THIS MONTH LAST YEAR – 2

Fevereiro do ano passado foi talvez o mes em que me terei permitido mais indulgencias em “fait divers” neste blog, e.g. a morte de Anna Nicole Smith, os Oscars, a descoberta das raizes africanas de Whoopi Goldberg na Guine’ Bissau, uma receita de Mwamba de galinha a moda do Kongo, ou a descoberta arqueologica, perto da Verona de Romeo e Juliet, dos esqueletos dos protagonistas da que parece ser a mais antiga historia de ‘amor fatal’ da humanidade, ou ainda as estorias de jacarandas de Gaborone e de Lisboa…

O post sobre o graffitti “Bank’s Maid”, em Camden, tambem poderia cair nessa categoria nao fosse a sua relacao com o protagonismo (imerecido?) de Bono nas questoes do combate a pobreza em Africa. Continuando na senda do combate a pobreza, destaque para o artigo de Paulo de Carvalho sobre a exclusao social em Angola. Alargando a questao para as areas da transparencia e responsabilizacao governativa, encontramos o caso da detencao de Sarah Wykes em Cabinda e o meu texto sobre a ITIE a ele associado, assim como a apresentacao da Antologia anual do Conselho Noruegues para a Africa sobre a industria petrolifera, “Oil Game – The Scrumble for Africa’s Black Gold”, que inclui um artigo de minha autoria. Ainda no capitulo de apresentacao de livros, para alem da habitual lista de recentes publicacoes sobre os paises de Lingua Oficial Portuguesa, destaque particular para “Capitalist Nigger” do Nigeriano Chika Onyeani.

Duas mulheres foram ‘tributadas’ naquele mes: Mamphela Ramphele e Adelaide Tambo. Tributo foi tambem prestado a alguns factos historicos: em primeiro lugar, o 4 de Fevereiro, seguindo-se-lhe um artigo sobre as raizes historicas dos conflitos do Baixo Congo, um outro sobre a historia das relacoes etnico-raciais em Angola (que se apresenta particularmente relevante para algumas discussoes actuais sobre o racismo na “lusosfera”) e outro ainda sobre a cidade de Malange na Historia de Angola.

Fevereiro foi tambem marcado particularmente pela poesia: a proposito do Carnaval, um (talvez o unico) dos meus poemas que conseguiu resistir a devassa com que uma certa abutra “se abateu” sobre a minha poesia aqui publicada…; o belo poema “Viver como as Flores”, de autor desconhecido; um breve apontamento de Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, tomado de emprestimo a um dos blogs de um amigo que comecara naquela altura a aparecer (“timidamente”…) por aqui: o Kim, Kimang, Kimangola; uma excelente estoria a volta da “experiencia angolana” de Herberto Helder, pelo veterano Jose’ Alcada, ainda em pleno exercicio das suas funcoes de “meu correspondente oficial em Angola”, a complementar a sua poetica paragem no Cubal e Sangano entre as suas escapadas entre Luanda e Lobito e, de nao menor destaque, o lancamento do ‘ControVerso’ livro de poemas do Kussi, a.k.a. Kardo Bestilo, em Luanda, complementado pelo texto da sua apresentacao pelo Luis Rosa Lopes, que aqui tambem nos brindou com um dos seus poemas sobre Afrika.

Agora… a ‘highlight’ do mes tem que ser partilhada entre o inicio da serie “Obama vs. Clinton: The Mother of All Battles?” e o inicio da ‘passagem’ aqui da minha propria musica, isto e’, da musica dos meus proprios CDs. Ate’ entao vivia de ter que recorrer a sites online para colocar aqui musica, mas desde entao… tem sido o que se (ou)ve, goste-se ou nao de tudo quanto por aqui me da’ para ‘tocar’. Parece-me, portanto, apropriado assinalar a data com um numero dos Kiezos, que aqui inauguraram a “nova era”.

Memorias de Lamartine (Kiezos)

Fevereiro do ano passado foi talvez o mes em que me terei permitido mais indulgencias em “fait divers” neste blog, e.g. a morte de Anna Nicole Smith, os Oscars, a descoberta das raizes africanas de Whoopi Goldberg na Guine’ Bissau, uma receita de Mwamba de galinha a moda do Kongo, ou a descoberta arqueologica, perto da Verona de Romeo e Juliet, dos esqueletos dos protagonistas da que parece ser a mais antiga historia de ‘amor fatal’ da humanidade, ou ainda as estorias de jacarandas de Gaborone e de Lisboa…

O post sobre o graffitti “Bank’s Maid”, em Camden, tambem poderia cair nessa categoria nao fosse a sua relacao com o protagonismo (imerecido?) de Bono nas questoes do combate a pobreza em Africa. Continuando na senda do combate a pobreza, destaque para o artigo de Paulo de Carvalho sobre a exclusao social em Angola. Alargando a questao para as areas da transparencia e responsabilizacao governativa, encontramos o caso da detencao de Sarah Wykes em Cabinda e o meu texto sobre a ITIE a ele associado, assim como a apresentacao da Antologia anual do Conselho Noruegues para a Africa sobre a industria petrolifera, “Oil Game – The Scrumble for Africa’s Black Gold”, que inclui um artigo de minha autoria. Ainda no capitulo de apresentacao de livros, para alem da habitual lista de recentes publicacoes sobre os paises de Lingua Oficial Portuguesa, destaque particular para “Capitalist Nigger” do Nigeriano Chika Onyeani.

Duas mulheres foram ‘tributadas’ naquele mes: Mamphela Ramphele e Adelaide Tambo. Tributo foi tambem prestado a alguns factos historicos: em primeiro lugar, o 4 de Fevereiro, seguindo-se-lhe um artigo sobre as raizes historicas dos conflitos do Baixo Congo, um outro sobre a historia das relacoes etnico-raciais em Angola (que se apresenta particularmente relevante para algumas discussoes actuais sobre o racismo na “lusosfera”) e outro ainda sobre a cidade de Malange na Historia de Angola.

Fevereiro foi tambem marcado particularmente pela poesia: a proposito do Carnaval, um (talvez o unico) dos meus poemas que conseguiu resistir a devassa com que uma certa abutra “se abateu” sobre a minha poesia aqui publicada…; o belo poema “Viver como as Flores”, de autor desconhecido; um breve apontamento de Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, tomado de emprestimo a um dos blogs de um amigo que comecara naquela altura a aparecer (“timidamente”…) por aqui: o Kim, Kimang, Kimangola; uma excelente estoria a volta da “experiencia angolana” de Herberto Helder, pelo veterano Jose’ Alcada, ainda em pleno exercicio das suas funcoes de “meu correspondente oficial em Angola”, a complementar a sua poetica paragem no Cubal e Sangano entre as suas escapadas entre Luanda e Lobito e, de nao menor destaque, o lancamento do ‘ControVerso’ livro de poemas do Kussi, a.k.a. Kardo Bestilo, em Luanda, complementado pelo texto da sua apresentacao pelo Luis Rosa Lopes, que aqui tambem nos brindou com um dos seus poemas sobre Afrika.

Agora… a ‘highlight’ do mes tem que ser partilhada entre o inicio da serie “Obama vs. Clinton: The Mother of All Battles?” e o inicio da ‘passagem’ aqui da minha propria musica, isto e’, da musica dos meus proprios CDs. Ate’ entao vivia de ter que recorrer a sites online para colocar aqui musica, mas desde entao… tem sido o que se (ou)ve, goste-se ou nao de tudo quanto por aqui me da’ para ‘tocar’. Parece-me, portanto, apropriado assinalar a data com um numero dos Kiezos, que aqui inauguraram a “nova era”.

Memorias de Lamartine (Kiezos)

SLAVERY, BRAZIL, RACISM & HISTORY

Joao Jose Reis, prominent Brazilian historian of slavery and African culture in Brazil, as well as of the Atlantic, was awarded the American Historical Association's Honorary Foreign Membership at the annual meeting in January this year. An interesting interview with him, "In Conversation with . . . Joao Jose Reis," by Sueann Caulfield, appears in last month's Perspectives on History (January 2008: 18-20). Here are a few extracts from it:

SC: African history has recently become a required subject in Brazilian secondary and postsecondary curricula. How have historians responded to this requirement? Has it affected public policies such as the recent implementation in public universities of affirmative action favoring low-income and African-descended students?

JJR: This is an example of a political debate in which Brazilian scholars are involved. There are those like me who believe in racial/social affirmative action while others believe that adjusting public policy to categories of ethnic identity will increase racial tensions and conflicts in Brazil, and the country will one day be as racially divided as the United States. Many believe that the Brazilian mestiço national identity, based on racial mixing, would be threatened by a racialized public policy. Some argue that the study of Africa in schools and universities is prejudicial to social peace because it is an incentive for black identity. I think differently. Racism in Brazil is an incontrovertible truth that segregates blacks and whites through the system of education and economics, and this will certainly lead to an increase in racial tensions because blacks are more and more conscious of racial discrimination. For me, affirmative action is a prescription for social peace and not for conflict. The teaching of African history is part of a self-exploration process not only pertinent to Brazilian blacks, but to all Brazilians. Aren't we a culturally and racially mixed country? Well, then the history of Africa should be as important as European history in order to better understand Africa's contribution to Brazil's material and cultural formation. In fact, Brazil has the largest black population outside the African continent—this alone justifies a strong education in African history.

SC: How would you evaluate the impact on historical scholarship, in and outside of Brazil, of the "Atlantic Studies" subfield? In what ways has Brazilian scholarship influenced conceptions of the "Atlantic" as a region (or what would the influence be if more Brazilian scholarship were translated into English or other languages and if it were read more widely outside of Brazil)? Does your own scholarship contribute to, "fit" or benefit from the broad scholarly interest in the Atlantic?

JJR: Brazilians have been studying "Atlantic history" for a long time. The history of the "old colonial system" as discussed by Brazilian historians Caio Prado (1907–1990) and Fernando Novais (1933–) is Atlantic history. The difference today is the idea of the black Atlantic, but we also have pioneers in that field. In the late 19th century, the medical doctor and ethnologist Nina Rodrigues argued in favor of the importance of Brazil's African origins and was the first scholar to discuss slave revolts in Bahia as a continuation, albeit a "pale" one, of jihad struggles among Haussa Africans in the beginning of the 19th century. In the 1960s, Pierre Verger, a Frenchman who settled in Bahia, radicalized Nina's project by studying commercial and cultural relations between Bahia and the Gulf of Benin. Both scholars, especially Verger, were literally doing black Atlantic history. Of course, today we have a more sophisticated argument introduced by Paul Gilroy's book, which unfortunately only focuses on the black North Atlantic. In Brazil, historian Luis Felipe de Alencastro is the strongest exponent of studying Brazil's historical formation in the South Atlantic, especially the relationship with Angola, as perhaps more than 80 percent of enslaved Africans in Brazil came from that region. His book, Trato dos viventes, is being translated into English, I believe, and will have an impact on the general discussion of Atlantic history. However, following in the footsteps of Charles Boxer and Amaral Lapa, a lot of work is now being done in Brazil on the commercial, political, and cultural networks of the broader Portuguese empire, which includes the Indian Ocean in its deep connections with the Atlantic world in general and the black Atlantic in particular. Until the middle of the 19th century there were Asians on Brazilian slave ships, which is an indicator of the inter-oceanic connections of which Brazil was a part.

SC: Prior to the development of "Atlantic Studies," similar concerns to understand trans-regional historical experiences took shape under the rubric of the African diaspora. How did this scholarly trend affect scholarship and teaching of history in Brazil?

JJR: The idea of an African diaspora in Brazil is primarily associated with black militant discourse in Brazil and has yet little conceptual resonance in our historiography. In Brazilian historiography, the "black diaspora" is used more as a catchword than an elaborated concept. This is interesting given the enormous preoccupation with "African origins" in the fields of history and anthropology in Brazil.

[Keep reading here]


P.S.: Aos leitores em Portugues, gostaria de sugerir que lessem os comentarios a este post, onde algumas das questoes aqui abordadas sao discutidas em alguma profundidade.

Joao Jose Reis, prominent Brazilian historian of slavery and African culture in Brazil, as well as of the Atlantic, was awarded the American Historical Association's Honorary Foreign Membership at the annual meeting in January this year. An interesting interview with him, "In Conversation with . . . Joao Jose Reis," by Sueann Caulfield, appears in last month's Perspectives on History (January 2008: 18-20). Here are a few extracts from it:

SC: African history has recently become a required subject in Brazilian secondary and postsecondary curricula. How have historians responded to this requirement? Has it affected public policies such as the recent implementation in public universities of affirmative action favoring low-income and African-descended students?

JJR: This is an example of a political debate in which Brazilian scholars are involved. There are those like me who believe in racial/social affirmative action while others believe that adjusting public policy to categories of ethnic identity will increase racial tensions and conflicts in Brazil, and the country will one day be as racially divided as the United States. Many believe that the Brazilian mestiço national identity, based on racial mixing, would be threatened by a racialized public policy. Some argue that the study of Africa in schools and universities is prejudicial to social peace because it is an incentive for black identity. I think differently. Racism in Brazil is an incontrovertible truth that segregates blacks and whites through the system of education and economics, and this will certainly lead to an increase in racial tensions because blacks are more and more conscious of racial discrimination. For me, affirmative action is a prescription for social peace and not for conflict. The teaching of African history is part of a self-exploration process not only pertinent to Brazilian blacks, but to all Brazilians. Aren't we a culturally and racially mixed country? Well, then the history of Africa should be as important as European history in order to better understand Africa's contribution to Brazil's material and cultural formation. In fact, Brazil has the largest black population outside the African continent—this alone justifies a strong education in African history.

SC: How would you evaluate the impact on historical scholarship, in and outside of Brazil, of the "Atlantic Studies" subfield? In what ways has Brazilian scholarship influenced conceptions of the "Atlantic" as a region (or what would the influence be if more Brazilian scholarship were translated into English or other languages and if it were read more widely outside of Brazil)? Does your own scholarship contribute to, "fit" or benefit from the broad scholarly interest in the Atlantic?

JJR: Brazilians have been studying "Atlantic history" for a long time. The history of the "old colonial system" as discussed by Brazilian historians Caio Prado (1907–1990) and Fernando Novais (1933–) is Atlantic history. The difference today is the idea of the black Atlantic, but we also have pioneers in that field. In the late 19th century, the medical doctor and ethnologist Nina Rodrigues argued in favor of the importance of Brazil's African origins and was the first scholar to discuss slave revolts in Bahia as a continuation, albeit a "pale" one, of jihad struggles among Haussa Africans in the beginning of the 19th century. In the 1960s, Pierre Verger, a Frenchman who settled in Bahia, radicalized Nina's project by studying commercial and cultural relations between Bahia and the Gulf of Benin. Both scholars, especially Verger, were literally doing black Atlantic history. Of course, today we have a more sophisticated argument introduced by Paul Gilroy's book, which unfortunately only focuses on the black North Atlantic. In Brazil, historian Luis Felipe de Alencastro is the strongest exponent of studying Brazil's historical formation in the South Atlantic, especially the relationship with Angola, as perhaps more than 80 percent of enslaved Africans in Brazil came from that region. His book, Trato dos viventes, is being translated into English, I believe, and will have an impact on the general discussion of Atlantic history. However, following in the footsteps of Charles Boxer and Amaral Lapa, a lot of work is now being done in Brazil on the commercial, political, and cultural networks of the broader Portuguese empire, which includes the Indian Ocean in its deep connections with the Atlantic world in general and the black Atlantic in particular. Until the middle of the 19th century there were Asians on Brazilian slave ships, which is an indicator of the inter-oceanic connections of which Brazil was a part.

SC: Prior to the development of "Atlantic Studies," similar concerns to understand trans-regional historical experiences took shape under the rubric of the African diaspora. How did this scholarly trend affect scholarship and teaching of history in Brazil?

JJR: The idea of an African diaspora in Brazil is primarily associated with black militant discourse in Brazil and has yet little conceptual resonance in our historiography. In Brazilian historiography, the "black diaspora" is used more as a catchword than an elaborated concept. This is interesting given the enormous preoccupation with "African origins" in the fields of history and anthropology in Brazil.

[Keep reading here]


P.S.: Aos leitores em Portugues, gostaria de sugerir que lessem os comentarios a este post, onde algumas das questoes aqui abordadas sao discutidas em alguma profundidade.

MULHERES… DE DOMINGO (Recidivus)*

"Como Entender As Mulheres" (Primeiro Volume...)

Domingo e’, a todos os titulos, um dia especial. Tentar justificar essa evidencia e’ praticamente um “no brainer”, ou seja, e’ como tentar-se justificar porque que a chuva molha. Mas, digamos que e’ especial porque nao se trabalha, a excepcao daquelas ocupacoes – formais, como policia e bombeiros, ou informais, como ‘blogging’ – que a isso nos obrigam, ou naquelas sociedades, culturas e religioes que respeitam o “Sabath” literalmente ao Sabado. E’ tambem o dia em que, seja para uma ida a missa, ao mercado, a baixa da cidade, ao centro comercial, ou a uma visita a casa de familiares ou amigos, tentamos sempre apresentar-nos no nosso melhor – em termos de indumentaria ou comportamento. E nao ha’ ninguem melhor do que as mulheres para evidenciarem essa realidade domingueira.

