African Diaspora and the Black Movement in Brazil Today

8/9/2019 African Diaspora and the Black Movement in Brazil Today

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African Diaspora and the Black Movement in Brazil today

Ailton Benedito de Sousa

In Brazil, specially in Rio de Janeiro, the social phenomenon described by theexpression Black Movement came to acquire some aspects of its substance and form by

the beginning of the late 1970s. As to the core of this substance, surely it derives from

five hundred years of individual and social struggles against slavery, prejudice, racism,

poverty and marginalization. It must be affirmed here as a proposition to be discussed

in another occasion and place, that no matter how long and tragic our slavery may be

in the imaginary of the Brazilian Black and Poor people, the strategic aim of these

five hundred years of struggle has been to build up the Nation, an inclusive Nation

inside (or to) which we all can place our identity. Illustrating the proposition that in the

African Diaspora Movements, form and substance change in response to the space,

time and cultures involved, in republican Brazil issues like going back to Africa and

two states or two nations solutions, although present as facts in our history (goingback to Dahomey and the Quilombos in general, and Quilombo de Palmares in

particular) have never appeared as recurring concrete demands.

As well known, Africas modern history, including its Diasporas one, is marked by two

or three great colonial powers: Portugal, England and France. In a continental point of

view, and having for reference the English sources, the struggle for the economic and

social enhancement of the Black after slavery abolition in different American countries

may have the Jamaican Marcus Garvey as a permanent symbol. In terms of our country

and taking into consideration only the twenty century, no doubt about the important

contributions of Abdias do Nascimento.

From 1964 up to 1988, the Brazilian people lived under a military dictatorship. Trying

to synthesize what this means, we may metaphorically say that after March 31 st 1964,

large number of stranded youths began to walk vaguely around what might be

figuratively called our political public spaces or agorae, asking about what should

be their role in the play on stage. Lots of youths in march to adulthood asking for

something vague as a certain social know-how, something to learn and to do, so that

one could act as a true political agent, in order to give meaning to ones own life, an

impossible aim under a dictatorship whatever its qualities. They had seen May-68 in

France or in Europe. Newcomers to the arena or forum where the so called social

tomorrow was supposedly being enacted, these boys and girls, no matter theirinsistences, did not receive answers to the questions they used propose to the gagging

social institutions, including their rulers, in the case, a military gerontocracy. In this

way, words and expressions like democracy, citizenship, civil rights, peoples

sovereignty, free elections etc. were to be accepted as tabu and if spoken out, they had

to be translated according to the implicit will of the ruler of the day.

Ironically, now in 2010 when much of those restrictions to the exercise of a functional

citizenship have been put out, some unsuspected effects of ongoing technological

innovations (Internet, Big Brothers) in compliance with other cultural responses to our

social distortions, have made the young no more walk vaguely around our agorae,

but simply repudiate them as not necessary, since they do not know their meaning and


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function. In a world in decomposition where everything must be done, there is nothing

at all to be done.

Returning to the post-60s context, we may say that those who in 1964 were between

15 and 19 years old and just at that time had had no kind of political orientation or

option, lived as cadets together with older generations born before 1945. In generalthese adult segments were politically orientated, many of their individuals having

taken part in national events like the 1930s Revolution (a phase of middle-class based

political unrest, inscribed in a sequence of efforts aiming at modernizing the country

economically and politically). More likely most of them surely had taken part in

provincial and ethnically tainted uprisings like the Black Front (Frente Negra) in So

Paulo. Some other had or would taken part in the leftist guerilla movements against

the actual military ruler. No matter how close they lived, there was no space or context

so that the new generations could receive the political messages and experiences from

the older ones. Those who should be heralds in transmitting the demands of the

Brazilian people, were then diabolized as terrorists, arrested or executed. This is how

life uses to be in a dictatorship.

Well, it is in this context that ourMovimento Negro, specially here in Rio de Janeiro, is

going to acquire aspects of its substance and form. As a militant in his own youth, the

author states that at this time he came to get acquainted to many militants of the

Brazilian Anarchist Movement. Generally from Spain or Portugal, all of them at this

time already old men, these Anarchists were the richest persons one could ever know

in terms of personal history and political contributions brought to the world. Most of

them had had experience in World War I and taken part in struggles against colonial

ruler in Africa, civil wars and strikes here and abroad. The Anarchists were of great

importance in transferring some know-how to our Labor Movement in terms of trade

unionism and community work. Among these men I have in mind a special friend,

Roberto das Neves.

