan extravagante es en las zonas montañosas donde estos procesos nos brindan majestuosas formaciones nubosas. Me es prácticamente imposible no relacionar estos fenómenos con los movimientos sociales, que son "calentados" desde abajo y a veces logran las transformaciones más importantes de un país. Aquellos que son despreciados por sus gobernantes, y muy frecuentemente por sus pares, sacan fuerzas del ninguneo y buscan promesas de las cuales puedan asirse, así sea sólo transitoriamente. Promesas que a veces se lleva el fresco viento que anuncia la proximidad de la precipitación. Esta misma lluvia que regularmente "limpia" el ambiente. Una manifestación de arengas es igualmente “precipitada” a quién consideran su "presidente", el amarillo de su vestir probablemente denote su filiación, pero no nos confundamos muchos los hay sin color como las gruesas gotas de agua que humedecen el suelo Norwichiano, y que también reclaman su parte en esta catarsis comunitaria. Es difícil concebir que ya ha transcurrido un año completito del fraude electoral cocinado a fuego lento, tal como el caluroso abrazo entre capas atmosféricas que desata estas intensas lluvias.
Para llevar a cabo su ascendente movimiento las nubes necesitan de la energía térmica que solo el Sol puede proporcionar. Igualmente, los movimientos revolucionarios (que espero en "mi" país continúe pacífico) necesitan ideologías (aunque algunos "infatuados" las consideren ideas peregrinas), esas que sólo pueden brotar de las cabezas que piensan, dirían las bases Zapatistas. Estos cismas se empapan (no me refiero al del Vaticano, no molesten) de los preclaros conceptos de los intelectuales. Esto es fácilmente identificable en la figura del encapuchado mayor, que no es más que un traductor de sueños indígenas.
Habiendo pulido su firmamento, la noche es ahora nítida. Una luna llena rodeada de luceros de todos los tamaños será la discreta cómplice de nuestras esperanzas. Es solo entonces que recordamos que, como la lluvia, tenemos que comenzar a construir el sueño desde abajo, para limpiar el tiradero que fue la elección de Julio de 2006. Actualmente, la peor pesadilla de nuestros adversarios ideológicos, porque la violencia nunca anidará en nuestros libertarios espíritus.
M@rconstelación;
Norwich, G(ran) B(ig Bang);
3/7/06
P.D.ABS. "...No one can STOP US now..." - We Are All Made Of Stars (Moby).
P.D.AMISTOSA. "...good FRIENDS we had or good FRIENDS we lost/along the way..." - No woman no cry (Bob Marley and The Wailers).
Pilona Existencialista:
"Why, O Gish, does thou run about?
The life that thou seekest, thou wilt not find.
When the gods created mankind,
Death they imposed on mankind;
Life they kept in their power.
Thou, O Gish, fill thy belly,
Day and night do thou rejoice,
Daily make a rejoicing!
Day and night a renewal of jollification!
Let thy clothes be clean,
Wash thy head and pour water over thee!
Care for the little one who takes hold of thy hand!
"Tesco should ensure that we have enough to live on. We are not asking for luxuries, just to be able to live without borrowing, and to respect the rights of women because we really work hard, they must give us what we deserve," Gertruida Baartman yesterday.
Fruit picker tells of her suffering since shaming supermarket
Richard Wray and Tim Shepherd-Smith Friday June 29, 2007 The Guardian
The world that Gertruida Baartman inhabits could not be further removed from the cosy chats with Gordon Brown and photocalls with Premiership footballers enjoyed by Sir Terry Leahy.
As a fruit picker in South Africa she is at the bottom of Tesco's lengthy supply chain. While those at the top of the business are trying to persuade shareholders that Sir Terry should receive an extra £11m if its foray into the US succeeds, the 39-year-old single mother of three often does not have enough money to feed her children, let alone afford the prices that Tesco charges UK consumers for the fruit she picks.
But the worlds of poverty and plenty will collide today as Ms Baartman returns to the company's annual meeting, thanks to ActionAid, to plead with the board to pay her and her co-workers a living wage.
"Tesco should ensure that we have enough to live on. We are not asking for luxuries, just to be able to live without borrowing, and to respect the rights of women because we really work hard, they must give us what we deserve," she said yesterday.
The farm where she works supplies one of South Africa's largest fruit exporters, Capespan, which last year saw a 122% increase in profits after tax.
She attended last year's Tesco annual meeting, bringing the reality of working for the supermarket's suppliers in the developing world to its corporate homeland. The company's chairman, David Reid, promised to take heed of her plight and there have been some changes at her farm, especially after Tesco visited in May. In the past, fruit pickers were forced back into the orchards immediately after the crops had been sprayed with pesticides, meaning that workers were often handling fruit that was still wet with dangerous chemicals.
That practice has, at least, ended on Ms Baartman's farm and she is in no doubt why that happened. "On our farm things did change but all the other farms basically remain the same. It changed on my farm because the spotlight and the media have been on me."
But the supermarket's promise that her appearance last year would not lead to recriminations rang hollow when her boss - whom the workers call "master" - refused to re-hire her for the next season. "I lost my job and my union had to fight with the farmer to get my job back," she said.
There have been other unwelcome changes: "In the past the farmer provided transport for my brother, who is in a wheelchair, when he needed to go to the doctor or the clinic. But when I spoke out they refused to help and now my father has to help me pay for [transport]."
Ms Baartman earns about 30p an hour under the government's minimum wage scheme. "It may be what the law says is a minimum wage but it is not something you can live on," she said. "I can't feed my children properly or take them to the doctor when they are ill and I can't take care of myself even though I am the one who has to work for the money."
She augments her meagre salary with her parents' state pensions which do not go very far and she often has to borrow from friends and neighbours. When she gets paid, much of that money goes to paying off debt.
