Jane Rothenberg, a staff member of NACLA, died at the age of 27 on August 31. The impact she had on us has been profound. It is nearly impossible to communicate to those who were not personally touched by her life the extent of her individual and political contribution. To list the articles she wrote for NACLA’s Report, to cite her clear and extensive editorial work, to speak of her fund-raising efforts or administrative work-all of this falls short of an explanation of the loss we all have suffered. We would also have to recall her boldness with ideas, her aggressive articu- lation of positions, her amazing loyalty to friends, her own evolution as a woman, a political person and a warm and loving human being, her commitment to the development and strength- ening of the Left. And, still, we would not, could not, express the many aspects of this woman who shared our work and lives for many years. The list of people in Latin America and around the world who have died in the struggle for socialism, or who have succumbed to the harsh realities of capitalism, is all too long. It is filled with many heroes, many who died long before their full contribution to that struggle was real- ized, many whose names we know and respect, and many who are unknown to us. While the assassin which killed Jane had a different name–cancer-this difference should not confuse us. Jane was thoroughly engaged in the struggle for revolutionary change in the United States. She was teaching and learning, succeeding and failing, but most of all growing and sustaining herself and those who knew her. She gave us the strength and hope to do more than survive from day to day; she gave us the perspective which makes it possible for us to create the future. Yet perhaps the most important thing she taught us was that the way you engage in struggle is as important as having the “correct” ideas. Jane was very passionate–about people and politics. People were important to Jane as individuals, not just because they were a part of the struggle. She treated her friends with a high respect, seeing people as complicated and rich in what they have to offer. That is why there are so many of us who find her death so painful. Jane was ripped away from us too soon. From those who love her, from those who worked with her, from those who read NACLA and from those in the Left. But what she had already given, both personally and politically, can never be taken away. Jane will continue to live in all of us. iJane presente, ahora y siempre!NERUDA by Jane Rothenberg Don’t say hello to the pale girl thin as death Who walks up the sidewalk cloaked in red. Or the man in black who waits at the bottom of the steps Like a tired host dispersing guests. You have come from a room With the walls of universities hung with statues and buddhas and peopled with solemnities. Into this room crowd the oceans and journeys to the East, the masses in revolution, the sinking of many feet in the jungles, the voices of insects, the cry of blood that has not yet dried. Swollen like phantoms, the memories of one man, the voice of one angry river, of tracks grating the desert, of bells, always bells, singing in the memory of one, crying in the memory of many, crushed into one room. He lifts his pen from the scraps of newspapers and unread books, looks to the woman struggling with her gloves, to the flashbulbs flickering like dying eyes, to the faces, if only he would die and / could eat of his flesh, breathe his memories, like a savage scrape his bones, for a trace of immortality. He said I have to go And the faces still imbued with hope, are faced with a shore of moist stone, And the thin grey air of a worn afternoon, And the steps run like rivers through a deep ravine towards a concrete delta where a man in black pastes papers to the barren sidewalk and a girl in red treads the pages as they flow toward a sea of gutters And I shake hands with the man in black and the girl as pale as death. I haven’t said hello, I say, There are other cubicles, other rooms, naked mattresses, walls emptied of ancient faces, and drained of the echoes of old chants, There are pages without signatures, papers not yet sodden in the litter of floods, anonymous papers that absorb like blotters, the heavy rain of still fresh blood. I haven’t said hello, I wipe my hands on the door, wash my lips of old greetings, Enter rooms that have become filled in my absence. Shrunken heads of old heroes grace the walls Chintz drapes the window and the bed is made, Old souls wander through my closets and down my halls And the one voice that growled like an ocean breaking loose is one with a thin rain like timid birds on a tin roof, And the groan of armies crushing their bonds, has dwindled into the murmur of traffic and a chosen people become a soul alone about to tumble into a drunken sleep the bell rings once its voice drained into a weary buzz there is a crowd of faces at the door I say hello.
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