Why does the young revolt?

In what this phase of general unrest seems to be an eminently spontaneous

phenomenon, its source should be looked at those political, economical and social

conditions meaning restriction, obstacle to the free individual expression, mainly ones

own sense of security and well-being, in other words, restrictions to ones social and

political life and interaction whatever their dimensions: concerning his own history

the question of his ethnicity; concerning his juridical status rights and obligations; hismoral patterns (values accepted through his own judgment); concerning even his

aesthetic patterns fashion, custom, idiosyncrasies. In this way, among us it is the

domicile issue (a house in which to live) and the ethnicity (who am I?) that are

supposed to agglutinate and mobilize our people in general and young in a movement

complex waves of energy for changing generating phenomena generically referred to

as Social Movements, among which the Black Movement.

Eminently historic an issue, related to our very sense of pertinence, identity and cultural

heritage, both in terms objective and spiritual, this issue, it is worth to stress, should be

seen as the deepest and most urgent to be answered as far as the man of the African

Diaspora is considered. This should be specially so in Brazil, where slavery is said tobe abrogated in 1888, in totally specific conditions: the State, through the monarchic


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rule, did not compensate the slave owners for the expropriation. Direct result:

republican coup dEtat(November 15th 1889), but without a Res publica. Instead, a

recurrent period of dictatorships to last for a century, up to the present Constitution in

1988. In this way no room for practices related to a set of public policies aiming at

compensating or assisting the ex-Slave. In the minds of our elite the colonial pact had

to go on, since the Nation had not been created for pariah. If not a thing like theIndigenous Statute as it actually existed in colonial and imperial France and England,

here the ex-Slave was left to choose: abject anomie, low pay jobs or death.

In this way, the domicile issue reflects and synthesizes a permanent situation of

insecurity and indigence for the Brazilian poor in general and the afro-descendent in

particular. Here, favela or shanty towns instead of a provisory dwelling condition is a

definitive one. In Rio de Janeiro, their appearance as such precarious cottages or huts

made of discarded material, extending through the slopes of our hills and swampy

lowlands is reported to have come from the very beginning of the 20th century. Take

note of our Abolition, May 13th 1888, with the massive flight of hundreds of ex-Slaves

from rural areas directly to the big cities Salvador, Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro,bringing nothing with them except their bodies, culture and a determination to survive

no matter how. Specifically their culture at the outset turned out to be a serious

hindrance. It is a miracle the survival of cultural patrimonies like Candombl, Jongo and

Capoeira etc.

On account of the African heritage of their inhabitants, in that case the heritage

concerning to music and religion, the favelas for a century will be invaded, burned out,

their inhabitants persecuted and stigmatized as malandros and vagabundos (words

for outcast, tramper). In the level of the Brazilian Penal Code, that is, nationally, there

was a piece of law, derogated after 1988, establishing direct imprisonment for he who

(to be understood, if Coloured) had not a document proving that he had an employment.

Such a piece of law came directly from the French Statute de lIndigenat. If today the

Escola de Samba Pageant is a piece of show business to attract foreign tourists to our

carnival, this was not so during the first fifteen years of these cultural invention. From

1939 until late in the 50s, every year the Brazilian Army used to go to the local where

the show was supposed to occur and strictly at midnight, in a warlike operation, put an

end to the party by blows of club and shots of rifle.

The first Movement to settle itself down as an institution statute, headquarters and

so on was the Favelas one, followed by others related or based on the place wherethe individual lived, as the Dwellers Movement. Mr. Jo Resende was one of the most

distinguished social agent in organizing these movements. It is worth making the

distinction here taking into consideration that Mr. Jo Resende was forced to abandon his

career as an engaged social agent on account of calumnies against him directed by the

monopolist press of the time.

Feeling that they too had to be protected or even heard, spontaneously a certain segment

of the people began to aggregate themselves around the ethnic issue. As far as the

authors knowledge, the IPCN Instituto de Pesquisas das Culturas Negras (Institute

for the Research of Black Cultures) was the first Negro institution to settle itself down

in the City of Rio de Janeiro. Its official birth date is 8th

June 1975 but as amovement the society exists since 1973 or so. Its first president and exponent figure


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as far as mobilization and organizational work is concerned is Mr. Benedito Sergio,

remarkable man for his high organizing capacity and lack of attributes linked to

personal vanity.

