The history of the war. The smile of PTS

Participating in the self-proclaimed neighborhood assembly gives us a meeting place with many comrades. And they contain a power that can be developed and help the much-appreciated “workers’ unity” to win.

But it also allows us to meet very nice people, those who are attentive to details. This year I met one of them at the Merlo convention.

With a broken face I invited myself to his birthday and he replied with “of course mate, more than a guest”. Already at that moment, between the fern, the wine and the cold sucking pig, he told me the following, which I will tell you. In my own way, with my doodles:

“We had just left the Sáenz Peña metro station and little by little we were regrouping with the western assemblies to march towards the congress. That day they had voted generally for the disastrous Omnibus bill. Meaning, we had suffered a defeat and the world ahead looked darker.
Moreover, we were preparing to mobilize and knew that waiting for us were hundreds of police commanded by the Bullrich militia, who were very willing to break our heads. We knew we’d go the same way because we’re not ones to hang out on the sidewalk.
The scenario was quite tragic and was seen in the long faces of the moment. But suddenly I started watching PTS. Other PTS militants came from other countries and when they saw their comrades they looked at each other, smiled and hugged. They were happy to see each other there. And their faces changed. They smiled at each other. They smiled at each other.
It didn’t matter that our heads were smashed or that we had been defeated as a people. They looked at their colleagues and smiled (Author’s note: as I write this, I remember the scene of Mr. Burns saying to Smithers, while the workers at the Springfield plant were on strike and he cut off their electricity, “Look at them over there in the dark, They are not sad and they sing, they sing without a blender, they sing without a washing machine…) and when they came from the Assemblies of the South Zone, they also looked at each other, greeted, hugged and smiled.
Because that’s the good thing about militancy: not only to transform the world, but to be among comrades. Knowing that when you are there, you are with your loved ones, that they will take care of you, that they will love you, that they will accompany you.”

I heard it. And being from PTS, I definitely smiled. And since I’m from PTS, I obviously had to speak up and make my position clear on this matter. And I said something like “from now on. That smile recedes when you see every companion. And I’m one of those who enjoy it. But that smile is also because we like to fight, we’re in our own world when we go out to fight. And we like to show our teeth to the tyrant.”

I didn’t realize it at the time I said it, but showing your teeth is also a form of smiling.