Monday, July 02, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
Urgency, Commitment and Ambition
Urgency, Commitment and Ambition
The people of the world confront the advance of capitalism: Rio +20 and beyond
Via Campesina
Governments from all over the world will meet in Río de Janeiro, Brasil from June 20-22 2012, to supposedly commemorate 20 years since the “Earth Summit”, the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, that established for the first time a global agenda for “sustainable development”. During this summit, in 1992, three international conventions were adopted: the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, and the Convention to Fight Desertification. Each of these promised to initiate a series of actions destined to protect the planet and all of the life on it, and to allow all human beings to enjoy a life of dignity.
At that time , many social organizations congratulated and supported these new conventions with hope. Twenty years later, we see the real causes of environmental, economic, and social deterioration continuing without being attacked. Worse still, we are profoundly alarmed that the next meeting in June will serve to deepen neoliberal policies and processes of capitalist expansion, concentration, and exclusion that today have enveloped us in an environmental, economic, and social crisis of grave proportions. Beneath the deceptive and badly intentioned term “green economy”, new forms of environmental contamination and destruction are now rolled out along with new waves of privatization, monopolization, and expulsion from our lands and territories.
La Via Campesina will mobilize for this event, representing the voice of the peasant in the global debate and defending a different path to development that is based on the wellbeing of all, that guarantees food for all, that protects and guarantees that the commons and natural resources are put to use to provide a good life for everyone and not to meet the needs for accumulation of a few.
20 years later: the planet and humanity in crisis
20 years after the Earth Summit, life on the planet has become dramatically difficult. The number of hungry people has increased to almost a billion, which means that one out of every six people is going hungry, mostly children and women in the countryside. Expulsion from our lands and territories is accelerating, no longer only due to conditions of disadvantage imposed upon us by trade agreements and the industrial sector, but by new forms of monopoly control over land and water, by the global imposition of intellectual property regimes that steal our seeds, by the invasion of transgenic seeds, and by the advance of monoculture plantations, mega-projects, and mines.
The grand promises of Río ’92 have resulted a farce. The Convention on Biodiversity has not stopped the destruction of biodiversity and has strengthened and generated new mechanisms destined to privatize it and turn it into merchandise. Desertification continues to accelerate due to the industrial agriculture and the expansion of agribusiness and monoculture plantations. Global warming —with all of the disasters and dramatic suffering it is already causing—has not slowed, but has accelerated and become more severe.
The great deceit of 1992 was “sustainable development”, which social organizations initially saw as a possibility to confront the root of the problems. However, it was nothing more than a cover-up for the search for new forms of accumulation. Today they look to legitimize a new façade under the name “green economy”.
The “green economy” and other false solutions: a new assault on the people and their territories
Capitalist profit-seeking has generated the biggest systemic crisis since 1929. Since 2008, the hegemonic system has looked for ways out of its structural crisis, searching for new possibilities for accumulation that support its logic. It is in this context that the corporate takeover of agreements on biodiversity and climate change have occurred, and consequently, the development of this new financial engineering called Green Capitalism.
Governments, business people, and the organizations of the United Nations have spent these last years constructing the myth of the “green economy” and of the “greening of technology”. They present it as a new possibility to bring together environmental stewardship and business, but it is in fact the vehicle to obtain new advances of capitalism, putting the entire planet under the control of big capital. . There are various mechanisms that will be advanced by the green economy and all of them will increase the destruction. More specifically,
1. The green economy does not seek to reduce climate change or environmental deterioration, but to generalize the principle that those who have money can continue polluting. Up to now, they have used the farce of purchasing carbon bonds to continue emitting greenhouse gases. They are now inventing biodiversity bonds. This is to say, businesses can continue destroying forests and ecosystems, as long as they pay someone to supposedly conserve biodiversity somewhere else. Tomorrow they may invent bonds for water, natural “views”, or clean air.
2. These systems of buying environmental services are being used to take lands and territories away from indigenous peoples and peasants. The mechanisms that are most forcefully promoted by governments and businesses are the systems known as REDD and REDD plus. They say that these are systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by deforestation and degradation of the forests, but they are being used to impose, for a ridiculous price, management plans that deny families and rural communities access to their own lands, forests, and water sources. In addition, they guarantee businesses unrestricted access to collective forest areas, enabling biopiracy. They also impose contracts that tie communities to these management plans for 20 years or more and that leave indigenous and peasant territories with mortgage liens, that increases the likelihood that these communities will lose their lands. The objectives of these environmental services are to take control of nature reserves and of the territories that are under the control of these communities.
3. Another initiative of the green economy is to convert plants, algae, and all other organic material (residues, dung, etc.) into a source of energy to substitute for petroleum; what is called “use of biomass”. With agrofuels, this has meant that thousands of hectares that should be covered in forests or producing food are being used to feed machines. If the use of biomass energy is effectivelyexpanded, we will see life in the seas reduced still more because an important segment of marine species will go without food. Our soils will not recuperate the organic material that is essential to conserve fertility and guard against erosion and drought. It will be impossible to feed our animals because the food they need is ever more scarce and expensive. Also, the water shortage will worsen, either directly through the cultivation of agrofuels or because our soils no longer have the capacity to absorb and retain water due to a lack of organic matter.
4. Then, they speak to us of “climate smart agriculture”, the goal of which is to convince us to accept a new Green Revolution—possibly with transgenics—and that instead of demanding effective support to defend us from the effects of climate change, we accept laughable payments that function the same way as REDD. They also seek to impose systems that are highly dependent on large quantities of agrotoxins—like direct seeding that depends on aerial sprayings of Round Up—that they would call “low carbon agriculture”. That is to say, we are obliged to accept a certain type of agriculture that will jeopardize control of our territories, our ecosystems, and our water.
5. One of the most perverse aspects of the false solutions that are promoted in international negotiations is the restriction of access to and use of water for irrigation. Using the pretext that water for irrigation is scarce, it is suggested that water be concentrated in “high value crops”; meaning that export crops, agrofuels and other industrial crops are irrigated while food crops are left without water.
6. The promotion of technological solutions that are not solutions at all is also part of the agenda of the discussions in Rio. Among the most dangerous are geoengineering and the acceptance of transgenic crops. Up until now, none of the solutions proposed by geoengineering have demonstrated any real capacity to solve climate problems. On the contrary, some forms of geoengineering (like the fertilization of the seas) are so dangerous that there has been an international moratorium declared aginst them. To accept Genetically modified organism (GMOs), we are told that crops resistant to drought and heat will be created, but the only thing new in GMOs are more herbicide-resistant varieties, which are bringing back to the market highly toxic herbicides like 2,4-D.
7. The most ambitious plan and the one that some governments identify as “the major challenge” is to put a price on all the goods of nature (like water, biodiversity, the countryside, wildlife, seeds, rain, etc.) to then privatize them (arguing that conservation requires money) and charge us for their use. This is called the Economy of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). It is the final assault on nature and life, but also on the means of work and the lives of the people whose livelihoods are based on agriculture, hunting, and fishing.
This “green” capitalism has the rural commons, agriculture, land and water particularly in its sights. We are already suffering from its effects in the form of land grabs or monopolization of land, privatization of water, the oceans, of indigenous territories, the national parks and nature reserves; all these processes are being accompanied by the forced expulsions of peasant and indigenous communities.
The real solution: put peasant and indigenous farmers at the center
We, peasants and indigenous peoples, are the ones who are concentrated in the highest levels of poverty because we have been deprived of land and we have been constrained by law or by force so that we cannot cultivate and exchange freely. Nonetheless, we are people who have been resisting expulsion from the countryside, and still we are more than 90% of the rural population. Our forms of agriculture cool the planet, care for ecosystems and secure the food supply for the poorest.
Every real solution happens to impinge upon the unbridled profits of capital, put an end to the complicity of governments and supports forms of production that effectively care for the planet. Food Sovereignty is at the heart of the necessary changes, and is the only real path that can possibly feed all of humanity. Our proposals are clear and introduce real solutions:
1. We should exchange the industrial agroexport food system for a system based on food sovereignty, that returns the land to its social function as the producer of food and sustainer of life, that puts local production of food at the center, as well as the local markets and local processing. Food sovereignty allows us to put an end to monocultures and agribusiness, to foster systems of peasant production that are characterized by greater intensity and productivity, that provide jobs, care for the soil and produce in a way that is healing and diversified. Peasant and indigenous agriculture also has the ability to cool the planet, with the capacity to absorb or prevent almost 2/3 of the greenhouses gases that are emitted every year.
2. The land currently in the hands of peasants and indigenous peoples is around 20% of all agricultural land in the world. And yet l, on this land the peasant and indigenous families and communities produce slightly less than half of the world’s food. The most secure and efficient way to overcome hunger around the world is in our hands.
3. To secure food for all and restore the earth’s normal climate, it is necessary to return agriculture to the hands of peasant communities and indigenous peoples. To do this, we must have urgent, integrated, sweeping agrarian reform that ends the extreme and growing concentration of land that affects all of humanity today. These agrarian reforms will provide the material conditions for agriculture to benefit all of humanity and thus , the defense and protection of peasant and indigenous agriculture is up to all of us. In the short run, it is necessary to halt all transactions, concessions, and transfers that result in concentration or monopoly control of land and/or the displacement of rural communities.
4. Peasant and indigenous systems of agriculture, hunting, fishing, and shepherding that care for the land and the food supply should be supported adequately with public resources that are not subject to conditionalities. Market mechanisms—like the sale of carbon and environmental services—should be eliminated and replaced with real measures like those mentioned above. Ending pollution is a duty that no one should be able to avoid by paying for the rights to continue the destruction.
5. The legitimate use of what international organizations and enterprises now call biomass is to feed every living being, and then to be returned to the earth to restore its fertility. The emissions that come from wasted energy should be reduced through saving and eliminating waste. We need renewable, decentralized sources of energy, within reach of the people.
We are mobilized to unmask Rio +20 and green capitalism
We, peasants, family farmers, landless peasants, indigenous peoples and migrants, men and women, decidedly oppose the commercialization of the earth, our territories, water, seeds, food, nature, and human life. We reiterate what was said at the People’s Summit in Cochabamba, Bolivia: “Humanity faces a grand dilemma: to continue the path of capitalism, predation, and death, or undertake the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.”