"But often the money is not enough and when I have to walk past someone I owe money to, I cannot look them in the face," she admitted.
Under the Ethical Trading Initiative, which Tesco has signed up to, the supermarket is supposed to ensure that "living wages are paid" and "wages should always be enough to meet basic needs and to provide some discretionary income".
Last year a review of the ETI carried out by Sussex University concluded that "in general, codes had had almost no impact in terms of ensuring workers receive a living wage".
At today's meeting, Tesco shareholders will be asked to support a resolution demanding that Tesco takes measures - to be independently audited - to ensure that workers "are guaranteed decent working conditions, a living wage, job security, freedom of association and of collective bargaining including ... the right to join a trade union of their choice".
The resolution has been put on the table by Ben Birnberg, a retired solicitor and company secretary at War on Want. Tesco initially tried to block the resolution but Mr Birnberg attracted enough shareholders to back his plan. He also has the support of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which has just under 1 million shares in Tesco.
"This is as much in the interest of Tesco and its shareholders as it is in the interests of the poor workers who are exploited," he said yesterday. "In the annual review the company says it prides itself on sharing its success with its UK workers, why not share the success beyond these shores?"
Ethical trading
Tesco is a member of the ETI (Ethical Trading Initiative). Founded in 1998, the ETI aims to improve working conditions within a retailer's suppliers, through guidelines which members must incorporate into their codes of conduct. But the code is voluntary - members can be suspended or expelled only for non-compliance - and the ETI has been criticised as ineffective. Last year a report by Sussex University showed that, despite some improvements in health and safety and the ending of child labour, the ETI has brought little overall change. An ETI spokeswoman said: "We may not have been aware how serious the problems were."
Tesco faced an unprecedented revolt yesterday over the meagre wages it pays workers in the developing world to supply its supermarkets with everything from cheap clothing to fruit.
Shareholders at the company's annual meeting in London also voiced their anger at a controversial new pay scheme for the chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, which could see him pocket more than £11m if Tesco's expansion into the US market succeeds. More than one in six shareholders refused to back Sir Terry's new pay scheme, while almost 20% of shareholders refused to reject a resolution calling for Tesco to pay workers in the developing world a "living wage".
The latter resolution was tabled by Ben Birnberg, a retired solicitor and company secretary at War on Want. The Tesco board called on shareholders to reject it saying that the company is already taking steps to ensure its suppliers treat workers properly.
But Mr Birnberg told the meeting that "the irony of the board recommending that shareholders vote against our resolution to increase the meagre pay of its outsourced workers ... whilst at the same time provocatively recommending that shareholders vote for incentive plans which will augment the already absurdly generous remuneration packages for its top executives ... may be lost on the board but it is certainly not lost on this shareholder or the public at large".
He added: "There is nothing that lowers a company more in the estimation of right thinking people ... than a public display of executive greed in an affluent world going hand in hand with a public display of corporate miserliness and indifference towards those at the bottom in an impoverished world who contribute so munificently to our corporate wealth. Let Tesco, as the market leader, steal a march on its competitors and blaze an ethical trail."
He was supported by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, with just under a million shares, while the CIS, which has £25bn under management and is a significant shareholder in Tesco, was among those who abstained on the vote. To applause, the meeting was addressed by Gertruida Baartman, a South African fruit picker whose farm supplies Tesco through exporter Capespan. She attended the meeting last year to speak up for the plight of agricultural workers, but said yesterday: "I have decided to come here again because little has changed in our lives. Our children still go hungry ... we don't want to beg and borrow to stay alive. We are asking Tesco to give us what we deserve. We just want to live a life of dignity."
Tesco chairman David Reid said he had met Ms Baartman, who was brought to the UK by Action Aid, and representatives of her union. He said the company would expand its ethical audit of South African farms.
The meeting, which ran for more than three hours, was also addressed by a Bangladeshi textile worker who said workers there are not being paid "a living wage". One small shareholder recommended that Mr Reid spend six months working in a Bangladeshi textile mill and surviving on local wages and then try working on a South African fruit farm. "If everything's fine, you'll have a great time and come back with a tan," he said. "If not, you'll be thinner and a lot more understanding of the plight of these poor people."
There were several jibes about executive pay. In the end, 8.75% of shareholders refused to back the company's remuneration policy while 17.71% refused to back Sir Terry's special US bonus.
Pongo entrecomillado el título porque no es mío, corresponde a un artículo que Enrique Krauze publicó en el periódico Reforma el 6 de mayo del presente año. En ese artículo, Krauze se lamenta de la incomprensión de la izquierda hacia Octavio Paz y jura y perjura, como suele decirse, que Paz siempre estuvo deseoso de entablar un debate de altura con la izquierda, pero ésta siempre lo esquivó. Paz, dice Krauze, vivió decepcionado por esa actitud de la izquierda. Conozco a Krauze desde hace más de treinta años y, aunque no nos frecuentamos, siempre lo he considerado un amigo. Su respeto hacia mí ha sido irrestricto como el mío hacia él. Pues desde que lo conozco, en las contadas veces en que nos hemos visto, todo el tiempo me ha soltado el mismo lamento.
