O BOM SAMARITANO, VICENTE, A FÉNIX DA APL, HISTÓRIAS DE ENCANTAR, E HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON

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Com a idade, as pessoas têm tendência para se repetir. Infelizmente, não sou excepção a confirmar a regra. Esforço-me para não falar ene vezes na mesma coisa e, mesmo assim, tenho recidivas. Mas hoje tenho justificação. Não por me ter tornado aficionado de corvos, mas porque há desenvolvimentos que criam situações novas, ou seja, não me repito: qual músico de Jazz, inovo sobre o mesmo tema. Vou falar outra vez do Vicente, habitué na área envolvente do Museu da Electricidade. Vicente não é um corvo qualquer. Mesmo que fosse, valia a pena falar dele muitas vezes. Mas Vicente tem uma história! Quase tão linda como o brilho das penas.

Hoje assisti outra vez ao espectáculo da refeição da ave, servida por um waiter completamente fascinante, como o passeriforme. Não resisti e meti conversa.

Então, o reformado pescador frustrado, sobre quem teci algumas considerações jocosas – devia estar calado quando o fiz – contou-me a história do “seu” Vicente.

Encontrou-o ali, há cerca de ano e meio, doente, agonizante, quase morto. Vítima das mais odiosas sevícias das gaivotas. Até os insignificantes pardais o molestavam, qual fábula do leão moribundo e do burro. Só que o leão, neste caso, nem forças tinha para lançar o último rugido. Com as penas das asas cortadas, sem poder voar, esperava morte rápida para acabar com tamanha humilhação. Ele, capaz de desancar quatro ou cinco corpulentas gaivotas!

Tinha sido estupidamente transformado em animal doméstico por gente medonha que lhe cortou as penas das asas para não fugir. Adoeceu, e tais biltres nem sequer tiveram a digna coragem de o abater. Abandonaram-no naquele jardim, assim aliviando a consciência do comportamento ignóbil, deixando-o exposto ao sofrimento da humilhação, pior que o físico.

O meu interlocutor levou-o para casa, tratou-lhe as feridas, alimentou-o e, como a sua mulher trabalhava numa empresa da indústria farmacêutica, arranjou vitaminas que, ingénua mas amorosamente, lhe dava, na esperança de acelerar a recuperação do enfermo.

Ingénuamente mas, por razões não esclarecidas, não é que o amigo começou a melhorar e, em duas semanas, estava como novo? Intervenção do além, comovido com tal generosidade? Inesperada evolução ditada pelas leis misteriosas do universo? Não sei. Mas fiquei a saber que Vicente, mesmo sem asas cortadas, não abandonava o novo lar!

As aparências enganam e aquele nobre samaritano teve discernimento para pensar que a vontade do Vicente, de se tornar quase em ave de gaiola, não podia satisfazer. Os pais têm muitas vezes de, contrariados, não satisfazer os desejos dos filhos, mesmo que seja fácil satisfazê-los. O samaritano pensou bem. Acolhê-lo e tratá-lo numa aflição, sim. Deixá-lo perder dignidade, não. Mesmo que tal fosse doloroso, tinha de devolvê-lo à liberdade não desejada.

Um belo dia, pegou nele, pousou-o na relva próxima do Museu da Electricidade, e disse: ”Vai à vida Vicente. Desejo-te as maiores felicidades”. O que deve ser é uma coisa, e o que é, é outra. Vicente foi à vida, mas não esqueceu o benfeitor. Percebeu que ele ia ali todos os dias dar banho à minhoca e fez um plano: diariamente iria vê-lo. Assim fez e venceu a lucidez do benfeitor, enamorado pela ave. Começou a trazer-lhe uma pêra ou maçã, depois queques, depois amendoins, depois, blá, blá, blá. Hoje o samaritano gasta mais de seis euros por dia para apaparicar o filho adoptado.

Bonito, não é?

Muito bonito!

Mas as coisas não são tão simples assim. Há os sábados e os domingos. Vicente não tem calendário e, por isso, pode não perceber porque ele não aparece nesses dias. Samaritano passa a ir lá, mesmo sem dar banho à minhoca, para apaparicar Vicente.

Vicente é”humano”. Errar é próprio do homem. Um dia, tem um devaneio não esclarecido e deixa de aparecer. Os queques regressam a casa primeiro e, depois, são simplesmente deitados ao lixo porque a comida do Vicente não passa na garganta do samaritano saudoso.

Duas semanas mais tarde, súbita e inesperadamente, quando o bom samaritano sai do carro, surge Vicente eufórico a cantar em altos berros! Teve saudades, não dos queques, mas do benfeitor. Benfeitor não pode conter as lágrimas com tal alegria. Lágrimas que voltaram hoje ao contar-me a história. Também eu estava quase a chorar e volto agora a estar, ao escrever isto!

História digna de inspirar um contador a valer de histórias para crianças. Digna de inspirar Hans Christian Andersen. Mas Andersen está morto e não anda por aí ninguém capaz de pegar nisto capazmente. Alguém acabará por estragar a história, com um conto pindérico.

Falta-me uma fotografia do samaritano. Na atrapalhação emocional decorrente de o ouvir, até me esqueci de lhe pedir para posar. Amanhã peço-lhe e vou dar-lhe a fotografia do Vicente mais uma cópia do poema de Edgar Allan Poe traduzido por Fernando Pessoa. Estou a ver os leitores a pensar que o homem não “mete dente” naquilo. Errado!

