On some occasion, I heard Enrique Bernales that his parents had taught him to love Peru. Regarding that, one can ask if love is part of any rational or intellectual teaching and if it is possible to “teach to love.” I have often thought, however, that some of us could say something similar. I don’t know if our parents taught us to love Peru, but they did try to show it in all its diversity. At some point in our childhood, we had someone who told us about our country, who made us tour its geography, who made us appreciate its diverse faces.
On some occasion, I heard Enrique Bernales that his parents had taught him to love Peru. Regarding that, one can ask if love is part of any rational or intellectual teaching and if it is possible to “teach to love.” I have often thought, however, that some of us could say something similar. I don’t know if our parents taught us to love Peru, but they did try to show it in all its diversity. At some point in our childhood, we had someone who told us about our country, who made us tour its geography, who made us appreciate its diverse faces.
Back then, during our childhood and youth in the sixties, teaching how to love our country not only consisted of giving history or geography lessons (which by the way are essential), but also of doing our best to tour our cities, our jungles and hillsides, being able to look at some rivers, some skies, some mountains and some churches and squares. And see the people.
And we also learned that this love for Peru not only has to do with the recognition of its history or its culture, with the amazement at pre-Columbian art or the infinite geographies that inhabit us. Diversity is certainly one of our treasures. And not only cultural diversity. In our country, it is worth remembering, eighty-four of the one hundred and four ecosystems on the planet coexist. We have all the races of the world in a coexistence that gives us extraordinary wealth and at the same time is the source of racism and discrimination that are part of our original sin.
We have languages as rich as Quechua and Aymara and the Amazonian languages. There are almost four million Quechua speakers in Peru. In Lima there are seven hundred thousand. We have artists as extraordinary and diverse as Fernando de Szyszlo and Tilsa Tsuchiya, Mario Vargas Llosa, Blanca Varela and José María Arguedas, Jaime Guardia, Máximo Flores Hilario and Máximo Damián, Susana Baca and Chabuca Granda. Our gastronomy, heir to our diversity, is the fusion of infinite flavors. All of this is part of the admiration or love that we can feel for our country.
But being a difficult love, in a complex and tragic country, it is always tied to solidarity and commitment towards people who have to suffer routine abandonment and violence every day. The list is long and could always go on. Those who die or see their loved ones die from preventable diseases, those who do not have a single medical post nearby, those who have to wait months to receive care from a doctor, those who study in schools whose premises are collapsing, those who succumb to fear and the bullets of extortionists and hitmen. Those who wake up at the top of a hill and have to leave home three hours in advance to get to work with minimum wage, after taking three or four vehicles. Those who have become accustomed to living without water or drainage. Those who have become accustomed to living without barely eating. Those who know that desperation has led them to resignation and resignation. The entrepreneurs who rebel. Those who rightly believe that no one represents them. I wonder which candidate has truly felt the daily life of these compatriots. Any or any? Let’s wait.
