Politics

I have seriously considered writing one of these to have in the can, ready to publish. This is a gut punch. (Still, I finally got sick of three errors in the hed and circled back to fix them. And dear god, cadence. You wanted contractions in the first two opportunities, but not in the fourth where one was used.)

Dear reader, for the first time since I became a journalist, I have to tell you I wish you weren’t reading what I’ve written. Because if you’re reading this, it means I’m no longer in this world – or any other. I’ve died. Shit, it’s hard to write this, but that’s the way it is. I’ve died, and I don’t want to leave without saying goodbye and sharing a few final thoughts.

I’ve been a very fortunate person. I was fortunate to have been born in a European country that, although still under the yoke of Franco’s regime, very soon afterwards began to progress economically, socially and politically. Luck, and it was only luck, made my destiny infinitely easier than that of hundreds of millions of children who are born in regions of the world ravaged by hunger, poverty and war.

Even in this difficult moment I’m going through, I don’t think I have the right to complain or to moan about my lot. How can I play the victim knowing these historical inequalities and injustices? How can I lament my fate when we see what is happening even now, in Africa, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Yemen, Iran or in Palestine? I can’t say for sure, but I imagine that my last thought – the last image that passes through my mind before I shut down – will be of the children massacred in Gaza and of the surviving Palestinians who face a terrible future. What I do know is that I will leave this world without understanding why the international community chose to remain impassive while Israel perpetrated a genocide right before its eyes, broadcast live, minute by minute, massacre by massacre.