Aquele homem generoso, que pesca alpercatas no Tejo, faz parte de um grupo de pescadores que se deslocam para lá em triciclos “Piaggio”, em ciclomotores a cair aos bocados, até a pé. Aquele homem tem a cana de pesca enfiada num buraco do cais, enquanto cuida do Vicente e espera em vão por um peixe suicida. Faz parte de um grupo que tem direito a ouvir a “ronca” do ferry da Trafaria quando este se aproxima, para poderem retirar as linhas da água a tempo de o mestre não lhes estragar as artes porque, do alto da embarcação, não as vê. Aquele homem tem um Mercedes-Benz. Conhece a história da viagem dos restos mortais do mártir S. Vicente, do Algarve até Lisboa, numa nau escoltada e guiada por dois corvos, muito melhor do que eu. Aquele homem é muito mais culto do que nós todos juntos.

Poesia de Allan Poe? É canja para ele!

Preservation Society

A QUESTÃO DOS SUBMARINOS

CHARTER 08

I. Foreword



A hundred years have passed since the writing of China’s first constitution. 2008 also marks the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the thirtieth anniversary of the appearance of the Democracy Wall in Beijing, and the tenth of China’s signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy student protesters. The Chinese people, who have endured human rights disasters and uncountable struggles across these same years, now include many who see clearly that freedom, equality, and human rights are universal values of humankind and that democracy and constitutional government are the fundamental framework for protecting these values.


By departing from these values, the Chinese government’s approach to “modernization” has proven disastrous. It has stripped people of their rights, destroyed their dignity, and corrupted normal human intercourse. So we ask: Where is China headed in the twenty-first century? Will it continue with “modernization” under authoritarian rule, or will it embrace universal human values, join the mainstream of civilized nations, and build a democratic system? There can be no avoiding these questions.


The shock of the Western impact upon China in the nineteenth century laid bare a decadent authoritarian system and marked the beginning of what is often called “the greatest changes in thousands of years” for China. A “self-strengthening movement” followed, but this aimed simply at appropriating the technology to build gunboats and other Western material objects. China’s humiliating naval defeat at the hands of Japan in 1895 only confirmed the obsolescence of China’s system of government. The first attempts at modern political change came with the ill-fated summer of reforms in 1898, but these were cruelly crushed by ultraconservatives at China’s imperial court. With the revolution of 1911, which inaugurated Asia’s first republic, the authoritarian imperial system that had lasted for centuries was finally supposed to have been laid to rest. But social conflict inside our country and external pressures were to prevent it; China fell into a patchwork of warlord fiefdoms and the new republic became a fleeting dream.


The failure of both “self- strengthening” and political renovation caused many of our forebears to reflect deeply on whether a “cultural illness” was afflicting our country. This mood gave rise, during the May Fourth Movement of the late 1910s, to the championing of “science and democracy.” Yet that effort, too, foundered as warlord chaos persisted and the Japanese invasion [beginning in Manchuria in 1931] brought national crisis.


Victory over Japan in 1945 offered one more chance for China to move toward modern government, but the Communist defeat of the Nationalists in the civil war thrust the nation into the abyss of totalitarianism. The “new China” that emerged in 1949 proclaimed that “the people are sovereign” but in fact set up a system in which “the Party is all-powerful.” The Communist Party of China seized control of all organs of the state and all political, economic, and social resources, and, using these, has produced a long trail of human rights disasters, including, among many others, the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957), the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960), the Cultural Revolution (1966–1969), the June Fourth [Tiananmen Square] Massacre (1989), and the current repression of all unauthorized religions and the suppression of the weiquan rights movement [a movement that aims to defend citizens’ rights promulgated in the Chinese Constitution and to fight for human rights recognized by international conventions that the Chinese government has signed]. During all this, the Chinese people have paid a gargantuan price. Tens of millions have lost their lives, and several generations have seen their freedom, their happiness, and their human dignity cruelly trampled.


During the last two decades of the twentieth century the government policy of “Reform and Opening” gave the Chinese people relief from the pervasive poverty and totalitarianism of the Mao Zedong era, and brought substantial increases in the wealth and living standards of many Chinese as well as a partial restoration of economic freedom and economic rights. Civil society began to grow, and popular calls for more rights and more political freedom have grown apace. As the ruling elite itself moved toward private ownership and the market economy, it began to shift from an outright rejection of “rights” to a partial acknowledgment of them.


In 1998 the Chinese government signed two important international human rights conventions; in 2004 it amended its constitution to include the phrase “respect and protect human rights”; and this year, 2008, it has promised to promote a “national human rights action plan.” Unfortunately most of this political progress has extended no further than the paper on which it is written. The political reality, which is plain for anyone to see, is that China has many laws but no rule of law; it has a constitution but no constitutional government. The ruling elite continues to cling to its authoritarian power and fights off any move toward political change.


The stultifying results are endemic official corruption, an undermining of the rule of law, weak human rights, decay in public ethics, crony capitalism, growing inequality between the wealthy and the poor, pillage of the natural environment as well as of the human and historical environments, and the exacerbation of a long list of social conflicts, especially, in recent times, a sharpening animosity between officials and ordinary people.


As these conflicts and crises grow ever more intense, and as the ruling elite continues with impunity to crush and to strip away the rights of citizens to freedom, to property, and to the pursuit of happiness, we see the powerless in our society—the vulnerable groups, the people who have been suppressed and monitored, who have suffered cruelty and even torture, and who have had no adequate avenues for their protests, no courts to hear their pleas—becoming more militant and raising the possibility of a violent conflict of disastrous proportions. The decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional.