Transportando essa evidencia para a vida mais quotidiana, encontro que… e’ muito dificil entender as mulheres (… nao estou sozinha nisto, sei-o bem: praticamente todos os homens, secundando Freud, disseram-no e continuam a dize-lo…). E isto muito simplesmente porque, pelo menos na vida social, elas tendem maioritariamente a comportar-se como e a vestir-se com as suas poses e vestimentas “domingueiras” que, a uma observacao mais proxima e/ou cuidada, nos revelam que nao passam disso mesmo: comportamento e vestes domingueiras… nada mais quotidiano, nada mais substantivo, nada mais profundo. Falar (de) assim, quando eu sou mulher e nunca me conheci outro genero ou inclinacao sexual, “soa mal” e e’ “politicamente incorrecto” – eu sei. Mas tambem sei que dificilmente havera’ inimigo pior de uma mulher do que outra mulher… dificilmente havera’, pelo menos em certas profissoes e niveis hierarquicos, pior colega de trabalho de uma mulher do que outra mulher. Sei tambem que nao estou sozinha nisto: ouvi-o de outras mulheres, desde ministras a empregadas domesticas, passando por escritoras, escriturarias e profissionais universitarias.

E sei-o, tambem, por experiencia propria: nao ha’ muito tempo, vi-me forcada a abandonar intempestivamente a que talvez tenha sido a melhor posicao profissional da minha vida por uma questao de principio: nao consegui encontrar espaco, ou instrumento, no meu vasto “arsenal” de defesas contra o sexismo e a discriminacao, para tolerar um ataque pornografico, completamente nao provocado (se e’ que e’ possivel “provocar-se” tal coisa…) e “out of the blue”, por parte de um colega de trabalho (por sinal, angolano)… e enquanto o perpetrador encontrava apoio entre os poderosos chefoes masculinos, eu vi-me completamente “desertada” por todas as colegas femininas, incluindo as igualmente poderosas, bem falantes, articuladas, feministas e activistas “burocratas do genero”… E estas nao eram daquelas “de trazer por casa” nao: eram precisamente das que andam pelas reunioes de alto nivel em plataformas internacionais a falar em nome das mulheres Africanas! (But then, again, in their “more African than thou” postures, I’m not African anyway and, presumably, I should have felt exhilarated, honoured and over the moon for having attracted that sort of unwanted attention… ‘cause, presumably, I should be “liberated enough” to accept pornography as a “pleasurable and normal thing”, even in the workplace, when it causes me nothing but disgust and distress…).

Anyway, antes que isto me leve ‘a tese que sempre quis escrever sobre “mulheres…”, mas que sei que nunca escreverei, porque e’ um assunto demasiado pesado para o meu arcaboico, deixem-me encurtar caminho: ja’ sabia bastante sobre a “verdadeira realidade” da “condicao feminina”, por a ter experimentado, vivido e escrito sobre (o artigo em anexo, escrito e publicado no Semanario Angolense ha’ cinco anos atras, e’ apenas disso uma amostra), mas nenhuma das minhas experiencias anteriores me tinha dito tanto sobre essa realidade como esta experiencia de ‘blogging’ nos ultimos meses… Talvez porque, sobretudo sob o anonimato ou mascaras e bandeiras de qualquer especie ou cor, e’ mais facil revelarem-se verdadeiras indumentarias, comportamentos e… identidades. Assim, este blog trouxe-me, ate’ agora, pelo menos duas experiencias ineditas: ver-me confrontada com, atacada, insultada, embaracada e coisificada publicamente por “mulheres” capazes de desferirem ataques pornograficos e violacoes, senao fisicas (e talvez apenas porque disso nao teem possibilidade…), certamente psicologicas e morais, contra outras mulheres, ‘apenas porque lhes da’ na real gana’, e “conhecer” mulheres com inexcediveis e vertiginosos niveis de arrogancia ignorante, racismo, xenofobia, elitismo, soberba e um misto de complexos de superioridade e de inferioridade, que nao sabia antes sequer possivel existirem! Certamente, tambem pude verificar, ate’ agora, excepcoes ‘a regra: pelo menos duas mulheres, so’ para mencionar as ‘bloggers’ que consistentemente se teem manifestado acima de comportamentos mesquinhos, invejas e ciumeiras irracionais, o teem demonstrado atraves das suas diversas participacoes neste blog. Mas receio bem que sejam pouco mais do que as excepcoes que confirmam a regra…

Essas experiencias ineditas, quanto mais nao seja, teem-me deixado a perguntar-me: onde e’ que andavam certas mulheres, em finais da decada de 70, principios da de 80, quando, em Luanda, tanto quanto eu tinha que marcar lugar na bicha para a carne, marcava lugar na bicha da livraria ‘Mensagem’, para poder comprar um exemplar da revista portuguesa “Mulheres” – onde tive os primeiros serios contactos com as lutas das “tres Marias”, o conceito de “Matria” da Natalia Correia (de quem, mais tarde, tive o prazer de ouvir cantar o “Summertime”, que aqui podemos ouvir tao eloquentemente na “voz” de Charlie Parker, numa casa de fados de Lisboa), ou as poesias de Sophia de Mello Breyner ou Florbela Espanca - essa geracao de Mulheres que rejeitavam liminarmente, entre outros "diminutivos", designacoes como "poetisa"? Ou quando, mesmo depois de ter conseguido assegurar uma subscricao que me poupava da bicha mensal (pelo menos teoricamente, porque meses havia em que chegava la’ e mesmo para os subscritores a revista estava “esgotada”…), me lancei, por minha conta e risco, em busca do entendimento possivel das almas de Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Yourcenar, Elsa Triolet ou Simone de Beauvoir… Ou ainda, quando, depois de todos os desencantos, descobri Noemia de Sousa, Maya Angelou, Julianne Malveaux, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Bessie Head ou Wangari Mathaai?

Onde andavam essas mulheres que nunca apreenderam o sentido de oprobio imbuido na pratica de se “fazerem ‘a vida” atraves de “lutas de galinheiro”, sem qualquer racionalidade a nao ser demonstrarem a sua “superioridade” em disputas pelo que supoeem ser e pretendem fazer passar por “ideias e conceitos”, mas que na verdade nao passam de “preconceitos reorganizados” para lhes servirem como armas de arremesso em competicoes imbecis e irracionais, em espacos virtuais, pela atencao de homens, por nenhuma outra razao objectiva senao obterem notoriedade e tentarem impor-se como “unicos seres pensantes” (normalmente por nenhuma "obvia razao" senao a cor da sua pele, embora tambem haja excepcoes a essa "regra"...) nos circulos em que se movimentam? Onde?! Em que mundo vivem essas mulheres completamente incapazes de se emanciparem dos mais retrogrados e ignorantes preconceitos e praticas que, com as suas vestes e comportamentos domingueiros, impingem, frequentemente atraves de alguns homens suficientemente “desprevenidos” para tal, sobre outras mulheres – via de regra, as mais desprotegidas economica, social e politicamente – fazendo retroceder a luta das mulheres pela igualdade de generos pelo menos um seculo? Onde?!

Nao sei, nem me interessa particularmente saber. Quanto mais nao seja porque todas essas interrogacoes tambem me deixam a perguntar-me: porque que eu nao torno a minha vida "mais facil" comportando-me da mesma maneira? Ja’ ouvi de pelo menos dois amigos meus, sem qualquer relacao entre si, esta afirmacao: “tu pensas muito…”! Nao me lembro de lhes ter dado qualquer resposta porque tal afirmacao apenas me remete a pensar mais ainda: sera’ que a minha “inocencia” em tecnicas e tacticas “tipicamente femininas” se deve ao facto de ter passado tantos anos (...num mundo em que, curiosamente, a maioria das mulheres, e em particular as que se demonstram mais afoitas e talentosas em desferirem ataques cobardes e inescrupulosos contra mulheres como eu, nao se atrevem a entrar...) a resolver complicadas equacoes econometricas, a tentar encontrar “Nash equilibria” para os mais diversos ‘conumdrums’ da historia, da cultura, da sociedade, do desenvolvimento economico ou da politica internacional, a aprimorar o meu jogo de xadrez, ou a cultivar e a desenvolver a capacidade de pensamento estrategico sobre os mais diversos desafios da condicao humana e da vida quotidiana num mundo, mais frequentemente do que nao, hostil? Nao sei. Fico-me com o Bob Marley: “What you gotta… that I don’t know! I’m trying to wonder, wonder… wonder why… wonder, wonder why you act so”!

Mulheres…

PS: No artigo em anexo, faco mencao particular 'as maes solteiras e nisso remeto-me, e aos leitores, ao que tem estado a ocupar o tempo de milhoes de leitores da J.K. Rowling, essa “fab (former) single mom”, autora de “Harry Potter”, neste domingo: o ultimo volume da serie, espectacularmente lancado aqui em Londres ha’ dois dias. Sinto-me proxima do mundo (antigo) dela por razoes muito particulares: somos contemporaneas da “cruzada do Blair contra as maes solteiras”; ela, enquanto mae solteira a viver de “benefits” quando tal “cruzada” se comecou a manifestar, comecou a escrever a serie num café na area onde eu vivo e onde me sentei pela primeira vez num café de Londres… apenas a imensa fortuna que ela acumulou na ultima decada (e a cor da pele?) nos separa.

Post Relacionado:

Woman To Woman

*(First published 22/07/07)

"Como Entender As Mulheres" (Primeiro Volume...)

Domingo e’, a todos os titulos, um dia especial. Tentar justificar essa evidencia e’ praticamente um “no brainer”, ou seja, e’ como tentar-se justificar porque que a chuva molha. Mas, digamos que e’ especial porque nao se trabalha, a excepcao daquelas ocupacoes – formais, como policia e bombeiros, ou informais, como ‘blogging’ – que a isso nos obrigam, ou naquelas sociedades, culturas e religioes que respeitam o “Sabath” literalmente ao Sabado. E’ tambem o dia em que, seja para uma ida a missa, ao mercado, a baixa da cidade, ao centro comercial, ou a uma visita a casa de familiares ou amigos, tentamos sempre apresentar-nos no nosso melhor – em termos de indumentaria ou comportamento. E nao ha’ ninguem melhor do que as mulheres para evidenciarem essa realidade domingueira.

Transportando essa evidencia para a vida mais quotidiana, encontro que… e’ muito dificil entender as mulheres (… nao estou sozinha nisto, sei-o bem: praticamente todos os homens, secundando Freud, disseram-no e continuam a dize-lo…). E isto muito simplesmente porque, pelo menos na vida social, elas tendem maioritariamente a comportar-se como e a vestir-se com as suas poses e vestimentas “domingueiras” que, a uma observacao mais proxima e/ou cuidada, nos revelam que nao passam disso mesmo: comportamento e vestes domingueiras… nada mais quotidiano, nada mais substantivo, nada mais profundo. Falar (de) assim, quando eu sou mulher e nunca me conheci outro genero ou inclinacao sexual, “soa mal” e e’ “politicamente incorrecto” – eu sei. Mas tambem sei que dificilmente havera’ inimigo pior de uma mulher do que outra mulher… dificilmente havera’, pelo menos em certas profissoes e niveis hierarquicos, pior colega de trabalho de uma mulher do que outra mulher. Sei tambem que nao estou sozinha nisto: ouvi-o de outras mulheres, desde ministras a empregadas domesticas, passando por escritoras, escriturarias e profissionais universitarias.

E sei-o, tambem, por experiencia propria: nao ha’ muito tempo, vi-me forcada a abandonar intempestivamente a que talvez tenha sido a melhor posicao profissional da minha vida por uma questao de principio: nao consegui encontrar espaco, ou instrumento, no meu vasto “arsenal” de defesas contra o sexismo e a discriminacao, para tolerar um ataque pornografico, completamente nao provocado (se e’ que e’ possivel “provocar-se” tal coisa…) e “out of the blue”, por parte de um colega de trabalho (por sinal, angolano)… e enquanto o perpetrador encontrava apoio entre os poderosos chefoes masculinos, eu vi-me completamente “desertada” por todas as colegas femininas, incluindo as igualmente poderosas, bem falantes, articuladas, feministas e activistas “burocratas do genero”… E estas nao eram daquelas “de trazer por casa” nao: eram precisamente das que andam pelas reunioes de alto nivel em plataformas internacionais a falar em nome das mulheres Africanas! (But then, again, in their “more African than thou” postures, I’m not African anyway and, presumably, I should have felt exhilarated, honoured and over the moon for having attracted that sort of unwanted attention… ‘cause, presumably, I should be “liberated enough” to accept pornography as a “pleasurable and normal thing”, even in the workplace, when it causes me nothing but disgust and distress…).

Anyway, antes que isto me leve ‘a tese que sempre quis escrever sobre “mulheres…”, mas que sei que nunca escreverei, porque e’ um assunto demasiado pesado para o meu arcaboico, deixem-me encurtar caminho: ja’ sabia bastante sobre a “verdadeira realidade” da “condicao feminina”, por a ter experimentado, vivido e escrito sobre (o artigo em anexo, escrito e publicado no Semanario Angolense ha’ cinco anos atras, e’ apenas disso uma amostra), mas nenhuma das minhas experiencias anteriores me tinha dito tanto sobre essa realidade como esta experiencia de ‘blogging’ nos ultimos meses… Talvez porque, sobretudo sob o anonimato ou mascaras e bandeiras de qualquer especie ou cor, e’ mais facil revelarem-se verdadeiras indumentarias, comportamentos e… identidades. Assim, este blog trouxe-me, ate’ agora, pelo menos duas experiencias ineditas: ver-me confrontada com, atacada, insultada, embaracada e coisificada publicamente por “mulheres” capazes de desferirem ataques pornograficos e violacoes, senao fisicas (e talvez apenas porque disso nao teem possibilidade…), certamente psicologicas e morais, contra outras mulheres, ‘apenas porque lhes da’ na real gana’, e “conhecer” mulheres com inexcediveis e vertiginosos niveis de arrogancia ignorante, racismo, xenofobia, elitismo, soberba e um misto de complexos de superioridade e de inferioridade, que nao sabia antes sequer possivel existirem! Certamente, tambem pude verificar, ate’ agora, excepcoes ‘a regra: pelo menos duas mulheres, so’ para mencionar as ‘bloggers’ que consistentemente se teem manifestado acima de comportamentos mesquinhos, invejas e ciumeiras irracionais, o teem demonstrado atraves das suas diversas participacoes neste blog. Mas receio bem que sejam pouco mais do que as excepcoes que confirmam a regra…

Essas experiencias ineditas, quanto mais nao seja, teem-me deixado a perguntar-me: onde e’ que andavam certas mulheres, em finais da decada de 70, principios da de 80, quando, em Luanda, tanto quanto eu tinha que marcar lugar na bicha para a carne, marcava lugar na bicha da livraria ‘Mensagem’, para poder comprar um exemplar da revista portuguesa “Mulheres” – onde tive os primeiros serios contactos com as lutas das “tres Marias”, o conceito de “Matria” da Natalia Correia (de quem, mais tarde, tive o prazer de ouvir cantar o “Summertime”, que aqui podemos ouvir tao eloquentemente na “voz” de Charlie Parker, numa casa de fados de Lisboa), ou as poesias de Sophia de Mello Breyner ou Florbela Espanca - essa geracao de Mulheres que rejeitavam liminarmente, entre outros "diminutivos", designacoes como "poetisa"? Ou quando, mesmo depois de ter conseguido assegurar uma subscricao que me poupava da bicha mensal (pelo menos teoricamente, porque meses havia em que chegava la’ e mesmo para os subscritores a revista estava “esgotada”…), me lancei, por minha conta e risco, em busca do entendimento possivel das almas de Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Yourcenar, Elsa Triolet ou Simone de Beauvoir… Ou ainda, quando, depois de todos os desencantos, descobri Noemia de Sousa, Maya Angelou, Julianne Malveaux, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Bessie Head ou Wangari Mathaai?

Onde andavam essas mulheres que nunca apreenderam o sentido de oprobio imbuido na pratica de se “fazerem ‘a vida” atraves de “lutas de galinheiro”, sem qualquer racionalidade a nao ser demonstrarem a sua “superioridade” em disputas pelo que supoeem ser e pretendem fazer passar por “ideias e conceitos”, mas que na verdade nao passam de “preconceitos reorganizados” para lhes servirem como armas de arremesso em competicoes imbecis e irracionais, em espacos virtuais, pela atencao de homens, por nenhuma outra razao objectiva senao obterem notoriedade e tentarem impor-se como “unicos seres pensantes” (normalmente por nenhuma "obvia razao" senao a cor da sua pele, embora tambem haja excepcoes a essa "regra"...) nos circulos em que se movimentam? Onde?! Em que mundo vivem essas mulheres completamente incapazes de se emanciparem dos mais retrogrados e ignorantes preconceitos e praticas que, com as suas vestes e comportamentos domingueiros, impingem, frequentemente atraves de alguns homens suficientemente “desprevenidos” para tal, sobre outras mulheres – via de regra, as mais desprotegidas economica, social e politicamente – fazendo retroceder a luta das mulheres pela igualdade de generos pelo menos um seculo? Onde?!

