On 24 July 1968 marked 100 years of birth of the great Alberto Masferrer. On that occasion the then Department of Culture, Ministry of Education proclaimed 1968 as the Year of Masferrer "and launched the fifth edition of his works.
Six years later, in 1974, the new Director of Publications of MINED was given the task of collecting again the writings of unique thinker Salvadoran and published in a collection called "Cuadernos Masferrerianos:" What should we know? " "The Universal Religion," "The Vital Minimum", "childish", "Selected Prose", "Reading and Writing" and, of course, their written more representative, and I had the pleasure of having at my disposal, "Damn Money."
Masferrer writes here as an enlightened among the decay around him. San Salvador in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in which lived, inspires him to philosophize on the "why" the deplorable state and hopelessness that pervades the city environment.
coffee reform of the 1870 - although it catapulted to El Salvador to make it for a while in one of the bidders principanles "grain of gold" in the international market, so negatively impacted in the way of life of the poor, which even today are living the consequences. But Official history books depict a splendor like no other in history, about life in the city of those days, dance halls and debates, exclusive clubs, luxury casinos, plays and films in vogue, innovation of the "horseless carriage", the glamorous ladies fashions of the delicate and elegant trappings of the educated youths, banquets, etiquette, manners and courtesies. All joy, all progress, all fully ... and San Salvador pretensions increasingly cosmopolitan city, while bringing more banality in mind the passengers of the steamers and railways.
These were the actions of the oligarchy, the owners farms and businesses, who with the above are not only trying to cover formed with a silk curtain stage of the cruel reality that they caused with their greed, but he wrote more drama to the assembly of the work: not only enough for them to exploit the working class from sunrise to sunset, Monday through Saturday, but also promoted the decline in their days off, allowing the state and municipal governments legalize Malemort dens for spiritual downfall. Masferrer
tells the subject:
"Six blocks west, I left the hospital, where it goes, every hour, a caravan of mourners, poor or miserable most, to see if they are given some relief. Five blocks in the opposite direction, I have three tight, where people drink day and night, where the player piano, phonograph, the cries of the drunken and the jingle of glasses and bottles deafen the ears of passersby, and also its consciousness, not to think about the dramas that there are incubated. In front of me, a block, is the penitentiary, where criminals live underdog, those who do not have the golden key that opens the doors of justice. On Sundays, from early in the morning and all day, life refers to the three clubs in that vice, crime and pain merge into a fateful trinity. (...) work all week was what thing to come down on Sunday just to relax, for fun? Thus, from early morning, down the peasants, clean, Sunday best, deciders, light, give a tour of the city while opening the sealed, and it displays only their mouths, come and drink. (...) And then it runs away, everything falls apart: the memory, attention, the trial, the sense of self, the discernment of good and evil is insanity, the ultimate form of drunkenness, which crosses Over the beast man, beast to beast. And then comes the blood (...) That blood, crystallized in the budget and then transformed into the lie of culture, we live in and enjoy the privileged. With the blood go to Europe, have fun and corrupt us, if we still have corruption, with blood that paid the diploma of doctor and lawyer, with blood that cost us the diplomatic parties and banquets patriotic blood to cover the expenses that a thousand things superfluous, harmful, stupid or useless to argue that blood monkey's life we \u200b\u200bimagined civilization and progress. And with that blood, we the lords of the Earth and the Commerce and Banking, you of noble women, you ladies and we Gentiles handsome young gentlemen, with that blood paid our leisure, our luxury, our jewelry, our houses, our estates, our whole life lying idle, gray and talkative, with money supplied incensatamente cursed. DAMN MONEY ... this is our life ... this also be our undoing ... " sublime prose, exciting and rich in existentialism Masferrer, constantly invites us to reflect on the issues that really hurt since its foundation to our society, which are rooted in ignorance, alcoholism and its direct consequences: the indifference, crime, poverty and many other passions which degrade the individual and collective spirit in an ongoing vicious cycle.
Over its first seven chapters, is perceived a very reasoned and realistic sound critical air in different contexts, from the family (Chapter II: In the house of drunk), to society (Chapter III: Pan or revolver, chap. V: The State corruptor) up to humanity itself (Chapter IV: The Accomplice, chap. VI: sown the wind ...) thereby covering the different areas where man conducts his daily, giving this work a powerful and universal understanding timeless.
Finally, in his eighth and final chapter, DAMN MONEY urges us to be agents of change in the way we can, wherever we are, whoever we are in the social scale. We give suggestions and then calls upon all of us in the country to improve things: a mother, a woman who marries, all the common and carefree teenager, the farmer, the parent, the entrepreneur, the banker, the school teacher, a religious and, finally, to intellectuals, academics us. But particularly, A U.S. JOURNALISTS IN TRAINING, and does so with these words:
"Yes, if you wanted, you could help (...) You, man of the pen, more than anyone that you have an obligation - because most who require more has been given - if you think that trade sad day live to spend gossiping, speaking without thinking, warped ideas and misrepresenting the events, when you could be the guide, the lighthouse, the salt of the earth ... could help. " DAMN MONEY is a book that has stood the test of time and many of his prolific approaches have endured not only by its nature irrevocable and realistic, but also because El Salvador and Latin America in general, are still drowning in problems of all kinds. depends on all of us to transcend the theory into practice and so "to help."
NEXT MEETING TO GOD THROUGH
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Guzke
PHOTO: KEVIN GUZMAN 
