Testigos

For whatever reason, I started thinking about why I titled this series "Witnesses," ("Testigos" in Spanish.) It led me to believe that there is a pathology to power, that we come to a certain disdain for those we victimize. We deplore the fact that they witness our aggression, that they survive with their innocence intact. I believe we grow to hate the people we victimize because they hold the power, be it of forgiveness, or merely
of being victims --of gaining sympathy when we should have none, and this leads us further into the mire of the aggression we've created.

I get a lot of shit because these are Jews and I'm in a Catholic country, that the holocaust is to grave and deep a subject, that I'm too Catholic myself to begin with. It seems a little odd to say I'm proud to be on a path to understanding something this monumental in human history, but I think I am. I thought also, once, of titling this series, Stripes, and I think about stripes sometimes too. In fact quite a lot. And as I take up my new series, perhaps it is the stripe of power that emblazons as much our misery as our victory.