La Jornada: Given the culture of death that prevails, it is urgent to humanize migration: Pereda

For Carlos Pereda it is imperative to have a more human vision regarding forced displacements, which he affirms that, although they have been present since time immemorial, they constitute one of the most unavoidable and disruptive processes of our time.

“It seems very good to me to use the word humanize, because we are facing an opposition that seems increasingly difficult to accept: that between a culture of life and a culture of death,” he says.

“It would seem that we do not want to face the difficult problems of our society and our existence through the culture of life, but rather we think that with weapons, armies, bombs and violence we can solve them, and that is impossible. The culture of death ends up leading to death and nothing more.”

The renowned Uruguayan-Mexican philosopher is the author of Forced Displacements: A Plebeian Meditation, a book in which he reflects on “the tragedy of exile and migration”, opposing a “porous reason” to the “arrogant reason” that criminalizes the other.

Recently published by Herder, it is not “an abstract treatise”, but a reflection that connects the Spanish republican exile in Mexico in the last century with the mass migration of Mexicans and Central Americans to the United States in the present.

“There have always been forced displacements due to violence, war, deforestation, climate changes,” says the thinker. “But precisely in our century – and this is somewhat the theme of the book – forced displacements have been mainly due to violence. That is, people have had to leave their places because they are forced to.”

The emeritus researcher at the Institute of Philosophical Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) draws in this new work a central parallelism between two experiences: that of the Spanish intellectuals exiled in Mexico as a result of the civil war and that of the thousands, millions of anonymous migrants who today cross borders.

To do this, he rescues three key figures from the Spanish exile, all philosophers: José Gaos, who coined the term “exiled” when he felt in Mexico as an extension of Spain; Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, who always defined himself as “exiled,” taking the political position that he was expelled from his homeland, and María Zambrano, for whom life was a constant restart symbolized in the concept of “dawn.”

However, Pereda (Florida, Uruguay, 1944) makes a difference in conceptual terms: “in general, exile is something that tends to be more qualitative, while emigration is totally quantitative, as it involves enormous numbers of somewhat nameless men and women who cross borders without knowing where they are going.

“After all, Gaos, Sánchez Vázquez and Zambrano were received in Mexico. On the other hand, the thousands or millions of Mexicans who cross the border into the United States are not Mexicans, although they are in search of a better life; above all, better economic conditions.”

To give voice to this anonymous experience, the researcher relies on cultural expressions considered “plebeian”: the corridos of Mexican immigrants, as well as Chicano poetry. “Carlos Monsiváis said that corridos are compressed novels,” states the author.

As part of his work, Pereda also analyzes two poems by Lorna Dee Cervantes, a Chicana figure almost unknown in Mexico. In one, the poet, upon recovering her family history, feels on board a ship that never reaches port; In the other, upon returning to Oaxaca, he suffers the rejection of those he believed to be his fellow citizens.

The characteristic desolation

Forced displacements: A plebeian meditation is structured in three parts. The first addresses these convergent visions of exile and migration. The second includes “an abstract chapter” on displacement in general and an analysis of five photographs by Miguel Tovar that express “the desolation” that characterizes this phenomenon.

The third part discusses normative theories about borders. Here, the philosopher defends a clear position: “You cannot accuse anyone of anything before you have evidence. Therefore, the borders have to be open in some sense.”

Faced with the current position of “closed borders”, he proposes to remember the hospitality that Mexico offered to the exiles of the Spanish civil war, although he qualifies by clarifying that not everything was smooth in that historical episode, as has been mythologized over time. Remember that at the beginning there was tension between a part of Mexican society that welcomed them with open arms and another that rejected them.

According to Pereda, the concept that permeates the entire book is the opposition between two ways of using reason: one “arrogant” and the other “open, porous.”

The purpose, he explains, is to avoid arrogance, an attitude that he says is usually shown in the face of forced displacement, “as if to say: ‘these poor people who arrive’. We must keep in mind that, at any time, any of us can be one of those who are forced to go from one place to another.”

He exemplifies the case of José Gaos, who was rector of the University of Madrid before being forced to leave Spain: “He was not a man without a future, but his life was cut short. The lives of all emigrants are cut short and it is not easy to assume a new beginning. There is something tragic in all of this.”

–Do you also say it in the first person?

–Yes and no, because I came from Uruguay during the dictatorship, but I got the good thing: I was immediately able to join the National University and become a professor. I can bond more with Gaos, Sánchez Vázquez or Zambrano, than with those millions of migrants who cross borders without knowing what will happen to them. I am more an exile than an immigrant.