ALBIZU CAMPOS’ LECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY ON PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN PUERTO RICO. THESIS DEVELOPED The lecture of Mr. Albizu Campos, delivered on Monday, March 30 under the auspices of the “Cultural Society” of the Law College on the palpitating topic of Public Instruction in Puerto Rico, resulted in an act of great cultural transcendence and of enduring spiritual resonances among the thousands of listeners who heard him at the University or by radio on the island. The ample auditorium was materially occupied by a most select attendance; the public was so numerous that people had to gather in the hallways or position themselves in the windows of the premises. After brief introductory words by the student José C. Aponte, President of the “Cultural Society,” the lecturer advanced to the proscenium while the attendance burst into a clamorous ovation that lasted for several minutes. On the orator’s face could be seen the emotional effect of those warm and spontaneous applauses. “I, who have faced hostile audiences so many times,” Mr. Albizu Campos began saying, “can say that this greeting, so generous and spontaneous, is enough to move the most hardened man. “With instruction, as the young Aponte has said, a people is raised or buried; everything depends on the orientation that is imprinted on the educational system. Education is the direct way the State has to educate its citizens, but in Puerto Rico the State does not exist because it is intervened by the military occupation of Estados Unidos. “Education in the religious state is inspired by the religious principles that inform that country, education in monarchies is inspired by monarchical principles, and education in republics is inspired by republican principles. The preservation of past values is conditioned by the perspective of posterity. In Puerto Rico, education is not inspired by any defined principle nor does it have a determined orientation because the State does not exist, which is the determining and guiding factor of the educational system.” The speaker then analyzed education during Spanish rule. Education at that time was Catholic and monarchical, because such were the religion and the regime in force in España, although there were prominent personalities in the country who were of anti-Catholic and republican ideology. That education was inspired by Greco-Latin sources transmuted by the genius of España; therefore we are direct heirs of the only culture that exists in the West. Our revolutionaries aspired to constitute a republican state with a heterodox education, but “in my judgment in this particular they were mistaken because every nationality must be founded on the religious spirit that animates its inhabitants.” The partisans of republican ideas in Puerto Rico and in España to combat the regime and education in force in the Mother Patria presented Estados Unidos as the model nation where institutions had reached their legal perfection. That false concept disoriented the opinion of our directors and gave Estados Unidos a personality that it did not have, to the extent that the invasion of its troops was received as a blessing for our nationality. The invasion disregarded the State and the personality that Puerto Rico already had in the year 1898.” The first thing the government of Estados Unidos did was to seize the educational system, because “education is the easiest instrument to destroy a people,” and it turned the Commissioner of Instruction, who is a representative of the Department of War, into “arbiter of the cultural destinies of this people.” “The current Commissioner of Instruction has omnipotent powers to make the courses of studies and determine what is to be taught to children. In Francia instruction is regulated by legislation to that effect.” “The education in force in Puerto Rico,” said the lecturer, “is informed by a materialist criterion, is divorced from Greco-Latin sources and above all educates our youth for submission to an empire and to abide by what that empire does in our Patria.” The lecturer harshly attacked bilingual education, stating that it caused “a waste of mental energies and a lack of knowledge of one’s own language and of the invading language. No one can penetrate the idiomatic secret of a foreign language until they know their vernacular language thoroughly.” The lecturer then entered into a meticulous analysis of norteamericana education, stating the following thesis: in Estados Unidos there exists an education for the dominant class and another education for the class that is to be dominated. Education for the dominant class is imparted as is customary in the vernacular language of the nation, is informed by a religious criterion, and imposes on the student the most severe moral disciplines. The teaching of Greco-Latin sources is rigorous: Latin and Greek begin to be taught from the fifth grade. There is separation of the sexes in these schools destined to educate the future directors of the nation. “They intensify classical studies because they know that if they become disconnected from the original sources of Western culture they run the risk of reverting to barbarism in a few generations.” Referring to the bisexual school, the lecturer declared himself refractory to it, stating that its establishment obeyed economic and not pedagogical reasons. He said that although women and men can come to know the superior notions of wisdom and scientific knowledge, they needed a different methodology that was in consonance with the specific mentality of each one. There are subjects that women assimilate more easily and