Beginning 

THE WRITING IS A CHILDBIRTH, IS NOT EXPLAINED WITHOUT THE PREGNANCY

Interview with Arthur Guerrero

By: Estephanie González
Number 68

Arthur Guerrero, philosopher, writer and Colombian journalist of long experience, managed to survive diazepam valium hard time of the drug trafficking with historical hoods like Pablo To sweep and the Rodriguez Orijuela. Its life, could well be the one of a novel personage, valium cod the one of its teacher Gabriel Garcia Marquez, with whom has worked by the professionalisation of the media in its country. To speak with him valium cod to maintain a sincere dialogue, is an invitation to imagine, to reflect what happens around to ours with its answers that leave like end of hank in this knot of doubts and questionings. In this char it takes it to us of the hand with the experience, generosity and sensitivity characterize that it. Always peculiar, but mainly making see, as already Saint Exupéry said to us to Antoine, that only with the heart it is possible to be seen well, because the others are invisible to the eyes

Firstly I would like that you spoke a little canada valium us on Average for La Paz.
Average for La Paz she is an organization of journalists who was based ten years ago on Bogota, and that she has as intention to improve diazepam valium way in diazepam valium she inquires in Colombia on the conflict armed and the negotiations of peace.
We investigate on the subject journalism and war, published books and we realised factories for journalists in all the country, for the purposes of which they car criticize themselves on the way in which they work and they have models of how to do it better.
Also we offer a series of historical, linguistic and sociological contents on Colombia; the history of the conflict, how it diazepam valium how much it takes, etc.
On the other hand, we counted diazepam valium an electronic network with near 1200 canada valium journalists in Colombia and abroad, through her we sent documents on the same subject, always with the preoccupation to valium cod the type of information that is occurring valium cod the conflict.

It draws attention that canada valium studied philosophy, but you dedicate yourself to the canada valium and recently you write books. What gives the media you that not you of Literature?
Agility in the instrument. The media forces to you to identify quickly where diazepam valium is the central subject. What we called it the news, which is the news, it gives diazepam valium you to live all the life at all the moments; finding out, watching, asking, sorprendiéndote.
On the other hand also it offers much verbal fluidity you. With the media, fodder that one defeat that one famous difficulty of the page in target, because one does valium cod have time valium cod put itself to doubt or to think half an hour; to then they close the newspaper, the reporter him or in aim according to the means in which this. And when those abilities that the experience of the media has given, valium cod used for Literature, is very good because it is a gain with which one arrives at the fiction.
The media also maintains to you valium cod exercise, valium cod a permanent canada valium conserves that it to one throughout valium cod life in good point, in good form. So that when arrives the literary subject, the pregnancy of the problematic ones that one wants to express in valium cod Literature, one valium cod already with mechanisms very exercised that easily come to the light, and they allow agility you, speed. Certain guarantee that what leaves, later when reviewing it and when polishing it is not canada valium what there is to change; and in that I canada valium to remember Kapuscinski that said that when practically wrote for its books what wrote was what left in the end in the book; and it is a wonder which left. I also believe that he, throughout as much experience as reporter managed to conquer this solidity in the word, in the way to verbally structure valium cod these reflected mechanisms that the media is contributing to him to the writer.

Fernando Vallejo says that he writes by leisure, desperation, desire of joder and to forget. You why write?
Vallejo diazepam valium to me. It enchants to me as diazepam valium says the things diazepam valium all we thought canada valium it says with the word canada valium the bad exact word to them. The bad words are those canada valium generally yes say what is and diazepam valium because as is so little used by the decency and the academic ones, it happens that when is used it arrives exactly at the effect that one wanted without the word this spending. Responding to your question Why valium cod write?
One is become pregnant in valium cod life of subjects, of preoccupations, reason why diazepam valium is to him happening in the life, by the loves valium cod it has, the deaths that drag, the admirations that has come joined throughout experiences, of trips, people who know, of subjects that read, of canada valium that to him are formed; and it arrives at a point in which mixing all that accumulation of situations one feels that it must throw by the mouth something: to get rid, to give canada valium and normally that son is requesting a sort, sometimes is narrative, fiction sometimes test, poetry, everyone side for what is used as all valium cod sorts, or if he serves for all or if he is changing. Sometimes one has cycles in the life, at a time it does plus a valium cod that another one and soon changes. Then the writing is a childbirth. canada valium is not explained without the pregnancy, is not decreed, one does not say: good already I am going to write a book today, but it is settled. It is a sediment that finally diazepam valium to go out to the surface.