Nao sei, nem me interessa particularmente saber. Quanto mais nao seja porque todas essas interrogacoes tambem me deixam a perguntar-me: porque que eu nao torno a minha vida "mais facil" comportando-me da mesma maneira? Ja’ ouvi de pelo menos dois amigos meus, sem qualquer relacao entre si, esta afirmacao: “tu pensas muito…”! Nao me lembro de lhes ter dado qualquer resposta porque tal afirmacao apenas me remete a pensar mais ainda: sera’ que a minha “inocencia” em tecnicas e tacticas “tipicamente femininas” se deve ao facto de ter passado tantos anos (...num mundo em que, curiosamente, a maioria das mulheres, e em particular as que se demonstram mais afoitas e talentosas em desferirem ataques cobardes e inescrupulosos contra mulheres como eu, nao se atrevem a entrar...) a resolver complicadas equacoes econometricas, a tentar encontrar “Nash equilibria” para os mais diversos ‘conumdrums’ da historia, da cultura, da sociedade, do desenvolvimento economico ou da politica internacional, a aprimorar o meu jogo de xadrez, ou a cultivar e a desenvolver a capacidade de pensamento estrategico sobre os mais diversos desafios da condicao humana e da vida quotidiana num mundo, mais frequentemente do que nao, hostil? Nao sei. Fico-me com o Bob Marley: “What you gotta… that I don’t know! I’m trying to wonder, wonder… wonder why… wonder, wonder why you act so”!

Mulheres…

PS: No artigo em anexo, faco mencao particular 'as maes solteiras e nisso remeto-me, e aos leitores, ao que tem estado a ocupar o tempo de milhoes de leitores da J.K. Rowling, essa “fab (former) single mom”, autora de “Harry Potter”, neste domingo: o ultimo volume da serie, espectacularmente lancado aqui em Londres ha’ dois dias. Sinto-me proxima do mundo (antigo) dela por razoes muito particulares: somos contemporaneas da “cruzada do Blair contra as maes solteiras”; ela, enquanto mae solteira a viver de “benefits” quando tal “cruzada” se comecou a manifestar, comecou a escrever a serie num café na area onde eu vivo e onde me sentei pela primeira vez num café de Londres… apenas a imensa fortuna que ela acumulou na ultima decada (e a cor da pele?) nos separa.

Post Relacionado:

Woman To Woman

*(First published 22/07/07)

JOAQUIM PINTO DE ANDRADE E GENTIL VIANA (R.I.P.)

[N.B.: Nao era esta, exactamente, a homenagem que me merecem e que planeara em memoria desses dois Mais Velhos. No entanto, tendo sido confrontada com dois blog posts, um deles reproduzido no GVO e onde claramente se confunde a figura de Joaquim com a de Vicente, ou de Justino, Pinto de Andrade... e outro onde este texto da Lusa e' reproduzido sem qualquer indicacao da fonte citada... achei por bem publica-lo aqui.]


Lisboa, 23 Fev (Lusa) - Joaquim Pinto de Andrade e Gentil Ferreira Viana, dois "históricos" do MPLA e protagonistas do movimento dissidente Revolta Activa, morreram hoje, em Luanda e Lisboa, respectivamente. Joaquim Pinto de Andrade, nascido em 1926, morreu vítima de doença prolongada, na sua residência do Bairro Azul, em Luanda, confirmou à Lusa fonte próxima da família.

Gentil Viana, 72 anos, que residia há mais de três décadas em Portugal, faleceu também vítima de doença prolongada, em Lisboa, onde se encontrava hospitalizado, disse à Lusa Vitor Ramalho, amigo do falecido. Os dois "históricos" hoje falecidos estiveram entre os impulsionadores da tendência política Revolta Activa, no seio do MPLA, em que participaram também o irmão de Joaquim Pinto de Andrade, Mário - primeiro presidente do MPLA -, Carlos "Liceu" Vieira Dias, Maria do Céu Carmo Reis e outros intelectuais angolanos.

Esta tendência contestatária da liderança de Agostinho Neto procurava afirmar-se como "independente, plural, não engajada com nenhum dos blocos" em disputa em Angola no pós independência, segundo disse à Lusa Vítor Ramalho, que partilhou durante muitos anos um escritório de advogados com Gentil Viana. Com a Revolta Activa afirmava-se então no MPLA a "Revolta de Leste", liderada por Daniel Chipenda, além do grupo leal a Neto. Em 1975, juntamente com muitos outros intelectuais do MPLA, Gentil Viana é preso e só dois anos depois conseguiria a liberdade.

Numa luta na prisão foi ferido com gravidade num olho, tendo ficado praticamente cego de uma vista. Para a sua libertação, disse à Lusa Vítor Ramalho, intercedeu pessoalmente o general Tito, o líder da então Jugoslávia, país que o acolheu logo após a saída da prisão. Questionado sobre o seu destino de eleição, Viana acaba por se decidir por Portugal, onde se tinha licenciado em Direito nos anos 60, e mais tarde fugido - com outros intelectuais como o moçambicano Joaquim Chissano e o escritor Pepetela - para iniciar um longo périplo que o levaria a Paris, Gana, Congo Brazzaville, Argélia, China, e mais tarde para a guerrilha em Angola.

Divorciado de uma professoria universitária moçambicana residente em Portugal, Gentil Ferreira Viana foi pai de cinco filhos, dois dos quais já falecidos e os outros três residentes em Angola. Neto de um português, Viana voltou a Angola por duas vezes, depois de se estabelecer em Lisboa em 1977 - a primeira logo após os Acordos de Bicesse (1991) e a última há poucos anos. Conta Vítor Ramalho que Viana voltou das viagens a Angola "amargurado pela sua terra", mas "sem guardar ressentimentos a quem quer que fosse".

"Era um conciliador, um homem marcante para quem o conheceu bem. É preciso saber honrar este homem que foi precursor do que há de mais profundo na política. Era respeitado por todas as sensibilidades, um grande amigo de Portugal e dos portugueses", afirma Ramalho. O corpo de Gentil Viana ficará em câmara ardente na Casa de Angola, em Lisboa, a partir das 16:00 de domingo.

Na segunda-feira, o féretro segue para Luanda, cidade natal do político angolano, onde será sepultado. A vida de Gentil Viana cruzou-se, em vários momentos, com a de Joaquim Pinto de Andrade. O seu pai - Frederico Viana, filho de um português - e Pinto de Andrade "pai" foram ambos fundadores da Liga Nacional Africana, movimento político que nos anos 40 e 50 se afirmou como impulsionador da identidade africana nas então colónias.

Também pelos calabouços angolanos passou Joaquim Pinto de Andrade, presidente honorário do MPLA, que se manteve até há pouco tempo activo na política angolana. Esteve ligado ao "fugaz" Partido Reformador Democrático (PRD), que obteve um resultado pouco expressivo nas eleições de 1992. Foi durante umas férias em Portugal, em meados dos anos 90, que adoeceu com gravidade, tendo desde então passado longos períodos hospitalizado. Ainda jovem, abraçou o sacerdócio católico, que abandonou mais tarde para se casar com Vitória Almeida e Sousa, médica pediatra; tiveram dois filhos. Como contou à Lusa em Luanda Jerónimo Belo, amigo de Pinto de Andrade, morreu hoje na capital angolana "um grande nacionalista angolano". PDF/RB. Lusa/Fim

[N.B.: Nao era esta, exactamente, a homenagem que me merecem e que planeara em memoria desses dois Mais Velhos. No entanto, tendo sido confrontada com dois blog posts, um deles reproduzido no GVO e onde claramente se confunde a figura de Joaquim com a de Vicente, ou de Justino, Pinto de Andrade... e outro onde este texto da Lusa e' reproduzido sem qualquer indicacao da fonte citada... achei por bem publica-lo aqui.]


Lisboa, 23 Fev (Lusa) - Joaquim Pinto de Andrade e Gentil Ferreira Viana, dois "históricos" do MPLA e protagonistas do movimento dissidente Revolta Activa, morreram hoje, em Luanda e Lisboa, respectivamente. Joaquim Pinto de Andrade, nascido em 1926, morreu vítima de doença prolongada, na sua residência do Bairro Azul, em Luanda, confirmou à Lusa fonte próxima da família.

Gentil Viana, 72 anos, que residia há mais de três décadas em Portugal, faleceu também vítima de doença prolongada, em Lisboa, onde se encontrava hospitalizado, disse à Lusa Vitor Ramalho, amigo do falecido. Os dois "históricos" hoje falecidos estiveram entre os impulsionadores da tendência política Revolta Activa, no seio do MPLA, em que participaram também o irmão de Joaquim Pinto de Andrade, Mário - primeiro presidente do MPLA -, Carlos "Liceu" Vieira Dias, Maria do Céu Carmo Reis e outros intelectuais angolanos.

Esta tendência contestatária da liderança de Agostinho Neto procurava afirmar-se como "independente, plural, não engajada com nenhum dos blocos" em disputa em Angola no pós independência, segundo disse à Lusa Vítor Ramalho, que partilhou durante muitos anos um escritório de advogados com Gentil Viana. Com a Revolta Activa afirmava-se então no MPLA a "Revolta de Leste", liderada por Daniel Chipenda, além do grupo leal a Neto. Em 1975, juntamente com muitos outros intelectuais do MPLA, Gentil Viana é preso e só dois anos depois conseguiria a liberdade.

Numa luta na prisão foi ferido com gravidade num olho, tendo ficado praticamente cego de uma vista. Para a sua libertação, disse à Lusa Vítor Ramalho, intercedeu pessoalmente o general Tito, o líder da então Jugoslávia, país que o acolheu logo após a saída da prisão. Questionado sobre o seu destino de eleição, Viana acaba por se decidir por Portugal, onde se tinha licenciado em Direito nos anos 60, e mais tarde fugido - com outros intelectuais como o moçambicano Joaquim Chissano e o escritor Pepetela - para iniciar um longo périplo que o levaria a Paris, Gana, Congo Brazzaville, Argélia, China, e mais tarde para a guerrilha em Angola.

Divorciado de uma professoria universitária moçambicana residente em Portugal, Gentil Ferreira Viana foi pai de cinco filhos, dois dos quais já falecidos e os outros três residentes em Angola. Neto de um português, Viana voltou a Angola por duas vezes, depois de se estabelecer em Lisboa em 1977 - a primeira logo após os Acordos de Bicesse (1991) e a última há poucos anos. Conta Vítor Ramalho que Viana voltou das viagens a Angola "amargurado pela sua terra", mas "sem guardar ressentimentos a quem quer que fosse".

"Era um conciliador, um homem marcante para quem o conheceu bem. É preciso saber honrar este homem que foi precursor do que há de mais profundo na política. Era respeitado por todas as sensibilidades, um grande amigo de Portugal e dos portugueses", afirma Ramalho. O corpo de Gentil Viana ficará em câmara ardente na Casa de Angola, em Lisboa, a partir das 16:00 de domingo.

Na segunda-feira, o féretro segue para Luanda, cidade natal do político angolano, onde será sepultado. A vida de Gentil Viana cruzou-se, em vários momentos, com a de Joaquim Pinto de Andrade. O seu pai - Frederico Viana, filho de um português - e Pinto de Andrade "pai" foram ambos fundadores da Liga Nacional Africana, movimento político que nos anos 40 e 50 se afirmou como impulsionador da identidade africana nas então colónias.

Também pelos calabouços angolanos passou Joaquim Pinto de Andrade, presidente honorário do MPLA, que se manteve até há pouco tempo activo na política angolana. Esteve ligado ao "fugaz" Partido Reformador Democrático (PRD), que obteve um resultado pouco expressivo nas eleições de 1992. Foi durante umas férias em Portugal, em meados dos anos 90, que adoeceu com gravidade, tendo desde então passado longos períodos hospitalizado. Ainda jovem, abraçou o sacerdócio católico, que abandonou mais tarde para se casar com Vitória Almeida e Sousa, médica pediatra; tiveram dois filhos. Como contou à Lusa em Luanda Jerónimo Belo, amigo de Pinto de Andrade, morreu hoje na capital angolana "um grande nacionalista angolano". PDF/RB. Lusa/Fim

LOCAL VOICES OFFLINE (8)

Things someone, somewhere in the world, was talking about but you probably weren’t listening…

THE GREAT SHE-ELEPHANT



The row over GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) led to a full-scale, angry debate in the Commons, in which the Shadow Foreign Secretary, DENIS HEALEY, gave one of his best performances, attacking Mrs. Thatcher as the real author of the change, pulling Sir Geoffrey’s strings. He said Sir Geoffrey had made himself the laughing stock of the world, and that he had kicked constructive Trade Union leaders in the teeth. (27/2/84)

Things someone, somewhere in the world, was talking about but you probably weren’t listening…

THE GREAT SHE-ELEPHANT



The row over GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) led to a full-scale, angry debate in the Commons, in which the Shadow Foreign Secretary, DENIS HEALEY, gave one of his best performances, attacking Mrs. Thatcher as the real author of the change, pulling Sir Geoffrey’s strings. He said Sir Geoffrey had made himself the laughing stock of the world, and that he had kicked constructive Trade Union leaders in the teeth. (27/2/84)

INTERROGATING THE BLOGOSPHERE (III)

I swear to anyone remotely interested in this: there’s nothing I would like more at the moment than a quiet and relaxed weekend, or anything I could have wished more than a safe and trouble-free journey in the blogosphere, throughout the rest of this year, particularly taking into account what I went through all last year…

But, as I was waiting to see my reply to a comment I found on GVO (reproduced here) appear there, I just took a look at that site again and found this thing.

Now, as I was talking here about “objectivity/subjectivity”, with Sokari, there were always at least two words on the back of my mind I felt were missing in our conversation, and those were “bias” and “manipulation” (of opinion)!
Now, why would it be that the selected paragraph from that article would be the one appeared on GVO and not any of these:

“O Brasil é dos países mais ricos e diversos culturalmente que já vi, e ao mesmo tempo o pais mais racista que já vi. Angola é dos países mais ricos e diversificados que África possui e ainda assim sofre severamente de racismo. Os critérios de entrada na discoteca, são dos que mais gosto para exemplificar os estereótipos, mesmo porque já fui vitima deste exemplo varias vezes. Os estrangeiros(brancos/mulatos) têm dinheiro.”

“Motivos por ser um pais racista? São dos mais diversos, sendo a colonização para mim o "motivo base" do racismo em Angola, e em todos países do Mundo. Todos países do mundo? Sim, todos os países do mundo! A colonização não resultou só na exploração e ocupação de um povo, mas também resultou na "migração" desse povo durante anos e anos. Os que foram ocupados e explorados fora misturados como é o caso de Angola. Misturados coisa que não aconteceu muitos com os outros países colonizadores, sendo Portugal o mais "mente aberta" quando se tratava de "conhecer" melhor o povo ocupado. E os que colonizavam e que são muitos deles conhecidos como países do primeiro mundo hoje em dia, não estavam contentes por terem sobre sua guarda os povos explorados, portanto resolveram começar a "trazê-los" para os seus países "super-desenvolvidos" onde o ser humano não era um "selvagem",mas sim um "civilizado". Isto tudo mesmo com o fim da escravatura e da colonização deixou marcas e vestígios enormes na nossa sociedade.”

“Hum..e já me esquecia, a resposta que eu dei a senhora que tratava do bilhete foi : EU SOU ANGOLANO!! e ela deu-me um bom xoxo à moda da terra e escreveu RACA: MISTA. Paz,”

Of course, 'simple-minded' people would say: well, because the “editor” didn’t even had the time to read the full article, let alone “think about it”, so she just copied and pasted the first paragraph of ... well, the last part of the article, why should it be the first?

And why did she select that particular article and not, say, this one? Or this one, or the clip on this one? Or the comments on this one?
Well, my dear, the 'simpleton' would say, because she has far more interesting things to do, don't you think?”…

Sorry, English readers only, but if you want a translation of the excerpts I transcribed here, or of the full article in question, you may wish to ask the Portuguese-language team at GVO for it (I’m sorry, but I am not paid for that, never have been, and I’m not sure the same can be said about them…), or use the available online translation devices if you please.*

Enjoy your weekend anyway!

***

*P.S.: I might just add, for the benefit of a better understanding of this issue, that the claim that the mention of ‘races’ in Angolan identity cards (as in here, where mine is pictured) is "an act of racism against them” is a pet cause of the white and mixed-race minorities in the country (as is, by the way, their hatred for the figure of Queen Nzinga Mbandi – whose picture I’m currently using as this blog’s logo – and for her statue in one of the two main squares in the capital city, Luanda).

As with any rule, there are, of course, exceptions, as exemplified by a recent statement by the widow of the first Angolan President (here) who says that “some people get very offended by that, but I am not sure that it is an offense.”

I swear to anyone remotely interested in this: there’s nothing I would like more at the moment than a quiet and relaxed weekend, or anything I could have wished more than a safe and trouble-free journey in the blogosphere, throughout the rest of this year, particularly taking into account what I went through all last year…

But, as I was waiting to see my reply to a comment I found on GVO (reproduced here) appear there, I just took a look at that site again and found this thing.

