TERRORISM. That "bad word" that usually brings to mind images of dozens or hundreds of dead, large explosions, secret and very destructive attacks and countless other possible actions. Years ago, there was a strong tendency on a global level on the part of the rulers to reject that this diabolical word could have a place in their countries. This was changing as a result of the "always-dubious" events of September 2001 in New York. Little by little, rulers of various countries - in a row - were realizing that it was a good way to silence, for several years, those who had the capacity to mobilize masses in defense of what the ruling caste usually calls "operations in strategic sectors" and prostituting themselves even more to even include any other person who at a given moment could be considered annoying to the governments sponsoring this type of operations.
Thus, Colombia, Argentina and Ecuador are aiming for related legislation; and the last two cases, for example, are the subject of sociological analysis to evaluate whether this figure of terrorism and its defendants are in accordance with the reality of the processes that are experienced in these countries. The fact that in just a few years, for example in Ecuador there are nearly 200 defendants for the cause of terrorism, although only a few -counted on the fingers of one hand- have received a sentence, could mean: 1. That Ecuador has ceased to be that island of peace that made its people so proud and that would include an alert for those who visit it; or 2. That the system is so flawed that it cannot prove these supposed cases of terrorism, which could give greater room for the appreciations of what is the real use that is given to this figure of terrorism.
Poetry, as well as art in general, is not alien to this reality, which is being expressed in an increasing number of artistic expressions. In this case, there are two poetic works for consideration that come from the south of the continent but that could easily be seen in any of the aforementioned cases:
- I am a terrorist
I am a terrorist for the government of my country
Because I believe in the spirit of the tree and the river
Because I worship the sun and not money
Because I don't want dams in the south
nor dirty blood energy that feeds the monster
Morbid neoliberal hypermarket (under any name USA, China…it doesn’t matter)
I am a terrorist because I don't have a stable job
No contract
No checkbook
No checking account
No credit cards
Because years ago I gave up on the idea of having my own house
Because I don't pay taxes
Because I am not a good customer of commercial houses
Because I ride a bike or walk.
Because I have a Mapuche friend (Cofán or Kichwa) who visits me at home
And who do I visit?
I am a terrorist because I am a woman, polyamorous and free
Because I say what I think
Because I have no weapons
Because I believe in love
And in people
Because I exercise the power of my true word
Because I bow to no one
Because I don't practice the art of genuflection
Because I do not covet what does not belong to me by right
Because poverty doesn't scare me
It doesn't paralyze me either
I am a terrorist because for one slave the freedom of another
It is a terrifying threat
Elizabeth Neira
- I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the unemployed person who blocks the road for work, dignity and social change.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the peasant who resists the bulldozers and fights for her right to the land.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the woman who denounces the government by demanding her right to have a safe and free abortion in the Hospital.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the teacher who extorts and blackmails the government by exercising her right to strike in the fight to make ends meet.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the transvestite who kicks down the door of the Legislature and demands the repeal of police edicts and contravention codes.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am a state employee who is on strike because he has been working illegally for years and is fighting to become a permanent employee.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the woman who denounces judges and police officers for being complicit in the trafficking networks that kidnapped her daughter.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the resident who camps against open-pit mining.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the trans man who resists pathologization and fights for his integral right to identity, health, and work.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the precarious worker of the cooperatives, who lights a tire to demand tools and decent wages.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am a high school student who takes over the school to demand that they fix the roof that is falling on them.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the QOM who camps on 9 de Julio demanding recognition of their ownership of ancestral lands.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the lesbian who does not want to get married and shows her tits to the Bishop because she does not want to be invisible either.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the mother who sets fire to the kitchen where they make the paco that is killing her children.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am one of the 5,000 comrades prosecuted for fighting for human rights in the country.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the picketer who goes up to the Pueyrredón Bridge every 26th to shout that Darío and Maxi are not alone.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the key witness who disappeared due to state terrorism that is still unpunished.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the kid from Matanzas who was erased for resisting stealing for the police.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the student murdered by the union bureaucracy, friends of the K's, on the railroad tracks.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the peasant killed at the hands of the mercenaries of the soybean model.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am an Argentine (Ecuadorian, Colombian, Peruvian) who believes that a “national” government should not pass laws at the request of the Empire. (whatever that may be)
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am an Argentine who believes that a “popular” government cannot approve gorilla laws that criminalize those who fight.
I AM A TERRORIST, and I am the people organized from below, who are not afraid of your laws or your bullets, and who will continue to fight so that this terrifying system ends once and for all, until all terrorists are free.
EN 
ES_ES