As a headspring in a fountain if cared over tends to become a river, the new society

began to grow through the adhesion of what then constituted the only species ofmilitancy, the unpaid one, that is, there was no salary, no monetary compensation as is

usual nowadays. Since we are speaking of some thirty or fifty persons, the issue of

finding a protected place where to assemble such a group was always at hand. Some of

the arranged places were well adequate: The Teatro Opinio, in Copacabana, Rio, and

The ICBA - Instituto Cultural Brasil-Alemanha (The Goethe Institute). For sure, on

account of its tributaries a little creek tends to become a full river. Many individuals

and groups by seeing the example, that is, the IPCNs own headquarters, were

encouraged to create new organizations, or even to assume themselves as an entity. By

the way, the building where is still the IPCNs headquarters was bought tanks to

donation from The American Action derived from Alliance for Progress. Here it must

be punctuated: there is no factual basis in some claims, no matter their academic origin,affirming that the MNU Movimento Negro Unificado (Unified Black Movement) had

preceded the IPCN.

The MNU was created on the streets, a fact that should be highly praised by all in the

MNUs history. At that time many of their members used to boast that the MNU was

a social movement, voluntarily putting out any kind of institutional structure,

hierarchy, headquarters and so on. From this fact, its immediate geographic dispersion

throughout our main states. From this fact, too, the MNU was one of the first ideas

to go up the hills, or better, to open itself to the youth from the hills, being accepted

here that institutionalized entities (with headquarter, hierarchy) like the IPCN were then

more appropriate to a low middle class public.

Today world and our militancy, what are they like?

The expression ethic militancy comes with quotation marks to be distinguished from

the present kind of engaged political activity, necessarily characterized by monetary

reward. This is a simple evidence without judgment today the militancy is the very

employment, job, business or its promise. If we are not mistaken, the fight for surviving

seems to be the most important ideological appeal to our militants. This practice has

turned out to be a norm inside every political party and some self-assumed evangelicalchurches. For sure, a reflex from the everlasting cause: economic crisis, centenary

accumulation of deficits in areas like housing, health, new employments, which in its

turn is a reflex from the project of income concentration for centuries put in practice by

the Brazilian elites. In coherence with the above said, in our country, political

cooptation as a concept and practice whether referring to a ngos or to individuals

by the political parties, churches, governments and enterprises, instead of something to

be avoided, it is the very legitimate strategic end of a true militants action. As moral

human beings, locally and globally we are invited to check the results of this practice in

the course of this century.

The lack of criticism concerning this specific practice political cooptation may beexplained if we take into consideration the set of values actually present in the mind of


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our militants. And here we arrive at the kern of our work: it is about the ideological

framework of most of the Black Movements militants that we want to discuss,

confronting the apparent basis of information and knowledge that characterizes such

new militants face the challenges confronted by a multiethnic nation composed by a

people that cannot ever boast racial purity, a country in this beginning of century

arriving at the threshold of an international arena morally disturbed by decades ofaimless asymmetrical wars waged by a group of gigapowers against poor nations

and feeble states and their men, women and children. Another evidence: nobody can

call Alexander the Great or Cesar a coward. There was compatibility of weapons and

circumstances between them and their enemies. The same cannot be said face the armies

and weapons of countries and organizations like the US, Russia, Israel and the Otan.

Their weapons come from the information and communications sciences; their

circumstances belong to the cyber space and nanotechnologys world. Even fight

against a diabolized enemy and their suicide bombers, those powers are invincible.

Their victories, however, make us feel shame of all of us.

In this dreadful new world in whose threshold Brazil, as an emergent powervacillates, side by side with traditional nations those formed by the meeting in a

territory of natural men and their belongings there are other unnatural ones, formed

by two sources:

1) The gathering of fictitious goods, there is, paper money, vouchers, patents (dead

labor), including softwares under patent granting to their owners the ownership of

the molecular structure of our aa and jacaranda. These are social

corporations or social formations whose wealth and resources overcome by far

those belonging to the hegemonic powers of the present. Among these entities are

present Sovereign and Hedge Funds, Fiscal Heavens and money-lender States

disguised as Motel-States or Disneyland-States like The Emirates-Dubai. In the

latter, for instance, the true working people, those who produce real-actual

wealth and receive nothing, are composed by provisional immigrants, discarded

every two years, who as usual are non-White.

2) States derived from geopolitical arrangements, recently created by the hegemonic

powers to act as mercenary arrow-heads in regions where the imperial scepter is

at stake. Middle East, Africa and Asia are full of them.

