Memory, tinged with nostalgia, is like those old photo albums full of special moments and smiling faces. Even so, each generation has witnessed, directly or indirectly, the ravages of wars. When our role was limited to that of mere spectators at a safe distance, by returning to that changing territory called “Yesterday” we relegated to the background bloodbaths that define the world today: Rwanda, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Gulf Persian, Chechnya or Somalia, if I think about my adolescence. What remains of the roar of machetes, mines or rifles? What remains, among other things, is the silence of the dead, the unspeakable and what is hidden or censored, as Antonio Monegal, the latest National Essay Award winner for Como el aire que nos nos, points out. If he asked, in a broad sense, what culture is and what it is for, in his recent The Silence of War he reminds us that war conflicts, far from being an anomaly, are a constant in our culture as a form of more (albeit violent) communication. Throughout its pages, the professor of Theory of Literature at UPF dismantles the deep-rooted (and false) dichotomy between war and culture.

Despite the occasional presence of armed struggles, battles and contests in the media, and the consumption of products on the subject, from cinema to video games, war continues to be taboo, and its discussion, when reality is pressing, she wants to corner herself in diplomatic forums. Dormant reason breeds monsters, as does our inability to imagine scenarios. When Russia invaded Ukraine, there was general surprise. Likewise, the possibility of an assault on the Capitol also seemed implausible. It is even more pressing when, anointed with a naive, if not opportunistic, pacifism, on the right and left, another fear is stirred up, in the face of the next European elections, that of war (as if this were not a reality that we already know). concerns) to stop support for Ukraine. When was it considered valid that legitimate defense was a military escalation, or that shooting down missiles aimed at civilian areas was equivalent to “threatening” the aggressor?

Who doesn’t want peace? Last year, Salman Rushdie, in his speech accepting the Peace Prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair, noted that everyone has their own interpretation of this concept. “For Ukraine, peace goes beyond the mere cessation of hostilities. It means, as it should, the restoration of its usurped territory and the guarantee of its sovereignty. For Ukraine’s enemies, peace means the surrender of this country. Two incompatible definitions for the same word. “Peace for Israel and for the Palestinians seems even more remote.” With his characteristic wit, Rushdie, after reviewing the fables of peace to confirm that they did not bring good news, referred to the two blockbuster films of the summer: Oppenheimer recalled that the final capitulation came with two atomic bombings, while Barbie offered a vision of “unbreakable peace and indissoluble happiness, in a world where every day is perfect, only in a pink plastic one.” By the way, not even plain peace is a guarantee of human rights, as is evident in nearby countries like Belarus, although it would be more accurate to say that in a dictatorship there is a state of internal war.

Rushdie, from whom we now happily get Cuchillo. Meditations after an attempted assassination, written after the attack caused him to lose his right eye and the mobility of his left hand, he reminds us: “Peace is something difficult to achieve. And yet we long for it, not only the great peace that comes at the end of war, but also the small peace of our private lives.” In a recent interview, he admitted that two decades ago he considered religious extremism the greatest threat to free societies. However, today populism, demagoguery and authoritarianism are the real dangers, because they seek to “destroy democracy from within.”

In his latest essay, a celebration of love in the face of the blindness of fanaticism, as well as a response of art in the face of violence, he tells us: “We are engaged in a world war of conflicting stories, a battle between incompatible versions of reality. , and it is crucial to learn how to fight this war.”