Now, as I was talking here about “objectivity/subjectivity”, with Sokari, there were always at least two words on the back of my mind I felt were missing in our conversation, and those were “bias” and “manipulation” (of opinion)!
Now, why would it be that the selected paragraph from that article would be the one appeared on GVO and not any of these:

“O Brasil é dos países mais ricos e diversos culturalmente que já vi, e ao mesmo tempo o pais mais racista que já vi. Angola é dos países mais ricos e diversificados que África possui e ainda assim sofre severamente de racismo. Os critérios de entrada na discoteca, são dos que mais gosto para exemplificar os estereótipos, mesmo porque já fui vitima deste exemplo varias vezes. Os estrangeiros(brancos/mulatos) têm dinheiro.”

“Motivos por ser um pais racista? São dos mais diversos, sendo a colonização para mim o "motivo base" do racismo em Angola, e em todos países do Mundo. Todos países do mundo? Sim, todos os países do mundo! A colonização não resultou só na exploração e ocupação de um povo, mas também resultou na "migração" desse povo durante anos e anos. Os que foram ocupados e explorados fora misturados como é o caso de Angola. Misturados coisa que não aconteceu muitos com os outros países colonizadores, sendo Portugal o mais "mente aberta" quando se tratava de "conhecer" melhor o povo ocupado. E os que colonizavam e que são muitos deles conhecidos como países do primeiro mundo hoje em dia, não estavam contentes por terem sobre sua guarda os povos explorados, portanto resolveram começar a "trazê-los" para os seus países "super-desenvolvidos" onde o ser humano não era um "selvagem",mas sim um "civilizado". Isto tudo mesmo com o fim da escravatura e da colonização deixou marcas e vestígios enormes na nossa sociedade.”

“Hum..e já me esquecia, a resposta que eu dei a senhora que tratava do bilhete foi : EU SOU ANGOLANO!! e ela deu-me um bom xoxo à moda da terra e escreveu RACA: MISTA. Paz,”

Of course, 'simple-minded' people would say: well, because the “editor” didn’t even had the time to read the full article, let alone “think about it”, so she just copied and pasted the first paragraph of ... well, the last part of the article, why should it be the first?

And why did she select that particular article and not, say, this one? Or this one, or the clip on this one? Or the comments on this one?
Well, my dear, the 'simpleton' would say, because she has far more interesting things to do, don't you think?”…

Sorry, English readers only, but if you want a translation of the excerpts I transcribed here, or of the full article in question, you may wish to ask the Portuguese-language team at GVO for it (I’m sorry, but I am not paid for that, never have been, and I’m not sure the same can be said about them…), or use the available online translation devices if you please.*

Enjoy your weekend anyway!

***

*P.S.: I might just add, for the benefit of a better understanding of this issue, that the claim that the mention of ‘races’ in Angolan identity cards (as in here, where mine is pictured) is "an act of racism against them” is a pet cause of the white and mixed-race minorities in the country (as is, by the way, their hatred for the figure of Queen Nzinga Mbandi – whose picture I’m currently using as this blog’s logo – and for her statue in one of the two main squares in the capital city, Luanda).

As with any rule, there are, of course, exceptions, as exemplified by a recent statement by the widow of the first Angolan President (here) who says that “some people get very offended by that, but I am not sure that it is an offense.”

BLACK & AFRICAN HISTORY MONTH EUROPE 2008 (I)

A group of bloggers, which I am honoured and humbled to integrate, has been organising a carnivale to mark Black & African History Month in Europe this year. The group is coordinated by the ever so diligent Bill, from Jewels in the Jungle, who has kick-started the parade on February 14, Valentine’s Day, with this brilliant article:


African History in Europe: "What Color is Your Valentine?" re-visited

For the past 3 weeks a small group of blog authors and friends living in various parts of Europe (Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and the UK) have been quietly organizing an online workgroup for collaboration on themes in black and African History in Europe. At present our group consists of seven people and we are working together on the composition and publishing of essays, commentaries on books and book reviews and academic studies, and sharing our research sources with readers in an attempt to help raise interest and global awareness about this important but long neglected field of study.

This is an effort by a multi-national group of people who are truly interested in history and literature. Two members of the group are very qualified in the field of history and education.This initiative is the follow-up to a project for black and African history in Europe launched in February/March 2007 at Jewels in the Jungle and the Atlantic Review. We should be ready for publication of new work next week and plan to continue publishing articles on the subject throughout March 2008.

Below are the opening paragraphs from Aphra Behn’s original article. I wanted to once again draw my readers’ attention to her fine work, especially on the date when people around the world are celebrating Valentines Day, and in recognition of the month of February when people in the USA and Canada celebrate the rich heritage and legacy of their citizens of color, Black History Month. I will add additional links to external online resources at a later date in order to help clarify some of the historical names and places.

[Keep reading here]

Picture: Meeting of Saint Erasmus of Formiae and Saint Mauriceby Matthias Grünewald (1517-23)

A group of bloggers, which I am honoured and humbled to integrate, has been organising a carnivale to mark Black & African History Month in Europe this year. The group is coordinated by the ever so diligent Bill, from Jewels in the Jungle, who has kick-started the parade on February 14, Valentine’s Day, with this brilliant article:


African History in Europe: "What Color is Your Valentine?" re-visited

For the past 3 weeks a small group of blog authors and friends living in various parts of Europe (Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and the UK) have been quietly organizing an online workgroup for collaboration on themes in black and African History in Europe. At present our group consists of seven people and we are working together on the composition and publishing of essays, commentaries on books and book reviews and academic studies, and sharing our research sources with readers in an attempt to help raise interest and global awareness about this important but long neglected field of study.

This is an effort by a multi-national group of people who are truly interested in history and literature. Two members of the group are very qualified in the field of history and education.This initiative is the follow-up to a project for black and African history in Europe launched in February/March 2007 at Jewels in the Jungle and the Atlantic Review. We should be ready for publication of new work next week and plan to continue publishing articles on the subject throughout March 2008.

Below are the opening paragraphs from Aphra Behn’s original article. I wanted to once again draw my readers’ attention to her fine work, especially on the date when people around the world are celebrating Valentines Day, and in recognition of the month of February when people in the USA and Canada celebrate the rich heritage and legacy of their citizens of color, Black History Month. I will add additional links to external online resources at a later date in order to help clarify some of the historical names and places.

[Keep reading here]

Picture: Meeting of Saint Erasmus of Formiae and Saint Mauriceby Matthias Grünewald (1517-23)

OBAMA VS. CLINTON: THE MOTHER OF ALL BATTLES! (Take 8)

"THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW!"

Well, first let's have a well deserved cup of tea for

TEN VICTORIES IN A ROW!

Then, let's just note, in passing, that McCain seems to have totally forgotten about Clinton and, in his newly assumed pose as the inevitable Republican nominee, started attacking Obama directly, e.g. talking about an “eloquent but empty call for change.” On her side, poor Hillary is still trying to find out what did she do wrong...

As for our unstoppable Obama, yesterday, in his victory speech in Houston, Texas, he explained how he responded to critics who asked him at the beginning of this race why did he decide to run now; why not wait a few years more, since he is still a relatively young man (in fact we had that same discussion here in the 1st take of this series). Why? Because, he said, of what Martin Luther King called "The Fierce Urgency of Now"!
Well, I have to say that if I had heard that phrase in a different context, I might have found it somewhat strange. Not in the context of this race though...

Now, let's read the latest from the man himself:

Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:11:00 -0500
To: "Ana Santana"
From: "Barack Obama"
Subject: Major news

Ana --
We learned something extraordinary since I wrote to you last night.
We've crunched all the numbers and discovered that we are within striking distance of something historic: one million people donating to this campaign.
Think about that ... nearly one million people taking ownership of this movement, five dollars or twenty-five dollars at a time.
We're already more than 900,000 strong, including over half-a-million donating so far this year. This unprecedented foundation of support has built a campaign that has shaken the status quo and proven that ordinary people can compete in a political process too often dominated by special interests.
Unlike Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, we haven't taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. Our campaign is responsible to no one but the people.
We started this improbable journey a little over a year ago in Springfield, Illinois.
And because you've joined together to make your voices heard, this journey isn't looking as improbable anymore.
Since our victory on February 5th, we've won ten straight contests.
But on March 4th, we face a huge challenge in Texas and Ohio, who will vote along with Rhode Island and Vermont. We are behind in the big states and need as many people involved as possible if we're going to win.
If we can reach our goal of one million donors by March 4th, we can send a powerful message that the Washington establishment and big-money interests cannot ignore.
As one million people with one voice, we can tell them that their days of dominating Washington are coming to an end -- the old politics are crumbling and a new voice is breaking through. Our voice.
I learned the power of ordinary people coming together as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.
I worked side-by-side with people who had been laid off from steel plants that were moved overseas. These were people who needed new jobs to rebuild their lives, and their political leaders were ignoring them.
But even though the odds were stacked against them, they discovered that by coming together with one voice, they could no longer be ignored.
When we launched this campaign, we knew we were up against similar odds. We knew we'd be running against a massive political machine with deep ties to the Washington establishment.
We knew it wouldn't be easy.
But if we can do this, we're not just going to win an election. We're going to change our country.

Thank you so much,
Barack

"THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW!"

Well, first let's have a well deserved cup of tea for

TEN VICTORIES IN A ROW!

Then, let's just note, in passing, that McCain seems to have totally forgotten about Clinton and, in his newly assumed pose as the inevitable Republican nominee, started attacking Obama directly, e.g. talking about an “eloquent but empty call for change.” On her side, poor Hillary is still trying to find out what did she do wrong...

As for our unstoppable Obama, yesterday, in his victory speech in Houston, Texas, he explained how he responded to critics who asked him at the beginning of this race why did he decide to run now; why not wait a few years more, since he is still a relatively young man (in fact we had that same discussion here in the 1st take of this series). Why? Because, he said, of what Martin Luther King called "The Fierce Urgency of Now"!
Well, I have to say that if I had heard that phrase in a different context, I might have found it somewhat strange. Not in the context of this race though...

Now, let's read the latest from the man himself:

Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:11:00 -0500
To: "Ana Santana"
From: "Barack Obama"
Subject: Major news

Ana --
We learned something extraordinary since I wrote to you last night.
We've crunched all the numbers and discovered that we are within striking distance of something historic: one million people donating to this campaign.
Think about that ... nearly one million people taking ownership of this movement, five dollars or twenty-five dollars at a time.
We're already more than 900,000 strong, including over half-a-million donating so far this year. This unprecedented foundation of support has built a campaign that has shaken the status quo and proven that ordinary people can compete in a political process too often dominated by special interests.
Unlike Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, we haven't taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. Our campaign is responsible to no one but the people.
We started this improbable journey a little over a year ago in Springfield, Illinois.
And because you've joined together to make your voices heard, this journey isn't looking as improbable anymore.
Since our victory on February 5th, we've won ten straight contests.
But on March 4th, we face a huge challenge in Texas and Ohio, who will vote along with Rhode Island and Vermont. We are behind in the big states and need as many people involved as possible if we're going to win.
If we can reach our goal of one million donors by March 4th, we can send a powerful message that the Washington establishment and big-money interests cannot ignore.
As one million people with one voice, we can tell them that their days of dominating Washington are coming to an end -- the old politics are crumbling and a new voice is breaking through. Our voice.
I learned the power of ordinary people coming together as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.
I worked side-by-side with people who had been laid off from steel plants that were moved overseas. These were people who needed new jobs to rebuild their lives, and their political leaders were ignoring them.
But even though the odds were stacked against them, they discovered that by coming together with one voice, they could no longer be ignored.
When we launched this campaign, we knew we were up against similar odds. We knew we'd be running against a massive political machine with deep ties to the Washington establishment.
We knew it wouldn't be easy.
But if we can do this, we're not just going to win an election. We're going to change our country.

Thank you so much,
Barack

ADIOS FIDEL!

Mi deber elemental no es aferrarme a cargos, ni mucho menos obstruir el paso a personas más jóvenes, sino aportar experiencias e ideas cuyo modesto valor proviene de la época excepcional que me tocó vivir.
Pienso como Niemeyer que hay que ser consecuente hasta el final.
Traicionaría por tanto mi conciencia ocupar una responsabilidad que requiere movilidad y entrega total que no estoy en condiciones físicas de ofrecer. Lo explico sin dramatismo.
No me despido de ustedes. Deseo solo combatir como un soldado de las ideas. Seguiré escribiendo bajo el título "Reflexiones del compañero Fidel" . Será un arma más del arsenal con la cual se podrá contar. Tal vez mi voz se escuche. Seré cuidadoso.
Gracias

Fidel Castro Ruz
18 de febrero de 2008
5 y 30 p.m.

[LEER MAS EN:]

Mi deber elemental no es aferrarme a cargos, ni mucho menos obstruir el paso a personas más jóvenes, sino aportar experiencias e ideas cuyo modesto valor proviene de la época excepcional que me tocó vivir.
Pienso como Niemeyer que hay que ser consecuente hasta el final.
Traicionaría por tanto mi conciencia ocupar una responsabilidad que requiere movilidad y entrega total que no estoy en condiciones físicas de ofrecer. Lo explico sin dramatismo.
No me despido de ustedes. Deseo solo combatir como un soldado de las ideas. Seguiré escribiendo bajo el título "Reflexiones del compañero Fidel" . Será un arma más del arsenal con la cual se podrá contar. Tal vez mi voz se escuche. Seré cuidadoso.
Gracias

Fidel Castro Ruz
18 de febrero de 2008
5 y 30 p.m.

[LEER MAS EN:]

FANTAS... PORTO!

Quero dizer... anda aqui pelos meus lados uma onda de descobrir que ele ha' coisas fantasticas no Porto, cidade que, infelizmente, mal conheco...


Ha' tempos foi a Casa da Musica. Agora, ha pouco, por causa do ultimo post que aqui publiquei, fui a procura da website da Casa Fernando Pessoa, em cujo blog encontrei esta noticia, atraves da qual pude aceder a...

estas fantasticas


fotografias da Livraria Lello...

que foi eleita pelo jornal londrino The Guardian "A Terceira Livraria Mais Bela do Mundo"!

Quero dizer... anda aqui pelos meus lados uma onda de descobrir que ele ha' coisas fantasticas no Porto, cidade que, infelizmente, mal conheco...


Ha' tempos foi a Casa da Musica. Agora, ha pouco, por causa do ultimo post que aqui publiquei, fui a procura da website da Casa Fernando Pessoa, em cujo blog encontrei esta noticia, atraves da qual pude aceder a...

estas fantasticas


fotografias da Livraria Lello...

que foi eleita pelo jornal londrino The Guardian "A Terceira Livraria Mais Bela do Mundo"!

ECOS DA IMPRENSA ANGOLANA (1)

“Pergunto ao vento que passa
notícias do meu país
e o vento cala a desgraça
o vento nada me diz.

Mas há sempre uma candeia
dentro da própria desgraça
há sempre alguém que semeia
canções no vento que passa.”

Manuel Alegre

Inicio esta nova serie com dois artigos do penultimo numero (#251), do Semanario Angolense (SA), que seleccionei nao so’ pelo seu interesse intrinseco, mas tambem por nos permitirem fazer ‘updates’ de questoes e eventos anteriormente abordados neste blog.

***
Vida e morte de Diniz Kanhanga, o «Menino da Bandeira»

Neste artigo, Salas Neto reflecte sobre as deploraveis condicoes de vida e o recente falecimento de Diniz Kanhanga, de cujo preocupante estado de saude ele nos tinha dado conta num artigo de que aqui fiz eco no ultimo 11 de Novembro:

Era conhecido como o «Menino da Bandeira», porque acabaria por fazer história, ao auxiliar o também já falecido comandante Imperial Santana, herói da luta de libertação contra o colonialismo português, a içar a bandeira da República Popular de Angola, nos primeiros momentos do dia 11 de Novembro, na cerimónia de proclamação da «dipanda» do país celebrada no antigo largo 1.º de Maio.

Entretanto, na sua ultima edicao (#252), o SA publica o seguinte comentario:

“Há informações de que dois jornalistas do Jornal de Angola deverão ser penalizados por um deles ter produzido e o outro ter editado uma notícia sobre a morte de Diniz Kanhanga, em que se dizia que o «Menino da Bandeira» tinha morrido na indigência quase absoluta. O repórter contou que, no quarto do então menino que ajudou a içar a bandeira da RPA a 11 de Novembro de 1975, sendo por isso um ícone que devia merecer melhor tratamento, encontrou como espólio meia dúzia de livros, alguns jornais e pouco mais. Embora fosse verdade, a direcção do diário considerou que os dois (repórter e editor) feriram a linha editorial da publicação, devendo por isso ser penalizados. A ser assim, tudo indica que a «liberdade de imprensa» é coisa para esquecer. Aos eventuais castigados, pede-se apenas coragem e paciência, porque hão-de surgir, tarde ou cedo, dias melhores nestes particulares.”