II. Our Fundamental Principles


This is a historic moment for China, and our future hangs in the balance. In reviewing the political modernization process of the past hundred years or more, we reiterate and endorse basic universal values as follows:


Freedom. Freedom is at the core of universal human values. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom in where to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to protest, among others, are the forms that freedom takes. Without freedom, China will always remain far from civilized ideals.


Human rights. Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in China’s recent history is a direct consequence of the ruling regime’s disregard for human rights.


Equality. The integrity, dignity, and freedom of every person—regardless of social station, occupation, sex, economic condition, ethnicity, skin color, religion, or political belief—are the same as those of any other. Principles of equality before the law and equality of social, economic, cultural, civil, and political rights must be upheld.


Republicanism. Republicanism, which holds that power should be balanced among different branches of government and competing interests should be served, resembles the traditional Chinese political ideal of “fairness in all under heaven.” It allows different interest groups and social assemblies, and people with a variety of cultures and beliefs, to exercise democratic self-government and to deliberate in order to reach peaceful resolution of public questions on a basis of equal access to government and free and fair competition.


Democracy. The most fundamental principles of democracy are that the people are sovereign and the people select their government. Democracy has these characteristics: (1) Political power begins with the people and the legitimacy of a regime derives from the people. (2) Political power is exercised through choices that the people make. (3) The holders of major official posts in government at all levels are determined through periodic competitive elections. (4) While honoring the will of the majority, the fundamental dignity, freedom, and human rights of minorities are protected. In short, democracy is a modern means for achieving government truly “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”


Constitutional rule. Constitutional rule is rule through a legal system and legal regulations to implement principles that are spelled out in a constitution. It means protecting the freedom and the rights of citizens, limiting and defining the scope of legitimate government power, and providing the administrative apparatus necessary to serve these ends.


III. What We Advocate


Authoritarianism is in general decline throughout the world; in China, too, the era of emperors and overlords is on the way out. The time is arriving everywhere for citizens to be masters of states. For China the path that leads out of our current predicament is to divest ourselves of the authoritarian notion of reliance on an “enlightened overlord” or an “honest official” and to turn instead toward a system of liberties, democracy, and the rule of law, and toward fostering the consciousness of modern citizens who see rights as fundamental and participation as a duty. Accordingly, and in a spirit of this duty as responsible and constructive citizens, we offer the following recommendations on national governance, citizens’ rights, and social development:


1. A New Constitution. We should recast our present constitution, rescinding its provisions that contradict the principle that sovereignty resides with the people and turning it into a document that genuinely guarantees human rights, authorizes the exercise of public power, and serves as the legal underpinning of China’s democratization. The constitution must be the highest law in the land, beyond violation by any individual, group, or political party.


2. Separation of Powers. We should construct a modern government in which the separation of legislative, judicial, and executive power is guaranteed. We need an Administrative Law that defines the scope of government responsibility and prevents abuse of administrative power. Government should be responsible to taxpayers. Division of power between provincial governments and the central government should adhere to the principle that central powers are only those specifically granted by the constitution and all other powers belong to the local governments.


3. Legislative Democracy. Members of legislative bodies at all levels should be chosen by direct election, and legislative democracy should observe just and impartial principles.


4. An Independent Judiciary. The rule of law must be above the interests of any particular political party and judges must be independent. We need to establish a constitutional supreme court and institute procedures for constitutional review. As soon as possible, we should abolish all of the Committees on Political and Legal Affairs that now allow Communist Party officials at every level to decide politically sensitive cases in advance and out of court. We should strictly forbid the use of public offices for private purposes.


5. Public Control of Public Servants. The military should be made answerable to the national government, not to a political party, and should be made more professional. Military personnel should swear allegiance to the constitution and remain nonpartisan. Political party organizations must be prohibited in the military. All public officials including police should serve as nonpartisans, and the current practice of favoring one political party in the hiring of public servants must end.


6. Guarantee of Human Rights. There must be strict guarantees of human rights and respect for human dignity. There should be a Human Rights Committee, responsible to the highest legislative body, that will prevent the government from abusing public power in violation of human rights. A democratic and constitutional China especially must guarantee the personal freedom of citizens. No one should suffer illegal arrest, detention, arraignment, interrogation, or punishment. The system of “Reeducation through Labor” must be abolished.


7. Election of Public Officials. There should be a comprehensive system of democratic elections based on “one person, one vote.” The direct election of administrative heads at the levels of county, city, province, and nation should be systematically implemented. The rights to hold periodic free elections and to participate in them as a citizen are inalienable.


8. Rural–Urban Equality. The two-tier household registry system must be abolished. This system favors urban residents and harms rural residents. We should establish instead a system that gives every citizen the same constitutional rights and the same freedom to choose where to live.


9. Freedom to Form Groups. The right of citizens to form groups must be guaranteed. The current system for registering nongovernment groups, which requires a group to be “approved,” should be replaced by a system in which a group simply registers itself. The formation of political parties should be governed by the constitution and the laws, which means that we must abolish the special privilege of one party to monopolize power and must guarantee principles of free and fair competition among political parties.


10. Freedom to Assemble. The constitution provides that peaceful assembly, demonstration, protest, and freedom of expression are fundamental rights of a citizen. The ruling party and the government must not be permitted to subject these to illegal interference or unconstitutional obstruction.


11. Freedom of Expression. We should make freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and academic freedom universal, thereby guaranteeing that citizens can be informed and can exercise their right of political supervision. These freedoms should be upheld by a Press Law that abolishes political restrictions on the press. The provision in the current Criminal Law that refers to “the crime of incitement to subvert state power” must be abolished. We should end the practice of viewing words as crimes.


