They Don’t Want To Talk About It, Just Tip-Toe and Walk Around It: The Weapon of Ignorance

Filiberto Ojeda Ríos. The instigator of change on an island that’s been stagnant for years, if not decades. His role as an instigator, strangely enough, began with his death, by the hands of the FBI, in September 23rd, 2005, at the age of seventy-two. He was once a member of the Macheteros, labeled by the US as a terrorist group. He, like many others, fell off the radar for many years. He changed his identity and settled into a home in the town of Hormigueros with his wife. His past exploits well behind him, Ojeda was now an old man. When the FBI murdered him, they did so from afar, and they waited from afar for nearly twenty-four hours, on the pretext that he was dangerous and that he could’ve still been alive.

An old man who was in hiding for more than twenty years was considered dangerous by the most powerful government on earth. Yes, there is something wrong with this picture. The local government claimed that they were not informed about this operation. This just distorts the image even worse. So what does this point to? The answer could be even more complicated than the question, and raises more questions still.

The first possibility is that the US wanted to make sure that we, as a colony, remembered who’s in charge. But this answer makes no sense. Puerto Rico, in the five-hundred-plus years since its encounter, has always been a colony. We’ve never known anything else. Once the gold here ran out after the first thirty years of Spanish conquest and colonization, we became nothing more than a liability, a point for ships to stop and rest. We produced nothing of importance, and yet, compared to the rest of Latin America, Spain held onto us tighter, and more so once said collection of colonies gained its independence. Save for a few who knew better, fighting for independence never motivated the people here, despite atrocities committed by the Spanish government.

Then, a short and meaningless war was instigated by the US themselves, under the pretext of the Manifest Destiny ideal (first coined in 1845 by John O’Sullivan), and Monroe Doctrine, (declared in 1823 to oppose nations outside the West Hemisphere), pretexts designed to place the US on a pedestal it does not deserve. We passed from being Spain’s colony to being the US’s colony. Different masters, same slavery. However, there’s a small difference now. History books and the government will tell you otherwise, but the small corners, hidden and in secret, was the anti-poison of ignorance, the only real weapon against dominance. Those who knew stood up and fought, either with quiet strength or with a voice that was loud and clear. La Masacre de Ponce. Los revueltos en la UPR. Pedro Albizu Campos, the presence of the ROTC. Young university students, Vicente Rodríguez Nietzche, Olga Nolla, Juan Sáez Burgos, Hugo Margent. The now-infamous Macheteros. All had voices, and none were ignorant.

The US knew this, though, and promptly worked to silence these voices. They gave us a “new” form of government, to appease the masses, when, at its core, it was basically more of the same. Same slavery, different label. We just went from colony to commonwealth. Quietly, those against the US and their families were labeled as such in black books, akin to the prelude of the Holocaust. Help was given to the poor, and farmers went to work in more profitable factories. We became silenced not by obvious and obnoxious tyranny or by weapons. We became silenced by ignorance. We became convinced that the US did have all the answers, and that we would not have been well-off had they not “saved” us. The US has created for us a new sport and diversion, under the guise of politics. People blindly side and defend the ideal that has been placed in front of them, playing a child’s game compared to world politics. Even the independence party is nothing more than a fake ideal compared to what people truly fought for at one point in time.

As a result, we’re now a nation of ignorance, of people who would rather have everything provided for them. George Orwell once wrote in his novel 1984 that ignorance is strength. This isn’t true. Ignorance is bliss they say? Being ignorant, remaining ignorant, this can hurt us far worse than knowing the truth itself. We settle for plastic lies instead of dreadful beauty, and this is our downfall. The meaning of freedom and hard work has disappeared from our minds. How ironic though, that it was the US who had once fought for independence from lives as a colony, to which it was this very revolution that inspired the mass revolutions all over Latin America. It’s now this same country oppressing independence, and fighting to maintain dominance over lesser nations. And it was only when an old man, labeled as a terrorist so many years ago, that people started to wake up again.

But then this prompts a second possibility behind the US’s actions. And that is the fact that, just like with Spain, we are now an economic liability to the US. We are expensive for the US to maintain, with sixty percent of our population under the poverty line. At the same time, we are necessary for the US’s economy. This is where the surplus merchandise is sold; this is where the soldiers are to avoid spilling more American blood than necessary. Annexing Puerto Rico as a state is not an option, but neither is complete independence by their own hands. Independence will seemingly come from our hands, and by making Ojeda into a political martyr, akin to Che Guevará, the US awakens the ignorance they long kept under surveillance.

And, what seems to be the next logical step in shaking our dormant nation is by not truly helping out in this current moment of greatest economic need. The local government spent twelve months’ worth of budget in ten. As a result, they are now broke for the next two months, while closing half of its agencies, the public education system included. The deficit isn’t just the result of bad spending in the now though. It is a result of bad spending over the past fifteen years. And yet, while the senate argues about what the best solution is (each siding with the solution that their political party wants), while they continue earning their large salaries, hundreds of thousands go jobless for the next two months (possibly more). The rich do nothing, while the poor are forced to suffer and pay for the mistakes of the rich, and it’s this that will truly awaken ignorance, more so than even a created political martyr. When we’ve finally had enough, that’s when we’ll fight back and demand for a real solution, and for a real political status that’s all or nothing.

All this, instigated by an old has-been. What I find most preoccupying about all this though, is that we’re fighting back and waking up because we’re being pushed to. The coming revolution isn’t because we’ve finally stopped ignoring the truth on purpose. It’s because the truth is being smothered into our faces, and the only way to catch a breath of fresh air is by looking at the truth straight in the eye and finally accepting our true situation. Were we not such a liability though, things would’ve remained stagnant, and we would have continued with our lives as an ignorant and maintained colony, labeled now as a commonwealth.

The real revolution isn’t here, not yet. This is just the forced precursor. But the real revolution is just around the corner, and once we truly wake up, so will many other nations being oppressed by the silent weapon known as ignorance. What we have now will be demolished and destroyed, and from there, things will be rebuilt again. It’ll be about five hundred years late, but, as the saying goes, better late than never.