We repudiate and denounce the green economy as a new mask to hide increasing levels of corporate greed and food imperialism in the world, and as a brutal “green washing” of capitalism that only implements false solutions, like carbon trading, REDD, geoengineering, GMOs, agrofuels, bio-char, and all of the market- based solutions to the environmental crisis. Our goal is to bring back another way of relating to nature and other people. This is also our duty, and our right and so we will continue fighting and calling on others to continue fighting tirelessly for the construction of food sovereignty, for comprehensive agrarian reform and the restoration of indigenous territories, for ending the violence of capital and restoring peasant and indigenous systems of production based on agroecology.
NO TO THE FALSE SOLUTIONS OF GREEN CAPITALISM
PEASANT AGRICULTURE NOW!
An international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers.
The people of the world confront the advance of capitalism: Rio +20 and beyond
Via Campesina
Governments from all over the world will meet in Río de Janeiro, Brasil from June 20-22 2012, to supposedly commemorate 20 years since the “Earth Summit”, the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, that established for the first time a global agenda for “sustainable development”. During this summit, in 1992, three international conventions were adopted: the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, and the Convention to Fight Desertification. Each of these promised to initiate a series of actions destined to protect the planet and all of the life on it, and to allow all human beings to enjoy a life of dignity.
At that time , many social organizations congratulated and supported these new conventions with hope. Twenty years later, we see the real causes of environmental, economic, and social deterioration continuing without being attacked. Worse still, we are profoundly alarmed that the next meeting in June will serve to deepen neoliberal policies and processes of capitalist expansion, concentration, and exclusion that today have enveloped us in an environmental, economic, and social crisis of grave proportions. Beneath the deceptive and badly intentioned term “green economy”, new forms of environmental contamination and destruction are now rolled out along with new waves of privatization, monopolization, and expulsion from our lands and territories.
La Via Campesina will mobilize for this event, representing the voice of the peasant in the global debate and defending a different path to development that is based on the wellbeing of all, that guarantees food for all, that protects and guarantees that the commons and natural resources are put to use to provide a good life for everyone and not to meet the needs for accumulation of a few.
20 years later: the planet and humanity in crisis
20 years after the Earth Summit, life on the planet has become dramatically difficult. The number of hungry people has increased to almost a billion, which means that one out of every six people is going hungry, mostly children and women in the countryside. Expulsion from our lands and territories is accelerating, no longer only due to conditions of disadvantage imposed upon us by trade agreements and the industrial sector, but by new forms of monopoly control over land and water, by the global imposition of intellectual property regimes that steal our seeds, by the invasion of transgenic seeds, and by the advance of monoculture plantations, mega-projects, and mines.
The grand promises of Río ’92 have resulted a farce. The Convention on Biodiversity has not stopped the destruction of biodiversity and has strengthened and generated new mechanisms destined to privatize it and turn it into merchandise. Desertification continues to accelerate due to the industrial agriculture and the expansion of agribusiness and monoculture plantations. Global warming —with all of the disasters and dramatic suffering it is already causing—has not slowed, but has accelerated and become more severe.
The great deceit of 1992 was “sustainable development”, which social organizations initially saw as a possibility to confront the root of the problems. However, it was nothing more than a cover-up for the search for new forms of accumulation. Today they look to legitimize a new façade under the name “green economy”.
The “green economy” and other false solutions: a new assault on the people and their territories
Capitalist profit-seeking has generated the biggest systemic crisis since 1929. Since 2008, the hegemonic system has looked for ways out of its structural crisis, searching for new possibilities for accumulation that support its logic. It is in this context that the corporate takeover of agreements on biodiversity and climate change have occurred, and consequently, the development of this new financial engineering called Green Capitalism.
Governments, business people, and the organizations of the United Nations have spent these last years constructing the myth of the “green economy” and of the “greening of technology”. They present it as a new possibility to bring together environmental stewardship and business, but it is in fact the vehicle to obtain new advances of capitalism, putting the entire planet under the control of big capital. . There are various mechanisms that will be advanced by the green economy and all of them will increase the destruction. More specifically,
1. The green economy does not seek to reduce climate change or environmental deterioration, but to generalize the principle that those who have money can continue polluting. Up to now, they have used the farce of purchasing carbon bonds to continue emitting greenhouse gases. They are now inventing biodiversity bonds. This is to say, businesses can continue destroying forests and ecosystems, as long as they pay someone to supposedly conserve biodiversity somewhere else. Tomorrow they may invent bonds for water, natural “views”, or clean air.
2. These systems of buying environmental services are being used to take lands and territories away from indigenous peoples and peasants. The mechanisms that are most forcefully promoted by governments and businesses are the systems known as REDD and REDD plus. They say that these are systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by deforestation and degradation of the forests, but they are being used to impose, for a ridiculous price, management plans that deny families and rural communities access to their own lands, forests, and water sources. In addition, they guarantee businesses unrestricted access to collective forest areas, enabling biopiracy. They also impose contracts that tie communities to these management plans for 20 years or more and that leave indigenous and peasant territories with mortgage liens, that increases the likelihood that these communities will lose their lands. The objectives of these environmental services are to take control of nature reserves and of the territories that are under the control of these communities.
3. Another initiative of the green economy is to convert plants, algae, and all other organic material (residues, dung, etc.) into a source of energy to substitute for petroleum; what is called “use of biomass”. With agrofuels, this has meant that thousands of hectares that should be covered in forests or producing food are being used to feed machines. If the use of biomass energy is effectivelyexpanded, we will see life in the seas reduced still more because an important segment of marine species will go without food. Our soils will not recuperate the organic material that is essential to conserve fertility and guard against erosion and drought. It will be impossible to feed our animals because the food they need is ever more scarce and expensive. Also, the water shortage will worsen, either directly through the cultivation of agrofuels or because our soils no longer have the capacity to absorb and retain water due to a lack of organic matter.
4. Then, they speak to us of “climate smart agriculture”, the goal of which is to convince us to accept a new Green Revolution—possibly with transgenics—and that instead of demanding effective support to defend us from the effects of climate change, we accept laughable payments that function the same way as REDD. They also seek to impose systems that are highly dependent on large quantities of agrotoxins—like direct seeding that depends on aerial sprayings of Round Up—that they would call “low carbon agriculture”. That is to say, we are obliged to accept a certain type of agriculture that will jeopardize control of our territories, our ecosystems, and our water.
5. One of the most perverse aspects of the false solutions that are promoted in international negotiations is the restriction of access to and use of water for irrigation. Using the pretext that water for irrigation is scarce, it is suggested that water be concentrated in “high value crops”; meaning that export crops, agrofuels and other industrial crops are irrigated while food crops are left without water.
6. The promotion of technological solutions that are not solutions at all is also part of the agenda of the discussions in Rio. Among the most dangerous are geoengineering and the acceptance of transgenic crops. Up until now, none of the solutions proposed by geoengineering have demonstrated any real capacity to solve climate problems. On the contrary, some forms of geoengineering (like the fertilization of the seas) are so dangerous that there has been an international moratorium declared aginst them. To accept Genetically modified organism (GMOs), we are told that crops resistant to drought and heat will be created, but the only thing new in GMOs are more herbicide-resistant varieties, which are bringing back to the market highly toxic herbicides like 2,4-D.
7. The most ambitious plan and the one that some governments identify as “the major challenge” is to put a price on all the goods of nature (like water, biodiversity, the countryside, wildlife, seeds, rain, etc.) to then privatize them (arguing that conservation requires money) and charge us for their use. This is called the Economy of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). It is the final assault on nature and life, but also on the means of work and the lives of the people whose livelihoods are based on agriculture, hunting, and fishing.
This “green” capitalism has the rural commons, agriculture, land and water particularly in its sights. We are already suffering from its effects in the form of land grabs or monopolization of land, privatization of water, the oceans, of indigenous territories, the national parks and nature reserves; all these processes are being accompanied by the forced expulsions of peasant and indigenous communities.
The real solution: put peasant and indigenous farmers at the center
We, peasants and indigenous peoples, are the ones who are concentrated in the highest levels of poverty because we have been deprived of land and we have been constrained by law or by force so that we cannot cultivate and exchange freely. Nonetheless, we are people who have been resisting expulsion from the countryside, and still we are more than 90% of the rural population. Our forms of agriculture cool the planet, care for ecosystems and secure the food supply for the poorest.
Every real solution happens to impinge upon the unbridled profits of capital, put an end to the complicity of governments and supports forms of production that effectively care for the planet. Food Sovereignty is at the heart of the necessary changes, and is the only real path that can possibly feed all of humanity. Our proposals are clear and introduce real solutions:
1. We should exchange the industrial agroexport food system for a system based on food sovereignty, that returns the land to its social function as the producer of food and sustainer of life, that puts local production of food at the center, as well as the local markets and local processing. Food sovereignty allows us to put an end to monocultures and agribusiness, to foster systems of peasant production that are characterized by greater intensity and productivity, that provide jobs, care for the soil and produce in a way that is healing and diversified. Peasant and indigenous agriculture also has the ability to cool the planet, with the capacity to absorb or prevent almost 2/3 of the greenhouses gases that are emitted every year.
2. The land currently in the hands of peasants and indigenous peoples is around 20% of all agricultural land in the world. And yet l, on this land the peasant and indigenous families and communities produce slightly less than half of the world’s food. The most secure and efficient way to overcome hunger around the world is in our hands.
3. To secure food for all and restore the earth’s normal climate, it is necessary to return agriculture to the hands of peasant communities and indigenous peoples. To do this, we must have urgent, integrated, sweeping agrarian reform that ends the extreme and growing concentration of land that affects all of humanity today. These agrarian reforms will provide the material conditions for agriculture to benefit all of humanity and thus , the defense and protection of peasant and indigenous agriculture is up to all of us. In the short run, it is necessary to halt all transactions, concessions, and transfers that result in concentration or monopoly control of land and/or the displacement of rural communities.
4. Peasant and indigenous systems of agriculture, hunting, fishing, and shepherding that care for the land and the food supply should be supported adequately with public resources that are not subject to conditionalities. Market mechanisms—like the sale of carbon and environmental services—should be eliminated and replaced with real measures like those mentioned above. Ending pollution is a duty that no one should be able to avoid by paying for the rights to continue the destruction.
5. The legitimate use of what international organizations and enterprises now call biomass is to feed every living being, and then to be returned to the earth to restore its fertility. The emissions that come from wasted energy should be reduced through saving and eliminating waste. We need renewable, decentralized sources of energy, within reach of the people.
