"MANIFESTO PELO DIREITO A VIDA" [R]* - CORRIGIDO

I had initially written this as a comment to this post but, on good advice, decided to post it separately. Because it is never enough to stress the importance, relevance and accuracy of messages like Malavoloneke’s here, I must do just that: stress it!
But, let’s not make any mistakes: I am also a good friend of Fernando’s.
With him I shared the anguishes that led many Angolan students in Portugal to bring about a “Manifesto for the Right to Live”, for which we went door to door to collect thousands of signatures from the Angolan community and friends of Angola in Portugal and held a well attended vigil in one of Lisbon’s main squares, which counted with such references of our national culture as Raul Indipwo, his own father, Jorge Macedo, and others, calling for a halt to the hostilities that followed the 1992 elections and for a lasting peace and true democracy in our country.
Supporting him I was, a few months later, in the hunger strike he and other Angolan students held in front of the Angolan Embassy in Lisbon to protest at the victimisation students were being subjected to as a result of the intolerance and political violence that marked those times in our national life. With him I traveled, some time later, to Brussels, to spread our message and express our desire for peace at the headquarters of the European Union. To him I suggested, a few years later in Luanda, when he asked my opinion about it, that it would be better for him to go to pursue his studies and leave the political/civic struggles aside for a while – this particular episode happened when he was working in the same office as Rafael Marques, under the auspices of the Open Society, and it would be particularly interesting to observe the evolution Marques’ relationship with that organisation had in more recent years...
For him I was happy when he let me know some time later that he was in Boston post-graduating in Law. To him go my praises for all the courage and strength he shows in fighting for Justice, Peace and Democracy in our country!
However… however, in this occasion, I subscribe to Malavoloneke’s message to him. And deep down in my heart I believe that Fernando also subscribes to it, at least for this once. For this peace we so longed for. For that right to live that we called for so earthly sixteen years ago! And that message was and is very simple:

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!



2. While I was living those moments with Fernando, I was also sharing (or had shared) momentous experiences with such ‘Mais Velhos’ from our country’s political history as Mario Pinto de Andrade, Manuel Lima and Daniel Chipenda (it was straight from this late Angolan nationalist's family home that I left, totally exhausted spiritually and psychologically, more than a decade ago, Lisbon to London, where I’ve been based ever since to rebuild, literally piece by piece, my then totally shattered life and from where I’ve been trying to give whatever contribution I can to our country and to our continent, until I can finally return home without fears of seeing my life shattered all over again for whatever reason – it is thus to protect my ‘right to live’ that I am forced, again, to stay abroad for a while longer. You see, unlike others, no matter what passport we may be using, we cannot disguise or conceal our identity: it is imprinted in our skin, our mind, our memory, our soul, our diction, our culture).

With them and others, I learned many of the lessons they had accumulated along about half a century of struggles for liberation, peace and development in Africa. Through them I’ve learned something essential about ourselves: for all the differences in their individual trajectories and standings in the nationalist movement, there was one commonality – our future can only be dictated by our own past, culture and history.
It was from them, among others, and from my own life experiences prior and after meeting them, that I got this sense of just how right Malavoloneke is in saying: “Therefore, I would like you to understand that we all need ways out. Ways out that have also to be ways of hope. Ways of hope that do not need to be necessarily perfect, they just need to be necessarily ours. Created by us with the limitations that we have, created in our own context with our own specificities and created for our land with the adaptations that they might require, but not imposed by a theoretical script from any western country.”
It was what I learned from them (and, to be perfectly accurate, before them, with my father and grandparents) that helped me make sense, particularly looking at my own life, not just of the letters from Unita and Mpla militants that I’ve reproduced here but, above all, of the passages from Douglass North’s Economics Nobel Prize Lecture, which I placed in the comment’s space to this post.




*[Postado inicialmente a 01/09/08 - repostado a proposito do "DIA DA PAZ EM ANGOLA"]


POST RELACIONADO:

Ecos de Uma Guerra que (ainda?!) nao Acabou...


CORRECCAO:

Eis uma correccao que (antes tarde do que nunca…) se me impoe:

No texto acima menciono o Fernando Macedo como tendo participado no movimento dos estudantes ‘a volta daquele manifesto – que obteve mais de 5 mil assinaturas de Angolanos e Amigos de Angola em Portugal e o apoio de muitos compatriotas nossos no interior do pais e na diaspora e culminou numa vigilia com musica cantada na Praca da Figueira em Lisboa.

Devo, no entanto, sem com isto pretender de modo nenhum menosprezar o activismo estudantil do Fernando Macedo naquela altura, corrigir esse lapso: o Fernando Macedo, tanto quanto me lembro, nao esteve envolvido, pelo menos directamente, naquele movimento. O “Manifesto” foi escrito em minha casa, por mim com a contribuicao de outros estudantes que la’ comigo se reuniam. Nao tenho memoria de o Fernando alguma vez ter estado em minha casa em Lisboa, nem de ter participado nas nossas reunioes – talvez apenas porque ele se encontrava a estudar em Braga, se bem me recordo.

O pai dele, o falecido Jorge Macedo, esse sim, numa fase posterior, quando nos os estudantes ja’ tinhamos praticamente tudo feito, juntou-se a algumas das nossas reunioes, tal como alguns outros mais-velhos, como o Raul Indipwo – que tambem cantou na Praca da Figueira no dia da vigilia.

As minhas desculpas ao Fernando, mas o meu lapso ficou a dever-se ao facto de a minha memoria sobre os meus ultimos anos em Portugal apenas agora se estar gradualmente a reconstruir.

APS

P.S.: Ja’ agora, agradeco a quem porventura tenha uma copia do “Manifesto” que me a envie por email. Agradecimentos antecipados.

I had initially written this as a comment to this post but, on good advice, decided to post it separately. Because it is never enough to stress the importance, relevance and accuracy of messages like Malavoloneke’s here, I must do just that: stress it!
But, let’s not make any mistakes: I am also a good friend of Fernando’s.
With him I shared the anguishes that led many Angolan students in Portugal to bring about a “Manifesto for the Right to Live”, for which we went door to door to collect thousands of signatures from the Angolan community and friends of Angola in Portugal and held a well attended vigil in one of Lisbon’s main squares, which counted with such references of our national culture as Raul Indipwo, his own father, Jorge Macedo, and others, calling for a halt to the hostilities that followed the 1992 elections and for a lasting peace and true democracy in our country.
Supporting him I was, a few months later, in the hunger strike he and other Angolan students held in front of the Angolan Embassy in Lisbon to protest at the victimisation students were being subjected to as a result of the intolerance and political violence that marked those times in our national life. With him I traveled, some time later, to Brussels, to spread our message and express our desire for peace at the headquarters of the European Union. To him I suggested, a few years later in Luanda, when he asked my opinion about it, that it would be better for him to go to pursue his studies and leave the political/civic struggles aside for a while – this particular episode happened when he was working in the same office as Rafael Marques, under the auspices of the Open Society, and it would be particularly interesting to observe the evolution Marques’ relationship with that organisation had in more recent years...
For him I was happy when he let me know some time later that he was in Boston post-graduating in Law. To him go my praises for all the courage and strength he shows in fighting for Justice, Peace and Democracy in our country!
However… however, in this occasion, I subscribe to Malavoloneke’s message to him. And deep down in my heart I believe that Fernando also subscribes to it, at least for this once. For this peace we so longed for. For that right to live that we called for so earthly sixteen years ago! And that message was and is very simple:

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!



2. While I was living those moments with Fernando, I was also sharing (or had shared) momentous experiences with such ‘Mais Velhos’ from our country’s political history as Mario Pinto de Andrade, Manuel Lima and Daniel Chipenda (it was straight from this late Angolan nationalist's family home that I left, totally exhausted spiritually and psychologically, more than a decade ago, Lisbon to London, where I’ve been based ever since to rebuild, literally piece by piece, my then totally shattered life and from where I’ve been trying to give whatever contribution I can to our country and to our continent, until I can finally return home without fears of seeing my life shattered all over again for whatever reason – it is thus to protect my ‘right to live’ that I am forced, again, to stay abroad for a while longer. You see, unlike others, no matter what passport we may be using, we cannot disguise or conceal our identity: it is imprinted in our skin, our mind, our memory, our soul, our diction, our culture).

With them and others, I learned many of the lessons they had accumulated along about half a century of struggles for liberation, peace and development in Africa. Through them I’ve learned something essential about ourselves: for all the differences in their individual trajectories and standings in the nationalist movement, there was one commonality – our future can only be dictated by our own past, culture and history.
It was from them, among others, and from my own life experiences prior and after meeting them, that I got this sense of just how right Malavoloneke is in saying: “Therefore, I would like you to understand that we all need ways out. Ways out that have also to be ways of hope. Ways of hope that do not need to be necessarily perfect, they just need to be necessarily ours. Created by us with the limitations that we have, created in our own context with our own specificities and created for our land with the adaptations that they might require, but not imposed by a theoretical script from any western country.”
It was what I learned from them (and, to be perfectly accurate, before them, with my father and grandparents) that helped me make sense, particularly looking at my own life, not just of the letters from Unita and Mpla militants that I’ve reproduced here but, above all, of the passages from Douglass North’s Economics Nobel Prize Lecture, which I placed in the comment’s space to this post.




*[Postado inicialmente a 01/09/08 - repostado a proposito do "DIA DA PAZ EM ANGOLA"]


POST RELACIONADO:

Ecos de Uma Guerra que (ainda?!) nao Acabou...


CORRECCAO:

Eis uma correccao que (antes tarde do que nunca…) se me impoe:

No texto acima menciono o Fernando Macedo como tendo participado no movimento dos estudantes ‘a volta daquele manifesto – que obteve mais de 5 mil assinaturas de Angolanos e Amigos de Angola em Portugal e o apoio de muitos compatriotas nossos no interior do pais e na diaspora e culminou numa vigilia com musica cantada na Praca da Figueira em Lisboa.

Devo, no entanto, sem com isto pretender de modo nenhum menosprezar o activismo estudantil do Fernando Macedo naquela altura, corrigir esse lapso: o Fernando Macedo, tanto quanto me lembro, nao esteve envolvido, pelo menos directamente, naquele movimento. O “Manifesto” foi escrito em minha casa, por mim com a contribuicao de outros estudantes que la’ comigo se reuniam. Nao tenho memoria de o Fernando alguma vez ter estado em minha casa em Lisboa, nem de ter participado nas nossas reunioes – talvez apenas porque ele se encontrava a estudar em Braga, se bem me recordo.

O pai dele, o falecido Jorge Macedo, esse sim, numa fase posterior, quando nos os estudantes ja’ tinhamos praticamente tudo feito, juntou-se a algumas das nossas reunioes, tal como alguns outros mais-velhos, como o Raul Indipwo – que tambem cantou na Praca da Figueira no dia da vigilia.

As minhas desculpas ao Fernando, mas o meu lapso ficou a dever-se ao facto de a minha memoria sobre os meus ultimos anos em Portugal apenas agora se estar gradualmente a reconstruir.

APS

P.S.: Ja’ agora, agradeco a quem porventura tenha uma copia do “Manifesto” que me a envie por email. Agradecimentos antecipados.

Media Freedom(s): Quo Vadis? (III) [R]*

[Continued from: Part I and Part II]


Journalists spend most of their time asking other people questions. But there are also plenty of questions we in the media should be asking ourselves.

[here]



Hate Becomes a Commodity

One of the plagues of human history has been the belief that there are certain people or groups of people who don't share the same moral status as everyone else, when it comes to the kind of treatment they receive. These individuals and groups are society's scapegoats. Traditionally, they have been subjected to symbolic violence, in which they have been depicted in words and images and other forms of expression in degraded ways. Beyond that, they were often subjected to physical violence, as well, depending on the society and the scapegoats in question.
The list of individuals and scapegoats who have been forced into these roles is legion. They are the innocent and the guilty; the mad and the sane. They are Jews, blacks, Christians, pagans, heretics of all sorts, political critics and criminals, saints and scientists, et al.

Today, we see a new variation on this endless historical game of dehumanization and degradation. Now, we have a political system and media that gain much of their profit and power by turning public figures into scapegoats, arousing the emotions of anger, ridicule and disdain in audiences and voters. But beyond them, there is, in this system, now, incessant pressure to generate scapegoats -- to invent fools and villains for public consumption, so as to win political contests, make money and receive public acclaim.

The right to not be smeared, worldwide; the right to not have one's suffering turned into a sadistic circus; the right to not be bombarded by insulting questions -- these and other rights we assume belong to the rest of us, fall by the wayside. To gather the information and images they need to create their stories, the perpetrators of this system violate a second set of rights as well -- rights to not have one's privacy invaded; to not be followed, pressed in on, surrounded, and turned into prey.

With the emergence of a worldwide media culture, this is now a global phenomenon. And information that can be used to damage people and put them in the scapegoat category (or further into the scapegoat category) has now, incredibly, become a form of wealth. With the proliferation of media and the Internet, which is turning millions of people into journalists of a sort, and into something much like a public figures, and with the growing use of surveillance technologies and computer files, this system now threatens to get completely out of control.

We are developing a global media system in which Hate is becoming a commodity. What is new about this system isn't that it manipulates hate to achieve various ends. Rather, it is the scale and pervasiveness and sophistication with which it does so, based on high-tech tools of communications and image manipulation. As a result, we are all being drawn into a worldwide virtual gladiator game in which the stakes are all too real for the victims and for everyone who must now live and be brought up in an environment that encourages many of humanity's worst instincts.

[here ]

The Ethical Reporter

There can be little doubt that the news media today is a force for truth. But like most of the works of man, it is also immersed in the cycle of violence, misperception and transference that governs human affairs. The task of journalism is to grow beyond the untruth of sadism and submission, while strengthening the healthy alternatives of independent and ethical reporting.

At its best, such an ethical and independent reporting would be motivated by a desire to tell the truth and defend right, to defend the genuine moral order, rather than get revenge for past wrongs. Reporters working in such a system would be concerned with the triumph of truth, as a force that can free people and enlarge the realm of justice, rather than with the triumph of the injured self at the expense of other people.

