Shadows

Readers of The Economist are accustomed to being surprised by the articles the magazine- which still, quaintly- refers to itself as a newspaper-the quality of the writing; the depth of analysis, the dazzlingly improbable range of subjects. Just last week Waldo flagged a fascinating piece on how an 18th century Scot flim-flammed thousands to buy the bonds of a nation that didn't exist, then got them to get on ships to go colonize it.

This week the paper has a story that is enough to make a strong reader weep: how an idiotic and nearly forgotten 19th century war beggars Paraguay to this day- even to a language that is constantly looking over its shoulder in anxiety:

Perhaps the final tragedy of the war is that it is so little known abroad. Mr Fernández Bogado thinks this is no coincidence. “The world isn’t a comfortable place for us,” he says of his country’s insularity. “It’s a scene of danger, conspiracy and death.” For Paraguayans, he explains, success is a prelude to danger: when the national football team scores, “It makes us nervous and we panic.”

Guaraní—still spoken by 80% of the population—renders time differently from Western tongues. The future is uncertain: the word for “tomorrow” means “if the sun rises”. The past is divided between what happened, and what was supposed to but did not. If you quit a seminary, you are a “would-have-been priest”; a broken engagement yields a “would-have-been spouse”. This grammar is “like a backpack you can never take off,” says Alejandra Peña, a former national museum director.

Paraguayans still die in falls and accidents while digging for treasure supposedly buried by their forefathers during the war. Perhaps they can only truly understand the conflict in their mother tongue. They know full well the woes of the country they live in, but never forget the one that might have been.