I do have a nation although I do not recognize myself in a state: a sovereign power chosen by logics that do not represent me.
We all are “ Status”: a condition related to a particular social context that in the modern era turns into a contract.
The fact of having traveled a lot made me cynical ( according to its original philosophical meaning) because critical against the social and moral rules imposed but, at the same time, it made me an absorbed and sensist person: tendency that nothing else will make me stay single all my life.
My opinion about Peru is quite cryptic and not uniform but, inexplicably, what I criticized the most now became the idea of a form of subaltern freedom. Freedom in accordance with Western logics (this is true) from which I would like to move away from but which still fully incorporates me.
“Peru still needs to work a lot”, I always said to express my opinion about the Andean country. However, if I keep thinking about it, my statement supports the overproduction criterion because of which the “first world” has lost its balance. Peru must work, this is true, but not “much” because the quantitative factor only serve to accelerate the Westernization process that, to be clear, it does not rhyme with development. In addition, if we want to talk about “a lot” and “work”, we have to do it especially regarding the social and education sectors.
I feel a positive envy towards Latin populations because they still trust the “primitive that is in themselves”, living in a more visceral way without any need to rationalize anything. You can name God without look like an obtuse, a man can cry on the street without losing his masculinity and a woman can feel beautiful even if she does not have the thinness of a model.
And this is not perhaps freedom? in comparison with the antagonistic regime in which westerners live?
In a poetry that I wrote a few years ago Iwas talking about “Western selfishness” to emphasize the tendency to travel towards virgin countries, where poverty seems romantic, simply because distant.
I subscribe my idea but I must add that the truth is even lowest: we need a subject to save which coincides with the figure of the “ savage” perceived as inferior human being. Our recent history shows it through the “rescue policies” towards the refugees, but this is another chapter.
Another curious factor that I discovered in Peru is the very strong need to be recognized through a title. The question they asked me more often (Besides if I’m single and why) was: “ who are you?”.
It is a very strong question to what I would answer simply: I am Elisa.
With time I realized that every path whether it’s study or work it brings you to a grade, namely the the definition of what you are.
Actually, it is not far from the “meritocratic” conception carried out by the West. In fact, the latter is a concept coined in Europe according to whom the social position of an individual is determined by his/her IQ ( although, the social position, often coincides with the clientelism and the dynasty and this happens everywhere).
The funny thing is that simply I forgot this concept, because the period of my training and subsequent job search coincided with the economic crisis, one of the largest in recent decades and, moreover, a crisis inside a system that apparently works is more subtle: you have to know how to do everything, but without being anything.
Suddenly everyone had a licence, erasing the importance of having one.
Licence which did not guarantee a specific qualification, so we all started to specialize in various fields but, absurdly, forming more and more castes.
In Peru I see this: people needs to be recognized and the fact of expressing it is not arrogant.
A great sin, the presumption, for those of us who live according to the rules of “good vibes”, but perhaps making war behind. losing the idea that all jobs are nobles and that in a society we can have 9 doctors, but if you do not have at least a couple of builders, we will not have a hospital.
In the chaos I have seen a more humane society, though not always more united. I enjoyed following the ancient culture and, most importantly, I lived slowly …
Time is another “circumstance” that I took into account, circumstance that determines the naturalness of things and that, for the first time, made me think about my biological clock making me see motherhood with other eyes: no longer as an attack on my freedom, but rather as something beautiful lived and shared within the community.
The concept of the naturalness of things, the indeterminism, the free will are representations that I began to evaluate again to better understand the world and its differences. Emphasizing my tendency to feel intimately stateless, due to a question maybe silly which answer to my intimate need to feel more humanized: why public opinion consider me a higher level person only because my passport is dark red? and my life as well as my death will have, in the social pyramid, more value than others?
I will answer to my questions during my life and I will seek answers from everyone, because I am a curious animal.
I have already wrote a lot but try to express yourself in another language does not facilitate the synthesis. So I leave you with a quote that well represents my stay in Peru:
“While studying the stars and looking up, he fell into a well. A graceful and intelligent servant caught him, telling him that he was worried about knowing things in heaven, but that he did not see those things that were in front of him, between his feet “(dialogue of Theaetetus, Platone).
Peace
Elisa
Elisa is the Italian volunteer hosted by Proyecto Amigo in Huamachuco, Peru.
