The War of the Poor

And even if you don't give a shit whether or not the Chinese painter of rocks and birds had some mysterious kinship of the soul with the Landgrave of Hesse, fantasies are nonetheless one path to the truth. History is Philomela, and they raped her, or so they say, and cut her tongue, and she whistles at night from deep in the woods.

Why the God of the poor was so strangely on the side of the rich, always with the rich. Why his words about giving up everything issued from the mouths of those who had taken everything.

His body will be dragged over the scaffold and thrown to the dogs. Youth is endless, the secret of our equality immortal, and solitude wonderful. Martyrdom is a trap for the oppressed.

And so they began to realize they’d been lied to. They had long felt troubled and afflicted; there were many things they didn’t understand. They had a hard time understanding why God, the God of beggars, crucified between two thieves, needed such pomp. Why his ministers needed luxury of such embarrassing proportions. Why the God of the poor was so strangely on the side of the rich, always with the rich. Why his words about giving up everything issued from the mouths of those who had taken everything.

Cincuenta años antes, una pasta ardiente había fluido desde Maguncia al resto de Europa, había fluido entre las colinas de cada ciudad, entre las letras de cada nombre, en los canalones, en los recovecos de cada pensamiento, y cada letra, cada pedazo de idea, cada signo de puntuación, había quedado apresado en un trocito de metal. Esos trocitos los habían repartido en un cajón de madera. Las manos habían elegido uno, luego otro, y habían compuesto palabras, líneas, páginas. Los habían mojado en tinta y una fuerza prodigiosa había presionado lentamente las letras sobre el papel. Repitieron la operación decenas y decenas de veces, antes de doblar las hojas en cuatro, en ocho, en dieciséis. Las fueron colocando unas a continuación de otras, las pegaron entre sí, las cosieron, las envolvieron en cuero. De ese modo se formó un libro. La Biblia.

Martyrdom is a trap for the oppressed. Only victory is desirable.

Not to mention that, since the beginning of their existence, they have been trained to feel so much respect, so much fear, that they're still willing to take a prince at his word, at least for a while. We always want to believe what the father says. Our desire is attuned to his register.

Negotiations are a means of combat.

All the kingdoms that follow Babylon will be destroyed, except for one. That one is indestructible, for it is the Kingdom of God. The princes don't really care to hear about the destruction of kingdoms. The idea unsettles them. Nebuchadnezzer's dream is a prophecy of doom.

Leave everything and follow me,' Christ is sup- posed to have said; the commandment is infinite, it demands a new humanity. Enigmatic and naked. It sweeps away the grandeurs of the world. One kind of poverty destroys, another exalts. There is a great mystery in that: to love the poor means to love baneful poverty, to stop despising it. It means to love mankind. For man is poor. Irremediably. We are poverty, buffeted between desire and disgust.

Las palabras quedan dichas de nuevo: «ni mediante el dinero ni mediante el poder de los príncipes», esas mismas palabritas que cambian de forma, de tono, pero no de objetivo, y que, cuando retornan al mundo, siempre pugnan contra el dinero, la fuerza y el poder. Esas palabras van a ser poco a poco las nuestras. Van a tardar tiempo, mucho tiempo en labrarse un camino hasta nosotros.

«¡No son los campesinos quienes se sublevan, sino Dios!», cuentan que dijo Lutero [...]. Pero no era Dios. Eran sin duda los campesinos los que se sublevaban. A no ser que llamemos Dios al hambre, la enfermedad, la humillación, la penuria. No se subleva Dios, se sublevan la servidumbre, los feudos, los diezmos, el decreto de manos muertas, el arriendo, la tala, el viático, la recogida de paja, el derecho de pernada, las narices cortadas, los ojos reventados, los cuerpos quemados, apaleados, atenaceados. Las querellas sobre el más allá nos llevan en realidad a las cosas de este mundo.

For man is poor. Irremediably. We *are* poverty, buffeted between desire and disgust.

Concerning the end of Thomas Müntzer, there exists a legend of cowardice with many variants. Müntzer supposedly fled and hid and they found him and turned him over to Count von Mansfield and he was imprisoned in a dungeon and tortured and supposedly he recanted and implored the princes for money and dictated a contrite letter to the inhabitants of Mühlhausen. I don't believe a word of it.

Müntzer exhorted his men, screamed his confidence in God, tried to grab them by the sleeve, I don't know what he did, probably he shed tears, he raged.

Outside the borders of Saxony, hardly anyone knows Zwickau. It’s just another backwater. Zwicker means pince-nez; Zwickel means gusset; Zwiebel, onion; and zwiebeln, to harass or bully. But Zwickau means nothing, or else it means onionskin, poor slobs, good business, yes, that’s what Zwickau means: poor slobs and good business.

No me creo nada. En esas leyendas infames, la cerviz de los renegados sólo se doblega en el momento en que se les retira la palabra. Esas leyendas sólo pretenden que resuene en nosotros la voz que nos atormenta, la voz del orden, a la que en el fondo nos hallamos tan ligados que cedemos a sus misterios y le entregamos nuestras vidas.