MIGUEL GRAU

Mas allá de la Responsabilidad

Era el 5 de abril de 1879 cuando el presidente chileno Aníbal Pinto declaró la guerra al Perú motivado por su afán expansionista y por los recursos salitreros de Tarapacá. El Perú aceptó, equivocadamente, entrar en el conflicto confiado en la prosperidad del guano y el salitre; sin embargo, se encontraba en una grave crisis económica con una deuda externa que ascendía a 40 millones de libras esterlinas.

1.- La Responsabilidad destaca en medio de la adversidad

La guerra del Guano y el Salitre se inició con la campaña marítima, con el propósito de dominar los medios de comunicación que carecía la costa. Por ser un desierto, lo más estratégico era dominar el mar. La Escuadra Peruana no poseía embarcaciones modernas. Sus mejores barcos eran la fragata Independencia, de 2004 toneladas y el monitor Huáscar de 1100 toneladas; con un blindaje de 4 1/2 pulgadas cada uno que fueron adquiridas para el conflicto con España de 1866. A diferencia de la escuadra peruana, la chilena que tenia barcos modernos como los acorazados gemelos Blanco Encalada y Cochrane, con un blindaje de 9 pulgadas y 3650 toneladas cada uno, adquiridos en 1874. La Campaña Marítima se inició con el Combate de Chipana, 12 de abril, pero recién en el combate de Iquique, 21 de mayo, participaron el Huáscar y la Independencia frente a la Esmeralda y la Covadonga. El resultado del combate fue desfavorable para el Perú por la perdida de su mejor barco, la Independencia. Según el historiador chileno Gonzalo Bulnes, el significado del Combate de Iquique para Chile fue la reducción a la mitad del poder naval del Perú.

2.- La Responsabilidad multiplica las fuerzas

En estas circunstancias difíciles al Perú, cobró mayor importancia la participación del almirante del Huáscar, Miguel Grau Seminario. Él asumió con mucha responsabilidad detener el inicio de la Campaña Terrestre lográndolo hasta por 5 meses. El 23 de julio, el Huáscar y la Unión capturaron el transporte de guerra chileno Rímac ocasionando la renuncia, en Chile, del Gabinete Varas y del comandante en jefe de la escuadra Williams Rebolledo. Las correrías del Huáscar en los puertos chilenos causaron gran preocupación para Chile parecía que la guerra no era contra el Perú sino contra Miguel Grau. El Huáscar terminó desgastado y requería un mantenimiento urgente que no se le fue permitido por tener que cuidar la frontera peruana, a diferencia de la escuadra chilena que si recibió mantenimiento. Grau, en una oportunidad, fue homenajeado en el club Nacional donde señaló que todo lo que podía ofrecer en retribución a las manifestaciones abrumadoras es que si el Huáscar no regresaba triunfante al Callao tampoco iba regresar y así lo cumplió.

3.- La Responsabilidad forja una reputación

Jorge Basadre comenta que al final del Huáscar sucedió en el amanecer del 8 de Octubre. El Huáscar y la Unión se encontraban entre Mejillones y Antofagasta cuando fueron vistos por tres barcos chilenos: Blanco Encalada, Covadonga y Matías Cousiño quienes se dirigían de Sur a Norte. El Huáscar y la Unión los esquivaron como siempre lo hacían sin embargo en esta oportunidad aparecieron otros tres barcos chilenos: Cochrane, el O´Higgins y el Loa de Sur a Norte. El combate de Angamos se hizo inevitable siendo seis barcos chilenos contra el Huáscar y la Unión. Esta última se retiró empleando la mayor rapidez de su andar dejando al Huáscar a merced de los barcos chilenos.
Grau ordenó iniciar el combate disparándole al Cochrane causándole poco daño.
El propósito de Galvarino Riveros, comandante en jefe de la escuadra chilena, no era destruir al Huascar sino matar a Grau por esta razón los disparos de los blindados chilenos fueron dirigidos a la torre de control ocasionando su muerte instantánea con su ayudante Diego Ferré. Después, fue reemplazado en el mando por Elías Aguirre, José Melitón Rodríguez, Enrique Palacios, Manuel Melitón Carvajal hasta Pedro Garezón. Éste último ordenó abrir las válvulas del Huáscar con el propósito de inundar el buque y hundirlo. Revólver en mano, los marineros chilenos obligaron a los maquinistas de nacionalidad extranjera a cerrarlas. Bulnes señala que una curiosidad inmensa, febril, dominaba todo Chile por ver al Huáscar con bandera chilena. Las poblaciones de la costa que habían sido víctimas de sus correrías deseaban verlo y tocarlo.
El final del Huáscar significó el inicio a la Campaña Terrestre.