We are mobilized to unmask Rio +20 and green capitalism
We, peasants, family farmers, landless peasants, indigenous peoples and migrants, men and women, decidedly oppose the commercialization of the earth, our territories, water, seeds, food, nature, and human life. We reiterate what was said at the People’s Summit in Cochabamba, Bolivia: “Humanity faces a grand dilemma: to continue the path of capitalism, predation, and death, or undertake the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.”
We repudiate and denounce the green economy as a new mask to hide increasing levels of corporate greed and food imperialism in the world, and as a brutal “green washing” of capitalism that only implements false solutions, like carbon trading, REDD, geoengineering, GMOs, agrofuels, bio-char, and all of the market- based solutions to the environmental crisis. Our goal is to bring back another way of relating to nature and other people. This is also our duty, and our right and so we will continue fighting and calling on others to continue fighting tirelessly for the construction of food sovereignty, for comprehensive agrarian reform and the restoration of indigenous territories, for ending the violence of capital and restoring peasant and indigenous systems of production based on agroecology.
NO TO THE FALSE SOLUTIONS OF GREEN CAPITALISM
PEASANT AGRICULTURE NOW!
An international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Caral: the oldest town in the New World
Caral
In 2001, the oldest town in South America was officially announced. Dating to 2600 BC, it pushed back the date for the “first town” with one millennium. What is even more intriguing, is that the town of Caral has pyramids, contemporary with the Egyptian Pyramid Era.
Philip Coppens
Sometime before 3200 BC, if not 3500 BC, something happened in the Norte Chico in Peru, an agronomical no-go area, where hardly anything grows. This, however, is the site where the oldest traces of a “genuine civilisation” – pyramids included – were found in America.
Here, at least 25 large ceremonial/residential sites have so far been found, of which Caral has become the most famous. The North Chico, roughly 100 km north of the Peruvian capital Lima, consists of four narrow river valleys, from south to north, the Huaura, Supe, Pativilca, and Fortaleza. The ancient pyramids of Caral predate the Inca civilisation by 4000 years, but were flourishing a century before the pyramids of Gizeh. No surprise therefore that they have been identified as the most important archaeological discovery since the discovery of Machu Picchu in 1911.
The first full-scale archaeological investigation of the region took place in 1941 in Aspero, when Gordon R. Willey and John M. Corbert of Harvard investigated a salt marsh at the mouth of the Supe. They found a big trash heap and a multiroomed building with no pottery and a few maize cobs under the pounded clay floor. They wondered how maize could have been cultivated in a salt marsh and why these people could have agriculture, yet no pottery. Willey and Corbett also found six mounds, some of them nearly five metres tall. They were catalogued as "natural eminences of sand". Thirty years later, Willey, in the company of Michael E. Moseley, revisited the site and realised that these "natural eminences" were in fact "temple-type platform mounds". He also realised there might have been as many as seventeen such mounds, all of which Willey had missed on his first exploration of the site. "It is an excellent, if embarrassing, example of not being able to find what you are not looking for", he commented later. As to its age: carbondating revealed that Aspero could go back to 3000 BC, whereby samples from a nearby site even revealed a date of 4900 BC. Those objective findings were nevertheless seen as impossible - far too old with "what was known" and hence not accepted.
Caral is located 14 miles inland from Aspero. Even though Caral was discovered in 1905, it was quickly forgotten as the site rendered no gold or even ceramics. It required the arrival of Ruth Shady Solis in Caral in 1994 before a genuine paradigm shift would occur. She is a member of the Archaeological Museum of the National University of San Marcos in Lima. Since 1996, she has co-operated with Jonathan Haas, of the American Field Museum. Together, they have found a 150-acre array of earthworks, which includes six large platform mounds, one twenty metres high and more than one hundred on a side. But Shady Solis did not make the same mistake Willey had made: she felt that the “pyramids” were just that: they were not natural hills, as some of her predecessor had catalogued the structures of Caral. Her subsequent research led to the announcement, in the magazine Science on April 27, 2001, of the carbon dating of the site, which revealed that Caral had been founded before 2600 BC. The "impossible" carbondating results of Aspero now seemed more likely... and Caral had become the oldest city in the "New" World, older than the Gizeh pyramids.
What is Caral like? The site is in fact so old that it predates the ceramic period, the reason why no pottery was found. Its importance resides in its domestication of plants, especially cotton, but also beans, squashes and guava.
As mentioned, the heart of the site covers 150 acres and contains six stone platform mounds – pyramids. The largest mound measures 154 by 138 metres, though it rises only to a height of twenty metres; two sunken plazas are at the base of the mound and a large plaza connects all the mounds. The largest pyramid of Peru was terraced with a staircase leading up to an atrium-like platform, culminating in a flattened top housing enclosed rooms and a ceremonial fire pit. All pyramids were built in one or two phases, which means that there was a definitive plan in erecting these monuments. The design of the central plaza would also later be incorporated in all similar structures across the Andes in the millennia to come – thus showing that Caral was a true cradle of civilisation. Around the pyramids were many residential structures. One house revealed the remains of a body that was buried in the wall and appears to have been a natural death, rather than evidence of human sacrifice. Amongst the artefacts discovered are 32 flutes made from pelican and animal bones, engraved with the figures of birds and monkeys. It shows that though situated along the Pacific coast, its inhabitants were aware of the animals of the Amazon.
How did the culture begin? It is suggested that several small villages merged in 2700 BC, quite possibly based on the success of early agricultural cultivation and fishing techniques. The invention of cotton fishing nets, the cotton grown in the Supe valley, must have greatly facilitated the fishing industry. It is believed that this excess of food might have resulted in trade with the religious centres. But apart from an economic model of exchange, the new social model also meant that a labour force existed that had in essence little to do. This labour force could thus be used for “religious purposes”. Caral might have been the natural result of this process – just like the pyramids of Egypt seem to have been the result of an available workforce.
The discovery of Caral has therefore reintroduced a powerful enigma: at the same time, on two different continents, agricultural advancements created a new style of life. The available workforce that agriculture had created was reemployed in the construction of pyramids. This “template” is visible in Peru, Sumer and Egypt, all in the 3rd millennium BC. Coincidence, or evidence of design? Alternative researchers will certainly soon reopen this debate, but archaeologists steer well clear of it.
Caral is indeed hard to accept. It is very old. Still, its dating of 2627 BC is beyond dispute, based as it is on carbondating reed and woven carrying bags that were found in situ. These bags were used to carry the stones that were used for the construction of the pyramids. The material is an excellent candidate for dating, thus allowing for a high precision.
The town itself had a population of approximately 3000 people. But there are 17 other sites in the area, allowing for a possible total population of 20,000 people for the Supe valley. Indeed, the Caral archaeological team broke up to investigate some of the other sites, such as along the Pativilca River, the next river to the north, and the Fortaleza, just north of the Pativilca. All of these sites share similarities with Caral. They have small platforms or stone circles and all were major urban centres on par with Caral – though some of them were even older than Caral. Haas believes that Caral was nevertheless the focus of this civilisation, itself part of an even vaster complex, trading with the coastal communities and the regions further inland – as far as the Amazon, if the depiction of monkeys is any indication.
Modern irrigation in the Supe valley, which is likely to be very similar to the irrigation methods used in the 3rd millennium BC
In July 2006, Caral was opened for tourism, even though it had already received 7,338 visitors in 2003, 15,265 visitors in 2004 and 21,068 visitors in 2005. With the support of PromPeru, and its location being just two hours north of Lima along the easily accessible Pan-American Highway, this number is expected to rise in the coming years. It will continue to undergo a series of restorations that will provide an added value to the existing and future tourist circuits in the region.
But some of the other sites of Norte Chico are still the almost exclusive bailiwick of archaeologists. One site, Huaricanga, saw a first paper published in December 2004. The team of Haas, Winnifred Creamer and Alvaro Ruiz found evidence of people living inland from the coast as early as 9210 BC, with the oldest date associated with a city being 3500 BC. Other urban sites in the region are now dated as being older than Caral: Caballete at 3100 BC, Porvenir and Upaca at 2700 BC. Charles Mann writes how "individually, none of the twenty-five Norte Chico cities rivaled Sumer's cities in size, but the totality was bigger than Sumer."
Haas describes the civilisation of Norte Chico as the second experiment Mankind did with government: surrendering personal freedom and liberty to a centralised authority, which then apparently decided to create a ritual centre – a city, asking those who had surrendered their freedom to work hard – if not very hard – for this common or greater good. As to why this central government was created, speculation remains. The cities were not sited strategically, nor did they have defensive walls; there was no evidence of warfare. It seems that co-operation existed, because the population realised that co-operation would benefit the individual and the community as a whole. Though Haas and his colleagues put forward several "logical" reasons, Caral is primarily a religious cult centre. And no-one seems to dare to suggest the perhaps obvious reason: that these people built Caral, because of their belief and adoration of one or more deities.
That the workforce involved were not slaves or oppressed is supported by the archaeological evidence. Haas and Creamer believe that the city rulers encouraged the workforce during construction by staging celebratory roasts of fish and achira root. Afterward, the remains of these feasts were worked into the fabric of the mound. Alcohol is suspected of having been consumed, and music seems to have been played: at Caral, Shady's discovery of 32 flutes made of pelican wingbones tucked into a recess in the main temple provides the evidence for that conclusion.
The creation of a religous complex implies the existence of a pantheon. Little evidence has been uncovered of what these gods may have been, other than a drawing etched into the face of a gourd, dated to 2280-2180 BC. It depicts a sharp-toothed, hat-wearing figure who holds a long stick or rod in each hand. The image looks like an early version of the Staff God, a fanged, staff-wielding deity who is one of the main characters in the Andean pantheon, the deity that is figured prominently on the Gateway of the Sun in Tiahuanaco, on the shores of Lake Titicaca.
For an unknown reason, Caral was abandoned rapidly after a period of 500 years (ca. 2100 BC). The preferred theory as to why the people migrated is that the region was hit by a drought, forcing the inhabitants to go elsewhere in search of fertile plains. The fact that the Staff God is found two millennia later elsewhere in Southern America shows that these people did not disappear; they merely moved elsewhere, and seem to have built other religious centres on their travels.