Siempre le dije a mi amigo liberal que eso no era cierto, que los que nunca habían querido un debate de altura habían sido Paz y él. Y tengo muchas pruebas de ello. En 1967 publiqué un ensayo teórico, "Sociedad y Estado en el mundo moderno", en el que me pronunciaba por un Estado democrático y respetuoso de las libertades humanas. En uno de mis primeros encuentros con Krauze le pedí que lo leyera (ya estaba publicado en un libro de ensayos que salió en 1974). Jamás supe si lo leyó. Le dije, además, que se lo propusiera a Paz. Nunca supe nada. Un amigo mío me dijo que José de la Colina, quien corrigió mi primer librito, La formación del poder político en México (1972), le llevó a Paz mi libro La ideología de la Revolución Mexicana (1973). El lo vio y, en medio de una sonora carcajada, dijo: "Pero qué idea tan peregrina: 'ideología', ja-ja-ja, 'de la Revolución Mexicana'". Acto seguido se lo devolvió a De la Colina y le dijo que no tenía tiempo para leer tonterías. Confieso que no sé si será cierto porque yo a José de la Colina nunca lo he tratado, excepto cuando me dio sus correcciones.
Se lo conté en otra ocasión a Krauze y me dijo: "¡Ah qué Octavio!, je-je, así es él, ¿sabes?". Octavio Paz no quería discutir con la izquierda. Tenía un concepto de la izquierda muy propio y muy conveniente: para él era el conjunto de los seguidores del Partido Comunista soviético, de Castro o de Mao. No sabía que había un pensamiento de izquierda, marxista, que era diferente. Ese pensamiento a él no le interesaba. Quería un enemigo a modo y era a ése al que siempre estaba retando. Probablemente le habría encantado que Leonid Brehznev o Fidel Castro se dirigieran a él y lo invitarán a polemizar como él quería, probablemente en la Plaza Roja o en la Plaza de la Revolución. Cuando Paz se convirtió en estrella de la televisión con sus magníficos y muy ilustrativos programas jamás abrió las puertas a una polémica como él decía que quería con la izquierda.
La única vez que Paz polemizó con un exponente de la izquierda y de su mismo nivel fue cuando, en la revista Proceso, interpeló a Carlitos Monsiváis por lo que escribía en su divertida columna "Por mi madre bohemios". Monsi le respondió muy adecuadamente y la discusión se prolongó por varias semanas. Mi amigo lo puso parejo, como se dice, y no le dio cuartel. Paz se vio siempre acorralado y en una ocasión oí decir a Monsi que él le iba siempre a contestar cada vez que abriera la boca. "Yo no seré el penúltimo que hable", dijo. Y así fue. Paz se retiró a sus cuarteles y nunca más volvió a discutir con un izquierdista. Pero no dejó de decir que la izquierda no quería discutir con él y se dijo "decepcionado", como lo apunta Krauze.
En una ocasión, habrá sido en 1966, Gerardo Unzueta me llevó a las oficinas de Prensa Latina, muy cerca de Paseo de la Reforma, donde, por cierto, conocí a Renato Leduc y, platicando con él y otros, Gerardo nos leyó una carta dirigida a Paz, en la que le proponía polemizar sobre el comunismo, como doctrina, y sobre el sistema socialista mundial. Era, según recuerdo, una carta muy decente, comedida, en la que mi amigo comunista le decía a Paz que lo admiraba, por su gran poesía y su magnífica ensayística, y lo retaba a que polemizara con él sobre los temas que le preocupaban sobre el papel de la izquierda en la historia moderna. Si Gerardo me lee, no me dejará mentir. Renato Leduc, le dijo: "¡Uhm! Ese cabrón infatuado, jamás te va a contestar".
Yo también polemicé con mi amigo liberal. Cuando, allá por 1980 se publicó aquel librito Historia para qué, en el que yo había colaborado y, también, el maestro de Krauze, Luis González y González, escribió una verdadera diatriba en la que nos acusaba de ser historiadores "estatistas" (historiadores wigh, fue su expresión). El tory Krauze alertó a la ciudadanía mexicana sobre los peligros que el libro representaba, pues se habría dado a leer en las preparatorias y en las universidades haciendo oficiales los puntos de vista (muy diferentes, por cierto) que nosotros expresábamos en nuestras colaboraciones. Yo le respondí en un largo artículo que se publicó en el suplemento Sábado, de Unomásuno, el mismo en el que él había publicado el suyo, para decirle que nuestro libro no era lo que él pensaba y que si quería discutir con cada uno de nosotros lo hiciera y no nos acusara de "estatistas". Krauze me contestó, pero no refutó ni uno solo de mis argumentos y hasta me dijo que estábamos de acuerdo en muchas cosas, así que ya no le respondí. Luego, en una cena, me dijo que habría valido la pena reeditar la polémica. Yo le dije que cuando quisiera. Nunca ha vuelto al tema.
Krauze, por elección propia, se ha convertido en un señalado vocero de la derecha, si bien él prefiere que se le llame liberal. Quisiera decirle a mi amigo liberal que no es el único y que hay muchos que han luchado por la libertad probablemente más y, sobre todo, más peligrosamente que él. No tiene por qué seguir diciendo que los izquierdistas no apreciamos la libertad y que todos somos autoritarios y estalinistas. Tampoco tiene por qué seguir exigiéndonos a todos que nos arrepintamos de lo que hicieron los dictadores comunistas. Eso es estúpido. Yo qué carajos tengo que ver con el muro de Berlín o con los campos del Gulag. Aparte de porque es liberal, sospecho que Krauze tiene otra razón para ser derechista. En una ocasión (y luego lo dijo también en público) me confesó que quería ser un intelectual, pero que no quería depender de nadie y por eso se había dedicado a hacer negocios y a hacer dinero. Hoy es muy rico. Siempre recordé a Hank González, para quien un político pobre es un pobre político. Para Enrique Krauze un intelectual pobre deber ser un pobre intelectual (¡Puta!). La verdad es que conozco muy pocos que se hayan hecho ricos y no por ser intelectuales.