In its ideal state, this kind of reporting is a form of non-neurotic behavior. It is the expression of a mature, adult personality, able to use its considerable powers to grow and improve the world. A reporter who fits this description can’t help but expose wrong – he does so merely by honestly describing the untruth he sees around him.

[here and more here]

*[First posted 24/09/10]

[Continued from: Part I and Part II]


Journalists spend most of their time asking other people questions. But there are also plenty of questions we in the media should be asking ourselves.

[here]



Hate Becomes a Commodity

One of the plagues of human history has been the belief that there are certain people or groups of people who don't share the same moral status as everyone else, when it comes to the kind of treatment they receive. These individuals and groups are society's scapegoats. Traditionally, they have been subjected to symbolic violence, in which they have been depicted in words and images and other forms of expression in degraded ways. Beyond that, they were often subjected to physical violence, as well, depending on the society and the scapegoats in question.
The list of individuals and scapegoats who have been forced into these roles is legion. They are the innocent and the guilty; the mad and the sane. They are Jews, blacks, Christians, pagans, heretics of all sorts, political critics and criminals, saints and scientists, et al.

Today, we see a new variation on this endless historical game of dehumanization and degradation. Now, we have a political system and media that gain much of their profit and power by turning public figures into scapegoats, arousing the emotions of anger, ridicule and disdain in audiences and voters. But beyond them, there is, in this system, now, incessant pressure to generate scapegoats -- to invent fools and villains for public consumption, so as to win political contests, make money and receive public acclaim.

The right to not be smeared, worldwide; the right to not have one's suffering turned into a sadistic circus; the right to not be bombarded by insulting questions -- these and other rights we assume belong to the rest of us, fall by the wayside. To gather the information and images they need to create their stories, the perpetrators of this system violate a second set of rights as well -- rights to not have one's privacy invaded; to not be followed, pressed in on, surrounded, and turned into prey.

With the emergence of a worldwide media culture, this is now a global phenomenon. And information that can be used to damage people and put them in the scapegoat category (or further into the scapegoat category) has now, incredibly, become a form of wealth. With the proliferation of media and the Internet, which is turning millions of people into journalists of a sort, and into something much like a public figures, and with the growing use of surveillance technologies and computer files, this system now threatens to get completely out of control.

We are developing a global media system in which Hate is becoming a commodity. What is new about this system isn't that it manipulates hate to achieve various ends. Rather, it is the scale and pervasiveness and sophistication with which it does so, based on high-tech tools of communications and image manipulation. As a result, we are all being drawn into a worldwide virtual gladiator game in which the stakes are all too real for the victims and for everyone who must now live and be brought up in an environment that encourages many of humanity's worst instincts.

[here ]

The Ethical Reporter

There can be little doubt that the news media today is a force for truth. But like most of the works of man, it is also immersed in the cycle of violence, misperception and transference that governs human affairs. The task of journalism is to grow beyond the untruth of sadism and submission, while strengthening the healthy alternatives of independent and ethical reporting.

At its best, such an ethical and independent reporting would be motivated by a desire to tell the truth and defend right, to defend the genuine moral order, rather than get revenge for past wrongs. Reporters working in such a system would be concerned with the triumph of truth, as a force that can free people and enlarge the realm of justice, rather than with the triumph of the injured self at the expense of other people.

In its ideal state, this kind of reporting is a form of non-neurotic behavior. It is the expression of a mature, adult personality, able to use its considerable powers to grow and improve the world. A reporter who fits this description can’t help but expose wrong – he does so merely by honestly describing the untruth he sees around him.

[here and more here]

*[First posted 24/09/10]

Media Freedom(s): Quo Vadis? (II) [R]*

If Freud were alive today and in front of a television, he might well experience a shock of recognition. After all, today’s television news media bears a significant similarity to the agency of mind that Freud referred to as the super-ego.

Like the super-ego, the self-righteous press is on constant duty, routing out minor and not-so-minor sins of the past and present, and then engaging in an orgy of punishment and denunciation against those who have strayed from the path of perfection. In interviews, whether they are the raw material for news stories or the finished product of televised news shows, journalists probe for the sensitive spots of interviewees, with an unerring radar, often focusing on trivial issues and marshalling their evidence like prosecuting attorneys.

Like the super-ego, the news media's self-righteousness masks its own sin of sadism and its own behind-the-scenes agreements with the very forces it so vehemently denounces. It portrays itself as the upholder of right and routinely disguises attacks as questions or reports, even as it savages the reputations of those it covers. But then the super-ego also does most of its best work under cover and perhaps for some of the same reasons.


Sadism, Insensitivity and Grandiosity


It is ironic that journalists, who place so much emphasis on the ethical lapses of those they cover, are themselves so prone to sadism, insensitivity and feelings of grandiosity.

They are further estranged from the world by what they create, which is a kind of unreality. They process and filter real events, creating a distorted reflection that condenses the drama and pain of life into a form of entertainment or at least a product that is entertaining. This unreality then has a profound impact on real events. It changes reality and, in its distorted way, records the change.

The ability to affect events without being affected and, in particular, the ability to cause pain without being touched by it, creates conditions that can encourage sadism, insensitivity and grandiosity. Regarding the first possibility, the conditions of journalism bear a striking resemblance to the conditions of physical torture. Reporters and torturers both have the capacity to hurt people who have little or no ability to strike back. It is of no great concern to the torturer whether he engages his victim before or after lunch, or aims his ministrations at one part of the body or another. Death now or death later, blindness first or broken bones - none of it affects his condition.

But the victim is in a desperate fight for life. His world congeals around what the torturer will do next. Every move is a matter of world shattering consequence, as the victim suffers and simultaneously watches the sadist enjoy his own freedom from concern.

True sadists, who enjoy inflicting pain, experience torture as a game and the victim as a toy. The ability to gloat, to taunt, to revel in their own invulnerability and compare it to the victim's enslavement to what they will do next, are part of the essence of sadism.

In journalism, the torture is applied to the victim's reputation, his public image and credibility.

These pathological behaviors are counterbalanced by moral desires experienced by the journalist and by conflicts and constraints created by society and the job. The urge to insensitivity and sadism is held in check by urges to become involved in events and by normal human decency and compassion. And they are held in check by fears of retaliation and desires to win favor from politicians. Grandiosity is counterbalanced by the normal enjoyment of success and power and a realistic assessment of the limits of the job and of oneself.

[here]


How Discrediting Attacks Are Disguised


Given everything that has been said so far, it is obvious that discrediting attacks, whatever their motive, generally take place under heavy disguise. First, the attacker must portray his attack as an attempt to support the order of values of society by exposing a violator who deserves to be exposed, in essence enhancing his own image as he assaults another's. If this were all there were to these disguise, we might have an easier time discerning the role of discredit, domination, assertiveness and sadism in public life.

But the disguise of motives is often supplemented by a far more insidious deception, one that masks the fact that an attack is taking place at all or that the journalist or attacker is the one making the attack. Journalists and other communicators often portray themselves as merely asking questions, reporting what others say or describing events, when everyone knows a verbal mugging is actually taking place that may leave the designated victim stripped of the self-defense provided by an effective image.

Fortunately, these disguises tend to be very transparent once one begins to identify the various games and strategies that are being used. Once that has been achieved, we can begin to expose these disguised attempts to expose others; we can discredit these disguised attempts to discredit; and hold these attempts to embarrass others up to embarrassing scrutiny.

If all this sounds familiar, it is because what we will be doing is applying a more sophisticated version of the techniques used by journalists, themselves, turning the tables on the great table-turners and holding them up to a kind of scrutiny that reveals the degree to which our media and public culture are steeped in both dishonesty and cruelty.


[here]


*[First posted 24/09/10]

If Freud were alive today and in front of a television, he might well experience a shock of recognition. After all, today’s television news media bears a significant similarity to the agency of mind that Freud referred to as the super-ego.

Like the super-ego, the self-righteous press is on constant duty, routing out minor and not-so-minor sins of the past and present, and then engaging in an orgy of punishment and denunciation against those who have strayed from the path of perfection. In interviews, whether they are the raw material for news stories or the finished product of televised news shows, journalists probe for the sensitive spots of interviewees, with an unerring radar, often focusing on trivial issues and marshalling their evidence like prosecuting attorneys.

Like the super-ego, the news media's self-righteousness masks its own sin of sadism and its own behind-the-scenes agreements with the very forces it so vehemently denounces. It portrays itself as the upholder of right and routinely disguises attacks as questions or reports, even as it savages the reputations of those it covers. But then the super-ego also does most of its best work under cover and perhaps for some of the same reasons.


Sadism, Insensitivity and Grandiosity


It is ironic that journalists, who place so much emphasis on the ethical lapses of those they cover, are themselves so prone to sadism, insensitivity and feelings of grandiosity.

They are further estranged from the world by what they create, which is a kind of unreality. They process and filter real events, creating a distorted reflection that condenses the drama and pain of life into a form of entertainment or at least a product that is entertaining. This unreality then has a profound impact on real events. It changes reality and, in its distorted way, records the change.

The ability to affect events without being affected and, in particular, the ability to cause pain without being touched by it, creates conditions that can encourage sadism, insensitivity and grandiosity. Regarding the first possibility, the conditions of journalism bear a striking resemblance to the conditions of physical torture. Reporters and torturers both have the capacity to hurt people who have little or no ability to strike back. It is of no great concern to the torturer whether he engages his victim before or after lunch, or aims his ministrations at one part of the body or another. Death now or death later, blindness first or broken bones - none of it affects his condition.

But the victim is in a desperate fight for life. His world congeals around what the torturer will do next. Every move is a matter of world shattering consequence, as the victim suffers and simultaneously watches the sadist enjoy his own freedom from concern.

True sadists, who enjoy inflicting pain, experience torture as a game and the victim as a toy. The ability to gloat, to taunt, to revel in their own invulnerability and compare it to the victim's enslavement to what they will do next, are part of the essence of sadism.

In journalism, the torture is applied to the victim's reputation, his public image and credibility.

These pathological behaviors are counterbalanced by moral desires experienced by the journalist and by conflicts and constraints created by society and the job. The urge to insensitivity and sadism is held in check by urges to become involved in events and by normal human decency and compassion. And they are held in check by fears of retaliation and desires to win favor from politicians. Grandiosity is counterbalanced by the normal enjoyment of success and power and a realistic assessment of the limits of the job and of oneself.

[here]


How Discrediting Attacks Are Disguised


Given everything that has been said so far, it is obvious that discrediting attacks, whatever their motive, generally take place under heavy disguise. First, the attacker must portray his attack as an attempt to support the order of values of society by exposing a violator who deserves to be exposed, in essence enhancing his own image as he assaults another's. If this were all there were to these disguise, we might have an easier time discerning the role of discredit, domination, assertiveness and sadism in public life.

But the disguise of motives is often supplemented by a far more insidious deception, one that masks the fact that an attack is taking place at all or that the journalist or attacker is the one making the attack. Journalists and other communicators often portray themselves as merely asking questions, reporting what others say or describing events, when everyone knows a verbal mugging is actually taking place that may leave the designated victim stripped of the self-defense provided by an effective image.

Fortunately, these disguises tend to be very transparent once one begins to identify the various games and strategies that are being used. Once that has been achieved, we can begin to expose these disguised attempts to expose others; we can discredit these disguised attempts to discredit; and hold these attempts to embarrass others up to embarrassing scrutiny.

If all this sounds familiar, it is because what we will be doing is applying a more sophisticated version of the techniques used by journalists, themselves, turning the tables on the great table-turners and holding them up to a kind of scrutiny that reveals the degree to which our media and public culture are steeped in both dishonesty and cruelty.


[here]


*[First posted 24/09/10]

Media Freedom(s): Quo Vadis? (I) [R]*

Why do so many journalists find it so hard to handle public criticism? If you’re an athlete, you’re used to it. If you’re an artist, critics will regularly take you down. If you are in government, the pundits and now the bloggers will show no mercy. If you’re in business, the market will punish you.

In all these cases, the seasoned professional learns to deal with it. But over and over today, we encounter the sorry spectacle of distinguished reporters losing it when their work is publicly attacked — or columnists sneering at the feedback they get in poorly moderated web comments.

I would argue that the difficulty journalists have with hearing or responding to criticism lies in the profession’s pathological heritage of self-abnegation. We say, “To err is human,” right? But journalists too often work inside an institutional culture which says to them, “Be inhuman.” Do not have opinions — and if you do, for god’s sake don’t share them. Do not attend protests or take stands on issues. Do not vote; or, if you do, don’t tell anyone whom you voted for.

The good soldier journalists buy into this acculturation. They suppress their own individuality and perspectives. They subsume their own work into the larger editorial “we,” and learn to refer to themselves as “this reporter” instead of using the personal pronoun. When something goes wrong with the system they are a part of, when the little piece of journalism they have added to the larger edifice comes under attack for some flaw, they count on the edifice to protect them.

But no longer. Reasonable criticism of news coverage can now be published as easily online as the original reports, and the public expects media outlets to respond. Many editors and reporters understand that a new approach to accountability simply makes sense. So the institutions have begun, haltingly but significantly, to open up.

But many individual journalists find themselves at sea when called upon to explain mistakes, defend choices and engage in discussions with their readers and critics. Nothing in their professional lives has prepared them for this. In fact, a lot of their professional training explicitly taught them that all of this was dangerous, unprofessional, bad. They grew up thinking — and some still think — that the professional thing to do, when questioned in public, is (a) don’t respond at all; (b) respond with “no comment — we stand by our story”; or if things get really bad (c) your editor will do the talking.

Unfortunately, this means that the typical blogger has more experience dealing with criticism — measuring a reasonable response, managing trolls and restraining the urge to flame — than the typical newsroom journalist.

The next time you see some seasoned journalist lose his bearings when called upon to discuss or defend his work, chalk it up to inexperience, not stupidity or rudeness.

