The Walking Paradox

by Eduardo Galeano


Every day,
reading newspapers,
I attend a history class.
Newspapers teach me
by what they say
and by what they don’t say.

History is a walking paradox. Contradiction moves its legs. Perhaps for that reason its silences say more than its words and its words reveal the truth frequently through lying.

Soon a book of mine will be published, titled Espejos [Mirrors]. It’s just like a universal history — pardon my audacity. “I can resist everything except the temptation,” Oscar Wilde said, and I confess that I have succumbed to the temptation to recount some episodes of human adventure in the world, from the point of view of those who have not appeared in the picture.

In other words, it’s about little known facts.

Here I sum up some of them, just a few.

- - -

When they were expelled from Paradise, Adam and Eve moved to Africa, not to Paris.

Some time later, after their children had already embarked upon the ways of the world, writing was invented. In Iraq, not in Texas.

Algebra, too, was invented in Iraq. It was founded by Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi, one thousand two hundred years ago, and the words algorithm and guarismo [numeral] derive from his name.

Names usually do not correspond to what they name. In the British Museum, for example, the sculptures of the Parthenon are called “Elgin marbles,” but they are marbles of Phidias. Elgin was the name of the Englishman who sold them to the museum.

The three novelties that made the European Renaissance possible, the compass, gunpowder, and the printing press, had been invented by the Chinese, who also invented just about everything that Europe reinvented.

The Ancient Indians had known before everybody that the Earth was round and the Mayans had created the most exact calendar of all times.

- - -

In 1493, the Vatican gave America to Spain and granted Africa to Portugal, “so that barbarous nations be reduced to the Catholic faith.” At that time, America had fifteen times more inhabitants than Spain, and Black Africa one hundred times more than Portugal.

Just as the Pope had commanded, barbarous nations were reduced. Very much.

- - -

Water made Tenochtitlán, the center of the Aztec Empire. Hernán Cortés demolished the city, stone by stone, and with its rubble he filled the canals where two hundred thousand canoes sailed. This was the first water war in America. Now Tenochtitlán is called Mexico City. Where water once ran, now run cars.

- - -

The highest monument of Argentina has been erected in tribute to General Roca, who in the nineteenth century exterminated the Indians of Patagonia.

The longest avenue of Uruguay takes the name of General Rivera, who in the nineteenth century exterminated the last Charrúa Indians.

- - -

John Locke, the philosopher of freedom, was a shareholder of the Royal African Company, which bought and sold slaves.

When the eighteenth century was born, the first of the Bourbons, Felipe V, abdicated his throne signing a contract with his cousin, the King of France, that the French Guinea Company would sell Blacks in America. Each monarch took 25 percent of the profits.

Names of some slave ships: Voltaire, Rousseau, Jesus, Hope, Equality, Friendship.

Two of the Founding Fathers of the United States vanished in the fog of official history. Nobody remembers Robert Carter or Gouverneur Morris. Amnesia was the reward of their deeds. Carter was the only independence leader who emancipated his slaves. Morris, drafter of the Constitution, objected to the clause that established that a slave was equal to three fifths of a person. …………