December's chute: a memory of Cromañon

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December used to be a peak. A climb-up to the festive season. The spirit of reunion, joy, reciprocity and brotherhood transcends the specific religious meaning and calendar that gave rise to December's festivities and spreads, beyond creeds and cultures, over the Argentinean society as a whole. Children and youngsters enjoy the end of scholar duties. Many plan for vacation. Everybody takes a break in day-to-day urgencies and makes time to look at the essence, the noble part of our human condition ―which, as such, is divine.

But for the last five years December has turned into a chute. A drain that sucks down into the atrocious certainty of what happened then, and has no further remedy. Five years ago, the destiny of the kids that went to the rock concert at Cromañón, Buenos Aires, on December 30, 2004, also slid down a cruel slope. The difference is that they did not know what was coming. They thought they were raising themselves. They went to congregate at the summit, with the happiness and exciment of cellebration. They were surprised by a wicked ambush, laid by a collection of human miseries: greed, contempt for neighbour and for neighbor's life, corruption, collusion, negligency, ignorance, incompetence. To which, for the following five years, indiference, cowardice, complicity and betrayal were added.

Today, instead, those who have been hit by the tragedy (it should be all of us, shouldn't it?) do know in advance what comes across December, the fall down to the abyss, to the moment in which the memory of pain (or the pain of memory) materializes at it most heartbreaking intensity. The instant that will find, once again, relatives, survivors, friends and supporters gathered together in commemoration by Once Square's sanctuary, to pay silent but determined tribute to the victims. Justice for Cromañon is still pending.
Photo by Daniel Pessah picked from La Nación.

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