4.- Acciones responsables tienen consecuencias valiosas

A lo largo de la historia muchas personas han tenido que asumir grandes responsabilidades a pesar del costo que iban a pagar.
La Biblia ha registrado las palabras de Jesucristo a pocas horas de su muerte:
"Entonces Jesús les dijo: Mi alma está muy triste, hasta la muerte; quedaos aquí y velad conmigo. Yendo un poco adelante, se postró sobre su rostro, orando y diciendo: Padre mío, si es posible, pase de mí esta copa; pero no sea como yo quiero, sino como tú". Mateo 26:38-39
Miguel Grau a pocas horas del Combate de Angamos dijo lo siguiente: “Estoy muy triste, algo cuya causa ignoro, me tiene atormentado desde la mañana”.

Jesucristo tomo la decisión de morir en la cruz por nosotros para poder reconciliar al mundo con Dios. Él pudo evitar el sacrificio en la cruz pero su obediencia a su Padre y su amor para con nosotros lo llevó a cumplirlo.
De esta manera usted al creer en Jesucristo y recibirlo como su Señor y Salvador recibe el perdón de sus pecados, faltas cometidas contra Él, siendo convertido en hijo de Dios.

ÚLTIMA ENTREVISTA AL DOCTOR FRANKLIN PEASE (Tercera Parte)

Con mucho agrado público dos preguntas más de la última entrevista que concedió el doctor Franklin Pease. Por la vigencia de sus palabras para la Historia y también porque esta entrevista el doctor Pease lo hizo posible. No se iba a relizar porque en el último instante se malogró mi grabadora sin embargo Él trajo su grabadora para responder estas preguntas:

7.-¿A QUIÉN CONSIDERA SU DISCÍPULO?

Siempre he dicho que felizmente tengo muchos, en la propia universidad yo enseño acá hace mas de 30 años, la doctora Liliana Regalado, por ejemplo representa las primeras promociones de mis alumnos que se dedicaron a los mismos temas, pero una de las cosas que debe tener en cuenta un profesor es que sus alumnos o sus discípulos no tienen porque hacer las mismas cosas que uno, los temas de interés deben variar, deben ampliarse, no se debe pensar que el discípulo entre comillas es solamente aquel que repite o hace lo mismo que uno ha venido haciendo. De manera que allí tenemos un espacio muy amplio, desde los años 60, la mitad de los 60 en que yo comienzo a enseñar en la universidad a hoy han pasado para acá muchas generaciones.

8.-¿QUÉ TEMAS FALTA ESTUDIAR EN LA ETNOHISTORIA?

Bueno aquí estamos repitiendo un poco el primer tema que usted había planteado, es necesario hacer mejor la historia andina de los siglos XVIII y XIX obviamente antes de entrar al siglo XX, no solamente la historia de las sublevaciones andinas y justamente una de las cosas que remeció del nacimiento de lo que hemos llamado etnohistoria fue el hecho que la historiografía tradicional lo único que se estudiaba de la población andina eran las sublevaciones. Los estudios sobre el XVI y el XVII han avanzado a otros temas de los del siglo XVIII, y mejor del siglo XIX, han tomado también otros espacios más interesantes del crecimiento del desarrollo de la población.(Próximamente Última Parte)

Today's Slice - Upon Holy Ground Share

“Prosperity, pleasure, and success may be rough of grain and common in fibre, but sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things.”

Those are the words of the famed pleasure seeker, Oscar Wilde. In his De Profundis, written in prison, he wrote with profound earnestness about how much sorrow had taught him. He went on to add, “Where there is sorrow there is holy ground. Some day people will realize what that means. They will know nothing of life till they do.”

