The cry of the Peruvian people

It all starts with an impressive row of police officers.

An indigenous woman rebukes them: "I don't have studies, but I realize...".

Her voice sounds hoarse, her gestures are passionate, feverish.

She has something to say.

For two months now, the poor peasants, the street vendors, the small artisans, the urban and rural proletariat, all those who are usually called “silent Peru” there, have had something to say.

And for two months they have been beaten, jailed and shot.

This can't go on.

In a short video that a Peruvian friend sent me, the indigenous woman rebukes the agents with a courage and conviction that deserve the deepest respect.

It takes a lot of intelligence and pain to reach that degree of determination, of character.

After some fifty deaths, and in view of the situation of helplessness in which the Peruvian popular classes live, that is, the vast majority of the country, the persistence of the demonstrations and the blockades must be understood as a concrete testimony of what they call “a conscience”.

Despite the fact that the two young men who, in the video, indolently pass beer cans in their hands between the line of police officers and the indigenous woman, the Peruvian people have a conscience.

Conscious of his concrete situation, conscious of the domination that weighs on him since the Conquest,

The two young men pass by, unconcerned.

The first of them, in shorts, with the greatest self-confidence, smiles at the agents and blurts out: "Put a bullet in it, jerk."

This joke is directed at law enforcement officers who have already killed more than 50 people since the beginning of the mobilizations, and is part of a framework that was established once and for all 150 years ago.

So it's not a joke.

It is a class attribute.

Peru is not a democracy.

President Castillo, the first mestizo to reach the presidency in the entire national history, has not only suffered the systematic obstruction of a Parliament in the hands of the right and the extreme right, and whose votes usually have a price, as the recent cases of corruption,

but it has also been the object of constant revenge by the media in the pay of great fortunes, which is not a secret to anyone.

The first president of poor and Andean origin ended up being arrested and deposed, accused of attempting a coup, when, precisely, the situation that the country has experienced since then is the closest thing to a real coup.

In any case, since his arrest, the Peruvian people support him and risk their lives in the demonstrations.

This video that many Peruvians have already seen shows us, in 19 seconds, the reality of the world in which we live.

Two ordinary young people, as seen in any urban center in developed countries, are taking a walk.

At first glance, we find ourselves before a picture of a world that is familiar to us: the one that claims tolerance, liberal democracy, higher education;

the world of “our values”.

But everything changes after ten seconds.

One of the youths turns to the disturbing line of policemen and says to one of them, smiling: "Put a bullet in it, jerk."

The books of José María Arguedas, the great Peruvian author, have not ceased to describe this hateful reality: Peru is a feudal country.

But, in part, our world is too.

In the best of cases, the Indians, the blacks, the mestizos, all the poor populations of the planet arouse our tourist curiosity or our pity, but, on a daily basis, they are the object of our distant exploitation and our contempt.

And what this short video shows us crudely through the brutality of Peruvian colonial society is the hidden essence of our world, its deep structure.

In reality, we live again in a feudal world, before the

, in which the richest are completely indifferent to the rest.

And meanwhile, France is delighted to honor a Peruvian writer who supported Keiko Fujimori, that is, the extreme right, of course with an "open mentality" and "worthy of our values."

The emeritus king of Spain, who had to abdicate after accusations of corruption, attended the admission of his friend to the French Academy.

What strange globalization are we witnessing?

Is it just a liberal globalization?

While the Peruvian people have been demonstrating for weeks, a Peruvian writer who moves among the

enters the French Academy and invites an emeritus king involved in dark deals who comes from his exile in an oil monarchy.

What a strange world!

If you watch the video again, what you will ultimately see is anger versus repression, sincerity versus indifference, words versus violence, contempt versus misery.

The words the young man utters are definitely not a joke.

Nobody jokes.

Neither the writers, nor the academies, nor the emeritus kings, nor the oil monarchies, nor the young fops.

Unfortunately, when the smiling young man asks the policeman to “put a bullet in him, jerk”, you have to take it literally.

In fact, what has been done for centuries, since the conquests, the dictatorships, the overthrow of regimes at the whim of US politics, since the nominal democracies?

Kill the laborers, the Indians, the cholos, the humble indigenous people.

This has to stop.

The repression has to stop.

The violence of the police forces has to stop.

And if what is sought is true appeasement, and whatever we think of it, President Castillo must be released and Congress must be dissolved to call new elections.

General elections in Peru now!

There is no other possibility for justice and peace.

I have a debt towards Peru.

I've been there.

There I have memories and friends.

In

the novel by José María Arguedas, Quechua children trying to reach a flower over the precipice shout: "If I could reach you!"

Today, the mute people of Peru shout: "If I could reach you!"

This cry cannot fall back into silence.

Eric Vuillard

is a writer.

In 2017, he was awarded the Goncourt prize.

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