there are other subjects that men assimilate more easily; therefore the separation of the sexes and the differentiation of methods is rigorous. Most of the current texts are written by men for masculine mentalities and it is necessary that the texts for the feminine sex be written by women who know how to provoke the desired reaction in the feminine mentality. “In addition, women should be educated in the isolation of their sex, divorced from any unhealthy suggestion that could disturb their mentality.” This pedagogical theory sustained by Mr. Albizu Campos was the most brilliant and original of his learned lecture. In this type of education for the class that will rule the national destinies, an intense patriotism is sown in the spirit of the student and the criterion that his people are superior on the planet is instilled in him. Teaching is transmitted entirely by male professors. Education for the masses destined for exploitation “is the trinket of culture.” The bisexual school is used for economy, teaching is disconnected from the classical Greco-Latin sources to keep the people in ignorance, and its purpose is to create micro-specialization or a cheap pseudo-intellectual professionalism insensitive to all those values alien to his profession. “This trinket education is what has been implanted in Puerto Rico. Why haven’t the partisans of submission imported the higher education that exists there on the continent for the dominant classes? The lecturer alluded directly to some statements by the Commissioner of Education, Doctor Padín, before the “Union Church” of this capital. Doctor Padín admits that the educational system does not know where it is going, that in it politics is placed before pedagogy and that it is the Congress of Estados Unidos that is authorized to determine the orientation to follow. Doctor Padín delegates the orientation of a people to the invading power and in that he is wrong. That initiative is exclusively the patrimony of the portorriqueña nation, which is called to determine what its political and cultural destiny should be. And I want to repeat here to save my historical responsibility that a teaching staff, a cloister and a regime that inculcates submission to children is rotten.” “Some time ago I was talking to a pedagogue from this University and I asked him his opinion on the educational problem of Puerto Rico. He told me that pedagogues did not have a formed opinion on this problem and that as for bilingual education it would be necessary to experiment for a few more years. And I reply: who gives anyone the right to experiment with the spiritual life of a people? “A people can resist the physical dispossession of its lands because the land is not destroyed and these pass intact to posterity, but a people cannot resist the moral dispossession perpetrated through the school without being reduced to a herd of slaves who even deny their own personality. “If this educational system continues, we will end up in ignorance, which is the worst madhouse to which a people can be condemned.” The lecturer underlined the absence of civics in the school where on the contrary “the child learns to love a Patria that is not his and to deny his origins.” “According to the “History of Puerto Rico” that is taught in the schools, civilization began in 1898 when the americanas troops arrived.” The lecturer then referred to the University and stated that its directors had an immense privilege and that was to make that teaching institution the true University of Puerto Rico, where teaching would be carried out in the vernacular language and classical studies would be implemented. He formulated bitter criticisms against the Law College in the sense that jurisprudence was taught based on the opinions of the judges of Estados Unidos and not based on our codes, which are the crystallization of a long experience and wisdom. “Estados Unidos is sixteen centuries behind us in legal matters,” affirmed the lecturer, and he made an extensive analysis on this topic to prove his thesis with norteamericanas authorities. He also recommended that professors should be hired by competitive examination, as the students had recommended in a memorial presented to the new Rector. He refuted the thesis that education is democratic in Puerto Rico by the fact that those on whom the tax burden of the country falls cannot send their children to school. The lecturer closed his lecture addressing the religious institutions of the country, “I accuse the religious institutions of the country of folding their arms in the face of the grave crisis that overwhelms the Patria and for not establishing schools that neutralize the demolishing work of the current educational system,” he said. Mr. Albizu Campos received clamorous ovations in the course of his lecture. The act ended at about eleven o’clock at night in the greatest enthusiasm. Manuel Rivera Matos MANIFESTO ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF PUERTO RICO BY THE NATIONAL BOARD OF THE NATIONALIST PARTY APART FROM THE POLITICAL MOMENT Facing the emancipatory nationalist movement, there exists in the country the governmental grouping that has been lending all its cooperation to the prevailing military regime to undermine the foundations of the Patria. That governmental grouping is divided into enemy factions among themselves that bitterly dispute the public posts that the invader puts at their disposal so that they may be instruments of the imperial policy that intends to annihilate the people of Puerto Rico. The governmental factions are called unionista, socialista, pura and aliancista. They unite with each other and then separate to