Remembering Eduardo Galeano: the voice of the oppressed

His outspoken writings led to his imprisonment during the 1973 military coup. Upon his release, he sought refuge in Argentina, where he founded the magazine Crisis, only to be forced into exile once again. He settled in Barcelona until his return to Uruguay in 1985—a homecoming that allowed him to revisit the cafés of Montevideo, which he considered his true "school".

Throughout his eventful yet productive career in journalism, Eduardo Galeano produced literary masterpieces that seamlessly blended the artistic with the political. His writing is full of metaphor, as he joyfully fused literary genres, capturing the Latin American experience in all its depth while exposing the many faces of oppression that shaped it. 

His works remain a testament to his unwavering commitment to challenging all forms of domination—including colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, military dictatorships, and media manipulation—while highlighting their devastating impact on humanity and nature. The scope of his literary output was vast.

Exposing colonialism

Foremost among his works is Open Veins of Latin America, Galeano's most renowned book that took him five years to research and write. This is a counter-history of colonialism that lays bare the extensive plundering of Central and South America by European powers and the United States. 

It traces the systematic looting that began with European colonisation in the late 15th century and continues to this day, detailing how foreigners stripped the continent's native peoples of their wealth, starting with their gold, silver, and diamonds, then their sugar, cocoa, cotton, rubber, and fruit, before eventually turning their eyes to oil. 

It details the ruthless exploitation in mines and plantations. When local labour proved insufficient, African slaves were forcibly shipped in to sustain the system of extraction in all its brutality. For these reasons and others, Open Veins caused a major stir upon its publication. The lasting legacy of exploitation and the enduring burden it placed on its victims had seldom been laid so bare.

In 2009, Venezuelan left-wing President Hugo Chávez famously presented a copy of the book to US President Barack Obama at the Summit of the Americas. When asked about it, Galeano said he doubted either leader could truly grasp the book's meaning. "It is written in a language that Obama's ears cannot understand," he said.

Memory and imagery

His monumental trilogy, Memory of Fire—comprising Genesis (1982), Faces and Masks (1984), and Century of the Wind (1986)—is a sweeping historical fresco spanning from pre-Columbian times to the 20th century, in which Galeano offers a vivid, sensory exploration of a continent mired in poverty.

Weaving together scattered reports, testimonies, and speeches, the work is hard-hitting and deeply moving, underscoring the importance of memory, and highlighting the power of words in preserving it. "Only forgetting truly kills," he once said.

Walking Words (1993) is a collection of folktales and legends Galeano gathered during his travels across Latin America, then reimagined as short narratives infused with magical realism, ancient and modern deities, witches and mythical creatures, and animals that can speak and become human. In one, the devil walks the earth with an angel. In another, St. Peter spies on mortals. At one point, Christ parachutes into the world, only to be dismissed as insane. 

Yet beyond its wit and irony in reimagining biblical figures and its rich Latin American imagination—where the supernatural and dreams naturally emerge from reality—the true significance of Walking Words lies in the brief text between the stories. Stripped of fantasy or magic, they act as windows into the real world, urging the reader to perceive it as it truly is.

Often adorned with his own illustrations, Galeano's books reflect his talent for crafting or reinventing short, accessible stories, using wordplay to critique a world gone astray. For instance, in Upside Down (1998), he describes an "upside down world" in which "bullets learn to float, cork stoppers learn to sink, snakes learn to fly, and clouds learn to crawl". 

Lasting legacy

Today's world "moves on its head," he says. "The countries that defend global peace are the ones producing the most weapons and selling them to other countries; the most prestigious banks are those laundering the largest amounts of drug money and hoarding the most stolen funds; environmental protection is the leading business strategy for corporations that destroy the environment."

It is no surprise, then, that Galeano's influence continues to resonate across Latin America. During Argentina's economic crisis (2001-02), his words echoed in the streets during every protest and gathering, his vision of the world igniting new dreams amidst the clouds of police tear gas. In the streets of Bolivia's capital, pirated copies of Open Veins are still sold everywhere, its insights fuelling and emboldening uprisings.

In the mountains of Chiapas in Mexico, where the far-left Zapatista movement remains active, Galeano's words are repeatedly cited, whether in denouncing marginalisation or in children's storytelling. Yet it is not just in death that he is heard. At the Porto Alegre World Social Forum in Brazil, hundreds once gathered in a sweltering tent to hear him speak about the Uruguayan movement that demanded water rights for the poor and led people to vote "against fear" to halt privatisation.

Galeano's enduring popularity stems primarily from the wealth of books and articles he left behind—works that, above all, serve as words of hope. They teach readers how to rebel against the world as it is, without ceasing to love it, and how to understand the past in order to build a better future. His words burn with the fire of utopia, something forever out of reach.

"Utopia is on the horizon," he once wrote. "I take two steps toward it; it moves two steps away. I take ten steps forward, and the horizon shifts ten steps further. No matter how far I walk, I will never reach it. So, what is the purpose of utopia? To keep us moving forward."

On Gaza 

During Israel's bombing of Gaza in 2012, Galeano described how the Palestinians have lived "under constant humiliation, unable even to breathe without a permit" for more than half a century. "They have lost their homeland, their land, their water, their freedom—everything," he wrote. 

"The crude, homemade rockets fired recklessly by Hamas fighters, imprisoned in Gaza, are nothing more than futile cries, while the highly effective war of extermination has, for years, denied Palestine's very right to exist. Little remains of Palestine. Step by step, Israel is erasing it from the map. 

"With each of its so-called 'defensive' wars, it swallows another piece of Palestine, justifying this devouring process with land deeds granted by the Torah, 2,000 years of persecution, and the 'fear' that Palestinians allegedly provoke at its borders."

For him, Israel is the state that "never abides by UN recommendations or resolutions, disregards international court rulings, mocks international law, and is the only state that has legalised the torture of prisoners". He then asks who allowed it to do so, where its immunity comes from, and "does the tragedy of the Holocaust grant an eternal license to escape accountability?" 

The technologically advanced Israeli army "knows exactly who it kills," he says. "It does not kill by mistake. It kills with calculated terror. Its civilian victims are conveniently labelled as collateral damage, borrowing from the lexicon of other imperialist wars. In Gaza, for every ten so-called collateral damage victims, three are children. To this, we must add the thousands of maimed survivors—victims of advanced human dismemberment technology, successfully tested by the military industry in this ongoing ethnic cleansing operation."

Exposing hypocrisy

Addressing the consistent discrepancy in casualties, he notes how "as always, we see 100 Palestinian deaths in Gaza for every Israeli casualty," noting the "insidious media campaign that seeks to convince us that the life of one Israeli is worth the lives of 100 Palestinians, and that Israel's 200 nuclear bombs are humanitarian weapons".

In his article, Galeano pulled no punches. "Does something called the 'international community' even exist?" he asked. "Or is it merely a club of merchants, bankers, and killers? Is it anything more than the theatrical alias used by the United States when playing its role on the world stage? In the face of Gaza's tragedy, global hypocrisy shines once again. As always, indifference, hollow speeches, empty statements, and ambiguous stances pay tribute to Israel's sacred impunity."

Yet, time and again, Galeano warned the oppressors of the world that nothing is permanent and that everything is subject to change. There is always a hidden grace in every impairment, he once said. "Sooner or later, every voice finds its counter-voice, and every school finds its opposing school."