[here]

Principles of Media Criticism

Media criticism is in an undeveloped state, today, largely because the mainstream media allows virtually no open discussion of the subject. Some criticism does get to the public, of course, but most of it is corrupted by the same forces that have turned the rest of the media into a source of manipulation.
The selections below attempt to correct this conspiracy of silence by offering readers an introduction to the field that will allow them to see the larger trends that define much of the media. The selections focus on the following characteristics of contemporary culture and society:

* The fact that all centers of power today rely on media and that all use sensory manipulations and simulations, along with story lines, rhetoric, and performances to sell audiences products, candidates and ideas.

* The fact that most media, today, from news to advertising, rely on spectacle, simplification and exaggeration to grab and hold audiences.

* The fact that much of media is beset by idealization and demonization in which media manipulators depict themselves and their allies as heroes and saints, and their opponents or targets as villains, fools and disturbed characters, both to create exciting stories and win battles.

* The fact that the media today is pervaded by missing information. What is missing is precisely the information above, which would discredit the system and result in reforms that would lock out many of those who now work the system for their own benefit.

* The fact that the news media has become a part of the power and economic system that it is supposed to report on. Instead of standing at a distance from events and trying to provide an accurate account, all too often it is just another inside player manipulating information for its own ends. This not only means that media companies have a conflict of interest but also that journalists who would prefer to be honest end up subordinating themselves to those in power in their own organizations and shaping their coverage accordingly. It also means that media criticism that isn't afraid to report on what is taking place is now essential to the maintenance of democracy.

* The fact that all media today is a form of action. Stories, rhetoric, sensory images and manipulated impressions are all efforts to influence people's perceptions and action, evoke fears and desires, and play to values. The omission of information from the media is a form of action, as well.

* Finally, the fact that the media today is also full of efforts to get at the truth, which are often disguised or limited in various ways. Many of these efforts to tell the public the truth can be found in the fictions of movies and television which openly depict the con artist culture we now live in and the corruption of the media.

These propositions have to form the core of any theory of media criticism and any theory that seeks to describe contemporary society. The following selections are intended to provide overviews that will introduce and expand on these ideas.

[here]

*[First posted 24/09/10]

Why do so many journalists find it so hard to handle public criticism? If you’re an athlete, you’re used to it. If you’re an artist, critics will regularly take you down. If you are in government, the pundits and now the bloggers will show no mercy. If you’re in business, the market will punish you.

In all these cases, the seasoned professional learns to deal with it. But over and over today, we encounter the sorry spectacle of distinguished reporters losing it when their work is publicly attacked — or columnists sneering at the feedback they get in poorly moderated web comments.

I would argue that the difficulty journalists have with hearing or responding to criticism lies in the profession’s pathological heritage of self-abnegation. We say, “To err is human,” right? But journalists too often work inside an institutional culture which says to them, “Be inhuman.” Do not have opinions — and if you do, for god’s sake don’t share them. Do not attend protests or take stands on issues. Do not vote; or, if you do, don’t tell anyone whom you voted for.

The good soldier journalists buy into this acculturation. They suppress their own individuality and perspectives. They subsume their own work into the larger editorial “we,” and learn to refer to themselves as “this reporter” instead of using the personal pronoun. When something goes wrong with the system they are a part of, when the little piece of journalism they have added to the larger edifice comes under attack for some flaw, they count on the edifice to protect them.

But no longer. Reasonable criticism of news coverage can now be published as easily online as the original reports, and the public expects media outlets to respond. Many editors and reporters understand that a new approach to accountability simply makes sense. So the institutions have begun, haltingly but significantly, to open up.

But many individual journalists find themselves at sea when called upon to explain mistakes, defend choices and engage in discussions with their readers and critics. Nothing in their professional lives has prepared them for this. In fact, a lot of their professional training explicitly taught them that all of this was dangerous, unprofessional, bad. They grew up thinking — and some still think — that the professional thing to do, when questioned in public, is (a) don’t respond at all; (b) respond with “no comment — we stand by our story”; or if things get really bad (c) your editor will do the talking.

Unfortunately, this means that the typical blogger has more experience dealing with criticism — measuring a reasonable response, managing trolls and restraining the urge to flame — than the typical newsroom journalist.

The next time you see some seasoned journalist lose his bearings when called upon to discuss or defend his work, chalk it up to inexperience, not stupidity or rudeness.

[here]

Principles of Media Criticism

Media criticism is in an undeveloped state, today, largely because the mainstream media allows virtually no open discussion of the subject. Some criticism does get to the public, of course, but most of it is corrupted by the same forces that have turned the rest of the media into a source of manipulation.
The selections below attempt to correct this conspiracy of silence by offering readers an introduction to the field that will allow them to see the larger trends that define much of the media. The selections focus on the following characteristics of contemporary culture and society:

* The fact that all centers of power today rely on media and that all use sensory manipulations and simulations, along with story lines, rhetoric, and performances to sell audiences products, candidates and ideas.

* The fact that most media, today, from news to advertising, rely on spectacle, simplification and exaggeration to grab and hold audiences.

* The fact that much of media is beset by idealization and demonization in which media manipulators depict themselves and their allies as heroes and saints, and their opponents or targets as villains, fools and disturbed characters, both to create exciting stories and win battles.

* The fact that the media today is pervaded by missing information. What is missing is precisely the information above, which would discredit the system and result in reforms that would lock out many of those who now work the system for their own benefit.

* The fact that the news media has become a part of the power and economic system that it is supposed to report on. Instead of standing at a distance from events and trying to provide an accurate account, all too often it is just another inside player manipulating information for its own ends. This not only means that media companies have a conflict of interest but also that journalists who would prefer to be honest end up subordinating themselves to those in power in their own organizations and shaping their coverage accordingly. It also means that media criticism that isn't afraid to report on what is taking place is now essential to the maintenance of democracy.

* The fact that all media today is a form of action. Stories, rhetoric, sensory images and manipulated impressions are all efforts to influence people's perceptions and action, evoke fears and desires, and play to values. The omission of information from the media is a form of action, as well.

* Finally, the fact that the media today is also full of efforts to get at the truth, which are often disguised or limited in various ways. Many of these efforts to tell the public the truth can be found in the fictions of movies and television which openly depict the con artist culture we now live in and the corruption of the media.

These propositions have to form the core of any theory of media criticism and any theory that seeks to describe contemporary society. The following selections are intended to provide overviews that will introduce and expand on these ideas.

[here]

*[First posted 24/09/10]

"E Se........................?"

Totalmente "a desproposito" e extemporaneamente, breve referencia a este artigo de Luzia Moniz, publicado na edicao #292 de 22-29/11/2008 do Semanario Angolense:*

* [Por curiosidade, nao so', mas tambem, porque essa nao foi de facto "a primeira replica ao artigo matricial" - alias, e perdoe-se-me a "presuncao", tenho muitas razoes - mas especialmente o uso que nele fez do "sejamos claros" (que e' tambem como dizia, entre outros pre-datados, um certo alto espirita: "o problema que estamos com ele"...), que usei neste artigo, datado de 07/11/08, em relacao a questao central do "significado racial da vitoria de Obama" - para supor que o artigo de MC, publicado uma semana depois, nao tera' sido assim tao "matricial" quanto a primeira vista parecera', mas... como soi dizer-se, presuncao e agua benta cada um toma a que quer...), daquela mesma edicao decidi seleccionar um outro artigo que aqui entao postei - do que me viria a arrepender seriamente! E' que na altura ainda "nao sabia bem o que me esperava"!... E ja' agora: porque sera' que tambem nao 'reclamam' de o artigo da Luzia Moniz nao ter sido reproduzido na Africa 21?! ... Claramente Dois Pesos e Duas Medidas!!! Ai complexos, complexos... E se............. ?!]

"Comentario 1": Este blog nao so' nao e', nem se pretende, um "orgao de comunicacao social" formal ou "caixa de ressonancia" de tudo quanto e' publicado na imprensa lusofona ou de qualquer outro espaco linguistico ou geografico, como tambem nao e' patrocinado pelo Departamento de Estado Norte-Americano, estando a sua autora muito longe de ser representante da "comunidade internacional", ou porta-voz de Hillary Clinton ou de Assuncao dos Anjos [cujos governos se encontram actualmente engajados na estruturacao da sua "parceria estrategica" -- assunto que seria muito 'mais propositado', 'menos extemporaneo' e mais 'audaz' de ser tratado (e o que se segue nada tem a ver com a Luzia Moniz) por certas aspirantes a opinion makers nos orgaos de comunicacao social formal, mas que, quais elefantas numa loja de fina porcelana, nao conseguem passar de intriguistas irresponsaveis e copy-pasters e recyclers (para pior, excepto talvez no seu rebuscado e arcaico portugues de Camoes, o qual obviamente devem 'a sua "genuina portugalidade" ...), do (pouco!) que leem na diagonal nas introducoes e contracapas de livros alheios e das ideias, opinioes, informacoes, temas, debates, enfim, praticamente tudo que e' postado neste blog (excepto, obviamente, assuntos como "Viriato da Cruz e o PNCA", pois esses perigariam fatalmente os seus contratos de cooptacao actuais ou prospectivos com o poder!) - que aqui venhem, quais vultas famintas e piranhas mercenarias ensandecidas, todos os dias larapiar e rapinar a sorrelfa e a socapa!...] e, mais ainda, de se prestar a ser "comentarista" dos comentarios cobardemente nao assumidos ao que aqui e' publicado - excepto quando serias questoes eticas sao suscitadas por tais comentarios, nao apenas por isso, mas sobretudo por serem precisamente comentarios sistematicamente viciosos, insidiosos, dolosos, viperinos, traiçoeiros, raivosos, ofensivos, destrutivos, ameacadores, terroristas e, acima de tudo, remunerados (!) e nao provocados (!), em orgaos de comunicacao social formal!

"Comentario 2": Se ha' algum consolo de tudo isso, e' que pelo menos parecem estar a evoluir (ainda que apenas "a força", so' ate' ver e na maior parte so' para dizer disparates...): de cegueira partidaria para "independencia partidaria"... da intolerancia do convem sabermos sempre o que nos espera para "saudacoes especiais no dia internacional da tolerancia" e "o elogio do opinion maker"... do "intelectual revolucionario" ao "public intellectual", do poder popular e do 'voto nao secreto' para as "revolucoes tranquilas"... de Malcolm X, Marx e Said para Chomsky, Popper e Levi-Strauss... de etimologia para "epistemologia" e, pasme-se (!) ... de ideologia para "ciencia"!

Good, very good indeed!

Continuem a estagiar aqui, que um dia talvez cheguem la'... So' nao se esqueçam, mais uma vez, de creditar "a Sra. Professora" que, assim, aqui vai contribuindo incansavelmente para a "libertaçao das raparigas das amarras da discriminaçao a que sao votadas" !

Post Relacionado:

"E Se os Paises Africanos Fossem os EUA?"

(publicado aqui a 16/11/08 e referido aqui a 19/11/08).

Totalmente "a desproposito" e extemporaneamente, breve referencia a este artigo de Luzia Moniz, publicado na edicao #292 de 22-29/11/2008 do Semanario Angolense:*

* [Por curiosidade, nao so', mas tambem, porque essa nao foi de facto "a primeira replica ao artigo matricial" - alias, e perdoe-se-me a "presuncao", tenho muitas razoes - mas especialmente o uso que nele fez do "sejamos claros" (que e' tambem como dizia, entre outros pre-datados, um certo alto espirita: "o problema que estamos com ele"...), que usei neste artigo, datado de 07/11/08, em relacao a questao central do "significado racial da vitoria de Obama" - para supor que o artigo de MC, publicado uma semana depois, nao tera' sido assim tao "matricial" quanto a primeira vista parecera', mas... como soi dizer-se, presuncao e agua benta cada um toma a que quer...), daquela mesma edicao decidi seleccionar um outro artigo que aqui entao postei - do que me viria a arrepender seriamente! E' que na altura ainda "nao sabia bem o que me esperava"!... E ja' agora: porque sera' que tambem nao 'reclamam' de o artigo da Luzia Moniz nao ter sido reproduzido na Africa 21?! ... Claramente Dois Pesos e Duas Medidas!!! Ai complexos, complexos... E se............. ?!]

"Comentario 1": Este blog nao so' nao e', nem se pretende, um "orgao de comunicacao social" formal ou "caixa de ressonancia" de tudo quanto e' publicado na imprensa lusofona ou de qualquer outro espaco linguistico ou geografico, como tambem nao e' patrocinado pelo Departamento de Estado Norte-Americano, estando a sua autora muito longe de ser representante da "comunidade internacional", ou porta-voz de Hillary Clinton ou de Assuncao dos Anjos [cujos governos se encontram actualmente engajados na estruturacao da sua "parceria estrategica" -- assunto que seria muito 'mais propositado', 'menos extemporaneo' e mais 'audaz' de ser tratado (e o que se segue nada tem a ver com a Luzia Moniz) por certas aspirantes a opinion makers nos orgaos de comunicacao social formal, mas que, quais elefantas numa loja de fina porcelana, nao conseguem passar de intriguistas irresponsaveis e copy-pasters e recyclers (para pior, excepto talvez no seu rebuscado e arcaico portugues de Camoes, o qual obviamente devem 'a sua "genuina portugalidade" ...), do (pouco!) que leem na diagonal nas introducoes e contracapas de livros alheios e das ideias, opinioes, informacoes, temas, debates, enfim, praticamente tudo que e' postado neste blog (excepto, obviamente, assuntos como "Viriato da Cruz e o PNCA", pois esses perigariam fatalmente os seus contratos de cooptacao actuais ou prospectivos com o poder!) - que aqui venhem, quais vultas famintas e piranhas mercenarias ensandecidas, todos os dias larapiar e rapinar a sorrelfa e a socapa!...] e, mais ainda, de se prestar a ser "comentarista" dos comentarios cobardemente nao assumidos ao que aqui e' publicado - excepto quando serias questoes eticas sao suscitadas por tais comentarios, nao apenas por isso, mas sobretudo por serem precisamente comentarios sistematicamente viciosos, insidiosos, dolosos, viperinos, traiçoeiros, raivosos, ofensivos, destrutivos, ameacadores, terroristas e, acima de tudo, remunerados (!) e nao provocados (!), em orgaos de comunicacao social formal!