It is to be noted that the ambiguous concept of international community comfortably

shelters and protects both types of corporations and their interests. These robot-states

in our opinion derogate all classical theories on the origins of this political being, sincehere the contract is drawn up by an specific millionaire owner (still Dubai). The

adherent (impossible to say citizen) another millionaire escaping the treasurys

authorities of his country, willing to sign up his adhesion against explicit guarantees

that his patrimony is safe. As far to the people, the forced adherents (here we must

say slaves) we know that for them another different contract does exist establishing a

two year period of slave work.

Let us feel pity for Indians, Pakistanis and East Africans, as well for all who are forced

to submit to this regimen. Thanks to lack of moral values or other undeclared reasons,

for many such entities are expression of progress, valid consequences brought about by

neo-liberalism and the new mode of production introduced by the information and


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communication technologies. It is up to the 21th century to assess the consequences of

such innovations.

It must be commented here that the expression international community consecrated

worldwide by the corporative media in itself is a disguise, an aggression to the

rational capacity of every man. Never a true international community would justifyaggressions like the invasion of Iraq, the serial wars inside the Afghan territory, the

dismembering of Yugoslavia, the destruction of Somalia and its people, barbarism

against Gaza, not to mention the permanent action against the Zimbabwe of Robert

Mugabe, while the war lord Paul Kagame is free at large. As to the Zimbabwe nobody

ever comes to say that before the actual crisis, 70% of the agricultural land of the

country belonged to the White as colonizers. To do what? To grow tobacco as

absentees.

In a world like this, what do we need in order to face our challenges?

The present phase of our history demands a lot of analysis and concern on the part ofthe Brazilian people. A natural society, that is, produced by a complex of irrevocable

natural and man made historic circumstances among which the miscegenation of its

people, our country would be arriving at the threshold of an international arena where a

chromatic classificatory system is still dominant, a fact that cannot be denied on

account of the history of the last five centuries the great navigations and the so called

discoveries with the slavery of non White, reinforcement of worldwide patterns of

market economy through the Industrial Revolution and imperialist international policy

and wars. In a moment when we are on the point of taking a decisive step in our history,

it must be demanded on the part of every Brazilian, but mainly on the part of the

Brazilian Indian and afro-descendent populations that at least reassess their notions

about themselves, about mankind as it is now, about what may be expected beyond the

threshold.

Trying a description of our own nation, no doubt that culturally we have always aspired

and still aspire to be a society turned to some historic focus of modern civilization,

though these aspirations be seldom fulfilled. As far as economic activity, politics,

science and technology are concerned we have been lagging behind for these five

hundred years. Thanks to the ineptness of our elites, urban and rural, we are proudly far

behind most of Asian nations independent after 1946. Such five hundred year a notion

of demerit, mainly face the USA and the EU, is deeply planted into our imaginary.

About our door and courtyard neighbors, such people are not our business, they arepoorer than us our elites say.

Choosing a line of arguments easy to demonstrate the veracity of our claims, let us

follow a expeditious criterion the kind of stuff read by the people in general,

considering that we are a unilingual nation. To the Finland Station, by Edmund Wilson,

written in 1940 which should be a reference book for any social militant (our

Communist Party was founded in 1924), only at the end of the 1980s will be

translated, at a time when socialism was agonizing. In the same way, Jack London The

iron heel, written in 1907 will not be translated here earlier than 2003. It must be

remembered that this is one of the most intriguing books by Jack London, at the same

time a romance, a historic, economic and political essay aiming at an engaged Marxistmilitancy. A visionary text, it anticipates the collapse of what we came to know after


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1917 under the name of state socialism (pay attention, the book was written in 1907). In

his anti-utopia the author affirms that after this collapse (actually occurred in 1989) the

world would live for six hundred years under the capitalist ruler as we see today. For

sure Jack London did not consider the limits of the Planet. As a unilingual people, we

are fortunate in this century. We can read Jack London in Portuguese.

If such a phase displacement or cultural dissonancy does factually exist concerning

the society as whole, specially their elites and mass media, a fact that confirms the

attributes through which these elites are worldly known indolent and irresponsible

one cannot blame the people on the grass-rooter level for being so little illustrated. In

this way, our Black soccer players have nothing to be ashamed of at Thierry Henrys

remarks about theirs very low educational level. But if we think on the level of

leadership, specifically Black Movements leadership, such an excuse is out of place. In

their case, to win should mean to defeat those elites and their world, values, mode of

domination. Out of this understanding, an ironic remark is worth: you are kidding.

