The Joyful Rebellion

A Letter to Narco News Readers from Sarahy Flores Sosa

By Sarahy Flores Sosa
2004 Narco News Authentic Journalism Scholar

June 5, 2004

The hour is approaching when a group of students and teachers of the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism will meet for ten days in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and I will be one of them. During this session we will work in video, radio, and investigative journalism. Professors and scholars will feed one another with knowledge. We want this to happen each year, in different places, strengthening freedom of speech and authentic journalism.

To make a contribution to support Sarahy Flores Sosa’s scholarship, use this link.

Narco News is giving me the opportunity to attend through a scholarship, and others, too. It is a chance that is very much appreciated. During the Renaissance people who supported artists monetarily so that they could complete their works were called patrons. In this case there is a group selected that also needs patrons who can support us financially so that we can realize our goals in Bolivia. In the pages of Narco News there are various pages with appeals from my classmates: from Amy Casada-Alaniz, from Teo Ballvé and from Romina Trincheri, and now I add mine.

In Bolivia there will be the celebration of a movement. It is a movement in which the outside has been internalized. Each one of these people who will meet is a story. I am one of those stories.

I am 17 years old and I live in Tepoztlán, Morelos, in México. This place is known for having a pyramid on one of its hills, situated in a position in which it makes a perfect triangle with three other nearby pyramids. I like this place a lot. Here is where I have known many people who have visited this town and have left me with things to think about, like cinema. I have one year left to finish high school and afterwards I want to enter the CCC - Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica – a cinematic college in Mexico’s capital city.

Filmmaking is what draws most of my attention these days and many people believe that makes me a “cinefiliac” and that I spend all my days watching movies. Well, no… Although I am very excited about what a film is, what I want is to make one, not merely see one, although obviously I watch movies. Almost a year ago I did produce a documentary with Narco News about the birth of the Caracol government in Oventik, Chiapas (territory of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation) and a short fiction film under the teachings of various professors at the Autonomous University of the State of Morelos (UAEM, in its Spanish initials).

I know how to speak and write English, and Spanish is my native tongue, although I would like to learn other languages of my country. I’ve been writing for years but I never realized that I could transmit my words all over the world, so I think I could do better, and, well, nobody is perfect, but in time I will grow as humans are accustomed to doing, although one never really knows whether it is for better or worse.

Often, while living, you don’t realize that the probabilities of what is possible are infinite, that all is possible. But in the course of history there has always been a thesis followed by an antithesis. This made me think that maybe humankind has become frozen. Is it that we already can’t go farther? Or is it simply that we can’t look forward? Thus, if that is what has happened, if something is holding us back, it causes us to return to the age-old question of “what is it?” These philosophical questions are very complicated to answer, but I am certain that while we are in Bolivia we will be able to discover many things beyond those that exist right now. We are going to fight with all we have against whatever has detained us until now, equipped with all kinds of lethal weapons (paper, pencil, cameras, and ideas).

My job in Bolivia will be to produce a documentary with the other compañeros. And if, kind reader, you are truly interested in this movement, by the time the rooster crows we will share information about everything that we are able to discover in Bolivia. If you, beautiful reader, also would like to contribute to our cause with donations, it will be received with an enormous smile from the entire Narco News team, being part of a movement in which the most important thing is authentic journalism. In the meantime, we’ll continue working so that you can continue reading and enjoying.

You can send your donation to:

The Fund for Authentic Journalism
P.O Box 71051
Madison Heights, MI 48071 USA

Or make a contribution, online, via this link:

http://www.authenticjournalism.org/

A thousand thanks,

Sarahy Flores Sosa

To support Sarahy’s scholarship, use this link.

To support all the scholars, the school, and Narco News, click here: http://www.authenticjournalism.org/

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