As I reflect on those words, I take note first of the one who wrote them. A life of pain was the farthest thing from his mind when he made his choices. In that sense, none of us ever really choose sorrow. But I take note of something else in his words. His claim is bold; he is not merely confessing an idea written across his worldview, but one he insists is written across the world: Sorrow is holy ground and those who do not learn to walk there know nothing of what living means. What he means at the very least is that some of life’s most sacred truths are learned in the midst of sorrow. He learned, for example, that raw unadulterated pleasure for pleasure’s sake is never a fulfilling pleasure. Violation of the sacred in the pursuit of happiness is not truly a source of happiness. In fact, it kills happiness because it can run roughshod over many a victim. Pleasure that profanes is pleasure that destroys.

Sorrow on the other hand--while never pursued--comes into one’s life and compels us to see our own finitude and frailty. It demands of us seriousness and tenderness if we are to live life the way it is meant to be lived. One of the most important things sorrow does is to show us what it needs and responds to. Wilde said it himself: “Sorrow is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it, and even then must bleed again, though not in pain.”

Of all the descriptions given about Jesus, there is one that unabashedly stands out to confront us. It is a description uttered by the prophet Isaiah, prodding mind and heart at once: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Like one from whom men hide their faces; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted” (53:3). In this season of Easter before us, with whatever sorrows we might be holding, it is a description all the more fitting to reflect upon.

Maybe you are at a time in your life when hurt is writ large upon your thoughts. The Lord Jesus is not unacquainted with your pain. In fact, he draws near particularly with a hand of love. Your wound may still bleed for a while to remind you of your weakness. But he can help carry the pain to carry you in strength. This could indeed be holy ground for you. It was most certainly for him.

Ravi Zacharias is founder and president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

Today's Slice: Questions for Calvary

I have often referenced the quote by the talk-show host Larry King, in his response to a particular question: “If you could select any one person across all of history to interview, who would it be?” Mr. King’s answer was that he would like to interview Jesus Christ. When the questioner followed with, “And what would you like to ask him?” King replied, “I would like to ask him if he was indeed virgin-born. The answer to that question would define history for me.” The first time I requested permission through a common friend to use this quote of his, he sent word saying, “And tell him I was not being facetious.” I believe him. Who would not like to interview Jesus Christ?

It is not possible to live without asking questions--and what better source for the answers than the one who claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life? If one could only be face to face with him from whom life comes, whom to know means Truth and to follow means direction, how delightful would be those moments when the most confounding questions of life are raised. We are not surprised when we read in the Gospel of Luke that the men who walked on the Emmaus Road, though unaware that they were walking with the risen Christ, said that their hearts burned within them as he opened up the past, the present, and the future to them. When they realized who he was, a light for all of history had been turned on.

In the same way, it may be that when the time comes to sit across the table from the Lord of history, the answer to the skeptic and the believer will be more visible than it will be in need of utterance. Ironically, this clue came to me in the form of a question inscribed on a painting I saw in a pastor’s office in Puerto Rico. Just before we went into the sanctuary, my eyes caught a glimpse of it directly in front of his desk. It was the picture of a little girl holding the hand of Jesus, even as he tenderly gazed at her. She was clasping his hand as she asked him, “Que paso con tus manos?”--”What happened to your hands?” That question, I suspect, contains the answer to both the arrogance of the skeptic and the duplicity of the believer.

It also carries Larry King’s question to a more profound level. The virgin birth may only prove to the skeptic that naturalism cannot explain the world’s existence, that God has supernaturally intervened in history. He was born of a virgin. In a supernatural framework that is possible. But “What happened to your hands?” answers what it takes to rescue this life of mine from self-serving intellect or from self-glorifying moralizing to others, and brings me to a place from which I no longer live but Christ lives in me. It buries the self that seeks the self and brings to birth the fullest person that God has so uniquely endowed. That is to say, in the cross I find my definitive loss that I might obtain my greatest gain. Only when the skeptic and the believer can see in my hands the marks that prompt “What happened to your hands?” can life’s questions cease and answers pour forth from the depths of the soul.

