Antonio Manuel, author: “This country is sick with amnesia and prejudice” | Culture | EUROtoday

In the documentary Memory keysCivil Law and author Antonio Manuel (Almodóvar del Río, Córdoba, 56 years outdated), compares in a scene the 4 fingers left in his proper hand with the eight centuries of mutilated historical past of Al-Andalus and the latent inheritance in his phrases. “What can amputate to stop being you? (…) The only thing is memory. And this happens to people, and the peoples,” he displays on the tape. “Just as we learned to the Austrias and the Bourbons, we must meet the Kings Umomeyas and Nazari,” he says now. Mudas tales are elaborate below the speeches of the highly effective and, amongst their initiatives, at present it premieres in Cuba the documentary Lorca in Havanaof which he’s co -director and coguionist. He additionally simply revealed his newest ebook, Your title of mine (Berenice), by which she tells the lifetime of a daughter pressured to deal with her mom who tried to kill her as a baby and now suffers Alzheimer’s. Always bringing: in 2013 he arrange an anti -skucios laboratory and the wrestle of church’s immatriculations.

Ask. He has written a novel from the silence of oblivion. Where do these silences cover in society?

Answer. In noise. Humanism is below a layer of noise that has made our eyes and that incapacitates us to acknowledge the apparent. There is a political noise that tries to banalize democracy; a human noise that tries to banalize battle; and an animal noise, which tries to silence motive and coronary heart. And the three noises are flagged by the highly effective, who’ve been in a position to persuade the weakest that they’re . That is why it is crucial that the weakest are those that turn out to be conscious of the noise and that humanity and peace which are being misplaced in silence can discern.

P. Why do you stick with reconciliation in Your title of mine?

R. Because I solely perceive literature as a weapon of human and political development. There is a rabidly intimate message in opposition to individualism, which appeals to the necessity to assist us. An allegation for respect for various, for forgiveness, for this have to be open to like us to the final breath of life. That is the revolution that we’ve pending.

P. How does forgiveness function within the face of injustice?

R. Who has no capability to forgive has no capability to like. Too many instances, in politics and in life, it isn’t forgiven, and thus forgot all years of affection, of supply to the opposite … it has price us lots of life to achieve democracy, and now we’ve to take care of it. Suddenly, forgetting a lot wrestle is to chunk the hook of those that intend to destroy it. That is why it’s so essential to forgive us: to put a trigger above all others, that from a political viewpoint it’s the protection of democracy.

P. It additionally defends to assert a fairer place to the oblivion of Al-Andalus.

R. You solely love what is understood. This nation is sick with amnesia and prejudice. It foreignizes a part of his previous, the longest interval of his historical past, and on the similar time he feels happy with him. It boasts of the Alhambra, the Mosque, the Giralda, and denies those that lifted them or the tongue we had been speaking about. Spain is a rustic that has constructed its id within the face of that. We have to just accept that Al-Andalus can be a part of our historical past and our id. If we do not know her, we’ll by no means love one another.

P. What impression have you ever had Memory keys?

R. He has penetrated very deeply as a result of he requires motive and coronary heart. It will not be solely the reality of what you have got amputated, however figuring out him instantly acknowledge your self, you determine since you really feel yours. It is sort of a revelation. Then you say: “Ah, of course, now I understand why I speak like this or why we do certain things!” Add the piece of the mosaic that we lack, which was there, latent. Our story is sort of a palimpsest, you simply should scratch just a little to seek out the footprint that we’ve tried to cover.

P. Remembering Lorca can be searching for these footprints?

R. Lorca was a being of sunshine, who painted as a baby, who lived as a teen and who wrote like nobody to be beloved. And he was beloved as a result of he beloved the weakest, the persecuted. Federico aligns with all of them, with the poor, with the gypsies, with homosexuals, with blacks, with girls, with whom they query the highly effective, with the individuals, and that makes it common.

P. In Cuba the masks is eliminated.

R. The masks is a recurring factor in his work as a result of he had it sewn within the face in that Rancia and Casposa Spain. He needed to take it off, that is why in Cuba, the place he fell, he was free and pleased. Showing it was one of many goals of the documentary, co -directed with José Antonio Torres in a manufacturing of Katharsis aircraft participated in Canal Sur. In addition, in Cuba he decided that we imagine transcendental in his life: by no means put it once more. Returning to Spain was his responsibility as a poet as a result of preventing for the values ​​of the Republic was to struggle for himself, in order that nobody else needed to take the masks.

P. Now there’s a wrestle for homeless individuals and based an anti -skucios laboratory in 2013. Did you see it coming?

R. It emerged in full actual property disaster as an expertise of instructing innovation. At that point, stopping the evictions was to place a tourniquet to a wound, however our mission supposed to resolve it structurally. Housing is the gerund in feminine of the verb residing, a authorized good product of life. That is why an empty home is just a property, a physique with out a soul. We take our proposals to the Congress of Deputies, to the Parliament of Andalusia … and we managed to ratify the European Social Charter, so it’s price residing. But the issue will not be taken significantly.

P. Where is the issue?

R. It can’t be that within the twenty first century the entry to housing modes are the identical as in Roman legislation. The property may be fragmented, for instance. Why aren’t momentary, intermediate or collective holdings legislate? Because there’s a legislator who fears to make these selections, daring however mandatory, in entrance of actual property, monetary entities and funding funds which have a inventory immoral of actual property. In France, the United Kingdom or Portugal, though timidly, a few of these measures have been taken. But right here politicians are too peaceable.

P. Why is it not executed?

R. Because these lobbies They perceive that the property is sacrosanct, untouchable, and don’t permit its restrict, the ecosocial perform to be regulated, to which it have to be topic to guard the weakest.

P. And how follows the wrestle of church’s immatriculations?

R. Oh. It is less complicated for Madrid to go right down to second than the Church returns a immatriculated good. The Catholic hierarchy could also be extra highly effective at present than in Franco, when it was a state. It has registered greater than 80% of our historic heritage, principally public area items.

P. Is it a heritage that hides silence, forgetting, reminiscence?

R. It appears inconceivable that within the legal guidelines of democratic reminiscence the Catholic Church will not be talked about. That silence is thunderous. And I’m not anti -religious, however that has nothing to do with the truth that it’s allowed to be a fiscal paradise, that returns what our is and pays for what’s yours. There isn’t any brown lie than to pay religiously.