The harsh living conditions have since not disappeared. According to the World Monuments Fund (WMF), Caral is one of the 100 important sites under extreme danger. Shady argues that if the existing pyramids are not reinforced, they will disintegrate further and money from tourism, as well as private donations, will help preserve the site. Conservation will go hand in hand with exploration. And though Caral continues to steal the limelight, other nearby sites, such as Aspero, are older. Indeed, Aspero might one day lay claim to the title of the world's oldest city – the place where human civilisation began. Perhaps we might all once realise the irony of having labelled this continent the "New World".
Solis came to Caral looking for the fabled missing link of archaeology, a “mother city”. Today, she is still trying to convince people that Caral was indeed the oldest urban civilisation in the world. "The discovery of Caral challenged the accepted beliefs. Some historians were not ready to believe that an urban civilisation existed in Peru even before the pyramids were built in Egypt," she says. "This place is somewhere between the seat of the gods and the home of man."
Still, the fame of Caral as the oldest pyramid complex might be shortlived. Archaeologists have found a 5,500-year-old ceremonial plaza at Sechin Bajo, in Casma, 229 miles north of Lima, the capital. The discovery occurred by a team of the Latin American Institute at the Freie University in Berlin, under the auspices of Prof. Dr. Peter Fuchs. It contained a platform pyramid that was originally possibly up to 100 metres tall. Carbon dating shows it is one of the oldest structures ever found in the Americas. Nearly 2,000 years later, another structure measuring 180 by 120 metres was added onto it. The discovery at Sechin Bajo means this pyramid complex is now even older than Caral.
This article first appeared in Frontier Magazine 8.3 (May 2002) and has been adapted three times since its first publication.
In 2001, the oldest town in South America was officially announced. Dating to 2600 BC, it pushed back the date for the “first town” with one millennium. What is even more intriguing, is that the town of Caral has pyramids, contemporary with the Egyptian Pyramid Era.
Philip Coppens
Sometime before 3200 BC, if not 3500 BC, something happened in the Norte Chico in Peru, an agronomical no-go area, where hardly anything grows. This, however, is the site where the oldest traces of a “genuine civilisation” – pyramids included – were found in America.
Here, at least 25 large ceremonial/residential sites have so far been found, of which Caral has become the most famous. The North Chico, roughly 100 km north of the Peruvian capital Lima, consists of four narrow river valleys, from south to north, the Huaura, Supe, Pativilca, and Fortaleza. The ancient pyramids of Caral predate the Inca civilisation by 4000 years, but were flourishing a century before the pyramids of Gizeh. No surprise therefore that they have been identified as the most important archaeological discovery since the discovery of Machu Picchu in 1911.
The first full-scale archaeological investigation of the region took place in 1941 in Aspero, when Gordon R. Willey and John M. Corbert of Harvard investigated a salt marsh at the mouth of the Supe. They found a big trash heap and a multiroomed building with no pottery and a few maize cobs under the pounded clay floor. They wondered how maize could have been cultivated in a salt marsh and why these people could have agriculture, yet no pottery. Willey and Corbett also found six mounds, some of them nearly five metres tall. They were catalogued as "natural eminences of sand". Thirty years later, Willey, in the company of Michael E. Moseley, revisited the site and realised that these "natural eminences" were in fact "temple-type platform mounds". He also realised there might have been as many as seventeen such mounds, all of which Willey had missed on his first exploration of the site. "It is an excellent, if embarrassing, example of not being able to find what you are not looking for", he commented later. As to its age: carbondating revealed that Aspero could go back to 3000 BC, whereby samples from a nearby site even revealed a date of 4900 BC. Those objective findings were nevertheless seen as impossible - far too old with "what was known" and hence not accepted.
Caral is located 14 miles inland from Aspero. Even though Caral was discovered in 1905, it was quickly forgotten as the site rendered no gold or even ceramics. It required the arrival of Ruth Shady Solis in Caral in 1994 before a genuine paradigm shift would occur. She is a member of the Archaeological Museum of the National University of San Marcos in Lima. Since 1996, she has co-operated with Jonathan Haas, of the American Field Museum. Together, they have found a 150-acre array of earthworks, which includes six large platform mounds, one twenty metres high and more than one hundred on a side. But Shady Solis did not make the same mistake Willey had made: she felt that the “pyramids” were just that: they were not natural hills, as some of her predecessor had catalogued the structures of Caral. Her subsequent research led to the announcement, in the magazine Science on April 27, 2001, of the carbon dating of the site, which revealed that Caral had been founded before 2600 BC. The "impossible" carbondating results of Aspero now seemed more likely... and Caral had become the oldest city in the "New" World, older than the Gizeh pyramids.
What is Caral like? The site is in fact so old that it predates the ceramic period, the reason why no pottery was found. Its importance resides in its domestication of plants, especially cotton, but also beans, squashes and guava.
As mentioned, the heart of the site covers 150 acres and contains six stone platform mounds – pyramids. The largest mound measures 154 by 138 metres, though it rises only to a height of twenty metres; two sunken plazas are at the base of the mound and a large plaza connects all the mounds. The largest pyramid of Peru was terraced with a staircase leading up to an atrium-like platform, culminating in a flattened top housing enclosed rooms and a ceremonial fire pit. All pyramids were built in one or two phases, which means that there was a definitive plan in erecting these monuments. The design of the central plaza would also later be incorporated in all similar structures across the Andes in the millennia to come – thus showing that Caral was a true cradle of civilisation. Around the pyramids were many residential structures. One house revealed the remains of a body that was buried in the wall and appears to have been a natural death, rather than evidence of human sacrifice. Amongst the artefacts discovered are 32 flutes made from pelican and animal bones, engraved with the figures of birds and monkeys. It shows that though situated along the Pacific coast, its inhabitants were aware of the animals of the Amazon.
How did the culture begin? It is suggested that several small villages merged in 2700 BC, quite possibly based on the success of early agricultural cultivation and fishing techniques. The invention of cotton fishing nets, the cotton grown in the Supe valley, must have greatly facilitated the fishing industry. It is believed that this excess of food might have resulted in trade with the religious centres. But apart from an economic model of exchange, the new social model also meant that a labour force existed that had in essence little to do. This labour force could thus be used for “religious purposes”. Caral might have been the natural result of this process – just like the pyramids of Egypt seem to have been the result of an available workforce.
The discovery of Caral has therefore reintroduced a powerful enigma: at the same time, on two different continents, agricultural advancements created a new style of life. The available workforce that agriculture had created was reemployed in the construction of pyramids. This “template” is visible in Peru, Sumer and Egypt, all in the 3rd millennium BC. Coincidence, or evidence of design? Alternative researchers will certainly soon reopen this debate, but archaeologists steer well clear of it.
Caral is indeed hard to accept. It is very old. Still, its dating of 2627 BC is beyond dispute, based as it is on carbondating reed and woven carrying bags that were found in situ. These bags were used to carry the stones that were used for the construction of the pyramids. The material is an excellent candidate for dating, thus allowing for a high precision.
The town itself had a population of approximately 3000 people. But there are 17 other sites in the area, allowing for a possible total population of 20,000 people for the Supe valley. Indeed, the Caral archaeological team broke up to investigate some of the other sites, such as along the Pativilca River, the next river to the north, and the Fortaleza, just north of the Pativilca. All of these sites share similarities with Caral. They have small platforms or stone circles and all were major urban centres on par with Caral – though some of them were even older than Caral. Haas believes that Caral was nevertheless the focus of this civilisation, itself part of an even vaster complex, trading with the coastal communities and the regions further inland – as far as the Amazon, if the depiction of monkeys is any indication.
Modern irrigation in the Supe valley, which is likely to be very similar to the irrigation methods used in the 3rd millennium BC
In July 2006, Caral was opened for tourism, even though it had already received 7,338 visitors in 2003, 15,265 visitors in 2004 and 21,068 visitors in 2005. With the support of PromPeru, and its location being just two hours north of Lima along the easily accessible Pan-American Highway, this number is expected to rise in the coming years. It will continue to undergo a series of restorations that will provide an added value to the existing and future tourist circuits in the region.
But some of the other sites of Norte Chico are still the almost exclusive bailiwick of archaeologists. One site, Huaricanga, saw a first paper published in December 2004. The team of Haas, Winnifred Creamer and Alvaro Ruiz found evidence of people living inland from the coast as early as 9210 BC, with the oldest date associated with a city being 3500 BC. Other urban sites in the region are now dated as being older than Caral: Caballete at 3100 BC, Porvenir and Upaca at 2700 BC. Charles Mann writes how "individually, none of the twenty-five Norte Chico cities rivaled Sumer's cities in size, but the totality was bigger than Sumer."
Haas describes the civilisation of Norte Chico as the second experiment Mankind did with government: surrendering personal freedom and liberty to a centralised authority, which then apparently decided to create a ritual centre – a city, asking those who had surrendered their freedom to work hard – if not very hard – for this common or greater good. As to why this central government was created, speculation remains. The cities were not sited strategically, nor did they have defensive walls; there was no evidence of warfare. It seems that co-operation existed, because the population realised that co-operation would benefit the individual and the community as a whole. Though Haas and his colleagues put forward several "logical" reasons, Caral is primarily a religious cult centre. And no-one seems to dare to suggest the perhaps obvious reason: that these people built Caral, because of their belief and adoration of one or more deities.
That the workforce involved were not slaves or oppressed is supported by the archaeological evidence. Haas and Creamer believe that the city rulers encouraged the workforce during construction by staging celebratory roasts of fish and achira root. Afterward, the remains of these feasts were worked into the fabric of the mound. Alcohol is suspected of having been consumed, and music seems to have been played: at Caral, Shady's discovery of 32 flutes made of pelican wingbones tucked into a recess in the main temple provides the evidence for that conclusion.
The creation of a religous complex implies the existence of a pantheon. Little evidence has been uncovered of what these gods may have been, other than a drawing etched into the face of a gourd, dated to 2280-2180 BC. It depicts a sharp-toothed, hat-wearing figure who holds a long stick or rod in each hand. The image looks like an early version of the Staff God, a fanged, staff-wielding deity who is one of the main characters in the Andean pantheon, the deity that is figured prominently on the Gateway of the Sun in Tiahuanaco, on the shores of Lake Titicaca.
For an unknown reason, Caral was abandoned rapidly after a period of 500 years (ca. 2100 BC). The preferred theory as to why the people migrated is that the region was hit by a drought, forcing the inhabitants to go elsewhere in search of fertile plains. The fact that the Staff God is found two millennia later elsewhere in Southern America shows that these people did not disappear; they merely moved elsewhere, and seem to have built other religious centres on their travels.
