How Can We Fail to Respond?

Abstract

So a neighbor—did he catch me flying low?—invites me to throw together a few lines on our responsibility to Africa, particularly meridional Africa, just like that, at once. You have a fine plume, he tells me, before I manage to bury my head, like an eagle or a parrot. And even just like that: how could I fail to respond, to provide what is called response? How could I fail to respond before a neighbor as before Africa, before a neighbor, and, therefore, with Africa—but, even before that, in the name of what or whom? Out of simple human responsibility in a general sense? (My neighbor had just returned from South Africa, where he had participated in a meeting of The Charter of Human Responsibilities, an alter-globalization initiative.)

To a memory with no reminiscence

Humberto Díaz Casanueva