Sitting in his corner of the ring at the end of round four, eyes down and body slumped, Julio Cesar Chavez calls off the fight. He says his hand is broken. Later, in his dressing room, he dabs away the tears with a tissue. "It was my fault," mumbles one of the world's greatest boxers, as his 24-year career ends with a technical knockout by a barely-known journeyman. A matter-of-fact voice off camera responds: "Of course it was."
This is a key scene in a new documentary directed by the young Mexican actor Diego Luna, which dedicates much of its 78 minutes to arguing that Chavez's demise - that final fight was in September 2005 - was actually the fault of former presidents, unscrupulous promoters, and even his fans. "People with power used Julio Cesar Chavez," Luna says. "Other people's agenda completely took over. It is very sad."
Luna - best known in Britain for his co-starring role with Gael Garcia Bernal in Y Tu Mama Tambien - says he has always been fascinated by Mexico's foremost boxing legend. Chavez was one kind of world champion or another from 1984 to 1994, winning 108 fights (87 with a knockout), drawing two and losing only six. "I wasn't a fan of boxing, I was a fan of Julio Cesar Chavez," Luna says. "All of Mexico stopped to watch his fights. Old, young, left, right and centre. And today, I wanted people to know what happened to the legend."
The film is the first project to emerge from Luna's half of Canana Films, the production company set up by Luna and Bernal. It has emerged alongside Bernal's directorial debut Deficit - a fiction feature about decadent upper-class Mexican youth that was shown out of competition in Cannes this year - and Canana's annual travelling documentary festival, Ambulante.
The way Luna sees it, Canana Films is part of a wider movement to use the success enjoyed by some individual Mexicans abroad, to build a solid film industry back home. The so-called "tres amigos" (directors Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro) have used the momentum garnered by their international successes to lobby for more state support for new talent in an under-funded domestic film environment. They even talk returning to Mexico to make films again themselves. Luna and Bernal, on the other hand, are sticking closer to home.
"Julio Cesar Chavez is the most important sporting figure we have ever had," Luna says. His choice of subject, if nothing else, cements his nationalist credentials. In a country not short of boxing heroes, Chavez reigns supreme. Still, Luna says: "Most of the time we don't give him the place he deserves." But Luna's film is actually much more interested in what went wrong than in lingering on what went right. It speeds through Chavez's rise from his humble origins growing up beside a railway line in the northern state of Sinaloa, to the glory days when, in a bout to unify the world welterweight title, he knocked out Meldrick Taylor in 1990, 16 seconds before the end of the final round in a fight he would have otherwise lost on points.
Instead, Luna's film emphasises how the former president, Carlos Salinas, turned Chavez into a kind of regime mascot, setting him up for the fall that followed when power changed hands in 1994. Pursued by allegations (skirted over in the film) of tax fraud, domestic violence and ties to drug trafficking, Chavez's career went into steep decline. He eventually made a comeback, a shadow of his former self, for a seemingly endless goodbye tour that ended in 2005 and that takes up the final third of the documentary.
Today the "forgotten legend" is shown as an energetic middle-aged father with a touch of roguish charm, but little fanfare in his manner or in the way he is treated by others. "What would be great would be if this encouraged more of these kind of documentaries," Luna said. "We [Mexicans] need to celebrate ourselves a little bit more." Celebration, however, doesn't seem quite the word for Chavez's story.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
A day in the death of America
A two-year-old shoots himself with a gun he finds behind the sofa, a shopper is killed by a security guard, one brother fires on another - so it goes. Nine dead in 24 hours
A two-year-old shoots himself with a gun he finds behind the sofa, a shopper is killed by a security guard, one brother fires on another - so it goes. Nine dead in 24 hours
At 11.31pm on Saturday November 25 2006, Gerardo Parraga withdrew $120 from a cashpoint machine in Throggs Neck, the Bronx, and walked the last 10 minutes home. Ordinarily, it's an uneventful jaunt through suburbia. Gerardo, 19, had just finished a 12-hour shift as a security guard at New YorkLawSchool and this was the final leg of his 90-minute commute. It was the end of a long day, at the end of a long week. Within minutes, it would be the end of his short life.
As he left the bank, he called his girlfriend, Yamil Mejia, to say he thought a car was following him. Soon after, she heard a struggle over the phone and then the line went dead. At home, his mother had just finished decorating the Christmas tree when she got a panicked call from Mejia, asking if Gerardo had made it back yet. When his mother rushed out to look for him, she found his bloodied body lying in the street a few blocks away. He had been shot in the back. Someone who lived across the street found him with his eyes rolling and blood bubbling from his mouth and nose. The bullet had punctured his lung.
Stephanie Rodolico, who lives in the apartment above the Parragas, remembers that evening. "We heard the commotion downstairs, but they weren't the kind of family to scream and yell," she says. It wasn't until the following morning they learned what had happened, when Gerardo's father called out to Stephanie's husband and started crying, "John, John, they killed my son."
Gerardo's father came to the US from Ecuador and the whole family were doing their best to live the dream. Throggs Neck was a move up for them. Were it not for the planes flying low over the Long Island Sound on their way to La Guardia airport, it would be a quiet neighbourhood. Madonnas stand, arms crossed, in glass cases on clipped lawns. Crime is down and on the porches American flags are up. Gerardo had enrolled in a part-time course in software engineering, computer programming and web design at ColumbiaUniversity, targeted at promising students from low-income families. "You hardly ever saw him," says John Rodolico. "He was either at work or at school."
After Gerardo's death, the Parragas moved to Queens. On the corner where he fell, a bouquet of dried flowers hangs from a lamppost. "His mother couldn't keep walking past the spot where he died every day," Stephanie says. "They came to this area to better their lives and this is what happens. It shocked all of us."
