By Fernando Gomez *
“God is dead”, declared Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882. The phrase accompanied the imagination of his work till our days. The meaning of his words is the object of study in the field of philosophy. Just two years ago, some wanted to present the news of the death of someone who had long ago ceased to belong to the earthly world.
But no. God is not dead.
Some have seen him in Doha, impatiently waiting for a ball to start spinning and placing some football in the midst of so much business. A wake in the sky that is projected from the Persian Gulf anticipates its divine intercession when Argentina takes to the field, and everything is that: just soccer.
It is a flag, a mural, a memory, a tear and a smile that travels the entire world.
It is the illusion of a kid who dreams of being able to push the ball into the depth of the net and save his family from planned misery.
It is the clenched fist of those who do not accept injustice.
It is the laughter of the unbelievers. The one who blasphemes against the occurrence of the doomsayers who try to insist. But no. God is not dead.
Unleashed jappiness does not die in a desert of sadness. The challenges presented before the all-encompassing power do not die. The mischief of the pasture does not die, nor the smile drawn in a denied history of joys.
The thirst for justice does not die, the dribbling to destiny does not die. The epics of the humble do not die, nor the suffering and painful passion of our present.
Can a tombstone enclose the dimension of the global phenomenon that sparked its infatuated disruption in history?
No, definitely not.
Argentine Pride
There is a bit of Maradona in different parts of our nationality. For the Argentines, Diego is much more than a passport that presents us to the whole world.
He is the redeeming power of the humble, of those who conquer big dreams by force of sacrifice, passion, conviction and creativity.
He is the defiant dribble that wins you a match, but it leaves an indelible mark on the demand for popular justice against the English colonialist invader. It is the hand that transgresses a regulation, but that is claimed as a rewarding popular revenge.
He is the collective embrace, the celebration of the community as deserving a destiny of collective happiness.
He is the hero who puts stature to the greatness of a land called to be the protagonist of great deeds and wonderful challenges. A hero who is only conceived as belonging to a collective.
There is a part of our Homeland locked in the shine of his eyes, in the labyrinths of his half smile, in each occurrence, in each dribble, in each challenge.
There is a piece of everything bad meaning in the hypocrisy of the haters. The shamelessness of those who denied it, in the murmurs that accompany a long history of betrayals that found him as a target.
In his earthly existence and in the celebration of death, there are those who never forgave Diego for being the one who, with so little, was able to give so much joy to his people.
There is so many Gods born in our land, enough for us to offer them to the world.
And forever. Because yes. Because God is not dead.
His joys, pains, sorrows, strengths and weaknesses are all alive. His contradictions are alive, to the joy of the parasites that inhabited its mortality.
The cosmic kite that furrows the space of the vital time of generations is alive. He is alive, who is so full of courage, without too much covering, and without any mask.
The life of him, who with so little, offered so much joy to his people, is alive, when others who owned so much only brought that people sadness.
The chronicle will say that November 25 marks two years since the death of Diego Armando Maradona.
Disbelievers.
Don’t you hear the smiles that accompany your memory? Don’t you interpret that there is no language that does not pronounce it, that there is no language that does not mean it?
Don’t you realize the challenges that can’t just enclose Diego within a soccer ball?
On November 25, the chronicle says that Diego Armando Maradona has died.
But no. It is impossible.
God is not dead.
* Argentine analyst, director of InfoNativa