Ayer Günter Grass salió del hospital. Su estado parece favorable, aunque la problemática que suscitó hace unas semanas con el gobierno de Israel nos hace pensar que no está del todo bien. Günter Grass, además de Premio Nobel de Literatura, ha sido un luchador social. Como escritor se ha visto rodeado por el discurso de la posguerra, que condena al nazismo visto como un estereotipo del que nadie se salva, y líderes y subordinados de todos niveles son culpables por igual de los mismos crímenes. Por eso su poema de hace unas semanas Was gesagt werden muss (Lo que debe decirse), ha levantado una verdadera nube de polvo, como una patada en la tierra, donde emerge la figura de Grass para que algunos aplaudan su osadía, mientras otros lo acusen de «anti semitismo», de haber participado en como soldado en las SS sin tomar en cuenta el carácter obligatorio de su participación y de su corta edad en ese momento.
Más allá de eso, lo que tenemos es un poeta alzando la voz a través de su arte, para decir aquello que podría haber dicho de otro modo, en otro género, pero que vuelve a poner a la poesía en el centro de una discusión. El propio Salman Rushdie ha calificado de malo a este poema pero que creo que también tiene que ver con la intención del mismo. No se trata de un dechado de técnica, ni de llamar a las musas, sino de un usar al poema como un género de popular; se trata de su accesibilidad, de mirar más allá de los encantos de la retórica por un momento para llegar al mensaje.
Los dejó el poema traducido al inglés por Breon Mitchell para The Guardian, y acá el original. Si les interesa el texto, les recomiendo esta excelente nota en español sobre un fragmento hecha por Literatambo.
What must be said
Why have I kept silent, held back so long,
on something openly practised in
war games, at the end of which those of us
who survive will at best be footnotes?
It’s the alleged right to a first strike
that could destroy an Iranian people
subjugated by a loudmouth
and gathered in organized rallies,
because an atom bomb may be being
developed within his arc of power.
Yet why do I hesitate to name
that other land in which
for years – although kept secret –
a growing nuclear power has existed
beyond supervision or verification,
subject to no inspection of any kind?
This general silence on the facts,
before which my own silence has bowed,
seems to me a troubling, enforced lie,
leading to a likely punishment
the moment it’s broken:
the verdict «Anti-semitism» falls easily.
But now that my own country,
brought in time after time
for questioning about its own crimes,
profound and beyond compare,
has delivered yet another submarine to Israel,
(in what is purely a business transaction,
though glibly declared an act of reparation)
whose speciality consists in its ability
to direct nuclear warheads toward
an area in which not a single atom bomb
has yet been proved to exist, its feared
existence proof enough, I’ll say what must be said.
But why have I kept silent till now?
Because I thought my own origins,
tarnished by a stain that can never be removed,
meant I could not expect Israel, a land
to which I am, and always will be, attached,
to accept this open declaration of the truth.
Why only now, grown old,
and with what ink remains, do I say:
Israel’s atomic power endangers
an already fragile world peace?
Because what must be said
may be too late tomorrow;
and because – burdened enough as Germans –
we may be providing material for a crime
that is foreseeable, so that our complicity
will not be expunged by any
of the usual excuses.
And granted: I’ve broken my silence
because I’m sick of the West’s hypocrisy;
and I hope too that many may be freed
from their silence, may demand
that those responsible for the open danger
we face renounce the use of force,
may insist that the governments of
both Iran and Israel allow an international authority
free and open inspection of
the nuclear potential and capability of both.
No other course offers help
to Israelis and Palestinians alike,
to all those living side by side in enmity
in this region occupied by illusions,
and ultimately, to all of us.
Love it!