On an average day, eight Americans aged 19 or under are killed by firearms - over a year, that adds up to more than the number who perished in the World Trade Centre on 9/11. Of those eight victims, according to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention figures for 2004 (the last year for which statistics are available), seven are likely to be male and one female; variously, three are black, four white and one Hispanic; five are likely to be the victims of murder, two suicides and one classed as "unintentional", "undetermined" or "legal intervention" - a police shooting.
In many respects, then, Gerardo's death set the scene for just another day in America. Over the following 24 hours, on this day picked at random, another eight children would lose their lives. Gerardo was the eldest; the youngest was two. Eight were black and one was Hispanic. They died in housing estates, suburbs and malls, at parties and on porches, in areas of average income and of above-average poverty. They were shot by a relative, friend, unknown assassin, a pizza delivery man, an off-duty police officer and by accident. It was Thanksgiving, the biggest travelling weekend of the year, when people are returning home after joining their families for the holiday. By the time the day was over, nine families were one member short.
3.20amAs Gerardo Parraga's life was ending, Jonathan Jacques' night out in the Dorchester area of Boston was just beginning. At 9.30pm, he had given his mother, Martine, a big kiss, and she had watched from her bedroom window as he set off to meet friends. "He loves to party," she says. "He likes hip hop, reggae and R&B." She still wavers between present and past tense when talking about her son, who was 18 when he died. He and his friends were heading for The $hort $kirt Affair, a three-day party that had been advertised on MySpace: $5 for boys and $2 for girls. At around 2.45am, one of the loudspeakers caught fire and the partygoers moved outside. Some of Jonathan's friends called it a night, but he was still there after 3am when an argument started. Locals, disturbed by the noise, were ready to call the police when at 3.20am there was the sound of gunshots blended with shrill teenage screams. Two girls, aged 14 and 15, and two boys, aged 16 and 17, were wounded. Jonathan was shot dead.
One of his friends called Martine, who rushed to the hospital. "He died instantly," she says, "but someone told me that the hearing is the last to go. So I got to hold him and talk to him and I thought, even if he was dead, maybe he could still hear me."
Jonathan was known as 40 Cal - as in 40-calibre pistol. It is a testament to the pervasiveness of gun culture among US youth that his friends insist his nickname owed nothing to street violence. His middle name was Calvin and he was 6ft 4in and reed thin, like the barrel of a .40. "He's a comedian," Martine says. "You could never stay mad at him for long. He had a very playful personality. People would always ask him to babysit." Martine, who was born in Haiti and came to the US when she was eight, says she has good days and bad days - "Days when I can't talk about it at all." She still has the soap from his last shower. "Every time he left the house, he would look in the mirror and ask me how many phone numbers I thought he would get that night."
Jonathan dropped out of school. He had a part-time job at a Stop & Shop supermarket, but wanted to go into real estate. Martine had only recently moved from north Dorchester, where she worried her children might get into trouble. She'd thought about moving to the suburbs, but believed Jonathan would then be harassed by "racist white cops asking what he was doing there". There had been a time when Jonathan hung out with the wrong crowd and had had a few brushes with the law, but all of that was behind him now. "He was no hoodlum," his mother says. "He was a good kid."
Since her boys were teenagers, she had been haunted by the fear that guns might take them. There is a connection, she believes, between the violence that blights America and the country's actions elsewhere. "When people see what we're doing in the rest of the world, they think, why not in my neighbourhood? The government sets an example of violence and then it gets played out on the streets."
A mile or so away, at the Louis D Brown Peace Institute, Clementina Chery says American society is failing its children. "This violence did not just happen overnight," she says. "We allowed it to happen. This country does not help people to help themselves. I love Dorchester. But we live in hell. The only resources we get are helicopters, police, cameras and prisons. These are the hellkeepers, but we have no resources to find the peacekeepers."
Chery's son, Louis D Brown, was 15 when he was shot 14 years ago. The institute that bears his name aims to assist families of both victims and perpetrators in the immediate aftermath of shootings, and works in schools and the community to educate people about gun violence. When Jonathan was killed, Chery knew how to help. As the sun came up on the morning of November 26, a memorial for Jonathan, complete with candles and flowers, was already forming in the neighbourhood where he'd grown up. "The victims and perpetrators are getting younger and younger," Chery says.
10.28amTimberlan Addison, two years old, was staying with his 37-year-old father, Timothy, in Tampa, Florida. The west coast of Florida simmered in the mid-70s that day and, amid the palm trees and Spanish moss, you could almost forget that one in five families in this part of the city lives below the poverty line. Timothy had had several brushes with the law, including time in prison for cocaine possession. But neighbours say he was an attentive father who often looked after Timberlan at weekends. Renee Henderson, who lives across the road, described Timothy as "a sweet person". Her daughter, Marquita, was pregnant with his seventh child. Timberlan was his sixth.
That Sunday morning, the two of them had gone out to get some breakfast. Back home, Timberlan was playing, climbing over the furniture, when he reached behind the couch and found a Sig Sauer 9mm semi-automatic. According to the police report, Timothy said he had the gun for protection - there had been several burglaries in the neighbourhood - but usually left it in a safe when his son was home. Timberlan pulled the trigger. When Timothy heard the bang, he picked up his crying son to comfort him, thinking he was just scared. Only when he saw the blood seeping through his red-and-white striped T-shirt did he realise that Timberlan had shot himself.
Timothy ran across the street with Timberlan in his arms, knocking and shouting for Renee. When she opened her door, she saw the baby slumped in one of the white plastic chairs on the porch. She tried to staunch the blood by putting a towel to his chest, and then called an ambulance. Michael Spirk was the first policeman on the scene. He "observed an adult black male holding a small black male child, lying on a sofa in the living room. The adult black male was extremely distraught." When he tried to give Timberlan mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, "copious amounts of blood would run from his wound".