(Mais aqui)

***

Raças no Bilhete de Identidade

Severino Carlos tenta deitar agua na fervura da polemica questao da mencao da raca nos BI Angolanos, ja’ aqui abordada, por exemplo neste post e tambem nesta entrevista de Eugenia Neto ao Expresso. Para o efeito, o articulista recorre ao Relatorio do PNUD sobre o Desenvolvimento Humano de 2004 – que tenho tido em permanente destaque neste blog desde o seu inicio, atraves do extracto que ilustra este post – 'a luz do qual questiona, visando deita-los por terra, alguns dos mitos que teem sustentado essa polemica.

Exactamente por entender que é assim, e objectivando pôr água na fervura que por aí vai, o Semanário Angolense volta à carga, trazendo o ponto de vista do Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (Pnud) sobre a temática das inclusões e exclusões culturais e seus efeitos sobre o desenvolvimento dos países. Abalizados cientistas sociais que trabalham para essa insuspeita agência do Sistema das Nações Unidas, ao elaborarem o Relatório do Desenvolvimento Humano de 2004, dedicado à problemática da liberdade cultural num mundo diversificado, deitaram por terra os mesmos mitos que suscitam determinadas intranquilidades no nosso país. A fazer fé nesses especialistas, nem as culturas são estanques, nem a assunção de políticas de diversidade cultural resultam, necessariamente, em fragmentação, conflito, fraco desenvolvimento, ou governo autoritário. Para já, cinco mitos caíram. Vamos a eles.

(Aqui)

“Pergunto ao vento que passa
notícias do meu país
e o vento cala a desgraça
o vento nada me diz.

Mas há sempre uma candeia
dentro da própria desgraça
há sempre alguém que semeia
canções no vento que passa.”

Manuel Alegre

Inicio esta nova serie com dois artigos do penultimo numero (#251), do Semanario Angolense (SA), que seleccionei nao so’ pelo seu interesse intrinseco, mas tambem por nos permitirem fazer ‘updates’ de questoes e eventos anteriormente abordados neste blog.

***
Vida e morte de Diniz Kanhanga, o «Menino da Bandeira»

Neste artigo, Salas Neto reflecte sobre as deploraveis condicoes de vida e o recente falecimento de Diniz Kanhanga, de cujo preocupante estado de saude ele nos tinha dado conta num artigo de que aqui fiz eco no ultimo 11 de Novembro:

Era conhecido como o «Menino da Bandeira», porque acabaria por fazer história, ao auxiliar o também já falecido comandante Imperial Santana, herói da luta de libertação contra o colonialismo português, a içar a bandeira da República Popular de Angola, nos primeiros momentos do dia 11 de Novembro, na cerimónia de proclamação da «dipanda» do país celebrada no antigo largo 1.º de Maio.

Entretanto, na sua ultima edicao (#252), o SA publica o seguinte comentario:

“Há informações de que dois jornalistas do Jornal de Angola deverão ser penalizados por um deles ter produzido e o outro ter editado uma notícia sobre a morte de Diniz Kanhanga, em que se dizia que o «Menino da Bandeira» tinha morrido na indigência quase absoluta. O repórter contou que, no quarto do então menino que ajudou a içar a bandeira da RPA a 11 de Novembro de 1975, sendo por isso um ícone que devia merecer melhor tratamento, encontrou como espólio meia dúzia de livros, alguns jornais e pouco mais. Embora fosse verdade, a direcção do diário considerou que os dois (repórter e editor) feriram a linha editorial da publicação, devendo por isso ser penalizados. A ser assim, tudo indica que a «liberdade de imprensa» é coisa para esquecer. Aos eventuais castigados, pede-se apenas coragem e paciência, porque hão-de surgir, tarde ou cedo, dias melhores nestes particulares.”

(Mais aqui)

***

Raças no Bilhete de Identidade

Severino Carlos tenta deitar agua na fervura da polemica questao da mencao da raca nos BI Angolanos, ja’ aqui abordada, por exemplo neste post e tambem nesta entrevista de Eugenia Neto ao Expresso. Para o efeito, o articulista recorre ao Relatorio do PNUD sobre o Desenvolvimento Humano de 2004 – que tenho tido em permanente destaque neste blog desde o seu inicio, atraves do extracto que ilustra este post – 'a luz do qual questiona, visando deita-los por terra, alguns dos mitos que teem sustentado essa polemica.

Exactamente por entender que é assim, e objectivando pôr água na fervura que por aí vai, o Semanário Angolense volta à carga, trazendo o ponto de vista do Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (Pnud) sobre a temática das inclusões e exclusões culturais e seus efeitos sobre o desenvolvimento dos países. Abalizados cientistas sociais que trabalham para essa insuspeita agência do Sistema das Nações Unidas, ao elaborarem o Relatório do Desenvolvimento Humano de 2004, dedicado à problemática da liberdade cultural num mundo diversificado, deitaram por terra os mesmos mitos que suscitam determinadas intranquilidades no nosso país. A fazer fé nesses especialistas, nem as culturas são estanques, nem a assunção de políticas de diversidade cultural resultam, necessariamente, em fragmentação, conflito, fraco desenvolvimento, ou governo autoritário. Para já, cinco mitos caíram. Vamos a eles.

(Aqui)

LOCAL VOICES OFFLINE (7)

Things someone, somewhere in the world, was talking about but you probably weren’t listening…

Where is My Citizenship

N.B.: Only recently has the Government of Botswana started to relax the law requiring applicants for citizenship in the country to be fluent in Setswana.

Things someone, somewhere in the world, was talking about but you probably weren’t listening…

Where is My Citizenship

N.B.: Only recently has the Government of Botswana started to relax the law requiring applicants for citizenship in the country to be fluent in Setswana.

BARACK OBAMA'S KENYA (IV)*

What is a family? Is it just a genetic chain, parents and offspring, people like me? Or is it a social construct, an economic unit, optimal for child rearing and divisions of labor? Or is it something else entirely: a store of shared memories, say? An ambit of love? A reach across the void? I could list various possibilities. But I’d never arrived at a definite answer, aware early on that, given my circumstances, such an effort was bound to fail.

Instead, I drew a series of circles around myself, with borders that shifted as time passed and faces changed but that nevertheless offered the illusion of control. An inner circle, where love was constant and claims unquestioned. Then a second circle, a realm of negotiated love, commitments freely chosen. And then a circle for colleagues, acquaintances; the cheerful gray-haired lady who rang up my groceries back in Chicago. Until the circle finally widened to embrace a nation or a race, or a particular moral course, and the commitments I’d made to myself.

In Africa, this astronomy of mine almost immediately collapsed. For family seemed to be everywhere: in stores, at the post office, on streets and in the parks, all of them fussing and fretting over Obama’s long-lost son. (…) At first I reacted to all this attention like a child to its mother’s bosom, full of simple, unquestioning gratitude. It conformed to my idea of Africa and Africans, an obvious contrast to the growing isolation of American life, a contrast I understood, not in racial, but in cultural terms. A measure of what we sacrificed for technology and mobility, but that here – as in the kampongs outside Djakarta or in the country villages of Ireland or Greece – remained essentially intact: the insistent pleasure of other people’s company, the joy of human warmth.

As the days wore on, though, my joy became tempered with tension and doubt. Some of it had to do with what Auma had talked about that night in the car – an acute awareness of my relative good fortune, and the troublesome questions such good fortune implied. Not that our relatives were suffering, exactly. Both Jane and Zeituni had steady jobs; Kezia made do selling cloth in the markets. If cash got too short, the children could be sent upcountry for a time; that’s where another brother, Abo, was staying, I was told, with an uncle in Kendu Bay, where there were always chores to perform, food on the table and a roof over one’s head.

Still, the situation in Nairobi was tough and getting tougher. Clothes were mostly secondhand, a doctor’s visit reserved for the direst emergency. Almost all the family’s younger members were unemployed, including the two or three who had managed, against stiff competition, to graduate from one of Kenya’s universities. If Jane or Zeituni ever fell ill, if their companies ever closed or laid off, there was no government safety net. There was only family, next of kin; people burdened by similar hardship.

Now I was family, I reminded myself; now I had responsibilities. But what did that mean exactly? Back in the States, I’d been able to translate such feelings into politics, organizing, a certain self-denial. In Kenya, these strategies seemed hopelessly abstract, even self-indulgent. A commitment to black empowerment couldn’t help find Bernard a job. A faith in participatory democracy couldn’t buy Jane a new set of sheets. For the first time in my life, I found myself thinking deeply about money: my own lack of it, the pursuit of it, the crude but undeniable peace it could buy. A part of me wished I could live up to the image that my new relatives imagined for me: a corporate lawyer, an American businessman, my hand poised on the spigot, ready to rain down like manna the largesse of the Western world.

But of course I wasn’t either of those things. Even in the States, wealth involved trade-offs for those who weren’t born to it, the same sorts of trade-offs that I could see Auma now making as she tried, in her own way, to fulfill the family’s expectations. She was working two jobs that summer, teaching German classes to Kenyan businessmen along with her job at the university. With the money she saved, she wanted not only to fix up Granny’s house in Alego but also to buy a bit of land around Nairobi, something that would appreciate in value, a base from which to build.

She had plans, schedules, budgets, and deadlines – all the things she’d learned were required to negotiate a modern world. The problem was that her schedules also meant begging off from family affairs; her budgets meant saying no to the constant requests for money that came her way. And when this happened – when she insisted on going home before Jane served dinner because things had started two hours late, or when she refused to let eight people pile into her VW because it was designed for four and they would tear up the seats – the looks of unspoken hurt, barely distinguishable from resentment, would flash across the room. Her restlessness, her independence, her constant willingness to project into the future – all of this struck the family as unnatural somehow. Unnatural… and un-African.

(...)

Toward the end of my second week in Kenya, Auma and I went on a safari. Auma wasn’t thrilled with the idea. When I first showed her the brochure, she grimaced and shook her head. Like most Kenyans, she could draw a straight line between the game parks and colonialism. “How many Kenyans do you think can afford to go on a safari?” she asked me. “Why should all that land be set aside for tourists when it could be used for farming? These wazungu care more about one dead elephant than they do for a hundred black children.”

For several days we parried. I told her she was letting other people’s attitudes prevent her from seeing her own country. She said she didn’t want to waste the money. Eventually she relented, not because of my persuasive powers but because she took pity on me. “If some animal ate you out there,” she said, “I’d never forgive myself.” And so, at seven o’clock on a Tuesday morning, we watched a sturdily built Kikuyu driver named Francis load our bags onto the roof of a white minivan. With us were a spindly cooked named Rafael, a dark-haired Italian named Mauro, and a British couple in their early forties, the Wilkersons.

We drove out of Nairobi at a modest pace, passing soon into countryside, green hills and red dirt paths and small shambas surrounded by plots of wilting, widely spaced corn. Nobody spoke, a discomfiting silence that reminded me of a similar moments back in the States, the pause that would sometimes accompany my personal integration of a bar or hotel. It made me think about Auma and Mark, my grandparents back in Hawaii, my mother still in Indonesia, and the things Zeituni had told me.

If everyone is family, then no one is family.

Was Zeituni right? I’d come to Kenya thinking that I could somehow force my many worlds into a single, harmonious whole. Instead, the divisions seemed only to have become more multiplied, popping up in the midst of even the simplest chores. I thought back to the previous morning, when Auma and I had gone to book our tickets. The travel agency was owned by Asians; most small businesses in Nairobi were owned by Asians. Right away, Auma had tensed up. “You see how arrogant they are?” she had whispered as we watched a young Indian woman order her black clerks to and fro. “They call themselves Kenyans, but they want nothing to do with us. As soon as they make their money, they send it off to London or Bombay.”

Her attitude had touched a nerve. “How can you blame Asians for sending their money out of the county,” I had asked her, “after what happened in Uganda?” I had gone on to tell her about the close Indian and Pakistani friends I had back in the States, friends who had supported black causes, friends who had lent me money when I was tight and taken me into their homes when I’d had no place to stay. Auma had been unmoved. “Ah, Barack,” she had said. “Sometimes you’re so naïve.”

I looked at Auma now, her face turned toward the window. What had I expected my little lecture to accomplish? My simple formulas for Third World solidarity had little application in Kenya. Here, persons of India extraction were like the Chinese in Indonesia, the Koreans in the South Side of Chicago, outsiders who knew how to trade and kept to themselves, working the margins of a racial caste system, more visible and so more vulnerable to resentment. It was nobody’s fault necessarily. It was just a matter of history, an unfortunate fact of life.

Anyway, the divisions in Kenya didn’t stop there; there were always finer lines to draw. Between the country’s forty black tribes, for example. They, too, were a fact of life. You didn’t notice the tribalism so much among Auma’s friends, younger university-educated Kenyans who’d been schooled in the idea of nation and race; tribe was an issue with them only when they were considering a mate, or when they got older and saw it help or hinder careers. But they were the exceptions. Most Kenyans still worked with older maps of identity, more ancient loyalties. Even Jane or Zeituni could say things that surprised me. “The Luo are intelligent but lazy,” they would say. Or “The Kikuyu are money-grubbing but industrious.” Or “The Kalenjins – well, you can see what’s happened to the country since they took over.”

Hearing my aunts traffic in such stereotypes, I would try to explain to them the error of their ways. “It’s thinking like that that holds us back,” I would say. “We’re all part of one tribe. The black tribe. The human tribe. Look what tribalism has done to places like Nigeria or Liberia.” And Jane would say, “Ah, those West Africans are all crazy anyway. You know they used to be cannibals, don’t you?” And Zeituni would say, “You sound just like your father, Barry. He also had such ideas about people.” Meaning he, too, was naïve; he, too, liked to argue with history. Look what happened to him….

We followed the road into cooler hills, where women walked barefoot carrying firewood and water and small boys switched at donkeys from their rickety carts. Gradually the shambas became less frequent, replaced by tangled bush and forest, until the trees on our left dropped away without warning and all we could see was the wide-open sky. “The Great Rift Valley,” Francis announced. We piled out of the van and stood at the edge of the escarpment looking out toward the western horizon. Hundreds of feet below, stone and savannah grass stretched out in a flat and endless plain, before it met the sky and carried the eye back through a series of high white clouds. To the right, a solitary mountain rose like an island in a silent sea; beyond that, a row of worn and shadowed ridges. Only two signs of man’s presence were visible – a slender road leading west, and a satellite station, its massive white dish cupped upward toward the sky.

A few miles north, we turned off the main highway onto a road of pulverized tarmac. It was slow going: at certain points the potholes yawned across the road’s entire width, and every so often trucks would approach from the opposite direction, forcing Francis to drive onto embankments. Eventually, we arrived at the road we’d seen from above and began to make our way across the valley floor. The landscape was dry, mostly bush grass and scruffy thorn trees, gravel and patches of hard dark stone. We began to pass small herds of gazelle; a solitary wildebeest feeding at the base of a tree; zebra and a giraffe, barely visible in the distance. For almost an hour we saw no other person, until a solitary Masai herdsman appeared in the distance, his figure as lean and straight as the staff that he carried, leading a herd of long-horned cattle across an empty flat.

I hadn’t met many Masai in Nairobi, although I’d read quite a bit about them. I knew that their pastoral ways and fierceness in war had earned them a grudging respect from the British, so that even as treaties had been broken and the Masai had been restricted to reservations, the tribe had become mythologized in its defeat, like the Cherokee or Apache, the noble savage of picture postcards and coffee table books. I also knew that this Western infatuation with the Masai infuriated other Kenyans, who thought their ways something of an embarrassment, and who hankered after Masai lad. The government had tried to impose compulsory education on Masai children, and a system of land title among the adults. The black man’s burden, officials explained: to civilize our less fortunate brethren.

Francis was waiting for us when we returned to the van. We drove through the gate, following the road up a small, barren rise. And there, on the other side of the rise, I saw as beautiful a land as I’d ever seen. It swept out forever, flat plains undulating into gentle hills, dun-colored and as supple as a lion’s back, creased by long gallery forests and dotted with thorn trees. To our left, a huge herd of zebra, ridiculously symmetrical in their stripes, harvested the wheat-colored grass; to our right, a troop of gazelle leaped into bush. And in the center, thousands of wildebeest, with mournful heads and humped shoulders that seemed too much for their slender legs to carry. Francis began to inch the van through the herd, and the animals parted before us, then merged in our wake like a school of fish, their hoofs beating against the earth like a wave against the shore.

We set up camp above the banks of a winding brown stream, beneath a big fig tree filled with noisy blue starlings. It was getting late, but after setting up our tents and gathering firewood, we had time for a short drive to a nearby watering hole where topi and gazelle had gathered to drink. A fire was going when we got back, and as we sat down to feed on Rafael’s stew, Francis began telling us a little bit about himself. He had a wife and six children, he said, living on his homestead in Kikuyuland. They tended an acre of coffee and corn; on his days off, he did the heavier work of hoeing and planting. He said he enjoyed his work with the travel agency but disliked being away from his family. “If I could, I might prefer farming full-time,” he said, “but the KCU makes it impossible.”
“What’s the KCU?” I asked.