12. Freedom of Religion. We must guarantee freedom of religion and belief, and institute a separation of religion and state. There must be no governmental interference in peaceful religious activities. We should abolish any laws, regulations, or local rules that limit or suppress the religious freedom of citizens. We should abolish the current system that requires religious groups (and their places of worship) to get official approval in advance and substitute for it a system in which registry is optional and, for those who choose to register, automatic.


13. Civic Education. In our schools we should abolish political curriculums and examinations that are designed to indoctrinate students in state ideology and to instill support for the rule of one party. We should replace them with civic education that advances universal values and citizens’ rights, fosters civic consciousness, and promotes civic virtues that serve society.


14. Protection of Private Property. We should establish and protect the right to private property and promote an economic system of free and fair markets. We should do away with government monopolies in commerce and industry and guarantee the freedom to start new enterprises. We should establish a Committee on State-Owned Property, reporting to the national legislature, that will monitor the transfer of state-owned enterprises to private ownership in a fair, competitive, and orderly manner. We should institute a land reform that promotes private ownership of land, guarantees the right to buy and sell land, and allows the true value of private property to be adequately reflected in the market.


15. Financial and Tax Reform. We should establish a democratically regulated and accountable system of public finance that ensures the protection of taxpayer rights and that operates through legal procedures. We need a system by which public revenues that belong to a certain level of government—central, provincial, county or local—are controlled at that level. We need major tax reform that will abolish any unfair taxes, simplify the tax system, and spread the tax burden fairly. Government officials should not be able to raise taxes, or institute new ones, without public deliberation and the approval of a democratic assembly. We should reform the ownership system in order to encourage competition among a wider variety of market participants.


16. Social Security. We should establish a fair and adequate social security system that covers all citizens and ensures basic access to education, health care, retirement security, and employment.


17. Protection of the Environment. We need to protect the natural environment and to promote development in a way that is sustainable and responsible to our descendants and to the rest of humanity. This means insisting that the state and its officials at all levels not only do what they must do to achieve these goals, but also accept the supervision and participation of nongovernmental organizations.


18. A Federated Republic. A democratic China should seek to act as a responsible major power contributing toward peace and development in the Asian Pacific region by approaching others in a spirit of equality and fairness. In Hong Kong and Macao, we should support the freedoms that already exist. With respect to Taiwan, we should declare our commitment to the principles of freedom and democracy and then, negotiating as equals and ready to compromise, seek a formula for peaceful unification. We should approach disputes in the national-minority areas of China with an open mind, seeking ways to find a workable framework within which all ethnic and religious groups can flourish. We should aim ultimately at a federation of democratic communities of China.


19. Truth in Reconciliation. We should restore the reputations of all people, including their family members, who suffered political stigma in the political campaigns of the past or who have been labeled as criminals because of their thought, speech, or faith. The state should pay reparations to these people. All political prisoners and prisoners of conscience must be released. There should be a Truth Investigation Commission charged with finding the facts about past injustices and atrocities, determining responsibility for them, upholding justice, and, on these bases, seeking social reconciliation.


China, as a major nation of the world, as one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and as a member of the UN Council on Human Rights, should be contributing to peace for humankind and progress toward human rights. Unfortunately, we stand today as the only country among the major nations that remains mired in authoritarian politics. Our political system continues to produce human rights disasters and social crises, thereby not only constricting China’s own development but also limiting the progress of all of human civilization. This must change, truly it must. The democratization of Chinese politics can be put off no longer.


Accordingly, we dare to put civic spirit into practice by announcing Charter 08. We hope that our fellow citizens who feel a similar sense of crisis, responsibility, and mission, whether they are inside the government or not, and regardless of their social status, will set aside small differences to embrace the broad goals of this citizens’ movement. Together we can work for major changes in Chinese society and for the rapid establishment of a free, democratic, and constitutional country. We can bring to reality the goals and ideals that our people have incessantly been seeking for more than a hundred years, and can bring a brilliant new chapter to Chinese civilization.


—Translated from the Chinese by Perry Link


Postscript


The planning and drafting of Charter 08 began in the late spring of 2008, but Chinese authorities were apparently unaware of it or unconcerned by it until several days before it was announced on December 10. On December 6, Wen Kejian, a writer who signed the charter, was detained in the city of Hangzhou in eastern China and questioned for about an hour. Police told Wen that Charter 08 was “different” from earlier dissident statements, and “a fairly grave matter.” They said there would be a coordinated investigation in all cities and provinces to “root out the organizers,” and they advised Wen to remove his name from the charter. Wen declined, telling the authorities that he saw the charter as a fundamental turning point in history.


Meanwhile, on December 8, in Shenzhen in the far south of China, police called on Zhao Dagong, a writer and signer of the charter, for a “chat.” They told Zhao that the central authorities were concerned about the charter and asked if he was the organizer in the Shenzhen area.


Later on December 8, at 11 PM in Beijing, about twenty police entered the home of Zhang Zuhua, one of the charter’s main drafters. A few of the police took Zhang with them to the local police station while the rest stayed and, as Zhang’s wife watched, searched the home and confiscated books, notebooks, Zhang’s passport, all four of the family’s computers, and all of their cash and credit cards. (Later Zhang learned that his family’s bank accounts, including those of both his and his wife’s parents, had been emptied.) Meanwhile, at the police station, Zhang was detained for twelve hours, where he was questioned in detail about Charter 08 and the group Chinese Human Rights Defenders in which he is active.