The harsh living conditions have since not disappeared. According to the World Monuments Fund (WMF), Caral is one of the 100 important sites under extreme danger. Shady argues that if the existing pyramids are not reinforced, they will disintegrate further and money from tourism, as well as private donations, will help preserve the site. Conservation will go hand in hand with exploration. And though Caral continues to steal the limelight, other nearby sites, such as Aspero, are older. Indeed, Aspero might one day lay claim to the title of the world's oldest city – the place where human civilisation began. Perhaps we might all once realise the irony of having labelled this continent the "New World".
Solis came to Caral looking for the fabled missing link of archaeology, a “mother city”. Today, she is still trying to convince people that Caral was indeed the oldest urban civilisation in the world. "The discovery of Caral challenged the accepted beliefs. Some historians were not ready to believe that an urban civilisation existed in Peru even before the pyramids were built in Egypt," she says. "This place is somewhere between the seat of the gods and the home of man."
Still, the fame of Caral as the oldest pyramid complex might be shortlived. Archaeologists have found a 5,500-year-old ceremonial plaza at Sechin Bajo, in Casma, 229 miles north of Lima, the capital. The discovery occurred by a team of the Latin American Institute at the Freie University in Berlin, under the auspices of Prof. Dr. Peter Fuchs. It contained a platform pyramid that was originally possibly up to 100 metres tall. Carbon dating shows it is one of the oldest structures ever found in the Americas. Nearly 2,000 years later, another structure measuring 180 by 120 metres was added onto it. The discovery at Sechin Bajo means this pyramid complex is now even older than Caral.
This article first appeared in Frontier Magazine 8.3 (May 2002) and has been adapted three times since its first publication.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Des yeux roses
Répondre à un ami (des combats dans le passé) :
Je ne vis pas pour inciter d'autres à mes idées. Je parle mes idées secrètes, sans intention de manipuler n'importe qui. Il suffit de dire ce que je pense. Si ce que je dis est vrai, alors dire que la vérité n'a pas à vous convaincre. Je n'ai pas vous induire avec des mensonges. Ne pas vous présenter comme un enfant qui accuse les autres de ses propres erreurs. Une chose que je dis, ce que vous appelez maintenant erreurs de votre vie passée, ont probablement été des moments de l'intégrité de votre vie. Si vous vous prétendez maintenant - d'avoir partagé certaines idées qui étaient aussi les miennes - votre plainte ne révèle pas l'erreur de vos idées à la fois, mais l'opportuniste dans laquelle vous êtes devenu plus tard. Les idées s'appliquent à vous uniquement lorsque vous prenez un avantage personnel. Vous n'avez pas d'évaluer les idées. Le fait que ces idées n'ont pas de sens pour vous, mais seulement les avantages que vous pouvez prendre d'eux, vous dire quelque chose. J'ai mon propre chemin et je suis prêt à discuter les idées qui bougeait, mais pas avec ceux qui ont tout simplement épuisé. Donc je ne vois pas les frais de connexion que tu fais. Vous essayez de voir aucune contradiction dans mon passé et le présent. Oui, il ya des idées à partir de laquelle j'ai évolué mais pas changé ou abandonné des idées pour recevoir des faveurs. Si je voulais être corrompus je serais resté dans le PT, surtout maintenant que le parti est au pouvoir. Au lieu de cela, j'étais dans le PT quand il était un parti qui a favorisé les luttes d'émancipation. Aujourd'hui, ce même parti est un cimetière où sont réunis des militants démoralisés et adaptée au pouvoir. Donc je ne suis pas intéressé de plus pour elle. Qui construit le PT d'aujourd'hui est très suspecte. En revanche, les révolutionnaires détruisent le pouvoir corrompu qui prône aujourd'hui le PT, c'est la simplicité des faits. Il est inutile de discuter des idées socialistes, là où ces idéaux sont négligés. Cette excuse que nous ne pouvons pas, car nous ne pourrions jamais, pas même de convaincre les enfants. FHC pas pris en charge, ni le populisme à la fois Brizola que Collor. Donc je ne vois pas de connexion. La question est: sommes-nous face à une nouvelle Getulism? Maintenant que je veux savoir. Une fois "ouvert" le Brésil a été difficile de discuter de quoi que ce soit. Je pense toujours que ce n'est déguiser Getulism pur. Même en Israël les gens se réveillent. Y aura des gens qui dorment en face de ce qui se passe? Ce discours n'est pas comme le dôme, après tout, ils sont la deuxième période la plus révolutionnaire dans la politique brésilienne. «Jamais dans l'histoire de ce pays», etc. La promotion agressive est une caractéristique typique. S'il ya des «progrès» au Brésil, n'est certainement pas issus de "l'ordre". Même sans une tradition de parti révolutionnaire, sans doute des progrès est venu par la demande populaire. Accepter que tout avance (bien que minime) provenait d'un Messie, c'est nier l'histoire elle-même. L'histoire est un processus, où les forces politiques se battent entre eux finit par reculer, trahir ou décevoir. Toutefois, la déclaration que le Brésil n'a pas de tradition révolutionnaire, paradoxalement, provoquer l'irritation du sommet de Castro-Lula. Pour eux, le gouvernement Lula Dilma est révolutionnaire. Les politiques de distribution des revenus sont révolutionnaires et, selon Dirceu, le même «allocation mensuelle" est révolutionnaire. Donc, il n'a guère de sens de penser - ce genre de révolution - est que vous voulez. Après tout, Chavez et Amadinejad et même Kadhafi, ils se considèrent comme des révolutionnaires. Donc, il n'avait pas la tradition révolutionnaire n'est pas un argument pour soutenir le gouvernement seulement parce qu'il fournit quelques avantages possibles. Pas si simpliste? Ce qui m'a inspiré pour écrire ce texte a été en regardant un discours de Chavez est assez brut, dans lequel il osignificado échange de tous les mots. "Démocratie" est de son gouvernement, «Révolution» est tout ce qu'il fait. La démocratie signifie le premier à Chavez lui-même. Au Brésil, Getulio Vargas, qui avait déjà pensé aussi. Regardez ce qui a donné ce genre de pensée. Et maintenant, nous avons vu les imitateurs ici au Brésil. Il est bon de regarder autour de temps en temps. La question est beaucoup plus profond. Juste ne vaut pas changer de positions politiques en fonction des bénéfices que les individus reçoivent. Par exemple, le gouverneur de Rio a été un membre du PSDB, quand il a voulu être élu. Et il est devenu membre du PMDB, quand il a voulu être élu gouverneur. Ce n'est pas une position politique, c'est simplement surfer sur la vague (pour dire le moins). La même chose peut être dit du maire de Rio, en aucune façon les offres qu'ils avaient dans les parties qui étaient auparavant un membre, sont annulés. Nous pouvons voir que, par la façon dont la gestion est faite aujourd'hui. Peut-être pour beaucoup de gens qui ont des yeux roses, n'apparaissent jamais le vol qui est fait. Il est admirable de l'effort de ne rien voir, mais la réalité est que les conditions sociales se dégradent un reflet direct de cela.
Manquer le train de l'histoire est une très mauvaise chose. Une fois que vous êtes vieux grincheux, se plaindre de tout. Il vaut mieux consacrer nos meilleures énergies et nous devons changer les choses dans le monde. S'il ya quelque chose de pourri dans ce monde, sont des investissements dans l'armement et répression policière contre les mouvements sociaux. Et seulement les pires fascistes - ils se sont installés dans leurs sièges - ne font rien pour changer la situation, ne se plaignent de ceux qui défendent leurs droits. Ils sont comme l'écho des dictatures. Si les gens ne font rien dans ce monde, et non pas les hippies (paix), mais ils sont exactement ceux qui souhaitent profiter des avantages de la lutte des autres, sans rien contribuer à gagner le combat. C'est l'épidémie de la «mouche bleue".
Manquer le train de l'histoire est une très mauvaise chose. Une fois que vous êtes vieux grincheux, se plaindre de tout. Il vaut mieux consacrer nos meilleures énergies et nous devons changer les choses dans le monde. S'il ya quelque chose de pourri dans ce monde, sont des investissements dans l'armement et répression policière contre les mouvements sociaux. Et seulement les pires fascistes - ils se sont installés dans leurs sièges - ne font rien pour changer la situation, ne se plaignent de ceux qui défendent leurs droits. Ils sont comme l'écho des dictatures. Si les gens ne font rien dans ce monde, et non pas les hippies (paix), mais ils sont exactement ceux qui souhaitent profiter des avantages de la lutte des autres, sans rien contribuer à gagner le combat. C'est l'épidémie de la «mouche bleue".
Friday, August 05, 2011
Le «bonapartisme» de Lula
L'économie brésilienne comme une économie qui reflète les mouvements de l'économie mondiale (en particulier les Etats-Unis) ne pouvait échapper à la crise mondiale. Cette crise est visible aux plus hauts niveaux du gouvernement.
La Lula - il semble que le changement de genre simple, il fait sens ici, avant de Lula était le président, je propose quelque chose de plus simple, pourquoi pas? - A pris ministres, mais n'a pas supprimé la question: qui gouverne le Brésil? Nous espérons que Lula n'est pas une grande couverture des banquiers, est aussi l'actuel président des Etats-Unis (du peuple, démocrates, etc) .. Il est facile d'imaginer toute analogie d'autres de cette situation: l'ancien Getulismo. Apparemment la nomination de la nouvelle ministre de la Défense est un virage à gauche (ce qui signifie qu'elle a peu de sens parce que le soi-disant de gauche Hugo Chavez et le Amdinejad, juste une démonstration de la décadence de la même marque), mais en fait, la seule mesure prises, a été: des allégements fiscaux de l'industrie. Pendant ce temps le travailleur (fonctionnaires, essentiellement civils) est chargé avec le gel des salaires. Dans le langage du ministre des Finances et la Banque centrale, ont tout simplement disparu du mot: l'inflation. Il était très utilisé pour geler les salaires, mais maintenant, l'effet est l'opposée. Eh bien, l'expérience syndicale du PT (le parti des travaillers) doit être bon à quelque chose au moins de changer la langue au moment opportun. La contradiction du gouvernement ((en fait le zig-zag:. parfois nationaliste, parfois, à la recherche d'un siège au Conseil de sécurité; prier pour une fin à la faim et la pauvreté, parfois soutenir l'agrobusiness et la déforestation) ne sont rien de plus qu'une expression de ce que les politologues appellent «bonapartisme». Le régime bonapartiste est le régime qui utilise une rhétorique hostile - en relation avec les puissances dominantes internationales (et dans le cas de Bonaparte ne fut pas seulement une question rhétorique), mais fait valoir que dans une défense nationale, dont le but est de gagner le soutien populaire, il finit par créer un système d'oppression politique et économique interne. Dans ce classement - on peut citer plus fini maintenant - les régimes en Iran et Venezuela (qui ont la sympathie de la ministre de la Défense nommé par Lula. Qui aura la réponse finale? A mon avis, les travailleurs à travers leurs syndicats jouent toujours un rôle clé pour répondre à ce stade.