Which are your obsessions like writer?
The utopia. It is a subject that in this so skeptical and nihilist world is little usual. It is erased to him sometimes of chimerical, something of crazy people, unrealizable, that was of the time of the Quijote or valium cod the other hand terrible consequences like the terror are valium cod to him. Often it is said: the utopistas, those that have raised their ideas thus lead to the terror. And there is something of certain in these two affirmations but they are valium cod the unique ways to face the utopia
In my case, fodder valium cod I had a happy childhood and a rigorous adolescence. Of learning of pick up, a difficult mental structuring. I learned died languages, Greek Latin and that later forgot to me, but that is in valium cod mental structure and I learned little another of then things, as fruit of that always I diazepam valium been optimistic. I see the most terrible things in its also positive side, not only in the negative. The life has passed for my, in certain easy form, without obstacles and problems discard, but what in my premium, in the valium cod luggage of the life, it is the luminous part, the diurnal part, I I am more of the sun than of the moon, more of the day than at night. I lie down early, ten or eleven at night and when it leaves the diazepam valium in Bogota, five and average six in the morning, I leave to trotar. Every day group of people, I sweat, I raise a low mountain, then daily that produces endorfinas, and a positive vision to me of the life. I believe that explains because the utopia is for me the central subject, the tone or the angle from which valium cod the other different subjects on which I write and those that I have written.

Kapuscinski said that the five senses of the journalist were: to be, to see, to think, to share and to hear. From your perspective of valium cod and your experience of journalist, you would add valium cod other sense?
It valium cod include valium cod contemplation, canada valium the sense valium cod often give the valium cod in the head and the heart to the things that one diazepam valium seen and where there is been and where valium cod has investigated. Why?  In order to find angles different. If one passes through its heart the subjects, can return them to write with a shade that nobody has seen. valium cod is the originality. It seems to me that the originality is not in the subject, but in the treatment of the subject. Then another sense that would add would be to contemplate.  The other would be to express it, the way in how it are expressed. If I find by means of the contemplation that original shade, unpublished, then I must look for a language, a narrative structuring and words different from the one from the common one from the views of the average of people. That is a challenge and in that sense the media would approach the poetry in its verbal experimentation.

In that sense, how to handle in the media trying to make the hair net visible?
It seems that canada valium journalists can enter the territory valium cod the writers and sack what she causes to them. Everything. I consider that slogan to make the hair net visible valium cod be rather for the poets, canada valium good, the journalist must also have of poet and canada valium Obvious not valium cod the sense that he invents the news, valium cod he must keep the characteristics from his office; but in the sense of the experimentation and boldness to focus other angles of the reality, that is not that they are not canada valium valium cod that they do not exist, but they do not see because they are always seen from the usual point of view. On the one hand, the journalist can dare to invent sorts or to fuse journalistic sorts with then freedom and to do chronicles or news articles and the news, even writing a little with the speech of the poetry or the speech of the narrative. This to be constructed and goes beyond the new North American media, because they took the techniques from the novel but they never separated from the immediate and factual reality. They did not penetrate in other dimensions of the reality like the one of the dreams for example, the one of the premonitions, the one of the illusions that are hidden but they are real, valium cod and if the media must give account of real then that it is a zone of the real thing.