It was also late on December 8 that another of the charter’s signers, the literary critic and prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo, was taken away by police. His telephone in Beijing went unanswered, as did e-mail and Skype messages sent to him. As of the present writing, he’s believed to be in police custody, although the details of his detention are not known.


On the morning of December 9, Beijing lawyer Pu Zhiqiang was called in for a police “chat,” and in the evening the physicist and philosopher Jiang Qisheng was called in as well. Both had signed the charter and were friends of the drafters. On December 10—the day the charter was formally announced—the Hangzhou police returned to the home of Wen Kejian, the writer they had questioned four days earlier. This time they were more threatening. They told Wen he would face severe punishment if he wrote about the charter or about Liu Xiaobo’s detention. “Do you want three years in prison?” they asked. “Or four?”


On December 11 the journalist Gao Yu and the writer Liu Di, both well-known in Beijing, were interrogated about their signing of the Charter. The rights lawyer, Teng Biao, was approached by the police but declined, on principle, to meet with them. On December 12 and 13 there were reports of interrogations in many provinces—Shaanxi, Hunan, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and others—of people who had seen the charter on the Internet, found that they agreed with it, and signed. With these people the police focused on two questions: “How did you get involved?” and “What do you know about the drafters and organizers?”


The Chinese authorities seem unaware of the irony of their actions. Their efforts to quash Charter 08 only serve to underscore China’s failure to uphold the very principles that the charter advances. The charter calls for “free expression” but the regime says, by its actions, that it has once again denied such expression. The charter calls for freedom to form groups, but the nationwide police actions that have accompanied the charter’s release have specifically aimed at blocking the formation of a group. The charter says “we should end the practice of viewing words as crimes,” and the regime says (literally, to Wen Kejian) “we can send you to prison for these words.” The charter calls for the rule of law and the regime sends police in the middle of the night to act outside the law; the charter says “police should serve as nonpartisans,” and here the police are plainly partisan.


Charter 08 is signed only by citizens of the People’s Republic of China who are living inside China. But Chinese living outside China are signing a letter of strong support for the charter. The eminent historian Yu Ying-shih, the astrophysicist Fang Lizhi, writers Ha Jin and Zheng Yi, and more than 160 others have so far signed.


On December 12, the Dalai Lama issued his own letter in support of the charter, writing that “a harmonious society can only come into being when there is trust among the people, freedom from fear, freedom of expression, rule of law, justice, and equality.” He called on the Chinese government to release prisoners “who have been detained for exercising their freedom of expression.”
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UM MONUMENTO DE IGNOMÍNIA

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Vasco Graça Moura
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A Primeira República portuguesa foi um monumento de ignomínia. As comemorações em curso não podem escamotear esse facto e deveriam proporcionar aos portugueses uma visão altamente crítica desse período da nossa história. Historiadores como Vasco Pulido Valente e Rui Ramos já o têm feito e bem. Mas nunca será demais insistir.


Tem sido frequentemente observado que, na monarquia constitucional, o liberalismo foi abrindo a porta a uma dimensão republicana. De facto assim foi. A partir da estabilização ocorrida em meados do século XIX, viveu-se em Portugal uma era "republicana" de tolerância e de fruição das liberdades que só havia de extinguir-se pela força em 1910. Isto, apesar de todos os problemas que o constitucionalismo português foi tendo, da fragilidade do Estado e das suas instituições a uma catadupa de situações escandalosas e insustentáveis, passando por políticas erráticas, incompetentes e contraditórias, crises políticas e sociais, buracos financeiros insolúveis, corrupção, tráfico de influências, caciquismo, analfabetismo, atraso crónico e generalizado face à Europa e outras maleitas graves.

A monarquia constitucional acabou por cair de podre. Afundou-se no fracasso geral das instituições e no desprestígio mais completo dos partidos. Perdeu o pé no entrechocar das rivalidades, despeitos, ajustes de contas e interesses inconfessáveis dos grandes figurões de um regime em que os republicanos já se encontravam instalados por "osmose" pacífica havia muito, enquanto a tropa, quando não conspirava, ia assobiando para o lado. Tudo isso foi assim. Mas nunca a monarquia constitucional em seis décadas cometeu crimes comparáveis aos que a República praticou em meia dúzia de anos.

As comemorações do centenário da República têm de falar desses crimes. Eles foram cometidos sob a batuta de uma das figuras mais sinistras da nossa história. Graças a Afonso Costa e aos seus apaniguados organizados em milícias de malfeitores, a Primeira República, activamente respaldada pela Carbonária (e, mais tarde, por uma confraria de assassinos chamada Formiga Branca), nunca recuou ante a violência, a tortura, o derramamento de sangue e o homicídio puro e simples.
Instaurou friamente entre nós o pragmatismo do crime. Institucionalizou a fraude, a manipulação e a batota generalizadas em todos os planos da vida portuguesa. Manipulou e restringiu o sufrágio, excluindo dele os analfabetos, as mulheres e os padres. Perpetrou fraudes eleitorais sempre que pôde. Perseguiu da maneira mais radical e intolerante o clero católico, por vezes até ao espancamento e à morte. Levantou toda a espécie de obstáculos ao culto religioso e à liberdade de consciência. Cometeu as mais incríveis violências contra as pessoas. Apropriou-se do Estado, transformando-o em coutada pessoal do Partido Republicano Português…