embrace with their opponents according to the calculations that their respective directors formulate in their purpose of assault on the budget. A shameful spectacle that has placed them in the renunciation of every collective right that has been within their reach and their policy has been one of deliberate cooperation with all of Washington’s purposes to definitively concentrate all powers in the imperial military mandatary, Mr. Colonel Roosevelt. The regime, of course, has always been absolute, irresponsible, as is its military nature. However, the comedy of a legislature and of municipal organisms electable by the people has been maintained. There is no legislative power in Puerto Rico. This truth can be verified by any student of the military regulation with which it is intended to govern the country, called Carta Orgánica, imposed on our nationality by the Congress of Estados Unidos. In that regulation it is expressly stated that the imperial legislature will have the power of initiative to create, destroy or reform municipalities. But as the legislative will can only be a reflection of the executive will of the occupying chief, that is, the governor, since by means of his veto no other desire than his can be made, such power, in reality, is conferred on the executive chief. However, it was necessary to maintain the appearances of military democracy and the governor wanted the process of municipal centralization, carried out systematically by his predecessors by the executive route or by legislative cooperation, to end definitively by means of the legislature, which would put in his hands all the municipal administration of the country, thus intending to give a coup de grace to the most vital unity of the nationality, which is the municipality. That was necessary to finish disintegrating the country. Of course, the greater administrative competence, the salvation of municipal life and, for greater irony, even the very principles of democracy have been invoked for these purposes of absorption and exploitation. Every imperial power carries out its outrages always invoking the principles of justice. Estados Unidos has a reputation for sheltering its most nefarious purposes with the sweet words of equality, fraternity, freedom, democracy, etc. These norteamericanas pretensions remind us of the dairies that poison children and are called “La Pureza”, “La Garantía del Niño”, “La Esperanza”, etc. The country that has not wanted to be aware of this harsh reality has just been shaken by the clear declaration of the head of the military occupation, Sr. Colonel Roosevelt. By vetoing the electoral law, he confesses that it is good at its core, but does not deserve executive sanction because the indications that he made in writing to the gentlemen of the legislature have not been incorporated in its provisions. Then there is no legislature. If it is a prerequisite to consult the executive will to convert it into law and without a project approved by the legislature it is not to deserve sanction because those imperial indications have not been followed, it is a bloody mockery of an entire country to maintain a capitol, to hold legislative sessions, to occupy the constant public attention with the discussions of the “legislators” and to squander cynically the funds of a people plundered by this regime of absorption. The gentlemen of the legislature have had a brilliant opportunity to make a patriotic rectification of their conduct of servitude and cooperation with the norteamericano regime. If what Mr. Colonel has declared is true, and it is absolutely true, they should have immediately announced their retirement from the “legislature” since they were not willing to perform another act of greater patriotism and greater dignity. The country has to thank Mr. Colonel, head of the occupying power, for this brutal frankness, because submissive spirits require the kick of despotism for their renewal. As the great Toussaint l’Ouverture said: “slaves only become free under the cruelty of the whip.” The high question of principle that is extracted from that veto has not even been touched by any of the factions of the governmental grouping, neither by the unionistas, socialistas, aliancistas, nor even by the puras, who were the ones who had the greatest interest in the approval of the electoral law. The president of the puras has limited himself to making a sad recount of the cooperation that he and his party have offered to the invading regime in its imperial policy in Puerto Rico, and the contempt they have always deserved for that cooperation from the power that has devastated our country. The unionista faction was filled with joy with what it considered a victory because its rivals in the official positions had stumbled upon a stumbling block. The allies, at this moment, of the puras, aliancistas and socialistas, have limited themselves to manifesting the displeasure that is felt in their ranks by that executive disposition. It has not occurred to any of those gentlemen of the legislature to raise the fundamental question of whether or not there is a legislative power in Puerto Rico. We are not surprised by their conduct. Almost all of them know that there is no such legislative power, but they are voluntary cooperators of the system and maintain the imperial comedy that is to end with the country and with themselves, if the policy of spines curved or broken by the norteamericana will does not definitively end in a short time. The joy of the unionista faction ceased with the signing of a bill by “commission” for San Juan, which ends with the electoral right in the capital. Nor was the general municipal