Remarque: en portugais le mot calamar (Lula) n'a pas générique double. De même, le mot président. D'où le jeu de mots.
La Lula - il semble que le changement de genre simple, il fait sens ici, avant de Lula était le président, je propose quelque chose de plus simple, pourquoi pas? - A pris ministres, mais n'a pas supprimé la question: qui gouverne le Brésil? Nous espérons que Lula n'est pas une grande couverture des banquiers, est aussi l'actuel président des Etats-Unis (du peuple, démocrates, etc) .. Il est facile d'imaginer toute analogie d'autres de cette situation: l'ancien Getulismo. Apparemment la nomination de la nouvelle ministre de la Défense est un virage à gauche (ce qui signifie qu'elle a peu de sens parce que le soi-disant de gauche Hugo Chavez et le Amdinejad, juste une démonstration de la décadence de la même marque), mais en fait, la seule mesure prises, a été: des allégements fiscaux de l'industrie. Pendant ce temps le travailleur (fonctionnaires, essentiellement civils) est chargé avec le gel des salaires. Dans le langage du ministre des Finances et la Banque centrale, ont tout simplement disparu du mot: l'inflation. Il était très utilisé pour geler les salaires, mais maintenant, l'effet est l'opposée. Eh bien, l'expérience syndicale du PT (le parti des travaillers) doit être bon à quelque chose au moins de changer la langue au moment opportun. La contradiction du gouvernement ((en fait le zig-zag:. parfois nationaliste, parfois, à la recherche d'un siège au Conseil de sécurité; prier pour une fin à la faim et la pauvreté, parfois soutenir l'agrobusiness et la déforestation) ne sont rien de plus qu'une expression de ce que les politologues appellent «bonapartisme». Le régime bonapartiste est le régime qui utilise une rhétorique hostile - en relation avec les puissances dominantes internationales (et dans le cas de Bonaparte ne fut pas seulement une question rhétorique), mais fait valoir que dans une défense nationale, dont le but est de gagner le soutien populaire, il finit par créer un système d'oppression politique et économique interne. Dans ce classement - on peut citer plus fini maintenant - les régimes en Iran et Venezuela (qui ont la sympathie de la ministre de la Défense nommé par Lula. Qui aura la réponse finale? A mon avis, les travailleurs à travers leurs syndicats jouent toujours un rôle clé pour répondre à ce stade.
Remarque: en portugais le mot calamar (Lula) n'a pas générique double. De même, le mot président. D'où le jeu de mots.
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Définir la démocratie
La meilleure définition de la démocratie est ceci: c'est la loterie politique dans lequel certains idiots gagnent en excès, l'équivalent - à ce que beaucoup d'idiots - perdent progressivement. C'est la notion même du système politique dans lequel certains sont candidats pour les postes qui gèrent l'application des taxes de la population. L'autre, dans le même temps, sont réduits à choisir le vote sur les candidats des imbéciles, qui leur ressemblent, espérant profiter indirectement, sans exposer sa tête. Le vote est l'ingrédient de petites ajouté. La même chose arrive à la loterie, où de nombreuses petites sommes constituent la richesse de quelques-uns. Par conséquent, dans une démocratie, il ya deux types de imbéciles qui constituent la population civile:
1) les imbéciles pour les excès, et,
2) les imbéciles progressivement appauvri.
Chaque élection, et chaque tirage, les espoirs sont des ajouts renouvelée et de nouvelles, ainsi que plus de voix sont direciodas insensés pour des alternatives. Les élus, ou les gagnants, n'auront aucun souci pour les autres qui ont contribué à leur richesse. Toutefois, ils encouragent tout le monde à renouveler leurs espoirs. Et ainsi, tous les idiots perpétuer le système, avec des actions combinées des deux côtés, qu'ils soient gagnants ou perdants. Alors quel était le droit naturel lui-même en relation avec les droits d'autrui, est revendiqué par un autre et il a décidé de remodeler le système, interrompant une sorte de loterie pour créer un autre. Mais c'est la définition de la tyrannie, qui est aussi stupide, car en fait tout ce qu'ils font. Ainsi, les idiots se réunissent périodiquement dans la salle et s'asseoir autour de tables qu'ils appellent les partis politiques, dont le seul but est de blesser les autres idiots assis autour des tables d'autres. C'est pourquoi tant de promesses. Quand ils réalisent que les joueurs (ou les électeurs) sont en colère - avec les résultats des élections ou de loterie - ils rassemblent les tables pour faire ce qu'ils appellent la conférence, qui ne servent à insulter tous les autres ne sont pas assis là. Par conséquent, ce type de société on ne s'échappe l'étiquette de l'idiot.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Saturday, July 02, 2011
Une vie différente
Dans un moment de ces grandes cérémonies, l'écoute de cette histoire apporte un peu de la fraîcheur de la pensée d'une génération qui a osé vivre une vie différente. Une vie plus simple et beaucoup, beaucoup plus d'amour. A bientôt Philippe.
Une deuxième vie aux Maldives
Un reportage de Yves Pellissier, Christophe Bazille et Patrick Mauroy
Une production France 3 - Thalassa
Tout le monde, ou presque, en a rêvé au moins une fois, de préférence un jour d’hiver où rien ne sourit… Rêve de soleil et de liberté, rêve d’un ailleurs, rarement réalisé.
Ce jour de 1978, Philippe LAURELLA, lui, passe à l’acte. Imprimeur en région parisienne, il décide de changer de vie, en un instant, aussi brutalement que l’on claque une porte.
Pays, métier, famille, il laisse tout derrière lui et part loin, très loin, jusqu’à aborder sa « terra incognita » : l’archipel des Maldives ! Pendant les 25 années suivantes il sera « Mohamed Ali », bâtissant jour après jour sa nouvelle vie dans la petite île de VELIDHOO: quelques centaines d’habitants, pas d’électricité, pas de téléphone, bref le paradis !Là il se découvre de nouveaux talents : charpentier de marine, architecte naval, puis skipper de l’un des tous premiers voiliers de croisière maldivien: le « BAARA BARHU ». Parallèlement il construit sa maison et fonde une famille, rien dans la vie de Mohamed Ali ne le distingue plus de ses voisins Maldiviens dont il a intégré toutes les coutumes.Aujourd’hui, 32 ans après son arrivée dans le pays, la légende du « BAARA BARHU » et de son capitaine court encore dans tout l’archipel. Quant à notre homme, il vit de sa peinture et dessine à l’occasion des plans de bateaux pour ceux qui rêvent de faire comme lui.
Monday, June 06, 2011
Booklets
by Luís César Nunes on Sunday, June 5, 2011 at 11:34pm.
Recently the Planalto (Plateau) as it is called the Brazilian Federal Executive, launched a booklet to "educate" those involved with educational institutions to relativize the grammar rules in order to promote educational access for the working classes. A great controversy has opened. The press launched a campaign and in the end, the Right that was previously sprayed or camouflaged in government, began attacking the textbook. These and other booklets, with which the government wished to maintain a semblance of progressive, seeking to portray themselves as observant of human rights, to the delight of the NGOs and international opinion. Surely this question is much more than educational policy. It is at these times that I reread the critical literature. I glanced at the Paulo Freire and I realized the mess created. For Paulo Freire, the booklet was a piece for the authoritarian regime. Not now, the booklet came to "liberate" the literate classes of linguistic prejudice against the popular dialects that is socially discriminated. Looking at it it seems pretty revolutionary. But the very Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed warned that "sloganeering" is also an authoritarian method, even when used by leftists.
Many years ago I attended a lecture by Prof.. Marcos Bagnoat UERJ (State University of Rio de Janeiro), and I would like to congratulate him for having been able to adopt those same concepts advocated by him more than 10 years ago. The vocabulary and the mode of presentation was certainly the contribution of this great teacher. I just do not quite understand - why a so brilliant proposal has been let easily capture by politicians on the Planalto? Surely the Lords of the Planalto are not intend to contribute to any debate by the end of prejudice language, if so, the Planalto would protect the rights of indigenous people who have - not only dialects but - entire language families. It seems that the proposal falls within the MEC Lula tactic of imitating the old Vargas Bonapartism. That is, stirs up a false polarization with the aim to eliminate the criticisms from the Leftists. Certainly, the "radical" left (in the sense given by Paulo Freire, disagrees with the policyof making booklets for every issue that is difficult to deal). And it seems that the Planalto solves all sensitive social issues through pamphlets. Thus, the Planalto is pleasing NGOs - responsible for drafting them - while washing its hands against the criticism. It is unfortunate that - the Planalto has anticipated the answers of the questions - just to deleted the debate. The question took the same course when the discussion about abortion in electoral campaign .