Referring to the material exposed by the hundreds of blogs and other sites on theInternet, let us comment about some misunderstanding or better, lack of it an

outsider can perceive after a browsers moment. Let us begin by the concept of

Negritude which for a Brazilian refers only to people from one tiny part of the African

continent, specifically the Bantu area, in coherence with what was taught by the 19

centurys ethnography. Accordingly, Brazilian afro-descendents come from two ethnic

sources Sudanese and Bantu, with well distinct physical and cultural characteristics

dark skin, curly hair, flat nose, savanna or forest culture, admission of slavery. As to

religion, Animism, Christianism and Islam. Out of these ethnographic criteria, there is

silence. The huge diversity of peoples in Africa, their cultures and history never will

be found among us. The disseminated cultural knowledge is limited to what is basic the

ritual of Candomble and Umbanda, treated by the elites as countercultural practices.

In this way it is not easy for us Brazilians in general to accept as Negro those who

differ from the Bantu model Ethiopians , Somalis, Yemenis, Bushman or Chosas.

More, for us it is impossible to accept as belonging to the Negritude those millions of

Negro men living in South Asia, the millions of dark-skinned Indians, including the

Melanesians, those from Timor, Philippine, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Tasmania

and the whole neighboring archipelagos.

As to the Black people from Tasmania, their contact with Westerners will be tragic.

Like the original inhabitants of Australia as yet generally called aborigines, theTasmanians counted 40 thousand years of cultural transmission, a sufficient fact to

stress their incommensurable value to Mankind. But the Europeans came to discover

that they did not make fire, and compared them to animals. Like many other people in

the deep past, they were more fond of taking the living fire from Nature and keeping

it alive by themselves. But that was not the opinion of many colonizers. Based on

prejudices, in a series of war expeditions they killed them all without mercy. This is

why Kevin Rudd, the Australian premier, in 2008 came to the national and international

public opinion in order to ask for forgiveness. By the way, the same was done with the

people of Patagonia.


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Deaf-and-dumb in a world of injustice

It is worth to wonder what our lack of understanding about the problems facing

humanity would mean to us in case of being on the threshold of the international arena,

as we actually are now. First and foremost, rather than a global challenge imposed by

Nature to men equal in their diversity, Negritude on account of our ignorance turnsout to be an exceptional issue, since it refers only to a few stocks, the Black Diaspora

interesting only to a little fringe of mankinds six milliards. In this exact moment, for

instance, the government of Indonesia a multiethnic nation in which the stronger

ethnic component (the Javanese) today can choose the people with which the nation

will be composed negligently give start to an ethnic cleanser policy and nothing is

said here or elsewhere (seeLe monde diplomatique, Feb.2010 Vers la disparition despeoples papous..). According to our ignorance, the disappearing of these people, 15 or20 millions, will not affect our lives, since in compensation we have Barack Obama as

US president. Such assumptions have justified the recent option on the part of some

leaders of our Movimento Negro, in comformity to which they now assume themselves

as non-racialists (in Portuguese arracialistas), as far as they deny the concept of race.It seems to us that as a historical, sociopolitical and cultural concept, race does exist

since the end of the last glacial period, never being incompatible with true ethical

values. As does occur with an eco-system in climax, there should not be Humanity

without diversity. Concerning to our non-racialist leaders, there seems to be among

them some kind of semantic disorientation.

Coupled with our reduced concept of Negritude goes our abyssal ignorance about the

Africas reality today, when most of the African nations should be commemorating

their 50th anniversary of independency. This void of information introduces a serious

contradiction. There is no use in protesting pertinence to Mother Africa if one does not

follow her sorrows, tragedies and short delights. This feeling of pertaining should refer

to something more than the color of the skin. Nothing can assure to us that in the

hypothesis of this or that people in Indonesia or anywhere else be extinguished our

security is for ever guaranteed. There is no determinism. After September 11 2001 and

its aftermaths civilization and barbarianism are always at hand, no matter how

sophisticated a people judge themselves. From these postulates derives that in every

generation the sowing of the eternal humanitarian values must be in our charge, in this

case the Movimento Negros.

Independency when and where?