“The Kenyan Coffee Union. They are thieves. They regulate what we can plant and when we can plant it. I can only sell my coffee to them, and they sell it overseas. They say to us that prices are dropping, but I know they still get one hundred times what they pay to me. “The rest goes where?” Francis shook his head with disgust. “It’s a terrible thing when the government steals from its own people.” ”You speak very freely,” Auma said. Francis shrugged. “If more people spoke up, perhaps things might change. Look at the road that we traveled this morning coming into the valley. You know, that road was supposed to have been repaired only last year. But they used only loose gravel, so it washed out in the first rains. The money that was saved probably went into building some big man’s house.”

Francis looked into the fire, combing his mustache with his fingers. “I suppose it is not only the government’s fault,” he said after awhile. “Even when things are done properly, we Kenyans don’t like to pay taxes. We don’t trust the idea of giving our money to someone. The poor man, he has good reason for this suspicion. But the big men who own the trucks that use the roads, they also refuse to pay their share. They would rather have their equipment break down all the time than give up some of their profits. This is how we like to think, you see. Somebody else’s problem.” I tossed a stick into the fire. “Attitudes aren’t so different in America,” I told Francis. “You are probably right,” he said. “But you see, a rich country like America can perhaps afford to be stupid.”

At night, after dinner, we spoke further with our Masai guardsmen. Wilson told us that both he and his friend had recently been moran, members of the bachelor class of young warriors who were at the center of the Masai legend. They had each killed a lion to prove their manhood, had participated in numerous cattle raids. But now there were no wars, and even cattle raids had become complicated – only last year, another friend had been shot by a Kikuyu rancher. Wilson had finally decided that being a moran was a waste of time.

He had gone to Nairobi in search of work, but he had little schooling and had ended up as a security guard at a bank. The boredom drove him crazy, and eventually he had returned to the valley to marry and tend to his cattle. Recently one of the cattle had been killed by a lion, and although it was illegal now, he and four others had hunted the lion into the preserve. “How do you kill a lion?” I asked. “Five men surround it and throw their spears,” Wilson said. “The lion will choose one man to pounce. That man, he curls under his shield while the other four finish the job.” “It sounds dangerous,” I said stupidly. Wilson shrugged. “Usually there are only scratches. But sometimes only four will come back.”

The man didn’t sound like he was boasting – more like a mechanic trying to explain a difficult repair. Perhaps it was that nonchalance that caused Auma to ask him where the Masai thought a man went after he died. At first, Wilson didn’t seem to understand the question, but eventually he smiled and began shaking his head. “This is not a Masai belief,” he said, almost laughing, “this life after you die. After you die, you are nothing. You return to the soil. That is all.” “What do you say, Francis?” Mauro asked. For some time Francis had been reading a small, red-bound Bible. He looked up now and smiled. “These Masai are brave men,” he said. “Were you raised a Christian?” Auma asked Francis. Francis nodded. “My parents converted before I was born.”

Mauro spoke, staring into the fire. “Me, I leave the Church. Too many rules. Don’t you think, Francis, that sometimes Christianity not so good? For Africa, the missionary changes everything, yes? He brings… how do you say?” “Colonialism,” I offered. “Yes – colonialism. White religion, no?” Francis placed the Bible in his lap. “Such things troubled me when I was young. The missionaries were men, and they erred as men. Now that I’m older, I understand that I also can fail. That is not God’s failure. I also remember that some missionaries fed people during drought. Some taught children to read. In this, I believe they were doing God’s work. All we can do is aspire to live like God, though we will always fall short.”

Mauro went to his tent and Francis returned to his Bible. Beside him, Auma began to read a story with Elizabeth. Dr. Wilkerson sat with his knees together, mending his pants while his wife stared at the fir beside him. I looked at the Masai, their faces silent and watchful, and wondered what they made of the rest of us. They might be amused, I decided. I knew that their courage, their hardness, made me question my own noisy spirit. And yet, as I looked around the fire, I thought I saw a courage no less admirable in Francis, and in Auma, and in the Wilkersons as well. Maybe it was that courage, I thought, that Africa most desperately needed. Honest, decent men and women with attainable ambitions, and the determination to see those ambitions through.

The fire began to die, and one by one the others made their way to bed, until only Francis and I and the Masai remained. As I stood up, Francis began to sing a deep-voiced hymn in Kikuyu, with a melody that I vaguely recognized. I listened a while, lost in my own thoughts. Walking back to my tent, I felt I understood Francis’s plaintive song, imagining it transmitting upward, through the clear black night, directly to God.

{Read more here}

*Extracts from "Dreams from My Father - A Story of Race and Inheritance", Copyright © 1995, 2004 by Barack Obama.

What is a family? Is it just a genetic chain, parents and offspring, people like me? Or is it a social construct, an economic unit, optimal for child rearing and divisions of labor? Or is it something else entirely: a store of shared memories, say? An ambit of love? A reach across the void? I could list various possibilities. But I’d never arrived at a definite answer, aware early on that, given my circumstances, such an effort was bound to fail.

Instead, I drew a series of circles around myself, with borders that shifted as time passed and faces changed but that nevertheless offered the illusion of control. An inner circle, where love was constant and claims unquestioned. Then a second circle, a realm of negotiated love, commitments freely chosen. And then a circle for colleagues, acquaintances; the cheerful gray-haired lady who rang up my groceries back in Chicago. Until the circle finally widened to embrace a nation or a race, or a particular moral course, and the commitments I’d made to myself.

In Africa, this astronomy of mine almost immediately collapsed. For family seemed to be everywhere: in stores, at the post office, on streets and in the parks, all of them fussing and fretting over Obama’s long-lost son. (…) At first I reacted to all this attention like a child to its mother’s bosom, full of simple, unquestioning gratitude. It conformed to my idea of Africa and Africans, an obvious contrast to the growing isolation of American life, a contrast I understood, not in racial, but in cultural terms. A measure of what we sacrificed for technology and mobility, but that here – as in the kampongs outside Djakarta or in the country villages of Ireland or Greece – remained essentially intact: the insistent pleasure of other people’s company, the joy of human warmth.

As the days wore on, though, my joy became tempered with tension and doubt. Some of it had to do with what Auma had talked about that night in the car – an acute awareness of my relative good fortune, and the troublesome questions such good fortune implied. Not that our relatives were suffering, exactly. Both Jane and Zeituni had steady jobs; Kezia made do selling cloth in the markets. If cash got too short, the children could be sent upcountry for a time; that’s where another brother, Abo, was staying, I was told, with an uncle in Kendu Bay, where there were always chores to perform, food on the table and a roof over one’s head.

Still, the situation in Nairobi was tough and getting tougher. Clothes were mostly secondhand, a doctor’s visit reserved for the direst emergency. Almost all the family’s younger members were unemployed, including the two or three who had managed, against stiff competition, to graduate from one of Kenya’s universities. If Jane or Zeituni ever fell ill, if their companies ever closed or laid off, there was no government safety net. There was only family, next of kin; people burdened by similar hardship.

Now I was family, I reminded myself; now I had responsibilities. But what did that mean exactly? Back in the States, I’d been able to translate such feelings into politics, organizing, a certain self-denial. In Kenya, these strategies seemed hopelessly abstract, even self-indulgent. A commitment to black empowerment couldn’t help find Bernard a job. A faith in participatory democracy couldn’t buy Jane a new set of sheets. For the first time in my life, I found myself thinking deeply about money: my own lack of it, the pursuit of it, the crude but undeniable peace it could buy. A part of me wished I could live up to the image that my new relatives imagined for me: a corporate lawyer, an American businessman, my hand poised on the spigot, ready to rain down like manna the largesse of the Western world.

But of course I wasn’t either of those things. Even in the States, wealth involved trade-offs for those who weren’t born to it, the same sorts of trade-offs that I could see Auma now making as she tried, in her own way, to fulfill the family’s expectations. She was working two jobs that summer, teaching German classes to Kenyan businessmen along with her job at the university. With the money she saved, she wanted not only to fix up Granny’s house in Alego but also to buy a bit of land around Nairobi, something that would appreciate in value, a base from which to build.

She had plans, schedules, budgets, and deadlines – all the things she’d learned were required to negotiate a modern world. The problem was that her schedules also meant begging off from family affairs; her budgets meant saying no to the constant requests for money that came her way. And when this happened – when she insisted on going home before Jane served dinner because things had started two hours late, or when she refused to let eight people pile into her VW because it was designed for four and they would tear up the seats – the looks of unspoken hurt, barely distinguishable from resentment, would flash across the room. Her restlessness, her independence, her constant willingness to project into the future – all of this struck the family as unnatural somehow. Unnatural… and un-African.

(...)

Toward the end of my second week in Kenya, Auma and I went on a safari. Auma wasn’t thrilled with the idea. When I first showed her the brochure, she grimaced and shook her head. Like most Kenyans, she could draw a straight line between the game parks and colonialism. “How many Kenyans do you think can afford to go on a safari?” she asked me. “Why should all that land be set aside for tourists when it could be used for farming? These wazungu care more about one dead elephant than they do for a hundred black children.”

For several days we parried. I told her she was letting other people’s attitudes prevent her from seeing her own country. She said she didn’t want to waste the money. Eventually she relented, not because of my persuasive powers but because she took pity on me. “If some animal ate you out there,” she said, “I’d never forgive myself.” And so, at seven o’clock on a Tuesday morning, we watched a sturdily built Kikuyu driver named Francis load our bags onto the roof of a white minivan. With us were a spindly cooked named Rafael, a dark-haired Italian named Mauro, and a British couple in their early forties, the Wilkersons.

We drove out of Nairobi at a modest pace, passing soon into countryside, green hills and red dirt paths and small shambas surrounded by plots of wilting, widely spaced corn. Nobody spoke, a discomfiting silence that reminded me of a similar moments back in the States, the pause that would sometimes accompany my personal integration of a bar or hotel. It made me think about Auma and Mark, my grandparents back in Hawaii, my mother still in Indonesia, and the things Zeituni had told me.

If everyone is family, then no one is family.

Was Zeituni right? I’d come to Kenya thinking that I could somehow force my many worlds into a single, harmonious whole. Instead, the divisions seemed only to have become more multiplied, popping up in the midst of even the simplest chores. I thought back to the previous morning, when Auma and I had gone to book our tickets. The travel agency was owned by Asians; most small businesses in Nairobi were owned by Asians. Right away, Auma had tensed up. “You see how arrogant they are?” she had whispered as we watched a young Indian woman order her black clerks to and fro. “They call themselves Kenyans, but they want nothing to do with us. As soon as they make their money, they send it off to London or Bombay.”

Her attitude had touched a nerve. “How can you blame Asians for sending their money out of the county,” I had asked her, “after what happened in Uganda?” I had gone on to tell her about the close Indian and Pakistani friends I had back in the States, friends who had supported black causes, friends who had lent me money when I was tight and taken me into their homes when I’d had no place to stay. Auma had been unmoved. “Ah, Barack,” she had said. “Sometimes you’re so naïve.”

I looked at Auma now, her face turned toward the window. What had I expected my little lecture to accomplish? My simple formulas for Third World solidarity had little application in Kenya. Here, persons of India extraction were like the Chinese in Indonesia, the Koreans in the South Side of Chicago, outsiders who knew how to trade and kept to themselves, working the margins of a racial caste system, more visible and so more vulnerable to resentment. It was nobody’s fault necessarily. It was just a matter of history, an unfortunate fact of life.

Anyway, the divisions in Kenya didn’t stop there; there were always finer lines to draw. Between the country’s forty black tribes, for example. They, too, were a fact of life. You didn’t notice the tribalism so much among Auma’s friends, younger university-educated Kenyans who’d been schooled in the idea of nation and race; tribe was an issue with them only when they were considering a mate, or when they got older and saw it help or hinder careers. But they were the exceptions. Most Kenyans still worked with older maps of identity, more ancient loyalties. Even Jane or Zeituni could say things that surprised me. “The Luo are intelligent but lazy,” they would say. Or “The Kikuyu are money-grubbing but industrious.” Or “The Kalenjins – well, you can see what’s happened to the country since they took over.”

Hearing my aunts traffic in such stereotypes, I would try to explain to them the error of their ways. “It’s thinking like that that holds us back,” I would say. “We’re all part of one tribe. The black tribe. The human tribe. Look what tribalism has done to places like Nigeria or Liberia.” And Jane would say, “Ah, those West Africans are all crazy anyway. You know they used to be cannibals, don’t you?” And Zeituni would say, “You sound just like your father, Barry. He also had such ideas about people.” Meaning he, too, was naïve; he, too, liked to argue with history. Look what happened to him….

We followed the road into cooler hills, where women walked barefoot carrying firewood and water and small boys switched at donkeys from their rickety carts. Gradually the shambas became less frequent, replaced by tangled bush and forest, until the trees on our left dropped away without warning and all we could see was the wide-open sky. “The Great Rift Valley,” Francis announced. We piled out of the van and stood at the edge of the escarpment looking out toward the western horizon. Hundreds of feet below, stone and savannah grass stretched out in a flat and endless plain, before it met the sky and carried the eye back through a series of high white clouds. To the right, a solitary mountain rose like an island in a silent sea; beyond that, a row of worn and shadowed ridges. Only two signs of man’s presence were visible – a slender road leading west, and a satellite station, its massive white dish cupped upward toward the sky.

A few miles north, we turned off the main highway onto a road of pulverized tarmac. It was slow going: at certain points the potholes yawned across the road’s entire width, and every so often trucks would approach from the opposite direction, forcing Francis to drive onto embankments. Eventually, we arrived at the road we’d seen from above and began to make our way across the valley floor. The landscape was dry, mostly bush grass and scruffy thorn trees, gravel and patches of hard dark stone. We began to pass small herds of gazelle; a solitary wildebeest feeding at the base of a tree; zebra and a giraffe, barely visible in the distance. For almost an hour we saw no other person, until a solitary Masai herdsman appeared in the distance, his figure as lean and straight as the staff that he carried, leading a herd of long-horned cattle across an empty flat.

I hadn’t met many Masai in Nairobi, although I’d read quite a bit about them. I knew that their pastoral ways and fierceness in war had earned them a grudging respect from the British, so that even as treaties had been broken and the Masai had been restricted to reservations, the tribe had become mythologized in its defeat, like the Cherokee or Apache, the noble savage of picture postcards and coffee table books. I also knew that this Western infatuation with the Masai infuriated other Kenyans, who thought their ways something of an embarrassment, and who hankered after Masai lad. The government had tried to impose compulsory education on Masai children, and a system of land title among the adults. The black man’s burden, officials explained: to civilize our less fortunate brethren.

Francis was waiting for us when we returned to the van. We drove through the gate, following the road up a small, barren rise. And there, on the other side of the rise, I saw as beautiful a land as I’d ever seen. It swept out forever, flat plains undulating into gentle hills, dun-colored and as supple as a lion’s back, creased by long gallery forests and dotted with thorn trees. To our left, a huge herd of zebra, ridiculously symmetrical in their stripes, harvested the wheat-colored grass; to our right, a troop of gazelle leaped into bush. And in the center, thousands of wildebeest, with mournful heads and humped shoulders that seemed too much for their slender legs to carry. Francis began to inch the van through the herd, and the animals parted before us, then merged in our wake like a school of fish, their hoofs beating against the earth like a wave against the shore.

We set up camp above the banks of a winding brown stream, beneath a big fig tree filled with noisy blue starlings. It was getting late, but after setting up our tents and gathering firewood, we had time for a short drive to a nearby watering hole where topi and gazelle had gathered to drink. A fire was going when we got back, and as we sat down to feed on Rafael’s stew, Francis began telling us a little bit about himself. He had a wife and six children, he said, living on his homestead in Kikuyuland. They tended an acre of coffee and corn; on his days off, he did the heavier work of hoeing and planting. He said he enjoyed his work with the travel agency but disliked being away from his family. “If I could, I might prefer farming full-time,” he said, “but the KCU makes it impossible.”
“What’s the KCU?” I asked.

“The Kenyan Coffee Union. They are thieves. They regulate what we can plant and when we can plant it. I can only sell my coffee to them, and they sell it overseas. They say to us that prices are dropping, but I know they still get one hundred times what they pay to me. “The rest goes where?” Francis shook his head with disgust. “It’s a terrible thing when the government steals from its own people.” ”You speak very freely,” Auma said. Francis shrugged. “If more people spoke up, perhaps things might change. Look at the road that we traveled this morning coming into the valley. You know, that road was supposed to have been repaired only last year. But they used only loose gravel, so it washed out in the first rains. The money that was saved probably went into building some big man’s house.”

Francis looked into the fire, combing his mustache with his fingers. “I suppose it is not only the government’s fault,” he said after awhile. “Even when things are done properly, we Kenyans don’t like to pay taxes. We don’t trust the idea of giving our money to someone. The poor man, he has good reason for this suspicion. But the big men who own the trucks that use the roads, they also refuse to pay their share. They would rather have their equipment break down all the time than give up some of their profits. This is how we like to think, you see. Somebody else’s problem.” I tossed a stick into the fire. “Attitudes aren’t so different in America,” I told Francis. “You are probably right,” he said. “But you see, a rich country like America can perhaps afford to be stupid.”