law approved to “reform” the administration of the municipalities, that is, to end every vestige of municipal power, to their liking. The factions opposed to unionismo have shown their public satisfaction for the approval of these laws. We knew that these laws would have to be approved in any way to increase the direct personal power of the military chief, Mr. Colonel Roosevelt, which satisfies the administration of Washington and the idiosyncrasy of its mandatary in Puerto Rico. It is already public knowledge, by executive declaration, that the budgetary loot of the capital will be divided “equitably” among the gentlemen of the legislature who constitute the governmental factions unionistas, socialistas, aliancista and pura. Mr. Colonel is to do us another good by presenting in the administration of San Juan these factions that seem antagonistic but that in reality constitute the political unity defending the norteamericano regime. Prepare the country to contemplate a commission that governs the municipality of San Juan, of puras, unionistas, socialistas and aliancistas. If by the veto of the electoral law and by the explicit declarations of Mr. Colonel Roosevelt it was proven that there is no legislative power, by the approval of the law by commission of San Juan it has been demonstrated that there is no electoral right. That of mobilizing public opinion every four years, to the entire electorate, and spending a large sum of money in elections, serves only to maintain another farce that there is suffrage in Puerto Rico. Suffrage exists where there is a regime of freedom that depends on a regime of law, that is, on a regime responsible to the governed and that emanates from their will. But to say that there is suffrage where the vote can serve exclusively to establish the will of the regime or to secure it, is to be a victim of lack of legal sense and of ignorance of the prevailing political reality. The Nationalist Party will test whether or not there is suffrage in Puerto Rico and will test the regime in a definitive way when it decrees the Constituent Convention of the Republic upon obtaining the vote of the majorities. The suppression of the municipalities and the abolition of suffrage complement the governmental attack against native economic interests. It is known to all that the present regime has as its definitive orientation the elimination of the native landowner, industrialist, merchant and financier to supplant them with invaders. The success of this policy has led the country to its present ruin. However, some puertorriqueños landowners remain in the interior of the country in possession of coffee wealth. They had to be eliminated. Wherever there is a puertorriqueño with his own land, there will be a bulwark of resistance against the invasion. The policy against them began as all imperial measures begin, under the guise of helping them. The first help was the implantation of the Banco Federal Agrícola. We told the country when this institution was installed that, with the pretext of offering long-term credits to our farmers, it would keep all the immovable wealth of the interior of the country, as soon as those farmers suffered an economic setback, either due to depression in the value of the product of the land or due to one of those cyclones that periodically lash us. As soon as San Felipe appeared, the bank began the routine process of displacement, execution of farm after execution of farm, sales at public auction for cash. But, no puertorriqueño can have funds to attend a sale at public auction. It is the norteamericanos interests that can buy for cash. The operation is facilitated for them by means of the banks that hoard our economies. There are already norteamericanos experts in the production of coffee. A possible production of one million quintals per year is calculated. It is known that any amount can influence the depression of the coffee market in Estados Unidos due to the brazilian superproduction that demoralizes the market despite the efforts of Brasil to fix prices. Our coffee production must therefore go into norteamericanas hands. Thus our last landowners will be finished off, and the brazilian market can be attacked. The proletarian army will be reinforced by more than half a million souls. All this, of course, within an economic rehabilitation plan. To attack us it is always necessary to simulate our protection. The Banco Federal exists only for purposes of penetration. A mortgage bank is needed when there is an agrarian crisis to protect the landowner in his title when bankruptcy threatens him, but, here is a mortgage credit bank that maintains relations with the farmer as long as he can pay him interest and executes the farm as soon as the first difficulty arises. However, the pressure of the bank is not enough. This institution is a governmental agency. The government must lend it all its immediate cooperation. The displacement of the puertorriqueños must be intensified. Any nucleus of them with their own lands constitutes a danger for the regime. They can serve as support for the patriotic vindications. They must be exterminated. The government had committed itself to alleviate the tax burden that weighed on them. A law was approved in that sense. Mr. Colonel Roosevelt, of course, denied his approval. How is the military governor going to approve anything that can benefit a puertorriqueño landowner, when his approval would only serve to obstruct the policy of penetration that he is obliged to implant? Mr. Colonel smiles when he talks about economic rehabilitation. He tells the country to think only about that and forget politics. With that guideline