The book that Nelson Castro recommends to overcome the cracks and ensure that governments do not appropriate the past

Can the cracks be overcome? Is it possible to build a bridge from each shore to prevent them from further distancing themselves and, perhaps, to bring them closer again, even a little? Mirror dialoguesthe new book by the Uruguayan writer and journalist Pablo Cohenaims to rescue the “art of conversation” as a key tool for leave differences behind.

To do so, he summoned two renowned figures who did not shy away from their ideological differences but who were willing to engage in a dialogue in which, more than their disparities, their common thought stood out: the historians Gerardo Caetano and Ana Ribeiro.

In this work, Cohen uses his extensive experience as a journalist to guide a tour of crucial moments in the history of Uruguay, from the Artigas era to the present. Topics such as orientality, social democracy and republican democracy are explored as a fundamental part of Uruguayan identity, the role of the historian in the post-truth era, literature as the engine of a possible humanist ethic, and the lasting legacy of outstanding thinkers.

These in-depth and timeless interviews weave together a variety of elements, and also address controversial and contemporary topics, such as the debate over euthanasiathe phenomenon of the politically correctexcessive use of political marketing, the regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaraguaand the presidencies of Tabare Vazquez, Jose Mujica and Luis Lacalle Pou.

Through the dialogue between Caetano, Ribeiro and Cohen, the reader is immersed in the art of conversation, almost to the point of feeling part of it as a silent participant at the table, with the important task of continuing that dialogue beyond the pages. from the book.

Qualification: Mirror dialogues

Author: Pablo Cohen (with Gerardo Caetano and Ana Ribeiro)

Editorial: Planet

Digital price in Argentina: $640

It was Eric Arthur Blair—known worldwide by his pseudonym: George Orwell— who, in his prophetic book 1984 —written between 1947 and 1948— he stated: “Whoever controls the present controls the past, and whoever controls the past will control the world.”

What Orwell sought with this brilliant phrase was to warn about the risks of totalitarianism of any sign—right or left—that seek to dominate everything, a phenomenon against which he himself fought in the Spanish civil war, an experience that he gave an account of in his work. Tribute to Catalonia (1938).

In that desire for absolute domination, control and attempted appropriation of the past constitute a key point. In Argentina, for example, this is something that is very well verified throughout the entire experience of the Kirchnerism.

Mastery of the past has a very important prospective value. If we take into account that where the past is taught most is in school, the attempt to control it for the purposes of indoctrination It translates into concrete public actions that use classrooms as a fundamental tool to outline the ideological profile of future generations.

That is why both knowledge of the past and learning its teachings are so important for understanding the present and for planning the future of a society. I want to emphasize that combination: knowledge and learning.

This is why the famous phrase “people who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it” is incomplete, attributed by some to the American poet and philosopher of Spanish origin. Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrásand by others to the former Argentine president Nicolas Avellaneda. The history of humanity is full of cases in which, even knowing its history, a society has repeated the same mistakes, thus demonstrating that it has not learned anything from them.

This context of transcendence of History as an essential tool to understand the present and be able to project the future It is the nucleus around which the book of my dear friend and colleague revolves Pablo Cohen, Mirror dialoguesfor which he summoned two wonderful, prestigious and very well-known historians: Ana Ribeiro and Gerardo Caetano. Of the many praiseworthy things about the work—whose writing is agile, direct and clear—I want to highlight three fundamental ones.

The first is the deep knowledge that the protagonists have of the story, that is, of the facts and their contexts. This attributes educational value to the book.

The second is the intellectual honesty that Caetano and Ribeiro exhibit, something essential to avoid the temptation of resorting to dogmatic assertiveness that entails the risk of falling not only into the manipulation of facts as such, but also into the misrepresentation of their contexts.

The third is the erudition that is transmitted on each page of Mirror dialogues. It is a natural erudition stripped of all solemnity and vanity. This gives the book versatility, because it makes its protagonists—Caetano, Ribeiro and the author—expand on topics as current as euthanasiahe environmental careor others of permanent passionate validity in the River Plate culture, such as soccer.

Uruguay is a country that we from Argentina look at with particular attention. Having had a common origin, having suffered the vicissitudes of the caudillismos and internal struggles and wars of the dimensions that the Great War represented, with the tremendous siege of Montevideo, he managed to build and consolidate a model of a complete democratic society with political leaders who , beyond their different personalities and ideological positions, have been aware—especially after the last civil-military dictatorship—of the importance that coexistence and dialogue have in cementing the culture of plurality and tolerance. This is a heritage that makes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay a different nation, which is seen throughout Latin America as a beacon.

«The democratic aspiration is not simply a recent phase of human history. It is human history,” said the former president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This is the essence that Mirror dialogues unfolds on each of its pages.