From Valborg to Santo Domingo: when the calendar tells you something that no one wants to hear.
April in the Dominican Republic is not a month. It is a collective state of mind that oscillates between resignation and shock. This year was confirmation.
We have reached one year since the collapse of the Jet Set roof and the (at least) 236 deceased are still waiting for justice to find the way to that Palace in New City, now even with slaps from the madman on duty to whom they expressed inconsolable pain. There was another great flood—announced by no one, despite the inauguration of the brand new radar with so much protocol—and the water once again fell heavier on those who have the least. The people of San Juan continue to be at war against GoldQuest and its gold, which, according to the company, is worth more than their lives. The anniversary of the April Revolution of 1965 passed without pain or glory, and the towns of ’84 celebrated another year without anyone yet knowing how many fell.
And in the streets, violence continues to take terrifying forms. Deivy Carlos Abreu, driver of a collection truck in Santiago, was chased, stabbed and left bleeding in front of the Palace of Justice by a mob of motorists whose motive, according to his own defense, was the collection of a debt. While the average Dominican trembles before the hordes of motors, the presidential escorts and officials continue to occupy the roads with their parade of sirens and jeeps that no one asked for and everyone pays for, until a vehicle from the outpost crashed this week in Maimón, overturning in a ravine and dragging an innocent civilian into its tragedy.
To top it all off, the JCE launched the new ID with great fanfare. In April it was the people’s turn: endless lines, slow systems and a question without an honest answer: why are there Haitian citizens receiving the new document more easily than the Dominicans themselves? Do they have the right to it or not?
Outside doesn’t help either. Trump survived another attack and the truces between Washington and Tehran come and go like a moonless tide. In Haiti, the Prime Minister announces progress by the GSF with the solemnity of someone describing real victories, although his protagonists seem to be the invisible man and his special forces out of nowhere.
There is a Scandinavian tradition that deserves our urgent attention and that I was privileged to experience. Every April 30, Sweden celebrates Valborg: huge bonfires that symbolically burn away the evil spirits of winter to make way for spring. It’s not empty folklore—it’s civil therapy: a society that collectively decides that the bad goes away and something new can begin.
We don’t have winter to burn. But we have accumulations that suffocate: the impunity that ages, the improvisation that becomes institutionalized, the infoxication that numbs, the sinkhole that waits around the next bend. We lack the decision to incinerate our indifference. Because we are not going anywhere as long as we confuse noise with direction, presence with leadership and resignation with patience.
Remember April. Light up the future.