he has subtracted public confidence in the very partisan factions that make up the government party. Those who have a few pesetas have been convinced by Mr. Colonel that they must divorce themselves from any political movement. Thus he has crushed those groups that dispute the budget and demolished the economic organisms. If there had been sincerity in economic rehabilitation, nothing would be easier to carry out. It would be enough for the military occupation government not to allow banking usury in Puerto Rico and to force the establishment of the same credit conditions that exist in Nueva York. There the discount rate is two and a half percent in the Banco de Reserva Federal, and the banks attached to that federal system put money at the disposal of their clients at four or four and a half percent at the most. But the current type of interest in the banks of Puerto Rico is ten percent with personal guarantees of absolute solvency; and when it comes to a mortgage loan the type rises to twelve percent, and in general it is higher than twelve percent due to the onerous conditions that are imposed on mortgage debtors, indirectly so as not to invalidate the obligation. In addition, the economies of our people deposited in the banks are at the disposal of a foreign power. They are in the power of the National City Bank, the Royal Bank and the Banco Nova Escotia, which repair interests that are enemies of the country. The military government, as at all times, lends its most decided cooperation to that banking plan and deposits the bulk of public funds in those banks. Of the first administrative acts of Mr. Colonel Roosevelt we can cite the deposit he made of the funds of the people of Puerto Rico
the National City Bank. Two-thirds of these funds ended up at the disposal of this octopus. To speak of the industrialization of a country in these circumstances is to mock its naiveté coldly. The industrialization of a country depends exclusively on money at an interest rate that does not exceed five percent. The preferred shares of an industrial company never accrue an interest of more than seven percent annually; the common shares are considered magnificent when the net income is four percent. Now, the occupying power has left our entire country to banking exploitation and has refused to establish here the credit conditions that it reserves in its country for its citizens and that we have just cited. This was necessary so that all forms of wealth in Puerto Rico pass into North American hands and thus free cabotage will only serve as an incentive for the North American absorption of all our sources of production. It will never benefit Puerto Ricans and will serve as a spur to attack them mercilessly in the economic field. The military governor, Colonel Roosevelt, has just clarified the situation in a way that leaves no room for doubt. What does the country expect from this policy of submission and cooperation with the regime? No one has an interest in defending us except ourselves. It is foolish to believe that the invaders have no other interest than the exploitation of Puerto Rico. The hour has come for the concentration of all Puerto Ricans in the patriotic movement of nationalism that will immediately end this regime that, under the guise of protection, has placed misery and death as sentinels at the door of every Puerto Rican home. San Juan, de Puerto Rico, May 18, 1931. By the National Board of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico: P. ALBIZU CAMPOS. President. SPEAKING WITH THE PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONALIST PARTY OF PUERTO RICO The multifaceted personality of Albizu Campos is little known in the country. Thus, until yesterday, his ideals in the basic problem of Puerto Rico. His work is linked to the vital problem of the Homeland and his personality will be increasingly understood as his campaign for emancipation clears away the mists that obscure our destiny. The visionary patriot, the man of mystical-religious temperament, of traditional morals that are acid-proof, the politician loyal to his ideas, the apostle of the Puerto Rican cause, as his followers call him, has emerged. Let us examine him. Our country needs to know him. We are not going to make an apology for a man. We are going to point out the clarity that is outlined on the horizon of our struggles for the freedom and redemption of our people. -Here is the man whose bronze arm, in the midst of the darkness we suffer, raises high the only light that illuminates us, the nationalist gentleman who gives me some biographical data of Mr. Albizu tells me. Albizu Campos studied at the Universities of Vermont and Harvard, graduating from the latter in Chemical Engineering, Law, Philosophy and Letters and Military Sciences. He masters several languages, in addition to the classical ones, English, French, Portuguese, German and Spanish. He was the organizer of the Irish revolutionary university movement in Harvard, which movement was extended throughout the continent. He was also related to the Hindu liberation movement. In the class he was the most requested student for all acts of transcendence in the University. He was expressly called by the directors of Harvard for his entry into it in view of his high intellectual gifts demonstrated in Vermont, granting him a scholarship. It is the first time I speak with Mr. Albizu Campos. I am pleasantly impressed by the supporter of the Independence of Puerto Rico. He is a serene, calm, composed man, of high ideology, rapid and secure conception, chivalrous manners and very distinguished treatment. We talked about many things before starting