"Comentario 2": Se ha' algum consolo de tudo isso, e' que pelo menos parecem estar a evoluir (ainda que apenas "a força", so' ate' ver e na maior parte so' para dizer disparates...): de cegueira partidaria para "independencia partidaria"... da intolerancia do convem sabermos sempre o que nos espera para "saudacoes especiais no dia internacional da tolerancia" e "o elogio do opinion maker"... do "intelectual revolucionario" ao "public intellectual", do poder popular e do 'voto nao secreto' para as "revolucoes tranquilas"... de Malcolm X, Marx e Said para Chomsky, Popper e Levi-Strauss... de etimologia para "epistemologia" e, pasme-se (!) ... de ideologia para "ciencia"!

Good, very good indeed!

Continuem a estagiar aqui, que um dia talvez cheguem la'... So' nao se esqueçam, mais uma vez, de creditar "a Sra. Professora" que, assim, aqui vai contribuindo incansavelmente para a "libertaçao das raparigas das amarras da discriminaçao a que sao votadas" !

Post Relacionado:

"E Se os Paises Africanos Fossem os EUA?"

(publicado aqui a 16/11/08 e referido aqui a 19/11/08).

ECHOES FROM THE ANGOLAN PRESS (26 AND LAST)

Com um artigo meu que acaba de sair no ultimo numero do Semanario Angolense e ao qual dedicarei o proximo post, termino esta serie.

Deu-me muito prazer partilhar aqui as noticias da banda a medida que as ia lendo. Decidi faze-lo pelo prazer, mas tambem porque, vivendo como vivo ha' varios anos fora do pais, uma coisa que sempre me preocupa e' a forma como a informacao sobre Angola, e sobre Africa em geral, e' (mal)tratada em alguma (quase toda?) imprensa estrangeira (nao so' a ocidental).

Por isso tenho para mim que, apesar das insuficiencias de que a imprensa local possa sofrer neste ou naquele aspecto, ela deve ser, sempre que possivel, a primeira escolha para nos mantermos actualizados sobre o que realmente, mesmo que apenas atraves da leitura nas entrelinhas, se passa no terreno dos acontecimentos. Ela nao e', nem deve ser quanto a mim, a unica fonte de informacao sobre o pais, mas e' certamente uma fonte indispensavel.

Assim, espero ter contribuido com esta serie de alguma maneira para esse desiderato e tambem para demonstrar ao mundo (a dada altura pareceu-me que isso se tornara absolutamente necessario) que a imprensa Angolana, em particular a privada e/ou independente, is alive and kicking! O meu muito obrigada aos amigos que me facultaram essa possibilidade e espero que cada vez mais jornais e jornalistas Angolanos baseados em Angola passem a publicar online e a participar da blogosfera.

Blogosfera onde, by the way, ao contrario do que alguns parecem ter entendido, nunca me pretendi fazer passar por 'jornalista' - que de facto nao sou, nem pretendo ser, apesar da minha breve passagem pela profissao ha' ja' largos anos - e onde tambem ha' um debate muito interessante sobre as fronteiras entre o bloguismo e o jornalismo. Ja' agora gostaria de dizer que nao concordo inteiramente que se transporte completamente a pratica do jornalismo profissional dos jornais e de outros meios de informacao tradicionais para os blogs, a menos que tais meios de informacao tradicionais, como acontece com praticamente todos os jornais no ocidente, tenham os seus proprios sites online e a eles associem os seus blogs, continuando no entanto a pautar-se online pelos codigos e praticas do jornalismo tradicional e, sobretudo, mantendo-se sujeitos as normas deontologicas, eticas, morais e de responsabilizacao que devem reger a profissao, sob pena de incorrerem em penalizacao pelas igualmente tradicionais vias legais. Por isso julgo que a blogosfera, enquanto espaco de informacao e comunicacao atraves de um veiculo ainda quase completamente desregulado como e' a internet, se presta melhor a "fazer eco" do jornalismo do que propriamente a protagoniza-lo ou a emula-lo.

Continuarei, naturalmente, a ler a imprensa Angolana regularmente e disso darei aqui conta como sempre, mas penso que esta serie cumpriu o seu objectivo.

So, that's all folks, as far as the Echoes from the Angolan Press/Ecos da Imprensa Angolana are concerned. Hope you've enjoyed it!

Com um artigo meu que acaba de sair no ultimo numero do Semanario Angolense e ao qual dedicarei o proximo post, termino esta serie.

Deu-me muito prazer partilhar aqui as noticias da banda a medida que as ia lendo. Decidi faze-lo pelo prazer, mas tambem porque, vivendo como vivo ha' varios anos fora do pais, uma coisa que sempre me preocupa e' a forma como a informacao sobre Angola, e sobre Africa em geral, e' (mal)tratada em alguma (quase toda?) imprensa estrangeira (nao so' a ocidental).

Por isso tenho para mim que, apesar das insuficiencias de que a imprensa local possa sofrer neste ou naquele aspecto, ela deve ser, sempre que possivel, a primeira escolha para nos mantermos actualizados sobre o que realmente, mesmo que apenas atraves da leitura nas entrelinhas, se passa no terreno dos acontecimentos. Ela nao e', nem deve ser quanto a mim, a unica fonte de informacao sobre o pais, mas e' certamente uma fonte indispensavel.

Assim, espero ter contribuido com esta serie de alguma maneira para esse desiderato e tambem para demonstrar ao mundo (a dada altura pareceu-me que isso se tornara absolutamente necessario) que a imprensa Angolana, em particular a privada e/ou independente, is alive and kicking! O meu muito obrigada aos amigos que me facultaram essa possibilidade e espero que cada vez mais jornais e jornalistas Angolanos baseados em Angola passem a publicar online e a participar da blogosfera.

Blogosfera onde, by the way, ao contrario do que alguns parecem ter entendido, nunca me pretendi fazer passar por 'jornalista' - que de facto nao sou, nem pretendo ser, apesar da minha breve passagem pela profissao ha' ja' largos anos - e onde tambem ha' um debate muito interessante sobre as fronteiras entre o bloguismo e o jornalismo. Ja' agora gostaria de dizer que nao concordo inteiramente que se transporte completamente a pratica do jornalismo profissional dos jornais e de outros meios de informacao tradicionais para os blogs, a menos que tais meios de informacao tradicionais, como acontece com praticamente todos os jornais no ocidente, tenham os seus proprios sites online e a eles associem os seus blogs, continuando no entanto a pautar-se online pelos codigos e praticas do jornalismo tradicional e, sobretudo, mantendo-se sujeitos as normas deontologicas, eticas, morais e de responsabilizacao que devem reger a profissao, sob pena de incorrerem em penalizacao pelas igualmente tradicionais vias legais. Por isso julgo que a blogosfera, enquanto espaco de informacao e comunicacao atraves de um veiculo ainda quase completamente desregulado como e' a internet, se presta melhor a "fazer eco" do jornalismo do que propriamente a protagoniza-lo ou a emula-lo.

Continuarei, naturalmente, a ler a imprensa Angolana regularmente e disso darei aqui conta como sempre, mas penso que esta serie cumpriu o seu objectivo.

So, that's all folks, as far as the Echoes from the Angolan Press/Ecos da Imprensa Angolana are concerned. Hope you've enjoyed it!

O POVO E’ RACIONAL…

...E SOBERANO!

1. A medida que vou percorrendo as colunas dos semanarios Luandenses neste rescaldo das eleicoes legislativas, comeca a ser perturbador o numero de vozes, ainda que minoritarias, que atribuem os seus resultados a um “voto emocional” ou a um “eleitorado imaturo para a democracia”… Nao se darao conta, tais vozes, do quanto elas proprias revelam emotividade e imaturidade politico-democratica nos seus pronunciamentos?

2. Sejamos claros: a democracia e’ isso mesmo – a expressao da vontade popular atraves do voto. Se o partido que recebeu maioritariamente tal voto vier a desrespeitar a vontade popular nele expressa, particularmente pelo nao cumprimento das promessas na base das quais o obteve, ou se as instituicoes supra-partidarias responsaveis por implementar a ordem politica e as politicas determinadas pela vontade popular expressa em tal voto nao o fizerem, ai sim, estar-se-ha perante um sistema democratico imaturo e irracional (e isto nao deixa de ser verdade apesar de toda a mitologia que tem os politicos como especialistas em fazer promessas que raramente cumprem). Quanto mais nao seja porque, findos os quatro anos da legislatura instituida por estas eleicoes, tal partido desrespeitador e instituicoes incumpridoras correm o risco de virem a ser penalizados pelo mesmo povo que agora neles votou. Tao simples quanto isso.

3. E esse talvez seja o unico elemento ‘simples’ do processo democratico. Porque tudo o resto, e em particular os julgamentos da capacidade do povo exercer o seu direito de voto e atraves dele expressar a sua vontade de forma lucida, responsavel e racional, e’ deveras complicado e, no limite, pode ate’ revelar-se um exercicio absurdo. Sim, e’ um absurdo considerar-se que a maioria de todo um povo, atraves de mais de 80% dos votos validos expressos, toma decisoes sobre a sua propria vida quotidiana e o seu proprio futuro apenas com base em emocoes. Mais do que isso: revela um profundo desprezo pelo povo e a mais basica falta de sentido democratico.

4. Efectivamente, apenas um certo raciocinio totalitario e’ capaz de concluir facilmente que se a maioria nao vota naquele(s) que se auto-considera(m) o(s) melhor(es) e’ porque e’ “irracional” ou “nao sabe o que e’ bom para si propria”… E quando as vozes que assim se expressam sao afectas a forcas politicas perdedoras nas urnas, entao elas tornam-se particularmente perturbadoras, porque demonstram que tais forcas nao so’ nao mereceram desta vez a maioria dos votos, como muito provavelmente tambem nao a merecerao no futuro, por nao terem sabido respeitar a vontade popular e, acima de tudo, por evidenciarem assim uma preocupante e imatura incapacidade de aprenderem com os seus proprios erros e de os corrigirem. Quando se diz, como numa dessas colunas, que “o povo esta’ cansado de verdades, so’ quer promessas”, quem e’ que se julga detentor de uma qualquer “verdade” em nome do povo? Quem e’ que se considera no direito de julgar o povo pelas promessas em que decide acreditar ou nao?

5. Muito se tem feito das irregularidades verificadas durante a campanha e durante o proprio acto eleitoral. Mas tudo parece indicar, quer pelas avaliacoes dos observadores nacionais e internacionais, quer pela aceitacao pela generalidade da oposicao dos resultados eleitorais, que tais irregularidades nao foram de monta suficiente para invalidarem ou descridibilizarem o processo eleitoral no seu todo. Muito se tem feito tambem da disparidade de meios materiais, financeiros e mediaticos entre o partido no poder e os partidos da oposicao. Eu propria a mencionei aqui como um factor importante na formacao das decisoes de voto. Mas tera’ ela sido determinante dessas decisoes a uma taxa superior a 80%, num pais com uma, embora ainda de circulacao restrita fora da capital, imprensa privada e tendencialmente independente, uma esclarecida e expressiva sociedade civil, uma cada vez maior expansao da internet e de redes televisivas internacionais e, nao menos importante, um fenomeno que em todas as sociedades se revela invariavelmente um poderosissimo formador de opiniao: um numero significativo de artistas populares, com destaque para musicos e poetas, difundindo ao longo dos anos por todo o pais mensagens de contestacao politica e reivindicacao social? Nao me parece.

6. E’ um facto inegavel que a educacao civica para o exercicio da democracia ainda e’ bastante precaria no nosso pais. O proprio conceito de democracia e’ ainda uma relativa novidade para a maioria dos cidadaos Angolanos e a sua pratica efectiva uma completa novidade para todo o pais. Mas o que as vozes criticas da capacidade de decisao do povo revelam e’ que nao e’ apenas o povo que ainda carece dessa educacao, mas todo o pais e particularmente os donos de tais vozes. Porque uma coisa e’ admitir-se, como o fiz aqui, que o grau de sofrimento, brutalizacao e traumatizacao a que grande parte do povo Angolano foi sujeito ao longo nao apenas das ultimas decadas, mas de seculos, teve impactos materiais, psicologicos e espirituais consideraveis nas suas vidas e tende a fazer aumentar a sua desconfianca em relacao a forcas politicas ainda nao testadas no exercicio governativo, outra coisa e’ considera-lo por isso incapaz de tomar, particularmente se atraves do voto individual e secreto, decisoes logicas e racionais (note-se que a logica e a razao nao sao atributos exclusivos da erudicao e do bem-estar, objectiva ou subjectivamente considerados).

7. Senao vejamos: e’ emocional e imaturo um povo que vem gerindo a sua vida e garantindo a sua sobrevivencia ao longo de decadas, sem qualquer rede de apoio social por parte do estado? Que produz uma das economias informais mais funcionais e eficientes do mundo? Que cria um mercado que, como o Roque Santeiro, apesar de tambem funcionar como um viveiro de marginalidade e insalubridade, no essencial consegue ser o principal, senao unico para a maioria da populacao da capital e nao so’, determinante dos sistemas de rendimentos e precos, incluindo das taxas de cambio, durante decadas? Que produz resilientes zungueiras, kinguilas, kandongueiros e roboteiros, em vez de simplesmente alimentar as estatisticas do desemprego e engrossar as esquinas e largos da mendicidade? Que tanto quanto ve as suas precarias habitacoes demolidas, se demonstra capaz de as reconstruir, e’ certo que na generalidade dos casos de forma anarquica, mas tambem de forma razoavelmente planificada e organizada? Sera’ crivel que tal povo, tendo obtido, depois de quase duas decadas sem essa possibilidade, a oportunidade de escolher quem julga capaz de lhe conceder e a quem julga dever exigir, sob pena de o penalizar nas urnas daqui a quatro anos, a tal rede social de apoio de que se viu privado ao longo das decadas em que esteve praticamente entregue a si proprio e aos seus proprios recursos para sobreviver, faca tal escolha irracionalmente? Nao creio.