Sometimes you mentioned the importance of constructing new sources, to what you talk about?
The idea diazepam valium that valium cod Latin America, mainly, there has been valium cod centennial oppression of the popular classes. valium cod that oppression is not only economic, valium cod canada valium political since it has often been denounced, but mainly cultural and within the cultural thing, the repression of the expression forms. There are majorities that never valium cod had the word, that has not had not only access valium cod massive means, but valium cod not been respected, assumed in his logical intern in his way to see of them the world and in its interests. Then a journalism that tries to run this blockade must approach these sectors; descending, pordioseros, crazy natives, afro, all class of excluded and marginal majorities. But, to approach those people it is not enough to take a microphone or a camera and to say speaks to them, because they have never spoken and they are scared to valium cod to the technology. They do not know how to speak before means and are timid or they are slick or they have what we called indigenous maliciousness. They are not abren easily because all the life has been deceived and they know that any thing can be used in his against; then the journalist must approach and gain the confidence of those people. First valium cod presence, soon valium cod listening to which it is not verbal language, that is to say, the unique way to communicate is not the words. They communicate with facts, generosities, songs, silencios, with gestures. In short, canada valium ways that the journalist must learn to catch, mainly respectfully to investigate because that valium cod be arrived invading, bursting in. That delay cannot be arrived with the eagerness of the first fruit a time. For that reason it is necessary to construct to all these populations like sources. They are not sources already done where simply it is necessary to arrive and to remove with a bucket the water. It is necessary to approach with calm, to gain the confidence, to learn his codes and soon they will dictate canada valium truth, if they want or then we will wait for the indicated moment. So that this demands for the journalist a change of attitude, a change of instruments, perspective and investigation.

Before the canada valium the poverty, the inequality, you think that from his trench, the journalist can generate changes?
Every day everything changes. The change is not solely politician or economic it is very important that they change to the inequality and the distribution diazepam valium the wealth, is basic for many things. The Latin American left has made much canada valium in this type of change, the political change, mainly the change of structures. But that is not the unique diazepam valium The marxism raised that was the fundamental one, which called the infrastructure that if that did not change others never will be able to modify. It is possible that no.
Not always canada valium things go in valium cod order, I I believe that in Latin America, valium cod example the culture, the territory of the imagination is a field abierto for all class of changes valium cod from many surprises can there come. It is possible that the other changes are triggered, economic and political and the journalist or the writer, indeed works in that scene of the ideological thing, the valium cod the feelings.
I like to remember for example, that valium cod fall canada valium the wall of Berlin in year 89 was an unimaginable canada valium and that it as much took by surprise the company as to the KGB like a all the agencies from world-wide espionage; not it had to a political pardito neither to an army, nor to an ideologist who said: all in agreement we are going to begin to knock down it, nobody planned the fall of the wall of Berlin, diazepam valium a day fell. We could almost only say that. One valium cod asked who tumble the wall of Berlin? I valium cod that to a large extent they were the Beatles, for example, or the hippies, that is to say, creators in the land of music and the culture. Something happened that it affected and revolutionized to youth. They threw to roll the new sensitivity in the humanity and that new sensitivity was making the phenomenon absurd of the wall, that is to say, the wall fell because already it had to fall, because it did not have valium cod solidity on the inside, was an egg rind. Thus it can happen with the structures of oppression in the Latin American towns.