Timberlan was taken to Tampa GeneralHospital. Timothy was taken to the station for questioning while the police searched the house. They allegedly found two 1oz bags of marijuana in the microwave and more seeds on digital scales on the kitchen counter. They also reportedly recovered a Glock semi-automatic pistol and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, including some for an assault rifle. "He was then handcuffed," reads the police report, "and placed under arrest for being a felon in possession of a firearm, after which he was told that his son had expired as a result of the gunshot wound. Mr Addison then became overcome with grief, and began screaming and crying. After a short time he became more agitated and refused to sit in a chair or be cooperative. He was then transported to central booking by uniformed officers."
Two months later, Timothy was arrested while at his construction job and charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell, parole violation and possession of a firearm during a drug crime. He still faces state charges of culpable negligence for leaving the gun where Timberlan could get hold of it. Timberlan's mother was at the hearing, where she reacted angrily to the charges. "I forgave him from day one," she said. "These people are not taking into consideration that this man lost his child ... He wakes up every morning crying. He feels like it's his fault."
All of this made Timberlan's death newsworthy for several weeks - far longer than any of the teenagers killed by gunfire that day. It is nothing unusual for a shooting to rate a few paragraphs in the local press and then disappear altogether from the public record. "Over the past few years we have seen America become more desensitised to gun violence," says Alicia Horton of the Brady Campaign, an advocacy group to prevent gun violence. "I'm not sure if it's an emotional reflex or a coping strategy or what, but people have just started to turn the channel. They shut down in a way that they didn't used to."
2pmThe case of Brandon Martell Moore, a 16-year-old killed in Detroit, caused barely a ripple. Moore was shot by an off-duty police officer outside the National Wholesale Liquidators on 8 Mile. Brandon was never named by the authorities or the city's two main newspapers. "Why would I want to live in a place where my son can't even be remembered?" says his father, John Henry Moore Sr. "That means he didn't mean nothing to this city."
Brandon was a quiet boy. According to his sister Ebony, the only time he had anything to say was when "he was seeing a girl or making jokes". He and his younger brother were such devotees of Beavis and Butt-head that his mother had to hide the video so they wouldn't keep watching it. "At the funeral, lots of girls I didn't even know came up to me crying and said, 'I was his girlfriend,' " says his mother, Susie Burks, laughing. "There was a whole row of them there."
National Wholesale Liquidators, a warehouse store, sprawls along the edge of Bel-Air mall on the corner of a road lined with boarded-up houses, empty lots and abandoned stores - a burned-out carcass where the heart of a community once beat. On the front door, a sign says that those 16 years and younger must be accompanied by an adult. Brandon had come with four friends to buy video games. They didn't see the sign but, since one of them was 22 and another 19, it didn't apply to them anyway.
Police say Brandon was part of a gang making trouble in the store, and that one of the staff had asked them to leave. On their way out, they ran into an off-duty police officer (who was moonlighting at the store as a security guard): "One teenager took off his coat and rushed the off-duty police officer," according to a police spokesman quoted in the Detroit Free Press. The others got involved and the officer opened fire, killing one and wounding another.
Diane Bukowski, from the local black paper, the Michigan Citizen, was the only reporter to pursue the case and heard an entirely different account from those who were with Brandon that day. They had split up and were walking round the store when Brandon's older brother, John Henry, saw his friends being thrown out. They argued but left anyway, before realising that one of their number wasn't with them. One of the boys (not Brandon) tried to get past the security guard and back into the store. A tussle began. "I saw something fall to the floor. I thought it was a cell phone, but it was a gun in its holster," John Henry said. "The man didn't realise at first. Then he picked it up, put one arm on top of the other arm and started aiming at us. Brandon wasn't involved in anything. He was the last one to take off running, I guess."
According to the autopsy, Brandon was shot in the back. When his father asked for a police report, an officer allegedly told him, "I'm not fucking giving it to you."
The man who killed Brandon is Eugene J Williams. His badge number is 4174. According to various press reports, he has had a colourful history with Detroit's finest. In 1971, he was sacked after he was involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident while under the influence of alcohol. He was reinstated in 1974 on appeal. Five years later, he shot dead an armed and drunk 31-year-old man while in a neighbourhood dispute. Five years after that, he shot his wife in the side during a domestic dispute in which he claimed she lunged at him with a pair of scissors. She survived, and he was able to continue his career in the police force.
Williams was not suspended for the shooting of Brandon Moore; instead, he was assigned to a Detroit traffic unit. When I called the unit, Williams answered the phone and, after some initial equivocation, denied ever having heard of Brandon. Last month an investigation ruled that the shooting was justifiable homicide.
3.30pmAn hour and half after Brandon died, and 700 miles to the south-east, a 13-year-old took his late great uncle's shotgun out of a closet and shot his cousin Terry Hayes, 14, square in the face at point-blank range. The bullet went through Terry's left cheek and took off the back of his head. The boys had just returned from church in Petersburg, Virginia, a sleepy town that feels more southern than its geography would have you believe. By all accounts Terry was a regular kid. He wanted to be a businessman or a pro-footballer. He loved sketching, and playing video games with his cousin. "They were always hanging out," says Tania Hayes, Terry's stepmother. "They were beyond cousins. They were best friends." She recalls a time when she grounded Terry only to find his cousin at her door demanding access. "Mrs T, you're either gonna let me in or let him out," he told her.
The Hayes' extended family had been having a tough winter. A few weeks earlier the 13-year-old's great uncle, James Brunt, had been killed by a drunk driver. Uncle "Bo" always told him to stay away from the closet, but now he was gone.
"We're still trying to find out where the gun came from," said police lieutenant Tom Young. "We think it was stolen but whoever stole it never checked to see if it was loaded."