8. E sejamos tambem claros em relacao a um ponto essencial: o que esta’ em jogo em quaisquer eleicoes gerais, em qualquer parte do mundo, mesmo nas sociedades mais desenvolvidas e com elevada maturidade democratica, sao as necessidades basicas e primarias da maioria da populacao, isto e’, o emprego, a saude, a alimentacao, a habitacao, a educacao e a seguranca social. E’ tanto assim nas actuais eleicoes presidenciais Americanas (no caso destas, apesar da guerra no Iraque constituir um factor de decisao eleitoral de primeira ordem), como o foi nas recentes eleicoes gerais Zimbabweanas (no caso destas, apesar de questoes de ordem historica e racial constituirem tambem factores de decisao eleitoral de primeira ordem). E sao apenas os relativos deficits de satisfacao dessas necessidades basicas, consoante o nivel de desenvolvimento de cada sociedade, que determinam o seu peso relativo em relacao a questoes e necessidades de ordem mais secundaria, ou terciaria, nas decisoes de voto. [*]

9. Assim, quanto maiores forem as necessidades basicas numa determinada sociedade e quanto maiores forem os segmentos populacionais afectados por tais necessidades, maior sera’ a tendencia para uma convergencia das decisoes de voto em direccao a partidos que nao representem apenas, ou primordialmente, interesses e necessidades minoritarios, por mais legitimos que esses sejam. E nao ha’ nada de irracional nisso. Antes pelo contrario, o inverso se-lo-ia: nomeadamente se, em vez de decidir priorizar proactivamente a satisfacao das suas necessidades objectivas mais prementes, a maioria decidisse, como alguns parecem ter esperado, priorizar a penalizacao retroactiva dos detentores do poder pelos seus erros e falhas do passado, mesmo que as forcas politicas alternativas nao lhe oferecam grandes garantias de que nao iriam incorrer nos mesmos erros e falhas ou noutros piores ainda – isso sim, seria uma decisao emocional, imatura e irracional. Mais: nao e’ ao povo que cabe, em detrimento da sua propria vontade e das suas necessidades objectivas, assegurar atraves do voto a diversidade ou a alteridade do sistema politico. Em democracia, e’ aos partidos que cabe essa responsabilidade (ate' porque para isso sao pagos atraves do erario publico, isto e', com o dinheiro do povo) na exacta medida em que se saibam organizar, apresentar e projectar, madura, racional e logicamente, como merecedores do voto popular.

10. Em geito de conclusao, cito de uma das colunas que tenho vindo a comentar: “Depois de ter ouvido uma senhora expressar-se relativamente ao processo de campanha com a seguinte frase: "o povo está cansado de verdades,...só quer promessas". Acrescentando que este trocadilho estava a correr pela cidade, eu reflicto sobre ele aqui porque interpretei-o como um reflexo de um mecanismo de defesa psicológico de negação da realidade que acontece muitas vezes em seres humanos imaturos ou que tenham experimentado grande dor ou sofrimento. A tendência a negar sensações dolorosas é tão antiga quanto o próprio sentimento de dor. Em psicologia dizemos que a capacidade de negar pares desagradáveis da realidade é a contrapartida da "realização alucinatória dos desejos", neste sentido, as promessas poderão ser interpretadas como sendo os desejos concretizados.”

Nao sera’ mais realista e factual o caso de algumas vozes afectas a partidos perdedores nestas eleicoes estarem agora, com o argumento da “imaturidade e emotividade dos eleitores”, a reflectir um mecanismo de defesa psicológico de negação da realidade que acontece muitas vezes em seres humanos imaturos ou que tenham experimentado grande dor ou sofrimento? Nao estarao elas precisamente a manifestar uma tendencia a negar sensações dolorosas, nomeadamente a da derrota eleitoral? Nao estarao elas a revelar exactamente uma capacidade de negar pares desagradáveis da realidade, nomeadamente a perspectiva de extincao de alguns desses partidos devido aos seus resultados eleitorais quase nulos, em grande medida por alguns deles se terem sobrevalorizado a si proprios e subestimado outros e a dada altura terem tomado a sua propria auto-avaliacao como sendo os seus desejos concretizados, sendo por isso a sua reaccao a realidade dos resultados eleitorais efectivos a contrapartida da realização alucinatória dos seus desejos?

Sejamos, pois, todos tao maduros e racionais como o povo sempre soube ser: respeite-mo-lo e as suas decisoes, por muito que elas desagradem a uns ou a outros, porque ele e’ o unico soberano em democracia!

[*] P.S.: Veja-se o que afirmou Barack Obama, mais de um ano depois destas consideracoes terem sido aqui tecidas, a este proposito:

In the last several election cycles, there has been a much stronger tendency for women to vote around bread and butter issues. It has to do with the fact that they're the ones balancing the budgets and trying to figure out how to make enough money - keep food on the table. One of the things that Michelle and I always talk about is that I have no idea how to buy clothes for my girls. I don't know what they cost. And that's probably not untypical. So that's something that Michelle has to think about and budget for. What that means, then, is that the issues of the economy are ones that women are going to particularly feel and be concerned about.

[Referencia daqui]

...E SOBERANO!

1. A medida que vou percorrendo as colunas dos semanarios Luandenses neste rescaldo das eleicoes legislativas, comeca a ser perturbador o numero de vozes, ainda que minoritarias, que atribuem os seus resultados a um “voto emocional” ou a um “eleitorado imaturo para a democracia”… Nao se darao conta, tais vozes, do quanto elas proprias revelam emotividade e imaturidade politico-democratica nos seus pronunciamentos?

2. Sejamos claros: a democracia e’ isso mesmo – a expressao da vontade popular atraves do voto. Se o partido que recebeu maioritariamente tal voto vier a desrespeitar a vontade popular nele expressa, particularmente pelo nao cumprimento das promessas na base das quais o obteve, ou se as instituicoes supra-partidarias responsaveis por implementar a ordem politica e as politicas determinadas pela vontade popular expressa em tal voto nao o fizerem, ai sim, estar-se-ha perante um sistema democratico imaturo e irracional (e isto nao deixa de ser verdade apesar de toda a mitologia que tem os politicos como especialistas em fazer promessas que raramente cumprem). Quanto mais nao seja porque, findos os quatro anos da legislatura instituida por estas eleicoes, tal partido desrespeitador e instituicoes incumpridoras correm o risco de virem a ser penalizados pelo mesmo povo que agora neles votou. Tao simples quanto isso.

3. E esse talvez seja o unico elemento ‘simples’ do processo democratico. Porque tudo o resto, e em particular os julgamentos da capacidade do povo exercer o seu direito de voto e atraves dele expressar a sua vontade de forma lucida, responsavel e racional, e’ deveras complicado e, no limite, pode ate’ revelar-se um exercicio absurdo. Sim, e’ um absurdo considerar-se que a maioria de todo um povo, atraves de mais de 80% dos votos validos expressos, toma decisoes sobre a sua propria vida quotidiana e o seu proprio futuro apenas com base em emocoes. Mais do que isso: revela um profundo desprezo pelo povo e a mais basica falta de sentido democratico.

4. Efectivamente, apenas um certo raciocinio totalitario e’ capaz de concluir facilmente que se a maioria nao vota naquele(s) que se auto-considera(m) o(s) melhor(es) e’ porque e’ “irracional” ou “nao sabe o que e’ bom para si propria”… E quando as vozes que assim se expressam sao afectas a forcas politicas perdedoras nas urnas, entao elas tornam-se particularmente perturbadoras, porque demonstram que tais forcas nao so’ nao mereceram desta vez a maioria dos votos, como muito provavelmente tambem nao a merecerao no futuro, por nao terem sabido respeitar a vontade popular e, acima de tudo, por evidenciarem assim uma preocupante e imatura incapacidade de aprenderem com os seus proprios erros e de os corrigirem. Quando se diz, como numa dessas colunas, que “o povo esta’ cansado de verdades, so’ quer promessas”, quem e’ que se julga detentor de uma qualquer “verdade” em nome do povo? Quem e’ que se considera no direito de julgar o povo pelas promessas em que decide acreditar ou nao?

5. Muito se tem feito das irregularidades verificadas durante a campanha e durante o proprio acto eleitoral. Mas tudo parece indicar, quer pelas avaliacoes dos observadores nacionais e internacionais, quer pela aceitacao pela generalidade da oposicao dos resultados eleitorais, que tais irregularidades nao foram de monta suficiente para invalidarem ou descridibilizarem o processo eleitoral no seu todo. Muito se tem feito tambem da disparidade de meios materiais, financeiros e mediaticos entre o partido no poder e os partidos da oposicao. Eu propria a mencionei aqui como um factor importante na formacao das decisoes de voto. Mas tera’ ela sido determinante dessas decisoes a uma taxa superior a 80%, num pais com uma, embora ainda de circulacao restrita fora da capital, imprensa privada e tendencialmente independente, uma esclarecida e expressiva sociedade civil, uma cada vez maior expansao da internet e de redes televisivas internacionais e, nao menos importante, um fenomeno que em todas as sociedades se revela invariavelmente um poderosissimo formador de opiniao: um numero significativo de artistas populares, com destaque para musicos e poetas, difundindo ao longo dos anos por todo o pais mensagens de contestacao politica e reivindicacao social? Nao me parece.

6. E’ um facto inegavel que a educacao civica para o exercicio da democracia ainda e’ bastante precaria no nosso pais. O proprio conceito de democracia e’ ainda uma relativa novidade para a maioria dos cidadaos Angolanos e a sua pratica efectiva uma completa novidade para todo o pais. Mas o que as vozes criticas da capacidade de decisao do povo revelam e’ que nao e’ apenas o povo que ainda carece dessa educacao, mas todo o pais e particularmente os donos de tais vozes. Porque uma coisa e’ admitir-se, como o fiz aqui, que o grau de sofrimento, brutalizacao e traumatizacao a que grande parte do povo Angolano foi sujeito ao longo nao apenas das ultimas decadas, mas de seculos, teve impactos materiais, psicologicos e espirituais consideraveis nas suas vidas e tende a fazer aumentar a sua desconfianca em relacao a forcas politicas ainda nao testadas no exercicio governativo, outra coisa e’ considera-lo por isso incapaz de tomar, particularmente se atraves do voto individual e secreto, decisoes logicas e racionais (note-se que a logica e a razao nao sao atributos exclusivos da erudicao e do bem-estar, objectiva ou subjectivamente considerados).

7. Senao vejamos: e’ emocional e imaturo um povo que vem gerindo a sua vida e garantindo a sua sobrevivencia ao longo de decadas, sem qualquer rede de apoio social por parte do estado? Que produz uma das economias informais mais funcionais e eficientes do mundo? Que cria um mercado que, como o Roque Santeiro, apesar de tambem funcionar como um viveiro de marginalidade e insalubridade, no essencial consegue ser o principal, senao unico para a maioria da populacao da capital e nao so’, determinante dos sistemas de rendimentos e precos, incluindo das taxas de cambio, durante decadas? Que produz resilientes zungueiras, kinguilas, kandongueiros e roboteiros, em vez de simplesmente alimentar as estatisticas do desemprego e engrossar as esquinas e largos da mendicidade? Que tanto quanto ve as suas precarias habitacoes demolidas, se demonstra capaz de as reconstruir, e’ certo que na generalidade dos casos de forma anarquica, mas tambem de forma razoavelmente planificada e organizada? Sera’ crivel que tal povo, tendo obtido, depois de quase duas decadas sem essa possibilidade, a oportunidade de escolher quem julga capaz de lhe conceder e a quem julga dever exigir, sob pena de o penalizar nas urnas daqui a quatro anos, a tal rede social de apoio de que se viu privado ao longo das decadas em que esteve praticamente entregue a si proprio e aos seus proprios recursos para sobreviver, faca tal escolha irracionalmente? Nao creio.

8. E sejamos tambem claros em relacao a um ponto essencial: o que esta’ em jogo em quaisquer eleicoes gerais, em qualquer parte do mundo, mesmo nas sociedades mais desenvolvidas e com elevada maturidade democratica, sao as necessidades basicas e primarias da maioria da populacao, isto e’, o emprego, a saude, a alimentacao, a habitacao, a educacao e a seguranca social. E’ tanto assim nas actuais eleicoes presidenciais Americanas (no caso destas, apesar da guerra no Iraque constituir um factor de decisao eleitoral de primeira ordem), como o foi nas recentes eleicoes gerais Zimbabweanas (no caso destas, apesar de questoes de ordem historica e racial constituirem tambem factores de decisao eleitoral de primeira ordem). E sao apenas os relativos deficits de satisfacao dessas necessidades basicas, consoante o nivel de desenvolvimento de cada sociedade, que determinam o seu peso relativo em relacao a questoes e necessidades de ordem mais secundaria, ou terciaria, nas decisoes de voto. [*]

9. Assim, quanto maiores forem as necessidades basicas numa determinada sociedade e quanto maiores forem os segmentos populacionais afectados por tais necessidades, maior sera’ a tendencia para uma convergencia das decisoes de voto em direccao a partidos que nao representem apenas, ou primordialmente, interesses e necessidades minoritarios, por mais legitimos que esses sejam. E nao ha’ nada de irracional nisso. Antes pelo contrario, o inverso se-lo-ia: nomeadamente se, em vez de decidir priorizar proactivamente a satisfacao das suas necessidades objectivas mais prementes, a maioria decidisse, como alguns parecem ter esperado, priorizar a penalizacao retroactiva dos detentores do poder pelos seus erros e falhas do passado, mesmo que as forcas politicas alternativas nao lhe oferecam grandes garantias de que nao iriam incorrer nos mesmos erros e falhas ou noutros piores ainda – isso sim, seria uma decisao emocional, imatura e irracional. Mais: nao e’ ao povo que cabe, em detrimento da sua propria vontade e das suas necessidades objectivas, assegurar atraves do voto a diversidade ou a alteridade do sistema politico. Em democracia, e’ aos partidos que cabe essa responsabilidade (ate' porque para isso sao pagos atraves do erario publico, isto e', com o dinheiro do povo) na exacta medida em que se saibam organizar, apresentar e projectar, madura, racional e logicamente, como merecedores do voto popular.