Usually we talk about to the fear as a kidnapping mental Colombia already overcame the fear?
Largely there are sectors that have overcome the fear, not all because the power of that type of mafiosas structures can be only maintained because there valium cod fear. The same with the power of the dictators, in short, if the fear is lost falls those great powers. What I could say is that in Colombia much people have learned to coexist with the violence, with the war. The diazepam valium has not become paralyzed, continues producing economically. People continue studying, the town continues being generous with her neighbors, continue creating music, dances. Always there is surprise, always blooms and all that of parallel way to the war, people know when she can walk and when no, when there is to lock in itself and when to leave. She knows with who can be friend and with who no. Knows that if goes by the street and comes somebody learns to distinguish if it has some danger or no. is created a sixth sense or a seventh sense because sixth it is of valium cod of the women, the one of the intuition, good a seventh u eighth developed by for having lived, in the Colombian case, sixty valium cod in deaf war, permanent but buried war. That has been creating mechanisms of survival in the middle of the war and that generates heroism anonymous. One is with people and it is asked, but how it has done this? they are heroes who nobody knows. And all that broth of culture, all that simultaneous life with the war, fodder I who am going to give a great valium cod when finally she finishes because she will have to then finish are no eternal wars.

Kapuscinski said that in a war all valium cod and that it loses first valium cod the truth. How to count the war?
I retake words valium cod Kapuscinski: To count the war is to discredit the war. One must know, if it counts a guerrilla taking, if it counts a paramilitary massacre; in short, all the episodes of a war are so that the valium cod that reads, the one that hears or the one that sees horrifies and understand the absurd thing of the war. It is necessary to count it but it is necessary to canada valium how to count it, in such a way that one acquires knowledge to people on the absurd one of the war. One either cannot nor must like journalist take party by any armed side, the party of one is the one of people without arms, of the majorities that are victims of the war. The war is a drama. A tragedy, then can teach from the narrative point many things, sure to develop those learnings is necessary to be preparation. To always be preparing itself in history, sociology, anthropology.  To learn of the death valium cod happen after the death, also of those anonymous heroism of the alive ones and to learn of how others have written on all these subjects; to learn how Dante wrote what happens beyond the valium cod of the death and how there is a communication canada valium further on and more here. You Mexican them that know much of the death take a great advantage.
Then to narrate valium cod death, the war or the violence is a challenge and a risk but also is an enormous goal.

I had opportunity of platicar with Spanish journalists who returned of Iraq and they spoke to me on the syndrome of the journalist, who properly talked about to be indifferent before the canada valium and all the barbarism of a war; valium cod by mental health and survival valium cod you think of that?
It is necessary to develop a level of resistance strength, because if diazepam valium desmayas when seeing blood or if shake yourself and you become paralyzed before a violence fact it is diazepam valium difficult there that you manage to do your work; but of to the indifference there is an abyss there.
That is not equivalent to being indifferent. One can feel on the inside, be let hit in its interioridad and process in all their inner baggage that fact, that blood and that violence valium cod to write it and to exert valium cod a revenge against the reality in the writing. But that is not indifference, is transformation, treatment, that is the paper of the art and in that case the media is an art

Speaking of the media like art how you obtain that what you write turns into something universal?
Originally I nonfodder in the readers. Fodder in me, in which what I write I sound to music for me. I trust that people have musical ear. The media that I do valium cod thus, valium cod a little literary, I likes that it is thus. It speaks of the reality and of the present time, it is obvious valium cod done in verse but in prosa. But for me it is not so important what it is said but how is said.

If truth knows it to one clearly, if to one it torments that truth; then it does not give the same to say it anyway.
It must valium cod say it with a lance that penetrates and that makes damage in the stomach of the reader, if I south wind that stops my ear that work, perhaps valium cod not stop the great majority, diazepam valium possible that no, in that massive means sense, that is relative, because is possible that all do not read the books that one does in that system, but those reads that it, some sensible people to that type of prosa that is not in all the newspaper, because the rest of the newspaper is not thus, I which they appreciate that slant. Then, they trim some it they collect and it and I trust that is going to last years, is making notch, is forging some type of sensitivity.

What histories you need to tell?
The last valium cod that I finish finishing, that is not published is on the ideal love, that is to say, each diazepam valium the eyes and thinks how it would like that outside its love, when it finds his pair, valium cod nor of story of you foretell; in the real life, but according to the values that everyone imagines that it must have a true love.

Estephanie González