While many put the blame for Brazil's problems in the bourgeois press, the great contradiction is that - we would not have that kind of power - if we had another type of press. But I do not think the Lulism be naive to the point of neglecting what the press would do and what the Right would do. Recall of the abortion issue during the election campaign. The Lulism did a festival on the issue and when he had the first pressure from the evangelical right and Catholic it ran into the arms of the rightist churches, washing both hands like Pontius Pilate. The same happened with the issue of "anti-homophobia kit" and the same will happen now. Surely no one was happy with the fact that "The Lulism" give a gift to a certain Congressman (a Facist Right from Rio de Janeir) with a new electorate - that even he never dreamed crave. At these times linguists should stop neglecting the political works of N. Chomsky. It seems they want to force an artificial division in his work (both technical and political). "For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there Can Be no more urgent task than to come to Understand the Mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to Perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to Which we are subjected and in Which Too Often we all serve the unwilling instruments. " - - - Noam Chomsky
By equating those who oppose the authoritarian method of bringing this discussion, Professor Bagno, put fuel on the flames of polarization. Thus, he conceals the main objective of the Planalto: polarize the issue. For only in this way a government can control a Popular Front with the parliamentary deputies support that ranges from Right to Left. Everything seems to have only one aim: elections. And in this case, the goal is to label all those opposed to the way Lulists govern, as ignorant. I do not see any contribution to this debate. For many years the military regime has also changed the structure of education in the finest arguments of modernization. . If this book (this booklet) now edited by the MEC, would put the light back then at the time of Military Regime, as the defenders of democracy are to be gathered against of it? The population (not just the media) are reading this episode as one more neglect of education. Mainly because the Planalto are being used contradictory policies: while standardized tests that are used to evaluate teaching, it uses an apparent linguistic liberalism to downgrade the classification of the indices. Does this kit have the same purpose as the others? Does the President (as was said in Chile, and now here) also wash their hands as it did in the homophobia kit and on the abortion issue? Those who defend the Planalto in everything must be vigilant. The target of environmentalists in Para can be a showcase of what's to come. The Planalto led - important representatives - to the Copenhagen conference, to protect the ecology. But soon they returned from Copenhagen, the Federal Deputies (the basis of the Government) have proposed - in Congress - to change the forest code, l in favor of loggers. Did the militants against language prejudice, will be talking to themselves as environmentalists did? Or as militants against homophobia? Consider the time of Allende in Chile, the people believed in him, and he appointed the Military group that later would overthrown him. This contradiction is typical of the popular front governments: they give speeches to the Left and in the end they are allied with the Right. The problem is that such electioneering strategy not end well in our America. See the President Bachelet of Chile itself.
Recently the Planalto (Plateau) as it is called the Brazilian Federal Executive, launched a booklet to "educate" those involved with educational institutions to relativize the grammar rules in order to promote educational access for the working classes. A great controversy has opened. The press launched a campaign and in the end, the Right that was previously sprayed or camouflaged in government, began attacking the textbook. These and other booklets, with which the government wished to maintain a semblance of progressive, seeking to portray themselves as observant of human rights, to the delight of the NGOs and international opinion. Surely this question is much more than educational policy. It is at these times that I reread the critical literature. I glanced at the Paulo Freire and I realized the mess created. For Paulo Freire, the booklet was a piece for the authoritarian regime. Not now, the booklet came to "liberate" the literate classes of linguistic prejudice against the popular dialects that is socially discriminated. Looking at it it seems pretty revolutionary. But the very Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed warned that "sloganeering" is also an authoritarian method, even when used by leftists.
Many years ago I attended a lecture by Prof.. Marcos Bagnoat UERJ (State University of Rio de Janeiro), and I would like to congratulate him for having been able to adopt those same concepts advocated by him more than 10 years ago. The vocabulary and the mode of presentation was certainly the contribution of this great teacher. I just do not quite understand - why a so brilliant proposal has been let easily capture by politicians on the Planalto? Surely the Lords of the Planalto are not intend to contribute to any debate by the end of prejudice language, if so, the Planalto would protect the rights of indigenous people who have - not only dialects but - entire language families. It seems that the proposal falls within the MEC Lula tactic of imitating the old Vargas Bonapartism. That is, stirs up a false polarization with the aim to eliminate the criticisms from the Leftists. Certainly, the "radical" left (in the sense given by Paulo Freire, disagrees with the policyof making booklets for every issue that is difficult to deal). And it seems that the Planalto solves all sensitive social issues through pamphlets. Thus, the Planalto is pleasing NGOs - responsible for drafting them - while washing its hands against the criticism. It is unfortunate that - the Planalto has anticipated the answers of the questions - just to deleted the debate. The question took the same course when the discussion about abortion in electoral campaign .
While many put the blame for Brazil's problems in the bourgeois press, the great contradiction is that - we would not have that kind of power - if we had another type of press. But I do not think the Lulism be naive to the point of neglecting what the press would do and what the Right would do. Recall of the abortion issue during the election campaign. The Lulism did a festival on the issue and when he had the first pressure from the evangelical right and Catholic it ran into the arms of the rightist churches, washing both hands like Pontius Pilate. The same happened with the issue of "anti-homophobia kit" and the same will happen now. Surely no one was happy with the fact that "The Lulism" give a gift to a certain Congressman (a Facist Right from Rio de Janeir) with a new electorate - that even he never dreamed crave. At these times linguists should stop neglecting the political works of N. Chomsky. It seems they want to force an artificial division in his work (both technical and political). "For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there Can Be no more urgent task than to come to Understand the Mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to Perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to Which we are subjected and in Which Too Often we all serve the unwilling instruments. " - - - Noam Chomsky
By equating those who oppose the authoritarian method of bringing this discussion, Professor Bagno, put fuel on the flames of polarization. Thus, he conceals the main objective of the Planalto: polarize the issue. For only in this way a government can control a Popular Front with the parliamentary deputies support that ranges from Right to Left. Everything seems to have only one aim: elections. And in this case, the goal is to label all those opposed to the way Lulists govern, as ignorant. I do not see any contribution to this debate. For many years the military regime has also changed the structure of education in the finest arguments of modernization. . If this book (this booklet) now edited by the MEC, would put the light back then at the time of Military Regime, as the defenders of democracy are to be gathered against of it? The population (not just the media) are reading this episode as one more neglect of education. Mainly because the Planalto are being used contradictory policies: while standardized tests that are used to evaluate teaching, it uses an apparent linguistic liberalism to downgrade the classification of the indices. Does this kit have the same purpose as the others? Does the President (as was said in Chile, and now here) also wash their hands as it did in the homophobia kit and on the abortion issue? Those who defend the Planalto in everything must be vigilant. The target of environmentalists in Para can be a showcase of what's to come. The Planalto led - important representatives - to the Copenhagen conference, to protect the ecology. But soon they returned from Copenhagen, the Federal Deputies (the basis of the Government) have proposed - in Congress - to change the forest code, l in favor of loggers. Did the militants against language prejudice, will be talking to themselves as environmentalists did? Or as militants against homophobia? Consider the time of Allende in Chile, the people believed in him, and he appointed the Military group that later would overthrown him. This contradiction is typical of the popular front governments: they give speeches to the Left and in the end they are allied with the Right. The problem is that such electioneering strategy not end well in our America. See the President Bachelet of Chile itself.
Cartilhas
Cartilhas
Recentemente o Planalto, como é chamado o Poder Executivo Federal brasileiro, lançou uma cartilha para "educar" os envolvidos com as instituições de ensino a relativizar as normas gramaticais afim de favorecer o acesso educacional para as classes populares. Uma grande polêmica se abriu. A imprensa realizou uma campanha e, no fim, a Direita que estava até então pulverizada ou camuflada no governo, passou a atacar diretamente a cartilha. Essa e as outras cartilhas, com as quais o governo pretendia manter uma aparência de progressista, procurando mostrar-se como cumpridor dos direitos humanos, para deleite das ONGs e da opinião internacional. Com toda a certeza essa questão é bem mais política que educacional. É nessas horas que releio a literatura crítica. Passei os olhos no Paulo Freire e eu percebi a grande confusão criada. Para Paulo Freire, a Cartilha, era uma peça para o regime autoritário. Agora não, a cartilha veio para "libertar" as classes alfabetizadas do preconceito linguístico contra os falares populares que são socialmente discriminados. Olhando assim isso parece bem revolucionário. Mas o próprio Paulo Freire advertiu na Pedagogia do Oprimido que a "sloganização" é, também, um método autoritário.
Há muitos anos assisti uma palestra do Prof. Marcos Bagno na UERJ e eu gostaria de parabenizar a ele por ter conseguido aprovar àqueles mesmos conceitos defendidos por ele há mais de 10 anos atrás. Pelo vocabulário e pelo modo de apresentação certamente foi grande a contribuição desse professor. Eu só não entendi bem - por que uma proposta tão inteligente deixou-se capturar facilmente pelos políticos do Planalto? Com toda certeza os Senhores do Planalto não pretendem contribuir com nenhum debate pelo fim do preconceito linguístico, se assim fosse, o Planalto protegeria os direitos dos indígenas, que possuem - não só dialetos próprios, mas - famílias linguísticas inteiras. Parece que a proposta do MEC se insere na tática Lulista de imitar o velho bonapartismo getulista. Ou seja, atiça a Direita e depois provoca uma falsa polarização com o fito de eliminar as críticas de Esquerda. Com certeza, a esquerda "radical" (no sentido dado por Paulo Freire, discorda da política de Cartilhas. E, parece que - o Planalto só sabe solucionar as questões sociais sensíveis, por meio de cartilhas. Desse modo, o Planalto agrada as ONGs - responsáveis pela elaboração delas - e ao mesmo tempo lava as mãos contra as críticas. É lamentável que - ao ter antecipado as respostas das questões - tenha-se justamente suprimido o debate. A questão tomou o mesmo rumo da discussão sobre o aborto na campanha eleitoral.