10. Em geito de conclusao, cito de uma das colunas que tenho vindo a comentar: “Depois de ter ouvido uma senhora expressar-se relativamente ao processo de campanha com a seguinte frase: "o povo está cansado de verdades,...só quer promessas". Acrescentando que este trocadilho estava a correr pela cidade, eu reflicto sobre ele aqui porque interpretei-o como um reflexo de um mecanismo de defesa psicológico de negação da realidade que acontece muitas vezes em seres humanos imaturos ou que tenham experimentado grande dor ou sofrimento. A tendência a negar sensações dolorosas é tão antiga quanto o próprio sentimento de dor. Em psicologia dizemos que a capacidade de negar pares desagradáveis da realidade é a contrapartida da "realização alucinatória dos desejos", neste sentido, as promessas poderão ser interpretadas como sendo os desejos concretizados.”

Nao sera’ mais realista e factual o caso de algumas vozes afectas a partidos perdedores nestas eleicoes estarem agora, com o argumento da “imaturidade e emotividade dos eleitores”, a reflectir um mecanismo de defesa psicológico de negação da realidade que acontece muitas vezes em seres humanos imaturos ou que tenham experimentado grande dor ou sofrimento? Nao estarao elas precisamente a manifestar uma tendencia a negar sensações dolorosas, nomeadamente a da derrota eleitoral? Nao estarao elas a revelar exactamente uma capacidade de negar pares desagradáveis da realidade, nomeadamente a perspectiva de extincao de alguns desses partidos devido aos seus resultados eleitorais quase nulos, em grande medida por alguns deles se terem sobrevalorizado a si proprios e subestimado outros e a dada altura terem tomado a sua propria auto-avaliacao como sendo os seus desejos concretizados, sendo por isso a sua reaccao a realidade dos resultados eleitorais efectivos a contrapartida da realização alucinatória dos seus desejos?

Sejamos, pois, todos tao maduros e racionais como o povo sempre soube ser: respeite-mo-lo e as suas decisoes, por muito que elas desagradem a uns ou a outros, porque ele e’ o unico soberano em democracia!

[*] P.S.: Veja-se o que afirmou Barack Obama, mais de um ano depois destas consideracoes terem sido aqui tecidas, a este proposito:

In the last several election cycles, there has been a much stronger tendency for women to vote around bread and butter issues. It has to do with the fact that they're the ones balancing the budgets and trying to figure out how to make enough money - keep food on the table. One of the things that Michelle and I always talk about is that I have no idea how to buy clothes for my girls. I don't know what they cost. And that's probably not untypical. So that's something that Michelle has to think about and budget for. What that means, then, is that the issues of the economy are ones that women are going to particularly feel and be concerned about.

[Referencia daqui]

ECHOES FROM THE ANGOLAN PRESS (24)

Starting with some features from Novo Jornal (NJ):

Picture of the week

Sounds and Colours of the Campaign

A campaign that is truly a campaign also has lots of partying in the middle. The ideology counts, of course, but the music, the walkings, the eatings and drinkings are also part of the electoral period: they give it another colour and help to pass the message. In Angola it’s not different. It’s just seeing them walking the streets trying to “sell their fish” with loudspeakers in hand, horns firmly pressed down and ‘sound systems’ with decibels well high up. It’s a symphony of colour and sound showing that here too the election campaign can be a party of all, for all.

A Woman for Prime Minister?

Speculations mount about the probability that the next Angolan Prime Minister might be a woman: “the future government to come out of these elections might have a woman as Prime Minister, the NJ has learned from various sources linked to the different legislative candidatures. Neither the MPLA nor UNITA confirm, although none of them dismisses the possibility. ‘It’s a competency of the President of the Republic’, they say.
The name of Ana Dias Lourenco, currently the Minister of Planning, is being aired for that position as a result of her association with the “Economic Team”, comprised among others of Finance Minister Pedro de Morais and Vice-Prime Minister Aguinaldo Jaime, a team hailed as the maker of the curent ‘macro-economic stability’ and high rates of GDP growth in the country. However, neither Lourenco nor any of the other members of the team belong to the MPLA’s Political Bureau, which leaves the question out in the open, perhaps to be filled-in by a man so far operating in the shadows, Manuel Nunes Junior, who, thanks to his position as that party organ’s Secretary for Economic and Social Affairs, might be more likely to be named for the role. He says, however, that he hasn’t been approached so far about the issue.

Moving to other papers:

In an interview to the A Capital, Reginaldo Silva, a.k.a. Wilson Dada, comments on the prospect of a political bipolarisation of the country between the MPLA and UNITA:

“I honestly believe that the political future of Angola, bearing in mind the need to safeguard all the interests cohabiting in our large and diversified geographic square, will be best served by a scenario of party equilibrium, even if it is based on a Legislative Assembly clearly bipolarised. In its more than thirty years of independence, Angola has always lived under a political regime controlled by one single political force, despite all the cosmetic nuances observed during the Second Republic, with its pathetic GURN (Government of Unity and National Reconciliation).
I think that it is time for Angolans to experience a more open regime, in respect to an effective compromise and consistent political dialogue among its protagonists, which should not allow any of the parties to take major national decisions alone. This need makes all sense in a country that, in all truth, still hasn’t democratised itself structurally or even psychologically, this being extensive equally to the institutions and the people.
Among us, I know that the adepts of the regime of absolute majority are more than many, most of whom take that position more out of an ‘epidermic’ (emotional) option than of a rational one, if I am allowed to enter others’ field. Some of these adepts think that it is only possible to govern with efficacy without dependence on consensuses with the other political forces. I believe that it is much more easy to govern that way. But it is also more easy to misgovern and commit all sorts of tampering with the law and abuses of power, ‘products’ well known to Angolans.”

Jose’ Kaliengue, in the Semanario Angolense, reports that the Luanda provincial command of the police presented to the public, last Wednesday, the presumable authors of the sordid “Frescura massacre” happened last July in the neighbourhood of Sambizanga:

“They were policeman. The revelation did not surprise anyone. Firstly, because the killers were identified on location. Secondly, because the hurry with which the second commander of the local police went to Radio Ecclesia to announce the event is not at all common in Angola. Thirdly, because the assassins used a unidentifiable car, acted with the coldness of who has the situation under control and doesn’t fear the police and, fourthly, because the locals told the media that at the time of the killings there were police cars patrolling the area that did not react, did not follow the murderers’ car and, therefore, could only be there to protect them. The police was left without any exit option except to admit that the assassins were among themselves. For that, it must be said, the pressure from the private media and the civil society was instrumental.”

Back to the NJ:

The Angolan BB Africa III contestant

Ricardo Venâncio “Ricco”, 23, a university student born in Luanda, is the Angolan representative at the third edition of the popular contest. More than a hundred people gathered in one of the leisure hangouts in the Island of Luanda showed their solidarity to him.
He is the first male contestant from Angola to enter the most supervised house in Africa, where for three months the participants’ behaviour, attitudes and personalities will be evaluated. At the end there will be only one winner.
The house has been open for five days already and until November we will see what will be Ricardo’s story. His friends and relatives who watched the contest’s opening ceremony in Luanda expect a higher level of participation from him than those protagonised in past editions by Bruna Tatiana and Tatiana Durao.

Some interesting news on the football field

While Manucho Goncalves is presented as Ferguson’s bet to reinforce the Manchester team this season, Santana says: “My dream is to play in England”.

Santana, a 24 year old leading Angolan striker, reveals to the NJ that he gets his inspiration from Thierry Henry and dreams of wearing the Arsenal shirt.

{… I also have a Santana like that around here… actually he was responsible for taking me for the first time in my life to watch a football match at a big stadium… more precisely, the Arsenal stadium!}

And finally…

Starting with some features from Novo Jornal (NJ):

Picture of the week

Sounds and Colours of the Campaign

A campaign that is truly a campaign also has lots of partying in the middle. The ideology counts, of course, but the music, the walkings, the eatings and drinkings are also part of the electoral period: they give it another colour and help to pass the message. In Angola it’s not different. It’s just seeing them walking the streets trying to “sell their fish” with loudspeakers in hand, horns firmly pressed down and ‘sound systems’ with decibels well high up. It’s a symphony of colour and sound showing that here too the election campaign can be a party of all, for all.

A Woman for Prime Minister?

Speculations mount about the probability that the next Angolan Prime Minister might be a woman: “the future government to come out of these elections might have a woman as Prime Minister, the NJ has learned from various sources linked to the different legislative candidatures. Neither the MPLA nor UNITA confirm, although none of them dismisses the possibility. ‘It’s a competency of the President of the Republic’, they say.
The name of Ana Dias Lourenco, currently the Minister of Planning, is being aired for that position as a result of her association with the “Economic Team”, comprised among others of Finance Minister Pedro de Morais and Vice-Prime Minister Aguinaldo Jaime, a team hailed as the maker of the curent ‘macro-economic stability’ and high rates of GDP growth in the country. However, neither Lourenco nor any of the other members of the team belong to the MPLA’s Political Bureau, which leaves the question out in the open, perhaps to be filled-in by a man so far operating in the shadows, Manuel Nunes Junior, who, thanks to his position as that party organ’s Secretary for Economic and Social Affairs, might be more likely to be named for the role. He says, however, that he hasn’t been approached so far about the issue.

Moving to other papers:

In an interview to the A Capital, Reginaldo Silva, a.k.a. Wilson Dada, comments on the prospect of a political bipolarisation of the country between the MPLA and UNITA:

“I honestly believe that the political future of Angola, bearing in mind the need to safeguard all the interests cohabiting in our large and diversified geographic square, will be best served by a scenario of party equilibrium, even if it is based on a Legislative Assembly clearly bipolarised. In its more than thirty years of independence, Angola has always lived under a political regime controlled by one single political force, despite all the cosmetic nuances observed during the Second Republic, with its pathetic GURN (Government of Unity and National Reconciliation).
I think that it is time for Angolans to experience a more open regime, in respect to an effective compromise and consistent political dialogue among its protagonists, which should not allow any of the parties to take major national decisions alone. This need makes all sense in a country that, in all truth, still hasn’t democratised itself structurally or even psychologically, this being extensive equally to the institutions and the people.
Among us, I know that the adepts of the regime of absolute majority are more than many, most of whom take that position more out of an ‘epidermic’ (emotional) option than of a rational one, if I am allowed to enter others’ field. Some of these adepts think that it is only possible to govern with efficacy without dependence on consensuses with the other political forces. I believe that it is much more easy to govern that way. But it is also more easy to misgovern and commit all sorts of tampering with the law and abuses of power, ‘products’ well known to Angolans.”

Jose’ Kaliengue, in the Semanario Angolense, reports that the Luanda provincial command of the police presented to the public, last Wednesday, the presumable authors of the sordid “Frescura massacre” happened last July in the neighbourhood of Sambizanga:

“They were policeman. The revelation did not surprise anyone. Firstly, because the killers were identified on location. Secondly, because the hurry with which the second commander of the local police went to Radio Ecclesia to announce the event is not at all common in Angola. Thirdly, because the assassins used a unidentifiable car, acted with the coldness of who has the situation under control and doesn’t fear the police and, fourthly, because the locals told the media that at the time of the killings there were police cars patrolling the area that did not react, did not follow the murderers’ car and, therefore, could only be there to protect them. The police was left without any exit option except to admit that the assassins were among themselves. For that, it must be said, the pressure from the private media and the civil society was instrumental.”

Back to the NJ:

The Angolan BB Africa III contestant

Ricardo Venâncio “Ricco”, 23, a university student born in Luanda, is the Angolan representative at the third edition of the popular contest. More than a hundred people gathered in one of the leisure hangouts in the Island of Luanda showed their solidarity to him.
He is the first male contestant from Angola to enter the most supervised house in Africa, where for three months the participants’ behaviour, attitudes and personalities will be evaluated. At the end there will be only one winner.
The house has been open for five days already and until November we will see what will be Ricardo’s story. His friends and relatives who watched the contest’s opening ceremony in Luanda expect a higher level of participation from him than those protagonised in past editions by Bruna Tatiana and Tatiana Durao.

Some interesting news on the football field

While Manucho Goncalves is presented as Ferguson’s bet to reinforce the Manchester team this season, Santana says: “My dream is to play in England”.

Santana, a 24 year old leading Angolan striker, reveals to the NJ that he gets his inspiration from Thierry Henry and dreams of wearing the Arsenal shirt.

{… I also have a Santana like that around here… actually he was responsible for taking me for the first time in my life to watch a football match at a big stadium… more precisely, the Arsenal stadium!}

And finally…

ECHOES FROM THE ANGOLAN PRESS (23)

Antonio Freitas, in the Novo Jornal (NJ), comments on a controversial note sent by the Angolan Ministry of External Relations (MIREX) to all embassies, consulates and offices of international organisations in Luanda:


“The note restricts henceforth the circulation of diplomats inside the country, a measure being interpreted in some circles as a way of limiting the observation by them of what might be happening outside the capital during the electoral campaign. According to the document, the notified who might wish to travel outside Luanda must inform the MIREX of that intention at least three working days in advance. The ministry argues that the measure aims at ‘allowing the Angolan Government to fulfill its obligation to protect all inhabitants of the national territory, particularly the diplomatic agents.’
According to sources, the issue was discussed during a meeting between the External Relations minister, Joao Miranda, and the United States ambassador, Dan Mozena. The ambassador is said to have expressed his reservations about the measure, but was reassured by the minister that its only objective was ‘to provide an adequate protocol treatment’ to the diplomatic personnel. However, the note contains passages that don’t seem as comforting as the minister claims. For example, it refers to article 41 of the Vienna Convention, according to which ‘without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, the diplomatic agents, as well as having the duty to respect the laws and regulations of the accredited state, must not interfere in its internal affairs.’ This particular passage is taken by many as a serious warning to the foreign embassies which have usually taken positions whenever elections in African countries have unpleasant outcomes, as happened recently in Kenya and Zimbabwe. In an interview to the NJ last July, Dan Mozena said emphatically that his mission would be 'with an eye' on the Angolan elections."

