Dictionary of the New World Order by Eduardo Galeano
(1991)
( Essential in every lady’s purse or gentleman’s briefcase)
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Apartheid: Originally
a South African system, designed to prevent the Blacks from controlling
their own country. In the New World Order, it is applied democratically
to all poor people regardless of colour.
Capital, free flow of: Refers to
King Herod let loose at a child’s party.
Consumer Society: Massive
amounts of packaging containing nothing. An invention of great scientific
value that allows the suppression of real needs by the imposition of artificial
ones. However, the Consumer Society meets certain resistance in backward
areas. (Statement of Don Pampero Conde, native of Cardona, Uruguay: “What
good is the cold if I don’t have an overcoat.”)
Cost Benefit Analysis:
They say it costs minimally $40 million to run a presidential election
campaign in the US. In Southern countries, the cost of inventing a president
is much lower since there are no taxes and labour is cheaper.
Creation: A sin that is committed
ever less frequently.
Culture, universal: Television.
Development: In the mountains
of Guatemala: It wasn’t necessary to kill everyone. Since 1982,
we gave ‘development’ to 70% of the population and killed
the other 30%. (General Héctor Alejandro Gramajo, former minister
of Defense in Guatemala, recent graduate of the International Relations
Program at Harvard University, published in the Spring 1991 edition of
the Harvard International Review)
Flag: There are now so many stars
that there isn’t room for the bars. Japan and Germany are studying
alternative designs.
Foreign Debt: The obligation
with which every Latin American citizen is born. For the minimal sum of
$2000 per person, they finance the truncheon used to beat them.
Government: In the South, it
is the institution specializing in the distribution of poverty. These
institutions meet occasionally to celebrate their successes. By the last
Regional Conference on Poverty, when Latin American leaders met in Ecuador,
they had managed to condemn 62.3% of Latin Americans to poverty. The conference
celebrated the efficacy of the new Integrated Method of Poverty Alleviation.
History: On October 12th 1992,
the New World Order was 500 years old.
Ideologies, the death of: A
phrase that includes the definitive extinction of bothersome ideas and
ideas in general.
Impunity: The reward earned for
acts of terrorism committed by the State.
Life, american way of: The style
of living typical of the USA where it is rarely practiced.
Market: The place where the cost of human life and other
merchandise is set.
Nature: Archaeologists have located a few vestiges.
Order: The world spends six times more public funds
on the military than on health research (WHO, facts from 1991)
Poison: That which currently predominates in the air,
water, earth and human souls.
Power: Relationship of the North with the South. Also
used to refer to the Southern activities by Southerners who live, waste
and think as if they were Northerners.
Trade, Free: A narcotic drug
prohibited in rich countries but sold by them to poor countries.
Trade: The mechanism by which poor countries pay when
they buy AND when they sell. A computer today costs three times more coffee
and four times more cocoa than it did five years ago (World Bank, numbers
from 1991)
War, Cold: It’s over. New enemies are required.
Those interested should apply to the Pentagon, Washington DC, or your
neighbourhood association.
War: Punishment applied to Southern
countries when they dare to raise the prices of their exports. The most
recent lesson was taught to Iraq. To correct the price of oil, it was
necessary to produce 150,000 ‘collateral damages,’ vulgarly
referred to as human victims in 1991.
Wealth: According to the rich,
it does not produce happiness. According to the poor, it produces something
very much like it. The Statisticians tell us that the rich are rich because
there are so few of them while the police and military are busy trying
to correct any confusion that might arise about this.
World, map of: A sea with two shores: The North, where
a few have a lot; The South where many have little. The East has managed
to stop being the East, it wants to be the North but at the gates of Paradise,
the Northern membership says “we’re full.”
World: A dangerous place, “Despite
the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the world continues to be a dangerous
place.” (George Bush Sr., message to Congress, 1991)
Translated from Eduardo Galeano, Ser como ellos y otros
artículos, (To be like them and other articles) Siglo Veintiuno
de España Editores, Madrid, 1992.
Spanish to English translation by Dr. Leslie Jermyn, Global Aware
Galeano's dictionary
is not complete: definitions for words like Coalition,
Poverty, Privatization and Television are missing and War should be updated
for example. Submit these or other definitions you think relevant to info@globalaware.org!
We are compiling a new dictionary for our time! |