At night, after dinner, we spoke further with our Masai guardsmen. Wilson told us that both he and his friend had recently been moran, members of the bachelor class of young warriors who were at the center of the Masai legend. They had each killed a lion to prove their manhood, had participated in numerous cattle raids. But now there were no wars, and even cattle raids had become complicated – only last year, another friend had been shot by a Kikuyu rancher. Wilson had finally decided that being a moran was a waste of time.

He had gone to Nairobi in search of work, but he had little schooling and had ended up as a security guard at a bank. The boredom drove him crazy, and eventually he had returned to the valley to marry and tend to his cattle. Recently one of the cattle had been killed by a lion, and although it was illegal now, he and four others had hunted the lion into the preserve. “How do you kill a lion?” I asked. “Five men surround it and throw their spears,” Wilson said. “The lion will choose one man to pounce. That man, he curls under his shield while the other four finish the job.” “It sounds dangerous,” I said stupidly. Wilson shrugged. “Usually there are only scratches. But sometimes only four will come back.”

The man didn’t sound like he was boasting – more like a mechanic trying to explain a difficult repair. Perhaps it was that nonchalance that caused Auma to ask him where the Masai thought a man went after he died. At first, Wilson didn’t seem to understand the question, but eventually he smiled and began shaking his head. “This is not a Masai belief,” he said, almost laughing, “this life after you die. After you die, you are nothing. You return to the soil. That is all.” “What do you say, Francis?” Mauro asked. For some time Francis had been reading a small, red-bound Bible. He looked up now and smiled. “These Masai are brave men,” he said. “Were you raised a Christian?” Auma asked Francis. Francis nodded. “My parents converted before I was born.”

Mauro spoke, staring into the fire. “Me, I leave the Church. Too many rules. Don’t you think, Francis, that sometimes Christianity not so good? For Africa, the missionary changes everything, yes? He brings… how do you say?” “Colonialism,” I offered. “Yes – colonialism. White religion, no?” Francis placed the Bible in his lap. “Such things troubled me when I was young. The missionaries were men, and they erred as men. Now that I’m older, I understand that I also can fail. That is not God’s failure. I also remember that some missionaries fed people during drought. Some taught children to read. In this, I believe they were doing God’s work. All we can do is aspire to live like God, though we will always fall short.”

Mauro went to his tent and Francis returned to his Bible. Beside him, Auma began to read a story with Elizabeth. Dr. Wilkerson sat with his knees together, mending his pants while his wife stared at the fir beside him. I looked at the Masai, their faces silent and watchful, and wondered what they made of the rest of us. They might be amused, I decided. I knew that their courage, their hardness, made me question my own noisy spirit. And yet, as I looked around the fire, I thought I saw a courage no less admirable in Francis, and in Auma, and in the Wilkersons as well. Maybe it was that courage, I thought, that Africa most desperately needed. Honest, decent men and women with attainable ambitions, and the determination to see those ambitions through.

The fire began to die, and one by one the others made their way to bed, until only Francis and I and the Masai remained. As I stood up, Francis began to sing a deep-voiced hymn in Kikuyu, with a melody that I vaguely recognized. I listened a while, lost in my own thoughts. Walking back to my tent, I felt I understood Francis’s plaintive song, imagining it transmitting upward, through the clear black night, directly to God.

{Read more here}

*Extracts from "Dreams from My Father - A Story of Race and Inheritance", Copyright © 1995, 2004 by Barack Obama.

MARIA, DALILA & A PURGA

Apenas nos ultimos dias tive oportunidade de ler a polemica entrevista que Maria Eugenia Neto, viuva de Agostinho Neto, concedeu recentemente ao semanario Expresso. Algumas das suas afirmacoes naquela entrevista levaram a investigadora Dalila Cabrita Mateus, autora do livro “A Purga” sobre o 27 de Maio de 1977 em Angola, a mover-lhe uma accao judicial: “Apresentei uma queixa-crime ontem à noite (quinta-feira à noite) no DIAP (Departamento de Investigação e Acção Penal) porque me senti difamada”, disse à Agência Lusa Dalila Cabrita Mateus. “Senti-me ofendida porque (Maria Eugénia Silva Neto) chamou-me mentirosa e desonesta. É o meu nome e o meu trabalho que está em causa”, sublinhou.”

(Mais detalhes aqui)

Entretanto, sem comentarios adicionais (a nao ser para notar o lamentavel erro do Expresso, que legenda uma fotografia de Nito Alves com estes dizeres: “Nito Alves, o lider da ‘Revolta Activa’…”), aqui ficam algumas passagens da entrevista em causa:

Ainda e’ portuguesa?
Sou, nao quis mudar de nacionalidade.

Tem dupla nacionalidade?
Sim, ofereceram-me a nacionalidade (angolana).

Tem passaporte portugues?
Tenho.

No bilhete de identidade de Angola vem mencionada a raca. Concorda?
Ha’ pessoas que ficam muito ofendidas, mas nao sei se isso e’ uma ofensa.

Quando entra em Portugal qual e’ que usa?
Uso sempre o angolano, e’ mais facil. O meu passaporte e’ diplomatico.

A senhora e’ militante do MPLA?
Sou mais que militante.

Mas nunca se inscreveu!
Sou uma militante acerrima, mas sem estar inscrita.

Havia casais mistos em Lisboa?
Eram rarissimos.

E em Luanda?
Tambem havia poucos.

Pensava fazer algum curso?
Nao houve hipotese, quis sempre estar ao pe’ dele. Sentia-me insegura, nunca tinha saido debaixo da saia da minha mae.

Como foi a chegada a Luanda?
Uma apoteose. Muito bonito. Um mar de gente no aeroporto.

Ultrapassou as vossas expectativas?
Sim. Pelo menos as dele.

Isso foi muito obra do MPLA do interior.
Sim, ele nunca deixou a 1a. Regiao nas maos de ninguem. Ele tinha um grande orgulho nos “meninos” da sua 1a. Regiao. E’ por essa razao que isso do Nito Alves e’ um grande drama historico.

O MPLA sofreu algumas convulsoes: Chipenda, a Revolta Activa…
Embora essa palavra ja’ nao se use, isso tudo e’ obra do imperialismo, porque nao interessava que Agostinho Neto chegasse la’ forte, e que ficasse a frente, so’, daquele pais. Estupidos! Ele era o homem da paz, da concordia e da amizade entre os povos, nao sei porque tinham medo.

Os Pinto de Andrade eram instrumentalizados pelo imperialismo?
Acho que sim. Quando fizeram a Revolta Activa, tiveram contactos com petroliferas e tudo! Nao sou eu que o digo, sao alguns deles que o dizem – inclusive o Belli-Bello.

Conheceu o Nito Alves, claro…
Nao o conheci profundamente. Nunca tive contactos pessoais.

Mas o Presidente tinha.
Sim, ele era do Bureau Politico.

Tinha sido da confianca pessoal de Neto.
Foi so’ no Congresso (de Lusaka, em 1974) que o conheceu.

E representou o MPLA no Congresso do Partido Comunista da Uniao Sovietica, em 1976.
Foi a asneira que ele fez.

Asneira porque?
Porque mostrou o que era: um canalha! O Presidente confiou nele, deu-lhe prestigio por ter sido resistente da 1a Regiao. Chegou la’ e disse aos Sovieticos: agora sou eu!

Isso deu forca ao Nito Alves?
Claro. Os sovieticos, em lugar de porem o retrato do Presidente Neto no congresso. puseram o do Nito Alves. Compraram-no logo.

Conhecia o Jose’ Vandunem?
Nao conheci.

E a ex-militante do PCP Sita Valles?
Nao, o senhor conheceu-os a todos, nao?

Nao, mas tenho procurado ler alguma coisa sobre o assunto.
O problema e’ que a maior parte das coisas que se le sao mentiras. Mesmo o primeiro livro do Iko Carreira. Ele diz que encontraram 200 culpados e que foram ao Presidente Neto, que homologou as listas – mas que estas desapareceram. Perguntei ao Iko onde estava o documento do Presidente a dizer que ninguem liquida ninguem sem a minha assinatura – e ele baixou a cabeca. Passou esse documento quando comecou a saber dos disparates que andavam a fazer.

Mas o seu marido tinha ido a televisao dizer que nao haveria perdao…
Nao! Essa e’ a frase em que os malandros pegam. Ele disse: eles mataram. Eles, eram os cabecilhas! Quem matou nao tinha sido a juventude.

Isso nao e’ nada claro no discurso televisivo.
Nao e’ claro para quem nao quiser. Eles mataram. Os miudos nao tinham morto. Eles, eram os cabecilhas, que nao teem perdao. Muitas maozinhas estiveram interessadas em fazer confusao.

O seu marido referia-se apenas aos cabecilhas?
Claro. Claro.

Mas isso nao foi entendido assim.
Porque nao quiseram entender. Quando foi da morte do Nito Alves, quiseram que ele assinasse – nao sei se assinou. Estava tao revoltado que me disse: “Aos miudos, que eram quase todos recuperaveis, mataram sem a minha assinatura; este que e’ culpado, querem que assine.” O Armenio Ferreira disse-me que ele nao assinou, foram 15 generais que assinaram.

Sabe que a Sita Valles estava gravida quando foi presa?
Nao quero entrar nesses pormenores. Nao estava dentro disso, nem fui eu que mandei fazer atrocidades… Mas olhe que nunca ninguem perguntou: e se eles tivessem ganho? O que nao teriam feito? Se, logo de inicio, mataram seis (os melhores e mais fieis ao Presidente Neto e os queimaram no Roque Santeiro), imagine o que nao iriam fazer. Nos tinhamos sido todos limpos!

Uma coisa e’ o Nito Alves, outra coisa sao os 30 mil mortos!
Isso e’ mentira. Essa senhora e’ desonesta, e’ mentirosa (referencia a Dalila Mateus, co-autora do livro “Purga em Angola”).

Entao quantas pessoas morreram?
No sei, nao estava dentro de nada. Mas isso e’ mentira.

Ja’ passaram 30 anos e ainda nao se sabe quantos foram os mortos!
Estou-lhe a dizer que nao sei. Nao estava dentro desses assuntos. Nem o meu marido devia estar, porque isso era uma coisa militar.

Conheceu Jonas Savimbi?
Nao muito bem.

Acha que foi mau para Angola?
Acha que foi bom?

Nao sei, estou a perguntar-lhe…
Acho que foi um criminoso terrivel. O meu marido, num discurso em Cabinda (em 1978, salvo erro), decretou o perdao para toda a gente: fraccionistas, Revolta Activa, todos. Inaugurou entao uma era de paz. Mas aqui em Portugal, durante estes anos todos, estao sempre a repisar no mesmo assunto. Nao falam nos crimes que se cometeram na Guine’, em que se cortou o Ansumane Mane’ aos bocados… Angola esta’ sempre na berlinda. E com um odio, de nao estar la’, ou de nao usufruir das riquezas. E’ uma coisa impressionante. E agora surge o livro dessa senhora… Ja’ no outro (“A Luta Pela Independencia”), tive uma discussao, porque nao deu a realidade dos pais fundadores… Li o outro, deste nem quero saber!

Ha’ democracia em Angola?
Olhe, o que eu acho e’ que quando havia partido unico as pessoas falavam muito mais do que hoje. De tal maneira eles tinham liberdade que ate’ montaram um golpe de Estado – e nas calmas…

Porque que o seu marido morreu na URSS?
Ele nao queria ir. Mas nao quero falar nisso.

Nao tinha confianca?
Nao devia ter.

Poderia ser bem tratado em Luanda?
Nao. Estava para la’ ir uma medica inglesa, mas nao chegou a tempo.

Quais eram as alternativas?
Ha’ tantas alternativas no mundo! E Angola tinha dinheiro, pagava!

Quem decidiu que iria para a URSS?
Foi o medico dele – e concerteza o partido tambem esteve de acordo. Mas nao sei, sao coisas em que nao meti o nariz.

O medico dele era…
… na altura era o dr. Eduardo dos Santos.

A senhora acompanhou-o ate’ Moscovo?
Mas nao adiantou nada – nao fui para a sala de operacoes e mesmo que fosse nao percebia nada.

Tem alguma reserva ou desconfianca?
Nao posso dizer nada, mas o que sei e’ que, nesta epoca, uma pessoa nao acordar de uma operacao e’ um bocado esquisito…

Foi operado concretamente a que?
Eles dizem que foi ao pancreas. Se foi ou nao…

Diz-se que tinha uma cirrose ja’ adiantada.
Sei la’ se e’ verdade!

Diz-se tambem que bebia muito.
Isso e’mentira! Isso e’ o que dizem. Como nao tinham mais nada em que pegar…

Mas olhe que e’ comum dizerem isso. Mesmo dento do MPLA…
Eu sei que e’. Mas e’ mentira. Eles sao terriveis. Nunca vi o meu marido bebado. Nem eu, nem os meus filhos. E como e’ que uma pessoa bebada podia ter tanto trabalho, preocupacoes e tomar aquelas decisoes tremendas? Os politicos sao assim. Quando ele bebia uisque, bebia um bocadinho e o copo cheio de agua.

Foi o seu unico amor?
Foi. Era um homem com um caracter tao nobre, tao humano, com um sentido de justica tal, que me penetrou profundamente. Tudo aquilo que ha’ de melhor em mim e’ tocado pela profundidade daquela poesia. Um homem daqueles, que escreve a Sagrada Esperanca, nao pode ser um criminoso. E eu nao estaria aqui a apoiar um criminoso. Se aconteceu essa desgraca, isso nao foi ele. Ha’ uma frase que ele disse no Palacio: “Aqui onde me puseram, onde nem ouco a chuva.” Isso, em termos africanos, quer dizer muito.

Ele queria sair, mas estava amarrado.

Apenas nos ultimos dias tive oportunidade de ler a polemica entrevista que Maria Eugenia Neto, viuva de Agostinho Neto, concedeu recentemente ao semanario Expresso. Algumas das suas afirmacoes naquela entrevista levaram a investigadora Dalila Cabrita Mateus, autora do livro “A Purga” sobre o 27 de Maio de 1977 em Angola, a mover-lhe uma accao judicial: “Apresentei uma queixa-crime ontem à noite (quinta-feira à noite) no DIAP (Departamento de Investigação e Acção Penal) porque me senti difamada”, disse à Agência Lusa Dalila Cabrita Mateus. “Senti-me ofendida porque (Maria Eugénia Silva Neto) chamou-me mentirosa e desonesta. É o meu nome e o meu trabalho que está em causa”, sublinhou.”

(Mais detalhes aqui)

Entretanto, sem comentarios adicionais (a nao ser para notar o lamentavel erro do Expresso, que legenda uma fotografia de Nito Alves com estes dizeres: “Nito Alves, o lider da ‘Revolta Activa’…”), aqui ficam algumas passagens da entrevista em causa:

Ainda e’ portuguesa?
Sou, nao quis mudar de nacionalidade.

Tem dupla nacionalidade?
Sim, ofereceram-me a nacionalidade (angolana).

Tem passaporte portugues?
Tenho.

No bilhete de identidade de Angola vem mencionada a raca. Concorda?
Ha’ pessoas que ficam muito ofendidas, mas nao sei se isso e’ uma ofensa.

Quando entra em Portugal qual e’ que usa?
Uso sempre o angolano, e’ mais facil. O meu passaporte e’ diplomatico.

A senhora e’ militante do MPLA?
Sou mais que militante.

Mas nunca se inscreveu!
Sou uma militante acerrima, mas sem estar inscrita.

Havia casais mistos em Lisboa?
Eram rarissimos.

E em Luanda?
Tambem havia poucos.

Pensava fazer algum curso?
Nao houve hipotese, quis sempre estar ao pe’ dele. Sentia-me insegura, nunca tinha saido debaixo da saia da minha mae.

Como foi a chegada a Luanda?
Uma apoteose. Muito bonito. Um mar de gente no aeroporto.

Ultrapassou as vossas expectativas?
Sim. Pelo menos as dele.

Isso foi muito obra do MPLA do interior.
Sim, ele nunca deixou a 1a. Regiao nas maos de ninguem. Ele tinha um grande orgulho nos “meninos” da sua 1a. Regiao. E’ por essa razao que isso do Nito Alves e’ um grande drama historico.

O MPLA sofreu algumas convulsoes: Chipenda, a Revolta Activa…
Embora essa palavra ja’ nao se use, isso tudo e’ obra do imperialismo, porque nao interessava que Agostinho Neto chegasse la’ forte, e que ficasse a frente, so’, daquele pais. Estupidos! Ele era o homem da paz, da concordia e da amizade entre os povos, nao sei porque tinham medo.

Os Pinto de Andrade eram instrumentalizados pelo imperialismo?
Acho que sim. Quando fizeram a Revolta Activa, tiveram contactos com petroliferas e tudo! Nao sou eu que o digo, sao alguns deles que o dizem – inclusive o Belli-Bello.

Conheceu o Nito Alves, claro…
Nao o conheci profundamente. Nunca tive contactos pessoais.

Mas o Presidente tinha.
Sim, ele era do Bureau Politico.

Tinha sido da confianca pessoal de Neto.
Foi so’ no Congresso (de Lusaka, em 1974) que o conheceu.

E representou o MPLA no Congresso do Partido Comunista da Uniao Sovietica, em 1976.
Foi a asneira que ele fez.

