MIAMI, Sept. 27, 2016 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Colombia, a nation that I love, now has before itself the possibility of a new stage in its history, after so much loss as a result of senseless violence.
To resolve great tragedies, we are often obliged to make big concessions. Either we look to the future, despite the intense pain, or the future will be as distressing as the past.
I am not Colombian, nor have I suffered directly the cruelty of the conflict; but as a Latin American, I have also felt Colombia’s long suffering. And as a Cuban, I have also urged my people, on and off the island, to look to the future. This is what I do today, setting aside my personal and family prejudice. I understand there is now nothing I can do about those 15 years when I could not go to Cuba, even to bid farewell to very close relatives.
Seeking peace does not require perfection, but rather, harmony. One does not turn to the past to fight but to learn how to not repeat mistakes. The future of peace is built from a present lived in forgiveness. And forgiveness is not a gift the victims give to the victimizer, but rather the gift that victims and their relatives give to themselves.
Forgiveness is an act of love and self-healing. It is not forgetting, but engaging in altruistic – as opposed to selfish – thinking. Life is a spiral. It is up to us to arrive at a change of consciousness: I am not going to think of myself, but about us. And this ‘us’ is all of Colombia.
In speaking of Spain’s transition, the scholar Emilio Lamo de Espinosa asserted that it was a matter of deciding which was more important: to judge the crimes committed against your grandparents and parents, or to ensure a more or less stable future for your children and grandchildren. In Central America as well, concessions were made to put an end to the violence.
Former President John F. Kennedy once said: “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.”
Colombia has everything it needs to move forward, starting with its talented people. Peace, progress, respect for the victims and historical memory are possible. Let us work for a culture of peace, in schools, the media, government, organizations of civil society and the family, so that there will be no going backward, so that such a dreadful era will never again be repeated in our history.
ISMAEL CALA