As an echo of how party politics in the present campaign is being perceived by militants of the leading parties, there is a letter by a UNITA militant to the NJ in which he states:


“I am an old militant of UNITA who lived for a long time inside the UNITA liberated areas, including Jamba, the capital of the resistance at the time of Dr. Savimbi, the founding president of UNITA.
During the time that I lived in those areas, in relation to party-politics issues, there was no democracy in the true sense of the word, but there was Dr. Savimbi’s very able hand at manipulating politics, always taking into account the sensitivity and representativity of the local elites, bearing in mind their ethno-linguistic and racial belonging, which earned him lots of sympathy among the populations.
(…)
What we see today in Mr. Samakuva’s UNITA, as far as the choice of candidates for Members of Parliament (MPs) is concerned, is a scandal and is becoming dangerous for the harmony inside the party and the country. The elites of communities with political expression in various regions were almost all ignored. In retrospect, let’s mention the fact that in the pseudo-elections at the X Congress of UNITA, those who supported the parliamentarian Chivukuvuku for the leadership were removed from the places they held in the party, which contradicts the propaganda about democracy inside UNITA spread by Mr. Samakuva’s supporters. (…) The situation is even worse in the present choice of candidates for MPs, in provinces such as Benguela, where the genuine local UNITA elites are not represented and in their place friends and people from Mr. Samakuva’s region or his relatives were predominantly chosen. Quo vadis UNITA? The future will tell…”

Earlier in this series, I have published a similar letter from a MPLA militant appeared in the Angolense:



“In relation to the constitution of the list for future members of the National Assembly (MPs), I have to say that once again our glorious MPLA demonstrated that in terms of transparency and democracy it is the worst party. (…) Last Saturday, the Luanda Provincial Committee of the MPLA called a meeting with the directorships of the province’s ‘action committees’. The party bases, in spite of not having been informed beforehand of the reasons for the meeting, attended in mass. (…) [However], the meeting was pure and simply aimed at misleading the militants when the lists had already been made since March/April. The bases also became aware that the list for the national circle is equally very doubtful and doesn’t have any technical-professional credibility.
Within the various ‘action committees’ in Luanda’s urban areas (…) there are militants who sacrifice a lot in their work for the MPLA and are holders of undergraduate and masters degrees, among whom lawyers, university teachers and electoral trainers, with an enviable technical-professional experience. They are militants who have the MPLA at heart and whose presence in those committees will guarantee the party’s victory in the respective areas.

[However, it is sad to see that they were ignored in favour of mostly unknown faces].
(…)
That’s why, because of these injustices, the MPLA, mobilised with the sacrifice and supported by the bases, on polling day will see those same bases prefer to stay at home instead of voting for people that they don’t know and did not select. That’s also why the militant, if he chooses to vote, will do so for the opposition, which, in spite of the past, will probably have a better team for the National Assembly comparatively to our MPLA, which is not concerned with the Luanda vote because the victory will come from the provinces. We only regret that the MPLA continues to use the methods of the past and ignoring the fact that times have changed. It’s always the same people who get nominated, everything works on the basis of ‘schemes’ and corruption. When things are not done with transparency it’s a sign of corruption. That’s how the MPLA, even if unwillingly, is campaigning for the opposition.
I have expressed my opinion here because if I express it at the meeting I will be silenced, mistreated and perhaps killed. When a militant cannot just say what he feels and if he does is taken as disgruntled and when one is disgruntled it’s a crime, then it’s not possible to take these ideas to meetings. That’s how our MPLA is.”

Celso Malavoloneke, in the Semanario Angolense (SA), in an open letter to Fernando Macedo, president of the Association Justice, Peace and Democracy (AJPD), expresses his disagreements with the tone and the spirit of some of the positions this association has been taking on the current election campaign.

The proximate motive for Malavoloneke’s letter is a statement by AJPD, signed by Macedo and also published in the SA, according to which “The AJPD alerts the Angolan political community and the international community, specially the national and international observers, to the practices, unacceptable in a democratic state of rights, which have been occurring in the current electoral process, namely: the Government of Angola’s permanent propaganda in the state media using the same narrative discourse of one of the contending parties in clear violation of the principle of equal treatment and opportunity; the give-aways to members of the electorate of goods such as bicycles and motorcycles by political parties and organisations affected to them during acts of political campaign with vote orientation, all under the blind eye of the National Electoral Commission and the National Council for Social Communication; the persistence of attempts to violate the laws applicable to the electoral process, and the occasional political violence, even if of low intensity and not generalised, without the prompt charging of the responsible for such actions by the competent judicial and police bodies.”

In reaction to that statement, Malavoloneke asserts:

(…)

In 1991/92 I was placed in the southern region of the country coordinating the area of community development of a well known international ONG. In that role, I was witness to the damage caused to the bodies and minds of thousands of compatriots by inflammatory speeches and careless actions that have characterised that election campaign. The “friends” from the international community, headed by the United Nations and supported by the super-powers of the Cold War and Portugal, imposed their agenda and timing, anxious for a disposable solution in which the most honest hoped – they could only hope – that after they left the country Angolans would come to agreement the best way they could. However, all exploded even before that, with the consequences that we all know.
(…)

And, look, I forgot something: when the fight began, my functions changed, and do you know to what? Head of logistics of a makeshift travel agency to evacuate from the country the foreigners and their families from the chancelleries that contributed more or less openly to set the country on fire. And those chancelleries don’t seem far away from you and the AJPD. Ah! And I also evacuated some Angolans who all of a sudden produced other passports which they had been hiding, mind you…
(…)
Therefore, I would like you to understand that we all need ways out. Ways out that have also to be ways of hope. Ways of hope that do not need to be necessarily perfect, they just need to be necessarily ours. Created by us with the limitations that we have, created in our own context with our own specificities and created for our land with the adaptations that they might require, but not imposed by a theoretical script from any western country.
(…)

It seems to me that the Angolan elites have decided to look after these aspects and take that past as a reference. Therefore, your discourse, dear FM, sounds isolated and causes fears. Hence this reaction from your close brother. Our responsibility, as the elites, is to scrutinise the process, yes, but taking into account our idiosyncrasies. And one of them, really assumed, is that inflammatory, passionate, virulent speeches at this stage are arson attempts: whatever the reason, they are damaging, even dangerous, to the common good. Let us thus accept the imperfections of our process and let us build our own history with the responsibility of the great peoples where all tolerate each other. Because it is important at this stage for us to believe in the good will of everybody, whether or not it exists. It’s the price of the progress towards plain democracy. Where we arrive at not forcefully but by stages. Where mistakes, instead of throwing weapons, are pillars of the lessons learned in the way toward perfection.”

And finally...

Antonio Freitas, in the Novo Jornal (NJ), comments on a controversial note sent by the Angolan Ministry of External Relations (MIREX) to all embassies, consulates and offices of international organisations in Luanda:


“The note restricts henceforth the circulation of diplomats inside the country, a measure being interpreted in some circles as a way of limiting the observation by them of what might be happening outside the capital during the electoral campaign. According to the document, the notified who might wish to travel outside Luanda must inform the MIREX of that intention at least three working days in advance. The ministry argues that the measure aims at ‘allowing the Angolan Government to fulfill its obligation to protect all inhabitants of the national territory, particularly the diplomatic agents.’
According to sources, the issue was discussed during a meeting between the External Relations minister, Joao Miranda, and the United States ambassador, Dan Mozena. The ambassador is said to have expressed his reservations about the measure, but was reassured by the minister that its only objective was ‘to provide an adequate protocol treatment’ to the diplomatic personnel. However, the note contains passages that don’t seem as comforting as the minister claims. For example, it refers to article 41 of the Vienna Convention, according to which ‘without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, the diplomatic agents, as well as having the duty to respect the laws and regulations of the accredited state, must not interfere in its internal affairs.’ This particular passage is taken by many as a serious warning to the foreign embassies which have usually taken positions whenever elections in African countries have unpleasant outcomes, as happened recently in Kenya and Zimbabwe. In an interview to the NJ last July, Dan Mozena said emphatically that his mission would be 'with an eye' on the Angolan elections."

As an echo of how party politics in the present campaign is being perceived by militants of the leading parties, there is a letter by a UNITA militant to the NJ in which he states:


“I am an old militant of UNITA who lived for a long time inside the UNITA liberated areas, including Jamba, the capital of the resistance at the time of Dr. Savimbi, the founding president of UNITA.
During the time that I lived in those areas, in relation to party-politics issues, there was no democracy in the true sense of the word, but there was Dr. Savimbi’s very able hand at manipulating politics, always taking into account the sensitivity and representativity of the local elites, bearing in mind their ethno-linguistic and racial belonging, which earned him lots of sympathy among the populations.
(…)
What we see today in Mr. Samakuva’s UNITA, as far as the choice of candidates for Members of Parliament (MPs) is concerned, is a scandal and is becoming dangerous for the harmony inside the party and the country. The elites of communities with political expression in various regions were almost all ignored. In retrospect, let’s mention the fact that in the pseudo-elections at the X Congress of UNITA, those who supported the parliamentarian Chivukuvuku for the leadership were removed from the places they held in the party, which contradicts the propaganda about democracy inside UNITA spread by Mr. Samakuva’s supporters. (…) The situation is even worse in the present choice of candidates for MPs, in provinces such as Benguela, where the genuine local UNITA elites are not represented and in their place friends and people from Mr. Samakuva’s region or his relatives were predominantly chosen. Quo vadis UNITA? The future will tell…”

Earlier in this series, I have published a similar letter from a MPLA militant appeared in the Angolense:



“In relation to the constitution of the list for future members of the National Assembly (MPs), I have to say that once again our glorious MPLA demonstrated that in terms of transparency and democracy it is the worst party. (…) Last Saturday, the Luanda Provincial Committee of the MPLA called a meeting with the directorships of the province’s ‘action committees’. The party bases, in spite of not having been informed beforehand of the reasons for the meeting, attended in mass. (…) [However], the meeting was pure and simply aimed at misleading the militants when the lists had already been made since March/April. The bases also became aware that the list for the national circle is equally very doubtful and doesn’t have any technical-professional credibility.
Within the various ‘action committees’ in Luanda’s urban areas (…) there are militants who sacrifice a lot in their work for the MPLA and are holders of undergraduate and masters degrees, among whom lawyers, university teachers and electoral trainers, with an enviable technical-professional experience. They are militants who have the MPLA at heart and whose presence in those committees will guarantee the party’s victory in the respective areas.

[However, it is sad to see that they were ignored in favour of mostly unknown faces].
(…)
That’s why, because of these injustices, the MPLA, mobilised with the sacrifice and supported by the bases, on polling day will see those same bases prefer to stay at home instead of voting for people that they don’t know and did not select. That’s also why the militant, if he chooses to vote, will do so for the opposition, which, in spite of the past, will probably have a better team for the National Assembly comparatively to our MPLA, which is not concerned with the Luanda vote because the victory will come from the provinces. We only regret that the MPLA continues to use the methods of the past and ignoring the fact that times have changed. It’s always the same people who get nominated, everything works on the basis of ‘schemes’ and corruption. When things are not done with transparency it’s a sign of corruption. That’s how the MPLA, even if unwillingly, is campaigning for the opposition.
I have expressed my opinion here because if I express it at the meeting I will be silenced, mistreated and perhaps killed. When a militant cannot just say what he feels and if he does is taken as disgruntled and when one is disgruntled it’s a crime, then it’s not possible to take these ideas to meetings. That’s how our MPLA is.”

Celso Malavoloneke, in the Semanario Angolense (SA), in an open letter to Fernando Macedo, president of the Association Justice, Peace and Democracy (AJPD), expresses his disagreements with the tone and the spirit of some of the positions this association has been taking on the current election campaign.

The proximate motive for Malavoloneke’s letter is a statement by AJPD, signed by Macedo and also published in the SA, according to which “The AJPD alerts the Angolan political community and the international community, specially the national and international observers, to the practices, unacceptable in a democratic state of rights, which have been occurring in the current electoral process, namely: the Government of Angola’s permanent propaganda in the state media using the same narrative discourse of one of the contending parties in clear violation of the principle of equal treatment and opportunity; the give-aways to members of the electorate of goods such as bicycles and motorcycles by political parties and organisations affected to them during acts of political campaign with vote orientation, all under the blind eye of the National Electoral Commission and the National Council for Social Communication; the persistence of attempts to violate the laws applicable to the electoral process, and the occasional political violence, even if of low intensity and not generalised, without the prompt charging of the responsible for such actions by the competent judicial and police bodies.”

In reaction to that statement, Malavoloneke asserts:

(…)

In 1991/92 I was placed in the southern region of the country coordinating the area of community development of a well known international ONG. In that role, I was witness to the damage caused to the bodies and minds of thousands of compatriots by inflammatory speeches and careless actions that have characterised that election campaign. The “friends” from the international community, headed by the United Nations and supported by the super-powers of the Cold War and Portugal, imposed their agenda and timing, anxious for a disposable solution in which the most honest hoped – they could only hope – that after they left the country Angolans would come to agreement the best way they could. However, all exploded even before that, with the consequences that we all know.
(…)

And, look, I forgot something: when the fight began, my functions changed, and do you know to what? Head of logistics of a makeshift travel agency to evacuate from the country the foreigners and their families from the chancelleries that contributed more or less openly to set the country on fire. And those chancelleries don’t seem far away from you and the AJPD. Ah! And I also evacuated some Angolans who all of a sudden produced other passports which they had been hiding, mind you…
(…)
Therefore, I would like you to understand that we all need ways out. Ways out that have also to be ways of hope. Ways of hope that do not need to be necessarily perfect, they just need to be necessarily ours. Created by us with the limitations that we have, created in our own context with our own specificities and created for our land with the adaptations that they might require, but not imposed by a theoretical script from any western country.
(…)

It seems to me that the Angolan elites have decided to look after these aspects and take that past as a reference. Therefore, your discourse, dear FM, sounds isolated and causes fears. Hence this reaction from your close brother. Our responsibility, as the elites, is to scrutinise the process, yes, but taking into account our idiosyncrasies. And one of them, really assumed, is that inflammatory, passionate, virulent speeches at this stage are arson attempts: whatever the reason, they are damaging, even dangerous, to the common good. Let us thus accept the imperfections of our process and let us build our own history with the responsibility of the great peoples where all tolerate each other. Because it is important at this stage for us to believe in the good will of everybody, whether or not it exists. It’s the price of the progress towards plain democracy. Where we arrive at not forcefully but by stages. Where mistakes, instead of throwing weapons, are pillars of the lessons learned in the way toward perfection.”