Asneira porque?
Porque mostrou o que era: um canalha! O Presidente confiou nele, deu-lhe prestigio por ter sido resistente da 1a Regiao. Chegou la’ e disse aos Sovieticos: agora sou eu!

Isso deu forca ao Nito Alves?
Claro. Os sovieticos, em lugar de porem o retrato do Presidente Neto no congresso. puseram o do Nito Alves. Compraram-no logo.

Conhecia o Jose’ Vandunem?
Nao conheci.

E a ex-militante do PCP Sita Valles?
Nao, o senhor conheceu-os a todos, nao?

Nao, mas tenho procurado ler alguma coisa sobre o assunto.
O problema e’ que a maior parte das coisas que se le sao mentiras. Mesmo o primeiro livro do Iko Carreira. Ele diz que encontraram 200 culpados e que foram ao Presidente Neto, que homologou as listas – mas que estas desapareceram. Perguntei ao Iko onde estava o documento do Presidente a dizer que ninguem liquida ninguem sem a minha assinatura – e ele baixou a cabeca. Passou esse documento quando comecou a saber dos disparates que andavam a fazer.

Mas o seu marido tinha ido a televisao dizer que nao haveria perdao…
Nao! Essa e’ a frase em que os malandros pegam. Ele disse: eles mataram. Eles, eram os cabecilhas! Quem matou nao tinha sido a juventude.

Isso nao e’ nada claro no discurso televisivo.
Nao e’ claro para quem nao quiser. Eles mataram. Os miudos nao tinham morto. Eles, eram os cabecilhas, que nao teem perdao. Muitas maozinhas estiveram interessadas em fazer confusao.

O seu marido referia-se apenas aos cabecilhas?
Claro. Claro.

Mas isso nao foi entendido assim.
Porque nao quiseram entender. Quando foi da morte do Nito Alves, quiseram que ele assinasse – nao sei se assinou. Estava tao revoltado que me disse: “Aos miudos, que eram quase todos recuperaveis, mataram sem a minha assinatura; este que e’ culpado, querem que assine.” O Armenio Ferreira disse-me que ele nao assinou, foram 15 generais que assinaram.

Sabe que a Sita Valles estava gravida quando foi presa?
Nao quero entrar nesses pormenores. Nao estava dentro disso, nem fui eu que mandei fazer atrocidades… Mas olhe que nunca ninguem perguntou: e se eles tivessem ganho? O que nao teriam feito? Se, logo de inicio, mataram seis (os melhores e mais fieis ao Presidente Neto e os queimaram no Roque Santeiro), imagine o que nao iriam fazer. Nos tinhamos sido todos limpos!

Uma coisa e’ o Nito Alves, outra coisa sao os 30 mil mortos!
Isso e’ mentira. Essa senhora e’ desonesta, e’ mentirosa (referencia a Dalila Mateus, co-autora do livro “Purga em Angola”).

Entao quantas pessoas morreram?
No sei, nao estava dentro de nada. Mas isso e’ mentira.

Ja’ passaram 30 anos e ainda nao se sabe quantos foram os mortos!
Estou-lhe a dizer que nao sei. Nao estava dentro desses assuntos. Nem o meu marido devia estar, porque isso era uma coisa militar.

Conheceu Jonas Savimbi?
Nao muito bem.

Acha que foi mau para Angola?
Acha que foi bom?

Nao sei, estou a perguntar-lhe…
Acho que foi um criminoso terrivel. O meu marido, num discurso em Cabinda (em 1978, salvo erro), decretou o perdao para toda a gente: fraccionistas, Revolta Activa, todos. Inaugurou entao uma era de paz. Mas aqui em Portugal, durante estes anos todos, estao sempre a repisar no mesmo assunto. Nao falam nos crimes que se cometeram na Guine’, em que se cortou o Ansumane Mane’ aos bocados… Angola esta’ sempre na berlinda. E com um odio, de nao estar la’, ou de nao usufruir das riquezas. E’ uma coisa impressionante. E agora surge o livro dessa senhora… Ja’ no outro (“A Luta Pela Independencia”), tive uma discussao, porque nao deu a realidade dos pais fundadores… Li o outro, deste nem quero saber!

Ha’ democracia em Angola?
Olhe, o que eu acho e’ que quando havia partido unico as pessoas falavam muito mais do que hoje. De tal maneira eles tinham liberdade que ate’ montaram um golpe de Estado – e nas calmas…

Porque que o seu marido morreu na URSS?
Ele nao queria ir. Mas nao quero falar nisso.

Nao tinha confianca?
Nao devia ter.

Poderia ser bem tratado em Luanda?
Nao. Estava para la’ ir uma medica inglesa, mas nao chegou a tempo.

Quais eram as alternativas?
Ha’ tantas alternativas no mundo! E Angola tinha dinheiro, pagava!

Quem decidiu que iria para a URSS?
Foi o medico dele – e concerteza o partido tambem esteve de acordo. Mas nao sei, sao coisas em que nao meti o nariz.

O medico dele era…
… na altura era o dr. Eduardo dos Santos.

A senhora acompanhou-o ate’ Moscovo?
Mas nao adiantou nada – nao fui para a sala de operacoes e mesmo que fosse nao percebia nada.

Tem alguma reserva ou desconfianca?
Nao posso dizer nada, mas o que sei e’ que, nesta epoca, uma pessoa nao acordar de uma operacao e’ um bocado esquisito…

Foi operado concretamente a que?
Eles dizem que foi ao pancreas. Se foi ou nao…

Diz-se que tinha uma cirrose ja’ adiantada.
Sei la’ se e’ verdade!

Diz-se tambem que bebia muito.
Isso e’mentira! Isso e’ o que dizem. Como nao tinham mais nada em que pegar…

Mas olhe que e’ comum dizerem isso. Mesmo dento do MPLA…
Eu sei que e’. Mas e’ mentira. Eles sao terriveis. Nunca vi o meu marido bebado. Nem eu, nem os meus filhos. E como e’ que uma pessoa bebada podia ter tanto trabalho, preocupacoes e tomar aquelas decisoes tremendas? Os politicos sao assim. Quando ele bebia uisque, bebia um bocadinho e o copo cheio de agua.

Foi o seu unico amor?
Foi. Era um homem com um caracter tao nobre, tao humano, com um sentido de justica tal, que me penetrou profundamente. Tudo aquilo que ha’ de melhor em mim e’ tocado pela profundidade daquela poesia. Um homem daqueles, que escreve a Sagrada Esperanca, nao pode ser um criminoso. E eu nao estaria aqui a apoiar um criminoso. Se aconteceu essa desgraca, isso nao foi ele. Ha’ uma frase que ele disse no Palacio: “Aqui onde me puseram, onde nem ouco a chuva.” Isso, em termos africanos, quer dizer muito.

Ele queria sair, mas estava amarrado.

INTERROGATING THE BLOGOSPHERE (II)

In the previous post, I raised, among others, the following questions:

Firstly, what is exactly the “mainstream media”? Does it include the same type of outlets in New York, Lisbon, Luanda, Boston, Porto, Brazilia, Maputo, London, Praia, Vila Nova de Gaia, Rio, Lubango or Dili? Secondly, to what extent can a blogger based in Portugal, USA, UK or Cabo Verde accurately reflect the voices of communities and individual citizens in N’Dalatando, Quelimane or Principe, whose concerns might not be heard online? Can such a blogger in any case reflect them better than another one based closer to those communities, unless he visits them regularly or has close family, friendship, or professional ties with them? Thirdly, who gets to determine, and under whose criteria, which are “the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens’ media around the world”, as per the GVO “Primary Goals”?

Trying to find some answers, I took a close look at the GVO coverage of “Portuguese-speaking African countries” in the last six months*:

The most striking observation from this graph is that OC appears not only, as we have seen before, as the “undisputed champion” of GVO reporting about the “Angolan blogosphere”, but also as the “champion” (only “disputed” by Carlos Serra, one of the bloggers I covered for GVO) of their “Lusophone” Sub-Saharan Africa reporting. A second interesting observation is that less than one third of the bloggers covered are actually based in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Another, not less interesting, observation is that we get, just to give an example, issues and events about Angola or Sao Tome & Principe covered by East-Timorese or Portuguese blogs – which perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise considering that some of these blogs are, to put it mildly, “highly influenced” (at least judging from the prominence of his picture on them) by none other than OC, who also appears as the presumable overseer of a “blog production line” (Fabrica de Blogues) spreading from Portugal to Timor. It’s also interesting to observe how OC manages to appear in the coverage of an event in Mozambique, which was being thoroughly covered by Mozambican bloggers in situ.

At first sight, one might be tempted to conclude that these trends reflect a lack of diversity of African-based blogs written in Portuguese. However, as it can be gathered from this list (where, incidentally, my blog doesn’t figure and, by their own admission, is “manipulated” by… exactly, OC), or from this one (where my blog is also not listed) that is not the case.

It is abundantly clear that the GVO “Portuguese-speaking Africa” editorial line is inspired by the concept of “lusofonia”. However, this raises a number of issues, starting with this: just imagine that you are a South African blogger systematically seeing events happening at your doorstep, and that you also blogged about, reported at GVO by British, Nigerian or American bloggers simply because they too are English-speaking and read about it in the conventional mainstream media, or in your own blog? Or that you are a Maurician or Malgache Creole-speaking citizen who finds your local issues covered at GVO by Gabonese, Algerian or Haitian bloggers, in French, just because their countries are also former French colonies? And this kind of examples could go on and on.

But perhaps the most problematic implication of that approach is that the concept of “lusofonia” itself is a highly contentious one and is far from reuniting consensus in all countries involved – not least because, on the one end, the majority of the African populations in those countries are primarily speakers of their own national languages and, on the other, the concept is highly reminiscent of the Portuguese colonial state’s imperial ideology, according to which there was a single “cultural unit” from Minho (extreme North of Portugal) to Timor - as reflected by the spread of the "OC blogging empire"...

The controversy generated by that approach can be gathered, for instance, from this article by a Mozambican professor of African Literatures at a Portuguese University, or from an article by a Brazilian writer and senior government official, whose link can be found on this post, or from another article by the Mozambican author Joao Craveirinha, whose link can be found on this post. However, these ponderous critical perspectives are unceremoniously dismissed as “gritaria” by the Portuguese language editorial team at GVO, which happens to be exclusively integrated by Brazilian citizens.

Now, on the question of who gets to determine, and under whose criteria, which are “the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens’ media around the world”, as per the GVO “Primary Goals”?, let’s just look at some examples taken at random:

- How is it decided that this criticism of the publication for the first time in the Portuguese market of a magazine directed at African women is “more interesting” than, say, the criticisms arising from this, or this?

- How is it decided that this treatment of the “Miss Landmine Angola Pageant” is “more interesting” than, say, this one?

- How is it decided that this presentation of an Angolan music/dance genre is “more interesting” than, say, this one (where the main message is that “Angola is good for everybody except for Angolans”), or any of these (where the rising voices and social consciousness of a new generation of Angolan musicians appear loud and clear)?

- How is it decided that this tribute to Ian Smith is “more interesting”, than, say, something like this?

- How is it decided that this anonymous email message is credible and "more interesting" than any other possible account of the reality on the ground, such as these, or any of these?

- How is it decided that this account of the EU-Africa Summit is "more interesting than, say, this one?

- How is it decided that an event like this “is not interesting”?

Finally, how can GVO’s “loud silence” about this event be explained? The same GVO whose mission includes things like, “shining light on places and people other media often ignore (…) to make sense of it all, and to highlight things that bloggers are saying which mainstream media may not be reporting (…) to help people speak out in places where powerful forces would prevent them from doing so (…) and to enable more people whose voices and views are not heard to speak out online.”

The same GVO where articles like this, for example, can be read?

*N.B.: To be accurate, in all 6 instances where my blog appears on GVO links during the period under analysis, it was not on the initiative of the Portuguese-language editorial team. So, they shouldn't be included in this graph because, for all intents and purposes, this blog was excluded from their reporting in the last six months.

In the previous post, I raised, among others, the following questions:

Firstly, what is exactly the “mainstream media”? Does it include the same type of outlets in New York, Lisbon, Luanda, Boston, Porto, Brazilia, Maputo, London, Praia, Vila Nova de Gaia, Rio, Lubango or Dili? Secondly, to what extent can a blogger based in Portugal, USA, UK or Cabo Verde accurately reflect the voices of communities and individual citizens in N’Dalatando, Quelimane or Principe, whose concerns might not be heard online? Can such a blogger in any case reflect them better than another one based closer to those communities, unless he visits them regularly or has close family, friendship, or professional ties with them? Thirdly, who gets to determine, and under whose criteria, which are “the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens’ media around the world”, as per the GVO “Primary Goals”?

Trying to find some answers, I took a close look at the GVO coverage of “Portuguese-speaking African countries” in the last six months*:

The most striking observation from this graph is that OC appears not only, as we have seen before, as the “undisputed champion” of GVO reporting about the “Angolan blogosphere”, but also as the “champion” (only “disputed” by Carlos Serra, one of the bloggers I covered for GVO) of their “Lusophone” Sub-Saharan Africa reporting. A second interesting observation is that less than one third of the bloggers covered are actually based in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Another, not less interesting, observation is that we get, just to give an example, issues and events about Angola or Sao Tome & Principe covered by East-Timorese or Portuguese blogs – which perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise considering that some of these blogs are, to put it mildly, “highly influenced” (at least judging from the prominence of his picture on them) by none other than OC, who also appears as the presumable overseer of a “blog production line” (Fabrica de Blogues) spreading from Portugal to Timor. It’s also interesting to observe how OC manages to appear in the coverage of an event in Mozambique, which was being thoroughly covered by Mozambican bloggers in situ.

At first sight, one might be tempted to conclude that these trends reflect a lack of diversity of African-based blogs written in Portuguese. However, as it can be gathered from this list (where, incidentally, my blog doesn’t figure and, by their own admission, is “manipulated” by… exactly, OC), or from this one (where my blog is also not listed) that is not the case.

It is abundantly clear that the GVO “Portuguese-speaking Africa” editorial line is inspired by the concept of “lusofonia”. However, this raises a number of issues, starting with this: just imagine that you are a South African blogger systematically seeing events happening at your doorstep, and that you also blogged about, reported at GVO by British, Nigerian or American bloggers simply because they too are English-speaking and read about it in the conventional mainstream media, or in your own blog? Or that you are a Maurician or Malgache Creole-speaking citizen who finds your local issues covered at GVO by Gabonese, Algerian or Haitian bloggers, in French, just because their countries are also former French colonies? And this kind of examples could go on and on.

But perhaps the most problematic implication of that approach is that the concept of “lusofonia” itself is a highly contentious one and is far from reuniting consensus in all countries involved – not least because, on the one end, the majority of the African populations in those countries are primarily speakers of their own national languages and, on the other, the concept is highly reminiscent of the Portuguese colonial state’s imperial ideology, according to which there was a single “cultural unit” from Minho (extreme North of Portugal) to Timor - as reflected by the spread of the "OC blogging empire"...

The controversy generated by that approach can be gathered, for instance, from this article by a Mozambican professor of African Literatures at a Portuguese University, or from an article by a Brazilian writer and senior government official, whose link can be found on this post, or from another article by the Mozambican author Joao Craveirinha, whose link can be found on this post. However, these ponderous critical perspectives are unceremoniously dismissed as “gritaria” by the Portuguese language editorial team at GVO, which happens to be exclusively integrated by Brazilian citizens.

Now, on the question of who gets to determine, and under whose criteria, which are “the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens’ media around the world”, as per the GVO “Primary Goals”?, let’s just look at some examples taken at random:

- How is it decided that this criticism of the publication for the first time in the Portuguese market of a magazine directed at African women is “more interesting” than, say, the criticisms arising from this, or this?

- How is it decided that this treatment of the “Miss Landmine Angola Pageant” is “more interesting” than, say, this one?

- How is it decided that this presentation of an Angolan music/dance genre is “more interesting” than, say, this one (where the main message is that “Angola is good for everybody except for Angolans”), or any of these (where the rising voices and social consciousness of a new generation of Angolan musicians appear loud and clear)?

- How is it decided that this tribute to Ian Smith is “more interesting”, than, say, something like this?

- How is it decided that this anonymous email message is credible and "more interesting" than any other possible account of the reality on the ground, such as these, or any of these?

- How is it decided that this account of the EU-Africa Summit is "more interesting than, say, this one?

- How is it decided that an event like this “is not interesting”?

Finally, how can GVO’s “loud silence” about this event be explained? The same GVO whose mission includes things like, “shining light on places and people other media often ignore (…) to make sense of it all, and to highlight things that bloggers are saying which mainstream media may not be reporting (…) to help people speak out in places where powerful forces would prevent them from doing so (…) and to enable more people whose voices and views are not heard to speak out online.”

The same GVO where articles like this, for example, can be read?

*N.B.: To be accurate, in all 6 instances where my blog appears on GVO links during the period under analysis, it was not on the initiative of the Portuguese-language editorial team. So, they shouldn't be included in this graph because, for all intents and purposes, this blog was excluded from their reporting in the last six months.