Ainda que muitos coloquem toda a culpa dos problemas brasileiros na imprensa burguesa, a grande contradição é que - não teríamos esse tipo de poder - caso tivéssemos outro tipo de imprensa. Porém, não me parece que o Lulismo seja tão ingênuo ao ponto de negligenciar o que a imprensa faria e o que a Direita faria. Lembremos da questão do aborto durante a campanha eleitoral. O Lulismo fez um festival em cima da questão e quando sofreu a primeira pressão da direita evangélica e católica correu para os braços da igreja, lavando as duas mãos como Pôncio Pilatos. O mesmo aconteceu com a questão do "kit anti-homofobia" e o mesmo acontecerá agora. Com certeza ninguém ficou feliz com o fato de "O Lulismo" dar um presente a um certo Deputado Federal(da direita do Rio de Janeiro, mas da base do Governo Federal que se autodenomina de Esquerda) com um novo eleitorado - que nem ele mesmo sonhava almejar. Nessas horas os linguistas deviam deixar de negligenciar as obras políticas de N. Chomsky. Parece que querem forçar uma divisão artificial na obra dele (técnica e política). "For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling instruments." - - - Noam Chomsky
Ao igualar todos os que se opõem ao método autoritário de trazer essa discussão, o Prof. Bagno pôs lenha na fogueira da polarização. Desse modo, ele acoberta o principal objetivo do Planalto: polarizar a questão. Pois só desse modo um Governo de Frente Popular pode controlar uma base parlamentar com deputados de Direita e de Esquerda. Tudo parece ter apenas um objetivo: eleitoral. E, nesse caso, o objetivo é rotular todos os que se opõem ao modo Lulista de governar, como ignorantes. Não vejo nisso nenhuma colaboração para o debate. Há muitos anos o Regime militar também mudou a estruturação do Ensino sob os mais belos argumentos da modernização. Todos aqueles que eram contra os gospistas foram contra. Se esse livro (a tal cartilha) agora editado pelo MEC, fosse posto à luz naquela época, como os defensores da democracia se manifestariam frente of it? A população (e não apenas a imprensa) está lendo esse episódio como mais um descaso com a educação. Principalmente, porque estão sendo usadas políticas contraditórias. Ao mesmo tempo em que são usados testes padronizados para avaliar o ensino, usa-se um aparente liberalismo linguístico para rebaixar a qualificação dos índices. Será que esse kit terá o mesmo fim dos outros? Será que a Presidenta (como se dizia no Chile, e agora aqui) também lavará as mãos como fez no kit-homofobia e na questão do aborto ? Os que defendem o Planalto em tudo devem ficar alertas. O destino dos ambientalistas no Pará pode ser uma mostra do que está por vir. O Planalto levou - importantes representantes - à conferência de Copenhagen, para defender a ecologia. Mas logo que voltou de Copenhagem, os Deputados Federais (da Base do Governo), propuseram - no Congresso Nacional - alterar o código floresta,l em favor dos desmatadores. Será que os militantes contra o preconceito linguístico, ficarão falando sozinhos como os ambientalistas ? Ou como os militantes contra a homofobia ? Pensemos no Chile na época do Allende, o povo acreditava nele, e ele mesmo nomeou os golpistas para o governo. Essa é a contradição típica dos governos de frente popular: eles discursam para Esquerda e no final eles se aliam com a Direita. O problema é que essas manobras eleitorais não terminam bem na nossa América. Vide o próprio Chile da Presidenta Bachelet.
Recentemente o Planalto, como é chamado o Poder Executivo Federal brasileiro, lançou uma cartilha para "educar" os envolvidos com as instituições de ensino a relativizar as normas gramaticais afim de favorecer o acesso educacional para as classes populares. Uma grande polêmica se abriu. A imprensa realizou uma campanha e, no fim, a Direita que estava até então pulverizada ou camuflada no governo, passou a atacar diretamente a cartilha. Essa e as outras cartilhas, com as quais o governo pretendia manter uma aparência de progressista, procurando mostrar-se como cumpridor dos direitos humanos, para deleite das ONGs e da opinião internacional. Com toda a certeza essa questão é bem mais política que educacional. É nessas horas que releio a literatura crítica. Passei os olhos no Paulo Freire e eu percebi a grande confusão criada. Para Paulo Freire, a Cartilha, era uma peça para o regime autoritário. Agora não, a cartilha veio para "libertar" as classes alfabetizadas do preconceito linguístico contra os falares populares que são socialmente discriminados. Olhando assim isso parece bem revolucionário. Mas o próprio Paulo Freire advertiu na Pedagogia do Oprimido que a "sloganização" é, também, um método autoritário.
Há muitos anos assisti uma palestra do Prof. Marcos Bagno na UERJ e eu gostaria de parabenizar a ele por ter conseguido aprovar àqueles mesmos conceitos defendidos por ele há mais de 10 anos atrás. Pelo vocabulário e pelo modo de apresentação certamente foi grande a contribuição desse professor. Eu só não entendi bem - por que uma proposta tão inteligente deixou-se capturar facilmente pelos políticos do Planalto? Com toda certeza os Senhores do Planalto não pretendem contribuir com nenhum debate pelo fim do preconceito linguístico, se assim fosse, o Planalto protegeria os direitos dos indígenas, que possuem - não só dialetos próprios, mas - famílias linguísticas inteiras. Parece que a proposta do MEC se insere na tática Lulista de imitar o velho bonapartismo getulista. Ou seja, atiça a Direita e depois provoca uma falsa polarização com o fito de eliminar as críticas de Esquerda. Com certeza, a esquerda "radical" (no sentido dado por Paulo Freire, discorda da política de Cartilhas. E, parece que - o Planalto só sabe solucionar as questões sociais sensíveis, por meio de cartilhas. Desse modo, o Planalto agrada as ONGs - responsáveis pela elaboração delas - e ao mesmo tempo lava as mãos contra as críticas. É lamentável que - ao ter antecipado as respostas das questões - tenha-se justamente suprimido o debate. A questão tomou o mesmo rumo da discussão sobre o aborto na campanha eleitoral.
Ainda que muitos coloquem toda a culpa dos problemas brasileiros na imprensa burguesa, a grande contradição é que - não teríamos esse tipo de poder - caso tivéssemos outro tipo de imprensa. Porém, não me parece que o Lulismo seja tão ingênuo ao ponto de negligenciar o que a imprensa faria e o que a Direita faria. Lembremos da questão do aborto durante a campanha eleitoral. O Lulismo fez um festival em cima da questão e quando sofreu a primeira pressão da direita evangélica e católica correu para os braços da igreja, lavando as duas mãos como Pôncio Pilatos. O mesmo aconteceu com a questão do "kit anti-homofobia" e o mesmo acontecerá agora. Com certeza ninguém ficou feliz com o fato de "O Lulismo" dar um presente a um certo Deputado Federal(da direita do Rio de Janeiro, mas da base do Governo Federal que se autodenomina de Esquerda) com um novo eleitorado - que nem ele mesmo sonhava almejar. Nessas horas os linguistas deviam deixar de negligenciar as obras políticas de N. Chomsky. Parece que querem forçar uma divisão artificial na obra dele (técnica e política). "For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling instruments." - - - Noam Chomsky
Ao igualar todos os que se opõem ao método autoritário de trazer essa discussão, o Prof. Bagno pôs lenha na fogueira da polarização. Desse modo, ele acoberta o principal objetivo do Planalto: polarizar a questão. Pois só desse modo um Governo de Frente Popular pode controlar uma base parlamentar com deputados de Direita e de Esquerda. Tudo parece ter apenas um objetivo: eleitoral. E, nesse caso, o objetivo é rotular todos os que se opõem ao modo Lulista de governar, como ignorantes. Não vejo nisso nenhuma colaboração para o debate. Há muitos anos o Regime militar também mudou a estruturação do Ensino sob os mais belos argumentos da modernização. Todos aqueles que eram contra os gospistas foram contra. Se esse livro (a tal cartilha) agora editado pelo MEC, fosse posto à luz naquela época, como os defensores da democracia se manifestariam frente of it? A população (e não apenas a imprensa) está lendo esse episódio como mais um descaso com a educação. Principalmente, porque estão sendo usadas políticas contraditórias. Ao mesmo tempo em que são usados testes padronizados para avaliar o ensino, usa-se um aparente liberalismo linguístico para rebaixar a qualificação dos índices. Será que esse kit terá o mesmo fim dos outros? Será que a Presidenta (como se dizia no Chile, e agora aqui) também lavará as mãos como fez no kit-homofobia e na questão do aborto ? Os que defendem o Planalto em tudo devem ficar alertas. O destino dos ambientalistas no Pará pode ser uma mostra do que está por vir. O Planalto levou - importantes representantes - à conferência de Copenhagen, para defender a ecologia. Mas logo que voltou de Copenhagem, os Deputados Federais (da Base do Governo), propuseram - no Congresso Nacional - alterar o código floresta,l em favor dos desmatadores. Será que os militantes contra o preconceito linguístico, ficarão falando sozinhos como os ambientalistas ? Ou como os militantes contra a homofobia ? Pensemos no Chile na época do Allende, o povo acreditava nele, e ele mesmo nomeou os golpistas para o governo. Essa é a contradição típica dos governos de frente popular: eles discursam para Esquerda e no final eles se aliam com a Direita. O problema é que essas manobras eleitorais não terminam bem na nossa América. Vide o próprio Chile da Presidenta Bachelet.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Papers in the archives are still worth far more than children
In general, the only thing the law does is change the side of the force. People who were once oppressed become the oppressors, simply because they were arguing that they were oppressed. Just as the commentators are divided between those who have only arguments in favor of a resolution and those who only have negative arguments. The balance cost much to stay in balance. For example, among the evil of those who suffer because they have no place to live, are those that invade the farms where they build without public permissions, moreover steal water and electricity, and even welcomed by the public as if they were discriminated against people (of course in exchange for votes in upcoming elections. It's always easy to position itself as defender of the poor in these moments, in a society so full of wants and desires rambling). Receiving public funds to complete their building and have its land occupied illegally legalized. However, people who build their house slowly with the stress of their work, having a legacy portion to be built by the descendants and did everything within the legal requirements, which won awards? Taxes and a troubled neighborhood without commitment to the place where they live. Built in a hurry, the pace of electoral campaigns, not worrying about the impacts to the environment. This is awarded by the government to redress social policies. Reparation for what? Justice or injustice? We find many who say they are discriminated because of their sexual orientation, but it is easy to see that some options that are unconventional, are now successful, often more than those who remain in the family traditions. Sex, or sex, are somehow linked to trade, since the same sex and reproduction has become big business. And so is being treated. And like other businesses, the market for reasons of profit can support the business as a complement, or rejects it as a competition that should be prevented even by violence. So is the business world. Of course, there are even those who suffer violence from their sexual choice, but do these also are not violated, and much more, for engaging in violent situations by themselves. So the problem is no longer discrimination and becomes the violence itself. Would those who say they are not also oppressed oppressors? Or at least when placed in a situation of oppressors, they do not behave exactly against those who criticized when it was oppressed? Well in that case, the law may be, under the beautiful argument of protecting the weak, giving new force to tyrants. Will - these movements - do not happen, just because some try to destroy their prospective enemies, encouraging - those characters and those ideas - which are most promising to destroy them? In a cynical attitude, usual, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro - said that - soon after the attack at school Tasso - do not hire janitors, or inspectors to the municipal schools, being schools, he said, open spaces of the citizen. Now he backtracked. That's because there was much pressure from the public (voters), due to exaggeration of the mayor to leave schools completely unguarded. Yesterday I went to the State of Judicial Forum Rio de Janeiro and then I was searched in every way by police and cameras, x-rays and so on. So I asked: what's so valuable is stored in that fortress. And then I received a cold response: papers. It seems that in our world papers in the archives are still worth far more than children.
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