For most Africans there is nothing to commemorate in these 50 years of independency,

if one consider that immediately after the first days of euphoria, independency without

sovereignty turned out to be a simple appointment by the ex-colonizer of puppets

whose paradigmatic example in our memory is Omar Bongo, absolute ruler of the

Gabon for 42 years (1967-2009). A multi-millionaire at the moment of his death, the

power is transferred to his son Ali Bongo, supposed to keep the dynasty for ever. When

Omar died the French media was unanimous in recognizing the symbolic end of the

AOF French West Africa. Days before his death the French Public Ministry tried in

vain to investigate the origin of his huge wealth in France. Commitments to the realpolitique prevented the prosecution of the action.


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During the period of bipolarization, African nations governments used to come from

simple coup dEtat, military uprisings or even popular revolution. Depending on their

origin, they could align themselves to the US or the USSR orbit. In this period there was

no space for political action outside these poles. After 1989, period of the US solitary

hegemony, some aligned puppets will go on keeping their power as always (Omar

Bongo, although Frances puppet), while others, those beforehand aligned to Moscow,are going to be hunted as animal (Ethiopia, Somalia, Cabo Verde and Guine-Bissau,

among others). Theirs and the regional nations in their neighborhood will be carried to

unending wars. Independency, where, when?

It is worth to note that the so called International Community and their media, so

proud of their actions in restoring or trying to restore democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan,

North Korea, even in Zimbabwe and in Sudan, have never said a word about Omar

Bongo, Paul Biya, Blaise Campaor and some other notorious elected dictatorial

rulers in Africa and elsewhere. The situation on the Continent is sometimes so bad that

the Evil may not be the lack of democracy as expressed by a periodic change in the

presidency. The Evil is some falsely legitimate tribal practices inside a distortednational formation without people.

During the struggle for independency, for a question of principles, those politicians and

parties oriented toward socialism were obliged, as far as they wanted to keep

themselves in line with the basic ideas of a national state, to repudiate most of tribal

practices. As examples, Angola and Mozambique in their beginning. Those, however,

oriented by the ideas of market, capitalism, on the contrary taking into consideration the

necessity of forming the initial capital, by principle will keep and reinforce family,

clan and tribe ties, whose members will become the exclusive beneficiaries of the

economic basis of the nations to come: it is the case of Nigeria and Gabon among

others.

We may suggest here one or two lines of research to some of our MNs militants who

have recently propagated that president Raul Castro and his government in Cuba wage a

barbaric campaign of persecution to members of the Cuban MN entity whose

headquarters maybe in Miami. For decades Cuba kept in Africa (in Angola from 1975

to 1988) a combative revolutionary army, an unmatched demonstration of solidarity to

a people in fight for their liberation. The Cuban army included contingents of engineers,

physicians, teachers and other technicians. More yet: Cuba kept revolutionary

contingents in the Argelian war (1961), in Congo-Leopoldville wars, now DRC

Democratic Republic of Congo and in Guine-Bissau. In the same toke, the USSRprovided war armaments, logistic and military intelligence to the entire Africa in fight

against colonialism. Such facts cannot be said in rapport to EU members an the USA

their free-colony Liberia, belonged to the owners of Firestone (Marianne

CornevinsHistoire de lAfrique contemporaine). Historians as a group are on the brink

of having their discipline sequestrated by the unipolar world. It is up to the social

militants in general to unveil recent History.

The economic boom under neo-liberalism after 1989 will demand a huge increase in

raw material consumption, mainly some minerals found only in Africa the coltan for

instance, indispensable in the production of electronic and digital equipments. If one is

in front of a restricted offer and huge demand politicians, soldiers and business manfrom develop nations think why losing time with treaties and commercial agreements


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among nations? We get some soldier of fortune necessarily Black (in this case nobody

can speak of racism) and let hungry, tribalism and religious fundamentalism do the rest.

After millions are dispersed out of the area, the mines are ours. This side, will be called

Sudan, the Darfur. Democratic Republic of Congo? A pompous name for a formal

state. We would like to be accused of exaggeration, imprecision and overstatement.

No more than dirty wars

In Africa on account of some economic, historic and social conditions and

circumstances, wars are made, from a tactic point of view, aiming at the rural

population, specially women and children. For an eradicated soldier a bayay(a rascalin Swahili) the female flesh has a strong appeal. For the leaders, however, the strategic

aim is the general dislodgement of the population in order to intimidate the neighbor

countries letting unoccupied a large area necessary to the protection of the mines. By

the way, there is a film documentary on exhibition in French Tv 5, describing the life ofa dozen women after being violated in African war circumstances. At the end of the

film, summary of their lives is given they will suffer for life from urinary and fecal

incontinencyIn this way, the film wants to move us from the idea that a rape may

always end in orgasm.