Em 1915, Portugal deve ter sido um dos pioneiros na defesa do genocídio moderno. Na campanha militar que se desenrolava no Sul de Angola, as atrocidades são de pôr os cabelos em pé. Nas Actas das Sessões Secretas da Câmara dos Deputados e do Senado da República sobre a participação de Portugal na I Grande Guerra (ed. coordenada por Ana Mira, Lisboa, AR e Afrontamento, 2002), encontra-se o depoimento de um militar, segundo o qual "temos ordem para matar todo o gentio desde dez anos para cima" (p. 151). E os outros depoimentos testemunhais, ali reunidos de pp. 148 a 153, ilustram macabramente essa afirmação. Confrontado com esta situação no Parlamento, Afonso Costa foi peremptório: "Não nos deixemos mover por idealismos nem esqueçamos o conceito e impressão dos pretos perante respeitos humanitários que ele [orador] considera como fraqueza ou pusilanimidade" (op. cit., p. 115), ao que Brito Camacho respondeu que "civilizar com a navalha e a carabina não é humanitário nem científico. As chamadas raças inferiores são apenas raças atrasadas; não é possível civilizá-las, exterminando-as" (ibid., p. 117).

No momento em que escrevo, antevéspera da famigerada efeméride, não sei ainda o que é que o jacobinismo irresponsável de uns, a complacência timorata de outros e a versatilidade diplomática de muitos virão a dizer nas cerimónias oficiais. Mas como se corre o risco de estas coisas não serem publicamente referidas, aqui fica mais uma síntese muito incompleta delas, para que conste. Cumpro desta maneira a minha obrigação de republicano.
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EM 2010, "NÃO" A 1910, "SIM" A 1810

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Festejar o centenário – ou qualquer número de anos – da implantação da República em Portugal tem actualmente tanta justificação como festejar a instauração do comunismo na Rússia e a formação da União Soviética. Na verdade, as duas “revoluções de Outubro” têm vários pontos em comum. Para além do nome do mês em que foram feitas, une-as: o assassinato de membros das famílias reais; a tomada do poder por minorias socioideológicas extremamente motivadas, organizadas e violentas; a hostilidade radical em relação à Igreja; e, enfim, o principal, a imposição de ditaduras alicerçadas na propaganda e na supressão de liberdades.

O republicanismo português e o bolchevismo russo partilham por sua vez com o nazismo alemão outra interessante, e inquietante, característica: a radical alteração – nas cores e nos elementos que as compôem – das respectivas bandeiras nacionais. Porém, a cruz suástica em fundo vermelho, e a foice e o martelo em fundo vermelho, bem como os regimes que simbolizavam, já foram “arriados”, respectivamente em 1945 e em 1991. Por cá, a esfera armilar em fundo vermelho e verde da bandeira imposta pelo Grande Oriente Lusitano, pela Carbonária e pelo Partido Republicano Português continua a dominar. Por outras palavras Adolfo Hitler e Vladimir Lenine (e José Estaline) já foram derrotados mas Afonso Costa e António de Oliveira Salazar continua(m) a vencer.

As promessas políticas “progressistas” dos supostos “democráticos” do PRP não passaram disso mesmo: o sufrágio universal não foi concretizado, tendo inclusivamente o número de eleitores sido reduzido para metade do que era durante a Monarquia; às mulheres foi proibido, em lei de 1913, o direito de voto; e, com excepção de Sidónio Pais, todos os presidentes até 1926 foram eleitos indirectamente, no Parlamento. A II República foi, sim, uma ditadura, mas mais não fez do que aperfeiçoar, consolidar, desenvolver um “modelo” estabelecido na ditadura precedente, ou seja a I República. “Modelo” esse que tinha como principais – e literais – linhas de força: perseguição, prisão e “eliminação” de opositores ideológicos; repressão de movimentos e dirigentes sindicais; censura, encerramento de jornais, condicionamento da liberdade de expressão; polícia política com uma rede de informadores, denunciantes, “bufos” – à “Formiga Branca” seguiu-se a PVDE/PIDE/DGS. Só com o 25 de Abril de 1974, a República em Portugal na sua terceira fase, se tornou democrática – e, mesmo assim, como se sabe, com muitas deficiências.

Não deixa de ser verdade, no entanto, que o Portugal de 2010 proprciona o “cenário” ideal para a “condigna” celebração dos “ideais” de 5 de Outubro de 1910 “concretizados” nos 16 anos seguintes: agora, tal como naquela época, no “espectáculo” há (pré)falência financeira, insegurança generalizada, ataques a órgãos de comunicação social... e até alteraçãos na ortografia! É tambémpor isso que é pouco menos que escandalosa a existência de uma Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações do Centenário da República com um orçamento de 10 milhões de euros que tem servido, inevitável e principalmente, para a continuação da adulteração da História e do branqueamento de um regime de criminosos , contando para isso com a colaboraçãodas instituições estatais, bibliotecas, ecolas e da rádio e televisão públicas... e a conivência, ou indiferença de muitas entidades privadas.

Todavia, se a comemoração do centenário da República, só por si, constitui uma ofensa à dignidade nacional, o ultraje torna-se ainda maior quando comparado, e confrontado, com a inexistência de um programa nacional, oficial, plurianual, “civil” (o Exército tem um e alguns concelhos têm programas específicos) de evocação do bicentenário da (iniciada em 1807) Guerra Peninsular e da comemoração da resistência portuguesa aos exércitos napoleónicos. Hoje, 27 de Setembro de 2010, passam 200 anos sobre a Batalha do Buçaco, que representou um ponto de viragem decisivo naquela guerra e na posterior vitória total das força luso-britânicas comandadas por Arthr Wellesley; no local previam-se as presenças do presidente da República e do Ministro da Defesa, mas, a confirmarem-se, nada mais são do que excepções à regra... do desinteresse. Porquê? Porque para a República é mais condenável o Ultimato Inglês do que as Invasões Francesas?