Last month the boy appeared in court, but sentencing was postponed pending psychiatric evaluations. "The judge was asking him simple questions, like, 'Where do you live?' and 'How old are you?'" explains Young, "and he kept saying, 'I don't know.' "
Terry's dad, Terry Sr, has been in the military, stationed in Europe, and knows American gun culture is not inevitable. "I'm torn," he says. "I respect the right to bear arms. But you don't know what fool out there might have a gun or what child in the next room might pick one up next. And then - bang!"
7.49pmIn a wealthy suburb of Las Vegas, three time zones away, Jason Moore, Lamar Brown and four friends went to another friend's house to drop off some jeans. The friend and his family were all away, but Lamar knew the code to the garage door and let them in. Once inside, they made themselves at home, logging on to a computer and messing about with Lamar's MySpace page. Lamar's younger sister, Tatiana, describes him affectionately as "a little shrimp always talking like a big lobster". Jason is variously described by friends and family as "cool", "chilled" and "really nice". He wanted to be a rapper and certainly had attitude. He had recently been suspended from school after he "cussed out" a PE teacher who "jumped up in his face". Lamar, 18, and Jason, also 18, were foster brothers. Their mothers had once been friends. But Lamar's mother, Robin Stumps, had become Jason's legal guardian because of his own mother's drug habit. "When you saw one, you saw them both," she says. "They were so close."
But there, in their friend's house, something happened. No one will say what, but it ended shortly before eight o'clock when Lamar shot Jason in the chest with a 20-gauge shotgun, according to the police report. "I didn't know what happened," says Curtis Perkins, one of the boys who was with them. "I heard a gunshot and then suddenly everybody was just running out the house. I ran, too."
According to the police report, Lamar threw the gun in the bushes, called 911 for Jason and then got in a car with three of the friends and drove away. Later, he came to the hospital to see how Jason was faring and was picked up by detectives. News reports that night suggested Jason's condition was critical but stable and recovering. He was pronounced dead at 3.50am the next morning.
"He bled to death," insists family friend Dee-Dee Lovato. "The bullet hit his shoulder and missed his major arteries and organs. Lamar shot him, but he didn't have to die."
"Accidents happen," says Jason's brother, Genesis. "People should watch what they do with guns and shit - they ain't nothing to play with."
I met Jason's family the day that Seung-Hui Cho shot dead 32 of his fellow students at Virginia Tech university before turning the gun on himself. On the way there, I heard several callers to the local radio station ringing in to say the tragedy could have been avoided if the students had been armed.
"If you're not a policeman, you don't need a gun," says Robin Stumps. "I thought I was the best black mother in the world. None of my kids were gang members. None of them has a gun."
"I do," says her eldest son from across the room. "Well, I know how to get one."
Tatiana has Jason's name tattooed on her arm - it is just one way in which the young here remember their dead. Stores in some areas do a good trade in Rest In Peace T-shirts. Inner city walls are decorated with RIP murals. More recently, pages on MySpace have transformed a social networking site into an electronic graveyard, with friends posting testimony to the departed. Jason's page bears a picture of him and Lamar with their arms around each other's shoulders, taken just days before the shooting.
Lamar pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. Originally it was thought he would get five years' probation but, following the publicity surrounding the shooting, a young woman came forward with an accusation of sexual assault against him that could carry anything from 10 years to life in prison. According to his sister Chenell, he now sits in Clark County Detention centre crying himself to sleep. When it comes to sentencing, his mother will act as a character witness for both him and Jason.
7.57pm Two and a half thousand miles east, in Hyattsville, Maryland, gunfire shattered the quiet of a new housing development near the Martin Luther King Highway. Korey Campbell, 17, had been shot in the back just five minutes from his home. Korey was going places. Specifically, the next day he was going back to Keystone, Pennsylvania, where he was just two weeks from graduating from Job Corps, a vocational training programme for young adults. Korey had been doing well: three weeks earlier, his supervisor's report had described him as an "outstanding young man" with "excellent leadership skills" - "Korey will be an asset to whomever and wherever he takes employment."
"He was ready for life," says his mother, Vonda Campbell. "The first thing he had to do was learn to drive. But he was ready ... He was ready." Vonda had struggled to make sure her children made something of themselves. Her eldest son got a basketball scholarship to attend New Haven university.
Korey had come back for Thanksgiving, and when he was shot he was walking home from a friend's house to pack for the next day's trip. "A lot of women around here have lost their children for no reason," Vonda says. "I would hold my breath when Korey was back until he got on the bus for Pennsylvania. I chose to send him away from this area."
Korey was the fourth person to be shot in the area - notorious for drug dealing, she says - in the past four months. "They had a vigil right there after two previous murders, but I never thought it would happen to me." She pulls out a small black bag with some of Korey's things in it, including some T-shirts and his favourite chewing gum. She hands me a picture of him in his coffin. "I can't look at it," she says. "If his sister comes in, pretend it's something else. She can't handle that at all." The prison where Korey's father is incarcerated would not let him out for the funeral.
The police have not contacted Vonda in several months to tell her of any developments in the case. "It feels like nobody cares," she says. "Like he was never here. Just another black kid dead. But he was here. He was my child. He existed."
The Campbells live just 25 minutes' drive from Washington DC - the nation's capital and, tellingly, the place where young people are by far the most likely to be shot dead (more than 15 times more so than in New York state). It is also home to the Supreme Court, which upholds the second amendment of the constitution enshrining the right to bear arms. Back in the 18th century, this was a revolutionary measure, crafted to protect the general population from tyrannical government (notably Britain). Nowadays, the citizenry are more likely to shoot each other. Even the most strident supporters of gun control, such as the Brady campaign, say they respect the second amendment. "We don't even want to get into the discussion," says Alicia Horton. "We are not a gun-banning organisation. The number one preventative measure to stop young people being killed by guns would be to reduce access to firearms. Regardless of how they died, if young people couldn't put their hands on a gun, then other young people wouldn't be shot." Most Americans seem to agree: a Pew research poll shows that while public support for greater gun control has waned over the past decade, the majority still back it.