Hutus and Tutsis

Side by side with others, in our days a terrible drama goes on in Africa, drama whose

beginning reports to a deep past in continental history and involves tragic events and

acts of injustice. And we all take part in reproducing such unjust situation, thanks to the

media patronized by the damned International Community. The situation refers to the

diabolization of Hutus in general while sanctifying the Tutsis. As an episode in this

drama, we have the 1994 massacres (800 thousand dead, most of them Tutsis). The

causes for this mega-genocide are buried in the deep past and need to be brought to light

in order that we all of us as mankind may share or quota of responsibility in the crime.

Like the Romans or the Apaches in the past, since the beginning of their history up to

now the Tutsis have been earning their living in the war business. In this way, they have

been helpful to all invaders of Africa, including to Belgians and Germans recently. As

mercenaries, among other activities they used to render service of police and taxes

collectors from tribes dedicated to pacific activities agriculture, fishing, cattle raising,among these the Hutus. In the same way that the French used some Senegalese tribes as

mercenaries in their colonies, the Belgians employed the Tutsis to keep at peace their

Congolese explorations. It must be remember that in the1884 Berlin Congress, some

imperialist countries in competition, so as to destabilize the French and English

hegemony in Africa, succeeded in approving a proposition by which the Congo, a

territory times as large as France, was given gratuitously, free of any compensation

not to the kingdom of Belgium, but to the king, Leopold II himself as particular

property, kept as such until 1908, when turns to the Belgian crown and parliament.

With the apparent end of colonialism after World War II, two countries were created in

the areas inhabited by Hutus and Tutsis and ultimately under the Belgian ruler Rwanda (8 million inhabitants) and Burundi (7 million inhabitants). Demographically


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this is the reality: in both countries the Tutsis constitute the minority 14%, in face of

the Hutus majority 86%. It happens that according to a millenary cultural tradition, in

both countries the Tutsis will compose the army, the judiciary and police, the superior

administration in all its levels. While the Hutus, in a general manner, will go on doing

what they have been doing for ever: agriculture, fishing, retail trade and so on. No doubt

this arrangement was intentionally perpetrated or in the least permitted. It is easy toimagine how life has been inside these two countries after independency extreme

fear in both communities. In both countries those militarily and economically stronger

are minority. In Rwanda 1994 after decades of carnage on both parts the Hutus, in a

condition of incontrollable stressed mob, lost their head. Armed by hatches, clubs and

the equivalent, they gave cause to the mega-scandal: After a series of homicidal

razzias, eight hundred thousand dead, most Tutsis in a period of no more than 100

days during which the international community did nothing. Eventually, not

concomitantly the same in Burundi on the part of Tutsis. Now the aftermath.

Unlike what has been happening in the world history with people responsible for mega-

slaughters, the Hutus by being diabolized have lost international assistance orunderstanding for their behavior. If the atrocities committed by the Soviet people may

be understood (not accepted) since they were cowardly invaded, the same cannot assist

to the Japanese, Italian and German people on account of generalized political support

to their governments. However, ended the war, these people were forgiven for ever and

assisted the Marshall Plan, without stigmatization. More recently we still have

examples from the ex-Yugoslavian Republic Serbians, Bosnians etc. In Rwanda and

in Burundi one international Court of Justice has been judging the leaders, but nothing

has been made to assist the Hutus as an ethnic group under domination by enemies in

two countries. On the contrary we may well imagine that in both countries the army, the

justice, the police and the superior administration for sure may not be acting on behalf

of the majority of their people. Cases of expropriation in mass, violence and lack of

justice may be generalized. As warriors the Tutsis do not respect frontier lines in the

territory of the DRC. Giving as excuses that their troops are in persecution of evaded

Hutus, the government of Rwanda has several militias inside the territory of the DRC,

the most notorious being the renegade general Laurent Nkunda. On account of all these

things, Rwanda and Burundi (both under Tutsis ruler) are great exporters of minerals

only found in the DRC territory. In this way, it is worth to be ignorant of ongoing

African dramas. Although accomplices, we are all innocents.