Em curiosa coincidência, 1810 foi também o ano em que nasceu Alexandre Herculano, corporização do melhor que Portugal teve, no Século XIX e não só. Monárquico assumido, não surpreende por isso o silêncio de que se revestiu o bicentenário do seu nascimento assinalado a 28 de Março último – contraponto evidente, e retaliação tardia, pela autêntica festa nacional em que consistiu o centenário do seu nascimento, penúltima grande manifestação da dinastia que seria derrubada seis meses depois; a última seria, precisamente, o centenário da Batalha do Buçaco... apenas uma semana antes do golpe republicano!

Assim, é por tudo isto que se deve dizer em 2010, “não” a 1910, “sim” a 1810.
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Octávio dos Santos

FOUND IN TRANSLATION

By MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM


AS the author of “Las Horas,” “Die Stunden” and “De Uren” — ostensibly the Spanish, German and Dutch translations of my book “The Hours," but actually unique works in their own right — I’ve come to understand that all literature is a product of translation. That is, translation is not merely a job assigned to a translator expert in a foreign language, but a long, complex and even profound series of transformations that involve the writer and reader as well. “Translation” as a human act is, like so many human acts, a far more complicated proposition than it may initially seem to be.
Let’s take as an example one of the most famous lines in literature: “Call me Ishmael.” That, as I suspect you know, is the opening sentence of Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick.” We still recognize that line, after more than 150 years.
Still. “Call me Ishmael.” Three simple words. What’s the big deal?
For one thing, they possess that most fundamental but elusive of all writerly qualities: authority. As writers we must, from our very opening sentence, speak with authority to our readers.
e like waltzing with a new partner for the first time. Anyone who is able to waltz, or fox-trot, or tango, or perform any sort of dance that requires physical contact with a responsive partner, knows that there is a first moment, on the dance floor, when you assess, automatically, whether the new partner in question can dance at all — and if he or she can in fact dance, how well. You know almost instantly whether you have a novice on your hands, and that if you do, you’ll have to do a fair amount of work just to keep things moving.
Authority is a rather mysterious quality, and it’s almost impossible to parse it for its components. The translator’s first task, then, is to re-render a certain forcefulness that can’t quite be described or explained.
Athough the words “Call me Ishmael” have force and confidence, force and confidence alone aren’t enough. “Idiot, read this” has force and confidence too, but is less likely to produce the desired effect. What else do Melville’s words possess that “Idiot, read this” lack?
They have music. Here’s where the job of translation gets more difficult. Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and music. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage and delight the inner ear. Ideally, a sentence read aloud, in a foreign language, should still sound like something, even if the listener has no idea what it is he or she is being told.
Let’s try to forget that the words “Call me Ishmael” mean anything, and think about how they sound.
Listen to the vowel sounds: ah, ee, soft i, aa. Four of them, each different, and each a soft, soothing note. Listen too to the way the line is bracketed by consonants. We open with the hard c, hit the l at the end of “call,” and then, in a lovely act of symmetry, hit the l at the end of “Ishmael.” “Call me Arthur” or “Call me Bob” are adequate but not, for musical reasons, as satisfying.
Most readers, of course, wouldn’t be able to tell you that they respond to those three words because they are soothing and symmetrical, but most readers register the fact unconsciously. You could probably say that meaning is the force we employ, and music is the seduction. It is the translator’s job to reproduce the force as well as the music.
“Chiamami Ismaele.”
That is the Italian version of Melville’s line, and the translator has done a nice job. I can tell you, as a reader who doesn’t speak Italian, that those two words do in fact sound like something, independent of their meaning. Although different from the English, we have a new, equally lovely progression of vowel sounds — ee-a, ah, ee, a, ee — and those three m’s, nicely spaced.
If you’re translating “Moby-Dick,” that’s one sentence down, approximately a million more to go.
I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might seem, because I’ve learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself. It is not, of course, translated into another language but it is a translation from the images in the author’s mind to that which he is able to put down on paper.
Here’s a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they’d intended to write. It’s one of the heartbreaks of writing fiction. You have, for months or years, been walking around with the idea of a novel in your mind, and in your mind it’s transcendent, it’s brilliantly comic and howlingly tragic, it contains everything you know, and everything you can imagine, about human life on the planet earth. It is vast and mysterious and awe-inspiring. It is a cathedral made of fire.
But even if the book in question turns out fairly well, it’s never the book that you’d hoped to write. It’s smaller than the book you’d hoped to write. It is an object, a collection of sentences, and it does not remotely resemble a cathedral made of fire.
It feels, in short, like a rather inept translation of a mythical great work.
The translator, then, is simply moving the book another step along the translation continuum. The translator is translating a translation.
A translator is also translating a work in progress, one that has a beginning, middle and end but is not exactly finished, even though it’s being published. A novel, any novel, if it’s any good, is not only a slightly disappointing translation of the novelist’s grandest intentions, it is also the most finished draft he could come up with before he collapsed from exhaustion. It’s all I can do not to go from bookstore to bookstore with a pen, grabbing my books from the shelves, crossing out certain lines I’ve come to regret and inserting better ones. For many of us, there is not what you could call a “definitive text.”
This brings us to the question of the relationship between writers and their readers, where another act of translation occurs.
I teach writing, and one of the first questions I ask my students every semester is, who are you writing for? The answer, 9 times out of 10, is that they write for themselves. I tell them that I understand — that I go home every night, make an elaborate cake and eat it all by myself. By which I mean that cakes, and books, are meant to be presented to others. And further, that books (unlike cakes) are deep, elaborate interactions between writers and readers, albeit separated by time and space.