But it does not look likely to happen any time soon - the gun lobby can still rally sufficient support to take gun control off the political agenda regardless of who's in power. Before the 2000 election, the National Rifle Association boasted that it was so close to George Bush that it would be working "out of his office". They have been pretty much true to their word. (The NRA turned down repeated requests for comment for this article.) Just a few weeks before these nine youngsters died, the Democrats won control of both Senate and House of Representatives in the Congressional elections. John Conyers, who became the Democratic chairman of the House judiciary committee, pledged he would not "support or forward to the House any legislation to ban handguns".
9.45pmIn Cherry Hill, Baltimore, 14-year-old Bernard Simon was sitting on a friend's porch, just around the corner from his home, when someone shot him. At one end of the street where he lived, searchlights stand on 20ft poles; at the other is a flashing neon-blue light, courtesy of Baltimore police, with the message "24/7 Believe". No one on the small block where Bernard was shot will admit to having even heard of him. His mother has moved away. The only evidence that Bernard was ever there is some graffiti scrawled on a power box: "Hez hooliganz. RIP Bernie."
Cherry Hill has the feel of a South African township. With just a few ways in and out, it is easier to contain than it is to police. Sitting on a promontory poking out into the PotapscoRiver, it is not on the way to anywhere. Outsiders have no reason to go there, and many of those who live there have no reason to leave because they don't have work. More than half of its 8,000 residents live in poverty.
"If you're in Cherry Hill, then chances are it's your destination," says Cathy McClain, executive director of the Cherry Hill Trust, a local group dedicated to revitalising the area.
Boarded-up houses punctuate the estate. In what is left of the playpark opposite Bernard's former home stands half a slide with small steps leading to thin air. The night before I arrived in town, somebody was shot dead. Gangs became rampant in the 80s; membership was based on where you lived. And if gang life is no longer synonymous with the drugs trade as it once was, the dealing continues.
Bernard was a member of the Up The Hill gang - not to be mistaken for the Hillside gang. "I don't know what you can do to fix this," says McClain. "We just haven't been successful in persuading these kids to want to live beyond their teenage years. They don't seem to want to be grandparents. They'd rather live on on somebody's T-shirt. If they're 21, then they're old."
Bernard's assailant was never found. Indeed, not one of the four cases of teenagers killed by unknown gunmen that Sunday has been solved.
10.15pmLess than an hour after Bernard Simon was gunned down, a call came in to Super Crown Pizza in suburban Atlanta for a home delivery to the Huntingwood Pointe housing complex two miles away. Super Crown has a list of addresses it won't deliver to. It's not difficult to see why - pizza delivery is a dangerous business in these parts. "A lot of my deliverymen have been robbed," says Muhammad Iftkhar, a Pakistani immigrant who arrived in the US 13 years ago. "They steal the money, they steal the food, the car. One time they took all the man's clothes and car keys. The guy just walked back here in his underwear." Another time, Muhammad had a pistol stuck in his mouth while the place was cleaned out. The chefs work behind bulletproof glass. Muhammad won't say whether or not he keeps a gun in the shop. "My main concern is business," he says. "I don't want any kind of trouble."
It was Zaid Mahmood's turn to take the pizza. Zaid had risked his life to deliver pizzas before: four months earlier, he had been beaten and had all his money and his green card stolen.
Huntingwood Pointe is one of several housing estates that sits back off a main road and is enclosed on all other sides by trees - it was not on Super Crown's no-go list. Zaid delivered the pizza and was on his way back to his car when, according to police reports, "he was approached by a group of three or four people who demanded his money". They told him to lie on the ground and hand over his car keys. Zaid stayed standing and handed over the keys. One of the boys, 14-year-old Kenyatta Calhoun, told Zaid to hand over his mobile phone. Zaid allegedly put his hand into his pocket, as though he were going for his phone, took out his gun and shot Kenyatta several times. Two of the boys, one of whom had already got into Zaid's car, ran away. Kenyatta lay dying under a tree.
Chikobi Bush, 19, says he heard the shots and ran out to see what was going on. "I saw Kenyatta lying on the ground. He was breathing, but he couldn't say nothing." He describes Kenyatta as a "cool guy". "He used to come out, sit around and talk to people." It's 11 o'clock in the morning when I visit, and Chikobi is doing just that himself, sitting and talking in one of the stairwells. One of his friends struggles to recall Kenyatta.
"The short nigga?"
"No, the light-skinned guy."
"He got shot? Shit!"
A lot of people get shot around here, they say - "For drugs, gangs, girls ... anything."
When I ask whether everyone has guns, they just laugh. "You knock on a door and ask, 'Have you got a gun?' and see if they don't pull a pistol on your ass," says the friend and laughs some more.
What do they need guns for?
"Protection," says Chikobi.
From whom?
"From everybody."
A few months earlier, Georgia had passed a "stand your ground" law that permitted state residents to use deadly force to respond to threats in public places, with no duty to retreat. Zaid walked free.
And so Thanksgiving Sunday ended in Atlanta as it began in the Bronx - with robbery, death and the sound of gunshot. No one would know from where the next day's deaths would come. The only certainty was that they would come.
On the morning of November 27, a gunlovers' website, glocktalk.com, ran a discussion thread about Kenyatta's death the night before.
The Fly wrote, "I do love a cleaner gene pool."
Butcher asked, "How many 14-year-old gangbangers are gonna be killed this week?"
