It all started with such a strange coincidence that later I realized that it was not such a coincidence. A few weeks from traveling to Jamaica, a friend told me that the country demanded a reward from the United Kingdom for the damages of the slave trade, so I started a trace of that colossal tragedy that now, along with four more countries (Gambia, U.S., Colombia and Cuba) is published in "Black Footprints. On the trail of slavery " (The Horizon Line).
It was the end of the year 2015 and in the Caribbean the tropical hurricane season had ended, but two weeks later I left there thinking that the real storm had been installed for a long time. A morally sunken country, without their place in the world, who screamed from the rooftops that much of his misery had a name and surname. Then, what I thought was a report on an isolated event, it swelled like a candle and I set out to follow the story: I would go to some country where human beings had been ripped off as slaves (finally it was the gambia), and then delve into the uprisings in the southern United States.
What I thought was a report on an isolated event, it swelled like a candle and I set out to follow the story
That trilogy would allow me to frame the misfortune and give a voice to those who suffered a tragedy that the United Nations described as atrocious in the history of mankind "because of its abhorrent barbarism", "Its magnitude", "Its organized character" and "its denial of the essence of the victims". With those trips made, one report published and two to be completed, the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation for the New Ibero-American Journalism (FNPI) awarded the project the Michael Jacobs fellowship from Crónica Viajera that would allow continuing research in Colombia and Cuba.
One wonders, after something like that, What has changed. Before starting the first of the reports, I did not know, not even remotely, the scale and consequences of the slave trade today. Of something that happened so far back in time, thought, it is difficult to look for testimonials, stories, wounds. And, however, I found myself five countries at times raw, with very specific victims - with their stories, her cries, their exoduses - whose misfortunes began with the slave trade.
I found myself five countries at times raw, with very specific victims whose misfortunes began with the slave trade
Each country has experienced very different processes and, however, so suffered. Jamaica feels nullified; Gambia, humiliated. The southern states of the United States are the poorest and racist crimes have resurfaced, if they ever left. And Colombia, the black population is the group that has suffered the most from the internal conflict. And the black population of Cuba - "here even racism is different", as one researcher told me - tremble for being one.
It is what I try to portray in this book in whose preparation I have learned as much as I hope the reader will learn. The work of the journalist is none other than to draw a topic from the depths and show it publicly, more when this investigation began after I was surprised that there were cracks that one, out of sheer ignorance, I did not know they existed.
These pages also represent a trip to our black footprints, to the responsibility that we all have for our actions
But the pages that dive through half a dozen countries also represent a trip to our black footprints, to the responsibility that we all have for our actions, such as that of the slave traders during the transatlantic trade. For that reason I wrote a prologue that introduces the meaning of the book, the foundations of the reports, and the moment they were written. Concepts like freedom, memory or blackness are questioned during texts that collect the testimony of many victims of slavery. Two centuries after its abolition, It is surprising to see that the consequences are still too present.
The Friday 16 February, to 18:00 hours, in International Press Club (chip) from Madrid, we will present it.