this interview. Finally I ask the first question which my interlocutor answers immediately. -What do you think of the current political moment in Puerto Rico? -Nationalism is like the universal ether: it penetrates all sectors. The Pure Republican Party falls under the weight of its error of political purpose and tactics. Clarifying that the North American “state” is neither a state nor sovereign, and lacks international personality, and that it is a mere province, the whole foundation of that party crumbles. Statehood for Puerto Rico would be its extinction in the North American nation. No intelligent person, aware of this truth, can continue to militate in that group. Their tactic of passionate cooperation with the regime could not have been more disastrous. It is a faction in full dissolution. There already exists within it the vanguard that, with true patriotic sense, has publicly requested the leadership to declare itself frankly for the absolute independence of its country. The next assembly of the “puros” will, for that sole consideration, be of great public interest. The socialist governmental faction, defined until now in favor of “the permanent and indestructible union” between the United States and Puerto Rico, also feels the shock of the nationalist emancipation movement. That group will not be able to continue being annexationist and anti-socialist. It will have to define itself, in accordance with the socialist postulates of the North American Socialist Party, for the absolute independence of Puerto Rico. The pro-independence elements that militate within it in good faith will force that renewal at the next convention that is held. The Alliance and Unionist factions, which have the same contradictory program of “statehood” or independence, in the alternative, have suffered a rude shock recently with the political declarations in favor of absolute independence that the head of the Unionists has just made, seconded by other directors of that group. As in reality, the Alliance and the Unionists maintain the same program, and as the break between them is recent, the Alliance sector feels the repercussions of these declarations and considers itself part of the conservative Unionist element obliged to combat them. The duel that “La Democracia” and “La Correspondencia”, organs of these factions, maintain is of great interest to the observer who coldly contemplates the renewal that is necessarily being imposed on all the groups that until now have delivered the Homeland tied to the invader. -Well, and of the political moment in the Union of Puerto Rico, what do you tell me? -An aspiration for transformation manifests itself within it, which has been extremely painful because that political body is ankylosed. As a governmental element it has lost all its moral ascendancy and to regain it it is perhaps making its last effort. The dilemma is clear: life or death. With the Yankees or with the Puerto Ricans. Alea jacta est. The Puerto Rican nation demands its immediate redemption and is prepared to fight the regime head-on. No one should aspire to direct its destinies who is not willing to fulfill their duty of sacrifice for the cause of the independence of the Homeland. -If the next assembly of the Union defines itself for Independence as the only political solution for Puerto Rico, what would the Nationalist Party do? -The Nationalist Party is the living Homeland, and resolved to emancipate itself immediately by its own effort. It does not understand postponement for its redemption from the military occupation that scourges it. That same thing, surely, the Assembly that celebrates independence as its sole purpose will have to say, I think. Mr. Albizu Campos continues talking about his party. I listen with respect: -We have made the public commitment not to cooperate with the regime. We reject executive positions. We limit ourselves to accepting the elective positions that emanate from the popular will. As soon as we receive the suffrage of the majorities we will proclaim the constitution of the Republic twenty-four hours after the elections have taken place. Such are the definitive provisions of our program. Any declaration of independence made by a governmental faction such as the Unionist Party will make us happy because it is a formal recognition of the nationalist consciousness that we have formed in the country. Nationalism has a sacred deposit. No political maneuver that is made, by any other group, will move it from its definitive trajectory towards the immediate achievement of the emancipation of the Homeland. We have a diaphanous political ideology that resists analysis in the light of day. Our tactic is resolute. It is necessary that dedicated and brave men and women militate in our ranks. We are going to resolve without further delay the suppression of the North American military occupation in Puerto Rico. -Wouldn’t the Nationalist Party unite its forces with those of the Union of Puerto Rico, not separating them already differences of ideals? -Nationalism has kept pure the ideal of independence. It will not allow mixtifications of it. It will not tolerate that it be profaned by using it as a tactic to win elections that if they are victorious, our flag will then serve as a carpet for the invaders. For those who truly want the independence of Puerto Rico there is a loving place for them. Come and take your place in the ranks of true patriotism. -Then there would be two parties in Puerto Rico holding the same ideal, in my opinion it would be an unnecessary and inexplicable boxing match between brothers, I believe that every day we divide ourselves more here. I look with pain