From talk-show hosts to all of us who wrestle with life’s questions, the answer is the same. The longer I have lived the more I come to believe that it is not evidence of which we are short, nor the knowledge of discipleship of which we are deprived. For most, what we lack is the courage and contentment to go to the cross and to die to ourselves, prompting the world to ask, “What happened to your hands?” There, the purpose of history and the purpose of life converge. Our questions will always remain. But these two for me are reminders of where the answers ultimately have to lead. With this in mind, Calvin Miller, said:

“The sermon and the Spirit always work in combination to pronounce liberation. Sometimes the Spirit and sermon do supply direct answers to human need but most often they answer indirectly. The sermon no matter how sincere cannot solve these unsolvable problems. Rather, together with the Spirit the sermon exists to point out that having answers is not essential to living. What is essential is the sense of God’s presence during dark seasons of questioning. Our need for specific answers is dissolved in the greater issue of the Lordship of Christ over all questions--those that have answers and those that don’t.”

To Miller’s statement I would just change the last line to read, “Those that have only intellectual answers and those that transcend the intellect.” Or better still, “Those that Bethlehem can answer and those that only Calvary can.”

Ravi Zacharias is founder and president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

The Crux of the Story

There is a vacuum at the heart of our culture. As Saul Bellow argued in his 1976 Noble Laureate lecture, “The intelligent public is waiting to hear from art what it does not hear from theology, philosophy, and social theory and what it cannot hear from pure science: a broader, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are, and what this life is for. If writers do not come into the center, it will not be because the center is pre-empted; it is not.”

Very simply stated, there is no center to hold things together. Or to put it differently, there is no over-arching story to life by which all the particulars can be interpreted. The pursuit of knowledge without knowing who we are or why we exist, combined with a war on our imaginations by our entertainment industry, leaves us at the mercy of power with no morality. May I illustrate this?

On many different occasions while driving and listening to music, every now and then a piece comes on that I find either unmusical or jarring. I usually shut the radio off. But then one day I was taken to see a play called The Phantom of the Opera. Suddenly I realized that some of the music I had not quite enjoyed was from this play. I was amazed at the difference knowing the story made, whenever I heard the music subsequently. In fact the music in some portions is utterly magnificent. The love songs, the discourses, yes, even the arguments made sense when you know the story. Life needs a story for one to understand the details. Life needs to hold together at the center if we are to reach to distant horizons. But our culture owns neither a story, nor holds at the center.

If such is the reality of our culture, where does that leave us? The challenge, as I see it, is this: How do you communicate to a generation that hears with its eyes and thinks with its feelings?

Ironically, postmodernism may be one of the most opportune thought patterns presented to us for the propagation of the gospel because in a sense, it has cleared the playing field. All disciplines have lost their “final authority”. The hopes that modernity had brought, the triumph of “Reason” and “Science”, which many thought would bring the utopia, have failed in almost every respect. With all of our material gains, there is still a hunger for the spiritual. In virtually every part of the world, students linger long after every session to talk and plead for answers to their barren lives. All the education one gets does not diminish that search for inner coherence and a story-line for one’s own life.

As much as postmodernism has confused language and definitions, there is a yearning that the postmodernist’s own cavalier attitude does not weaken. Moreover, there is indeed a story and one who stands at the center who answers this yearning. Only in the gospel message that culminates in worship is there coherence--which in turn brings coherence within the community of believers, where both individuality and community are affirmed. The worship of the living God is what ultimately binds the various inclinations of the heart and gives them focus. A worshipping community in spirit and in truth binds the diversity of our culture, the diversity of our education, the diversity of our backgrounds, and brings us together into a corporate expression of worship.

With all that the cultural terrain presents to us, the injunction that “to find one’s self, one must lose one’s self”, contains a truth any seeker of self-fulfillment needs to grasp. This is a reminder the Church must keep in mind, too. Apart from the Cross of Jesus Christ, I know of no other hope. The songwriter said it simply: We’ve a story to tell to the nations. The last stanza of that great hymn says:

We’ve a Savior to show to the nations
Who the path of sorrow hath trod,
That all of the world’s great peoples
Might come to the truth of God.
For the darkness shall turn to dawning,
And the dawning to noon-day bright,
And Christ’s great kingdom shall come to earth,
The kingdom of love and light.

Ravi Zacharias is founder and president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.