I remind them, as well, that no one wants to read their stories. There are a lot of other stories out there, and by now, in the 21st century, there’s been such an accumulation of literature that few of us will live long enough to read all the great stories and novels, never mind the pretty good ones. Not to mention the fact that we, as readers, are busy.
We have large and difficult lives. We have, variously, jobs to do, spouses and children to attend to, errands to run, friends to see; we need to keep up with current events; we have gophers in our gardens; we are taking extension courses in French or wine tasting or art appreciation; we are looking for evidence that our lovers are cheating on us; we are wondering why in the world we agreed to have 40 people over on Saturday night; we are worried about money and global warming; we are TiVo-ing five or six of our favorite TV shows.
What the writer is saying, essentially, is this: Make room in all that for this. Stop what you’re doing and read this. It had better be apparent, from the opening line, that we’re offering readers something worth their while.
I should admit that when I was as young as my students are now, I too thought of myself as writing either for myself, for some ghostly ideal reader, or, at my most grandiose moments, for future generations. My work suffered as a result.
It wasn’t until some years ago, when I was working in a restaurant bar in Laguna Beach, Calif., that I discovered a better method. One of the hostesses was a woman named Helen, who was in her mid-40s at the time and so seemed, to me, to be just slightly younger than the Ancient Mariner. Helen was a lovely, generous woman who had four children and who had been left, abruptly and without warning, by her husband. She had to work. And work and work. She worked in a bakery in the early mornings, typed manuscripts for writers in the afternoons, and seated diners at the restaurant nights.
Helen was an avid reader, and her great joy, at the end of her long, hard days, was to get into bed and read for an hour before she caught the short interlude of sleep that was granted her. She read widely and voraciously. She was, when we met, reading a trashy murder mystery, and I, as only the young and pretentious might do, suggested that she try Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” since she liked detective stories. She read it in less than a week. When she had finished it she told me, “That was wonderful.”
“Thought you’d like it,” I answered.
She added, “Dostoyevsky is much better than Ken Follett.”
“Yep.”
Then she paused. “But he’s not as good as Scott Turow.”
Although I didn’t necessarily agree with her about Dostoyevsky versus Turow, I did like, very much, that Helen had no school-inspired sense of what she was supposed to enjoy more, and what less. She simply needed what any good reader needs: absorption, emotion, momentum and the sense of being transported from the world in which she lived and transplanted into another one.
I began to think of myself as trying to write a book that would matter to Helen. And, I have to tell you, it changed my writing. I’d seen, rather suddenly, that writing is not only an exercise in self-expression, it is also, more important, a gift we as writers are trying to give to readers. Writing a book for Helen, or for someone like Helen, is a manageable goal.
It also helped me to realize that the reader represents the final step in a book’s life of translation.
One of the more remarkable aspects of writing and publishing is that no two readers ever read the same book. We will all feel differently about a movie or a play or a painting or a song, but we have all undeniably seen or heard the same movie, play, painting or song. They are physical entities. A painting by Velázquez is purely and simply itself, as is “Blue” by Joni Mitchell. If you walk into the appropriate gallery in the Prado Museum, or if someone puts a Joni Mitchell disc on, you will see the painting or hear the music. You have no choice.
Writing, however, does not exist without an active, consenting reader. Writing requires a different level of participation. Words on paper are abstractions, and everyone who reads words on paper brings to them a different set of associations and images. I have vivid mental pictures of Don Quixote, Anna Karenina and Huckleberry Finn, but I feel confident they are not identical to the images carried in the mind of anyone else.
Helen was, clearly, not reading the same “Crime and Punishment” I was. She wasn’t looking for an existential work of genius. She was looking for a good mystery, and she read Dostoyevsky with that thought in mind. I don’t blame her for it. I like to imagine that Dostoyevsky wouldn’t, either.
What the reader is doing, then, is translating the words on the pages into his or her own private, imaginary lexicon, according to his or her interests and needs and levels of comprehension.
Here, then, is the full process of translation. At one point we have a writer in a room, struggling to approximate the impossible vision that hovers over his head. He finishes it, with misgivings. Some time later we have a translator struggling to approximate the vision, not to mention the particulars of language and voice, of the text that lies before him. He does the best he can, but is never satisfied. And then, finally, we have the reader. The reader is the least tortured of this trio, but the reader too may very well feel that he is missing something in the book, that through sheer ineptitude he is failing to be a proper vessel for the book’s overarching vision.
I don’t mean to suggest that writer, translator and reader are all engaged in a mass exercise in disappointment. How depressing would that be? And untrue.
And still. We, as a species, are always looking for cathedrals made of fire, and part of the thrill of reading a great book is the promise of another yet to come, a book that may move us even more deeply, raise us even higher. One of the consolations of writing books is the seemingly unquenchable conviction that the next book will be better, will be bigger and bolder and more comprehensive and truer to the lives we live. We exist in a condition of hope, we love the beauty and truth that come to us, and we do our best to tamp down our doubts and disappointments.
We are on a quest, and are not discouraged by our collective suspicion that the perfection we look for in art is about as likely to turn up as is the Holy Grail. That is one of the reasons we, I mean we humans, are not only the creators, translators and consumers of literature, but also its subjects.
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Michael Cunningham is the author of “The Hours” and, most recently, “By Nightfall.”
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