And finally...

ECHOES FROM THE ANGOLAN PRESS (22)

Today’s Jornal de Angola informs of the passing yesterday of Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa,

at the Parisian hospital where he had been interned since last July after suffering a cerebral thrombosis in Egypt on the eve of a African Union Summit meeting.

Trained as a lawyer, Mwanawasa was the third Zambian President after the country’s independence from Britain in 1964 and the first without links to liberation movements.
According to the country’s constitution, elections are to be held in 90 days to establish a new President.

In the A Capital, journalist Mario Paiva evaluates the forces at presence in the current legislative elections campaign and asks whether the country is facing "aged hopes or vulgar changes":

The performance of the opposition suggests an unpreparedness for a long-run race: while UNITA throws itself to the “consolidation of the electoral markets”, a handful of politicians doesn’t assume any ambitious objective; the vulgarization of “change”, the absence of confrontation of ideas and the lack of political assertiveness only helps to reinforce the banality of the supposed lesser evil: the status quo.
The MPLA, as the situation party, armed itself with an expected luggage: the alleged economic performance of the post-war, insufficient to claim governance efficiency credits but enough to insufflate the common place of the acquired experience and turn hopes even more aged and vague. Three decades of government, mostly under the first Republic, the one-party system and the absolute power, brought about the experience that made the party state a heavy reality in Angola.
To begin with, the governing party was on an advantageous starting position, due to the disproportion of material, financial and human resources, albeit weakened by the prolonged exercise of power, stained by authoritarianism and corruption. A careful propaganda campaign based on the recently attained peace, the multiplicity of public works and the take-off of some younger so-called technocrat executives, among other factors, did the rest.

Still in the same paper, an interview with Fernando Pacheco, president of the Consultative Board of the Angolan NGO ‘Action for the Rural Development and the Environment’ (ADRA):

According to Fernando Pacheco, Third World government officials are more concerned with their access to power and clientelism once they get there than with achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He further asserts that, in the Angolan case, such disregard for the MDGs is compounded by the politicians’ lack of awareness of its main items. For him, the MDGs will only start to be seriously debated in Angola when President Eduardo dos Santos decides to talk about them, as happened with the bio-fuels: “The political parties should talk more often about the MDGs. They should incorporate that concern in their programs.”
Asked whether he thought the country could meet the 2015 target year to achieve the MDGs, Fernando Pacheco expressed his scepticism, arguing that it would require a rapid change of government policies in some sectors of the economy to fight poverty: “This is an issue of government ethics and policy. More attention needs to be paid to family agriculture. There is need to create services and access to services can only be guaranteed by the state. It is necessary above all, to improve the living standards of the population. (…) There is need to improve schooling levels and the gender balance, because the more women have access to services, particularly to education, the more able they will be to contribute to GDP and to improve their family’s incomes and living conditions.”

The Novo Jornal reproduces an article first appeared in the Portuguese newspaper Diario Economico, about the expansion of business interests of the Angolan state oil company, Sonangol, in Portugal:

The most powerful Angolan company, Sonangol, already has deciding stakes in some of the biggest Portuguese companies, such as BCP, Galp and Amorim Energia and wants to buy into EDP, PT and ZON, in a strategy led by a discreet and implacable engineer with precious allies, Manuel Vicente. As a result of that strategy, in less than a year, Sonangol became the second biggest stakeholder of Millennium BCP bank, with a 7% stake, which it already announced its intention to increase. Besides the bank, the company has been investing in the main strategic sectors of the Portuguese economy: it controls 15% of Galp (through a 45% stake in Amorim Energy), has a partnership with Portugal Telecom (PT) at Unitel (an Angolan telecommunications operator) and has already expressed interest in entering the energy and natural gas sectors. ZON Multimedia, according to several sources in the market, is the next target.

Manuel Vicente has been at the helm of Sonangol and leading the company’s internationalisation for the last ten years. However, in spite of centralising all decisions, he doesn’t go ahead without President Dos Santos’ clearance. Almost every week, Manuel Vicente goes to the presidential palace, in Luanda, to dispatch personally with the President on the most important business of the Angolan most powerful company. This reveals a lot: first, that all strategic decisions of the company, including investments in Portugal, go through José Eduardo dos Santos; second, that Manuel Vicente is a man who has the trust of the politician.

Finally, also in the Novo Jornal, an interview with John Marcum, an American political scientist who is a close observer of Angolan politics since 1962 and was recently in the country to attend a Conference on Politics and Civil Society organised by the Catholic University of Angola:


You once wrote that “Angola was destined to be the experimental field of the desire and power of the post-Vietnam America.” Why Angola?

At independence, the military power had collapsed. There was no perspective of elections, much less of a coalition government. At the same time, there was the Cold War and the question was thus posed: either support one side or the other. For quite a long time I positioned myself publicly against the US support to UNITA or to any other party, because to me an intervention in this country didn’t make any sense. The American policy in relation to Angola, like that of the entire international community, was a huge failure. Later, in 1992, the United Nations supposedly should disarm the MPLA and UNITA forces, create a unique army and organise local elections. However, instead of that, it left the military situation in the open, promoted elections where “the winner took all and the loser took nothing”, and didn’t go ahead with the suffrage at the local level, important to establish “bottom-up” power structures. We all know the consequences.

16 years later, how do you evaluate Angola’s relationship with the international community?

Today the Angolan context is substantially different, although paradoxical. The external factor is not as strong in terms of governance. But there are the effects of the so-called “Dutch disease”, which happens when a country with immense resources is rich from the macro-economic viewpoint , but its richness is irresponsibly managed by those in power (I am not making any specific allegation, that’s what happens in global terms). The US and Europe are very dependent on oil, therefore they do not pressurise the producing countries to change their policies, because they don’t want to “offend” them. But, at the same time, it’s those resources which finance, for instance, the construction of buildings in Luanda and other projects. However, the areas of production must be diversified.

But that’s exactly the government’s official discourse, although, in practice the results are still below expectations.

That’s the opinion of the analysts. Sometimes money speaks louder.

Were these the values the old liberation movements fought for?

At the Accra Conference (the first Conference of African Peoples, in Ghana, which reunited leaders such as Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah, in 1958) the delegates were very optimistic in relation to Africa’s capacity to institute truly democratic regimes and avoid civil wars. Nobody expected this underdevelopment and authoritarianism. But there was no tradition of opposition and the European governments, and above all the Portuguese, didn’t develop the population’s analytical capacity. However, if we look retrospectively to the years I’ve been in Angola (1962, 1984,1992, and now), I would say that some things are evolving in a very constructive way, that time will heal the wounds and education will be expanded. Human beings want to be free and that’s what will prevail. But it won’t be easy.

Today’s Jornal de Angola informs of the passing yesterday of Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa,

at the Parisian hospital where he had been interned since last July after suffering a cerebral thrombosis in Egypt on the eve of a African Union Summit meeting.

Trained as a lawyer, Mwanawasa was the third Zambian President after the country’s independence from Britain in 1964 and the first without links to liberation movements.
According to the country’s constitution, elections are to be held in 90 days to establish a new President.

In the A Capital, journalist Mario Paiva evaluates the forces at presence in the current legislative elections campaign and asks whether the country is facing "aged hopes or vulgar changes":

The performance of the opposition suggests an unpreparedness for a long-run race: while UNITA throws itself to the “consolidation of the electoral markets”, a handful of politicians doesn’t assume any ambitious objective; the vulgarization of “change”, the absence of confrontation of ideas and the lack of political assertiveness only helps to reinforce the banality of the supposed lesser evil: the status quo.
The MPLA, as the situation party, armed itself with an expected luggage: the alleged economic performance of the post-war, insufficient to claim governance efficiency credits but enough to insufflate the common place of the acquired experience and turn hopes even more aged and vague. Three decades of government, mostly under the first Republic, the one-party system and the absolute power, brought about the experience that made the party state a heavy reality in Angola.
To begin with, the governing party was on an advantageous starting position, due to the disproportion of material, financial and human resources, albeit weakened by the prolonged exercise of power, stained by authoritarianism and corruption. A careful propaganda campaign based on the recently attained peace, the multiplicity of public works and the take-off of some younger so-called technocrat executives, among other factors, did the rest.

Still in the same paper, an interview with Fernando Pacheco, president of the Consultative Board of the Angolan NGO ‘Action for the Rural Development and the Environment’ (ADRA):

According to Fernando Pacheco, Third World government officials are more concerned with their access to power and clientelism once they get there than with achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He further asserts that, in the Angolan case, such disregard for the MDGs is compounded by the politicians’ lack of awareness of its main items. For him, the MDGs will only start to be seriously debated in Angola when President Eduardo dos Santos decides to talk about them, as happened with the bio-fuels: “The political parties should talk more often about the MDGs. They should incorporate that concern in their programs.”
Asked whether he thought the country could meet the 2015 target year to achieve the MDGs, Fernando Pacheco expressed his scepticism, arguing that it would require a rapid change of government policies in some sectors of the economy to fight poverty: “This is an issue of government ethics and policy. More attention needs to be paid to family agriculture. There is need to create services and access to services can only be guaranteed by the state. It is necessary above all, to improve the living standards of the population. (…) There is need to improve schooling levels and the gender balance, because the more women have access to services, particularly to education, the more able they will be to contribute to GDP and to improve their family’s incomes and living conditions.”

The Novo Jornal reproduces an article first appeared in the Portuguese newspaper Diario Economico, about the expansion of business interests of the Angolan state oil company, Sonangol, in Portugal:

The most powerful Angolan company, Sonangol, already has deciding stakes in some of the biggest Portuguese companies, such as BCP, Galp and Amorim Energia and wants to buy into EDP, PT and ZON, in a strategy led by a discreet and implacable engineer with precious allies, Manuel Vicente. As a result of that strategy, in less than a year, Sonangol became the second biggest stakeholder of Millennium BCP bank, with a 7% stake, which it already announced its intention to increase. Besides the bank, the company has been investing in the main strategic sectors of the Portuguese economy: it controls 15% of Galp (through a 45% stake in Amorim Energy), has a partnership with Portugal Telecom (PT) at Unitel (an Angolan telecommunications operator) and has already expressed interest in entering the energy and natural gas sectors. ZON Multimedia, according to several sources in the market, is the next target.

Manuel Vicente has been at the helm of Sonangol and leading the company’s internationalisation for the last ten years. However, in spite of centralising all decisions, he doesn’t go ahead without President Dos Santos’ clearance. Almost every week, Manuel Vicente goes to the presidential palace, in Luanda, to dispatch personally with the President on the most important business of the Angolan most powerful company. This reveals a lot: first, that all strategic decisions of the company, including investments in Portugal, go through José Eduardo dos Santos; second, that Manuel Vicente is a man who has the trust of the politician.

Finally, also in the Novo Jornal, an interview with John Marcum, an American political scientist who is a close observer of Angolan politics since 1962 and was recently in the country to attend a Conference on Politics and Civil Society organised by the Catholic University of Angola:


You once wrote that “Angola was destined to be the experimental field of the desire and power of the post-Vietnam America.” Why Angola?

At independence, the military power had collapsed. There was no perspective of elections, much less of a coalition government. At the same time, there was the Cold War and the question was thus posed: either support one side or the other. For quite a long time I positioned myself publicly against the US support to UNITA or to any other party, because to me an intervention in this country didn’t make any sense. The American policy in relation to Angola, like that of the entire international community, was a huge failure. Later, in 1992, the United Nations supposedly should disarm the MPLA and UNITA forces, create a unique army and organise local elections. However, instead of that, it left the military situation in the open, promoted elections where “the winner took all and the loser took nothing”, and didn’t go ahead with the suffrage at the local level, important to establish “bottom-up” power structures. We all know the consequences.

16 years later, how do you evaluate Angola’s relationship with the international community?

Today the Angolan context is substantially different, although paradoxical. The external factor is not as strong in terms of governance. But there are the effects of the so-called “Dutch disease”, which happens when a country with immense resources is rich from the macro-economic viewpoint , but its richness is irresponsibly managed by those in power (I am not making any specific allegation, that’s what happens in global terms). The US and Europe are very dependent on oil, therefore they do not pressurise the producing countries to change their policies, because they don’t want to “offend” them. But, at the same time, it’s those resources which finance, for instance, the construction of buildings in Luanda and other projects. However, the areas of production must be diversified.

But that’s exactly the government’s official discourse, although, in practice the results are still below expectations.

That’s the opinion of the analysts. Sometimes money speaks louder.

Were these the values the old liberation movements fought for?

At the Accra Conference (the first Conference of African Peoples, in Ghana, which reunited leaders such as Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah, in 1958) the delegates were very optimistic in relation to Africa’s capacity to institute truly democratic regimes and avoid civil wars. Nobody expected this underdevelopment and authoritarianism. But there was no tradition of opposition and the European governments, and above all the Portuguese, didn’t develop the population’s analytical capacity. However, if we look retrospectively to the years I’ve been in Angola (1962, 1984,1992, and now), I would say that some things are evolving in a very constructive way, that time will heal the wounds and education will be expanded. Human beings want to be free and that’s what will prevail. But it won’t be easy.