Colorless humor

So as to soften a little this brief rapport on the fifty anniversary of the independency of

many African countries, a singular case concerns the present president of Camerum,

Mr. Paul Biya. According toLe monde diplomatique, March 2010, Mr. Biya is in powerfor the last 20 years and has recently altered the Constitution in order to stay in power

for more five years. The author of the article, journalist Thomas Deltombe, explains

that Biya has invented a new manner of keeping in power and get fun. He factually

renders the power to technocrats, eventually from French origin. During these 20 years

most of the time he has stayed in their palaces in France, mainly in La Baule a resort

beach for millionaires in the French Atlantic coast. He is known by his people as le roi

fainant (the lazy king) or le roi omni-absent (all totally-absent king). Why do the

people accept such a situation? To those who answer that the people loves this, weremember the Haitian Duvalier and his Tonton Macoute militias. Power is power.


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Conclusion

Let us comeback to the metaphor describing an emergent power standing at thethreshold of an international arena, since the 16th century occupied by slave owners

and colonizers, responsible for all, good and Evil that has been happening to the world.

Brazil is a continent. The Yugoslavian Republic in a certain manner, too. But when the

actual EU was designed, the first thing perceived by all was that it could collide with

another federation until the end of the Cold War the uncontested socialist paradise

ruled by Tito, an enemy of Moscow. Until 1989 the Yugoslavians lived in peace, a

multiethnic society composed of peoples whose culture, mainly the religion the Islam,

was considered by the Northerner European hawks as totally incompatible with the

security and well-being of Europe. Even before the end of the Roman Empire, North

European already had such a fear concerning the powerful Byzantine Empire. It must

be said that Spanish, Portuguese and other Mediterranean Europeans do not think so.And we all know the end of the story. Every kind of advantages and benefices were

offered by Germany mainly to potentially allied ethnic groups in the case they came to

assume secession. Final result: more than a hundred cadavers and return to barbarianism

with ethnical cleanser, collective and ritual rape and slaughter of men and children .And

all that under the complacent eyes of the so called international community.

Intervention was designed to the end, when there was no possibility of a return.

Men a carnivorous animal have not changed since expelled from the paradise.

Inside our continent there are countries that may be considered failed states. If one day

they come to be invited to reengineering themselves in a kind of new federation, we

may get in trouble. Among our weak points, we see that it is not satisfactory the balance

between rich and poor in our country. Interiorly, there is pressure for land demarcation

on the part of Sem-Terras, Indians and Quilombolas face a fierce opposition on the part

of great land owners. In urban areas, we see demographic explosion in Favelas, with a

new war-architecture fashion: walls isolating their inhabitants, one of the many side

effects of centuries of structural economic inefficiency, in a word, a wave of

development in terms of wealth aggravating every distortion already in course: low

indices in the level of basic services, corruption, stigmatization of poverty, of culture

and color.

No matter all this, life in common creates affinities, sharing of feelings, dreams andworld vision, a deep notion of having a place to go to, to live in. And we have five

hundred years of common life. Nobody can be better for all of us than we all ourselves.

If social division is an inevitable fact, on the contrary it is quite intentionally produced

a condition like ours in which powerful, rich, healthy and educated people are always

White, while their opposite are always non-White. At the same time, the immense

majority of the people have to keep themselves open to reciprocal compromises of

fraternal and convivial sociability with those as yet dominant. Out of this, we risk to

reproduce Yugoslavia if occasion appear.

Specially to those belonging to the MN, instead of spending your time creating ongs

whose purpose is asking alms to the state, its enterprises and the private sector to beapplied in socially controversial projects, instead of going on in a business-like


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militancy that pleases parties and politicians who fulfill their function only if against

cash payment, you all should study the national and international challenges before us

today and what we lack to face them. You all have been living from the work of the last

past generations. Never forget that your own contribution is missing. What is your map,

what is your agenda?

For the Brazilian people, aristocracies excepted, if we pay attention to some specific

aspects of our national formation, we see we are qualified to bring something new to the

world. As a colony, though we never succeeded in making our dreams come true, our

revolutionary projects have always aimed at our congregation, a nation for all. We are

not a state created by an external power to act as a mercenary force against any of our

neighbors. In conclusion, as far as the past experience of the people and their leaders

determination to reassess their knowledge can be considered, our presence on the

international stage will be effective. But if once in the hands of some of our aristocrats

the country is intending to limit his participation to follow those who, according to the

Congress of Vienna in1815, have been dividing the world between Good and Evil, to

proceed the massacre of the latter, then better to stay behind as ever.


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Documents

African Diaspora and the Black Movement in Brazil Today