Categoria: Idiomas

The 2015 annus nefastus does not destroy hope for an annus propicius

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

The year 2015 that just ended deserves this Latin characterization: annus nefastus. Others call it annus horribilis. There were so many calamities that, besides fright, they cause concern.

The first concern is the Earth Over-Schoot Day that occurred on September 13th. It means that on that day, the required supplies to maintain the life-system and the Earth-system had surpassed the Earth’s capabilities. The Earth lost her biocapacity. She is the basis for all our projects.

Since the Earth is a super-living being, the signals she sends us that she has reached her limit are droughts, floods, typhoons and increased violence all over the world. Everything is inter-connected, as Pope Francis insistently repeats in his encyclical letter.

In this context, the consensus reached in Paris on December 12th by COP 21 is an illusion: the global warming should be below 2º centigrade, closer to 1.5°C by mid-century. This implies a change of our civilization’s paradigm, to not be based on fossil fuels, even though it is clear that all the combined alternative energies do not reach 30% of what we need.The great suppliers of oil, gas and carbon can neither undergo this conversion, nor do they want to do so. The idea is rhetorical.

The second dreadful event is the violent terrorism in Europe and Africa, the thousands of refugees and the wars the militarist powers together are conducting against the Islamic State and the other armed groups in Syria. Reputable sources claim that there have been thousands of innocent civilian victims.

Another dreadful fact is the transformation of the United States into a terroristic state. With its 800 military bases distributed around the world, it intervenes, directly or indirectly, whenever it perceives that its imperial interests are threatened. Internally, the United States has not abolished the “Patriotic Act”, that suspends fundamental rights. It is no wonder that in 2015, the Northamerican police killed almost one thousand unarmed persons, 60% of whom were Black or Latino.

Finally, the another horribilis fact is the corruption in PETROBRAS, the largest oil company in Brazil, that involves millions and millions of dollars. Alongside this there arose among us a wave of hatred, rage and prejudice after the 2014 presidential elections. That is not surprising, because Brazil is full of contrasts; as Roger Bastide noted it in his Brazil, land of Contrasts, (Brésil, terre des contrastres, Hachette, 1957). Even before, Bastide, Gilberto Freyre, the most important interpreter of the social history of Brazil, wrote: «considered together, the formation of Brazil was a process of equilibrium among antagonists».

This antagonism, usually kept under ideological cover by the «cordial man» has now come to light and is clearly visible, especially in the social media. The «cordial man» that Sergio Buarque de Holanda, Brazil’s Roots, (Raízes do Brasil, 21.edición, 1989, p. 100-112) took from the writer Ribeiro Couto, is generally misunderstood. It has nothing to do with civility and courtesy. It has more to do with our aversion for social rites and formalisms. We favor informality and closeness.

It is a Brazilian characteristic that we are ruled more by our hearts than by reason. Now, kindness and hospitality derive from the heart. But as Buarque de Holanda points out, «enmity can very well be as cordial as kindness, because both are born from the heart» (note 157, of the pages, 106 and 107).

This fragile equilibrium was lost in 2015 and the negative cordiality emerged as hatred, prejudice and rage against the militants of the Labor Party, PT, against the northerners and against the Blacks. Not even constitutionally respectable figures, such as President Dilma Rousseff, were exempted. The Internet has opened the gates of hell to insults, rude words, direct affronts between persons, pitting some against others.

Such expressions only reveal our backwardness, our lack of democratic culture, intolerance and class struggle. It cannot be denied that in certain sectors are found resentment against the poor and those who have ascended socially, thanks to the social compensatory policies (that are not particularly emancipating) of the PT government. The Brazilian antagonisms were clearly shown to not be harmonized, and now openly pit some against others in true struggles (call them of class, of interests, of power, it does not matter). But there is a social fissure in Brazil, and it will cost us dearly to correct it. In my understanding, this can only be accomplished through a participatory democracy, beyond the present farce that represents the interests of the wealthy classes more than the interests of the people as a whole.

What is valuable is our super abundance of hope, that surpasses the annus nefastus and leads us towards an annus propicius. There are so many good experiences everywhere, that could not be mentioned in this space, that justify this hope of a propitious year. May God hear us.

Leonardo Boff is theologian and writter

Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

The Earth will defeat capitalism

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

There is an indisputable and sad fact: capitalism as a mode of production and its political ideology, neoliberalism, are so thoroughly established globally that it seems to make any real alternative impossible. It has in fact occupied every space and aligned almost every country to its global interests. Since society has been commercialized and turned everything, even the most sacred things, such as human organs, water and the capacity of flowers to be pollinated, into an opportunity to gain wealth, most countries feel obliged to participate in the globally integrated macro-economy and much less inclined to serve the common good of their people.

Democratic socialism in its advanced version of eco-socialism is an important theoretical option, but has a small worldwide social base of implementation. The thesis of Rosa Luxemburg in her book, Reform or Revolution (Reforma o Revolución), that «the theory of the collapse of capitalism is at the heart of scientific socialism» has not become reality. And socialism has collapsed.

The fury of capitalist accumulation has reached the highest levels of its history. Practically 1% of the wealthy population of the world controls nearly the 90% of its wealth. According to the reputable NGO Oxfam Intermon, in 2014, 85 members of the super-rich had the same amount of money as 3.5 billion of the poorest in the world. This level of irrationality and inhumanity speaks for itself. We are living explicitly barbaric times.

Until now, the usual crises of the system occurred in the peripheral economies, but since the crisis of 2007/2008, it exploded in the heart of the principal countries, in the United States and Europe. Everything seems to indicate that this is not a usual crisis which can always be solved, but that this time it is about a systemic crisis that destroys capitalism’s ability to reproduce itself. The solutions put forward by the countries that have hegemony in the global process are always alike: more of the same. That is, to continue with the limitless exploitation of natural goods and services, guided by a clearly material (and materialistic) measure, such as the gross national product, GNP. And woe to those countries whose GNP decreases.

This growth worsens the state of the Earth even more. The price of trying to reproduce the system is what its spokesmen call «externalities» (things that do not enter into the business accounting). There are principally two of these: a degrading social injustice with high unemployment and growing inequality; and a threatened ecological injustice with the degradation of whole ecosystems, the erosion of biodiversity (with the extinction of between 30-100 thousand species of living beings each year, according to data of the biologist E. Wilson), the growing global warming, the scarcity of drinking water and general unsustenability of the life-system and of the Earth-system.

These two aspects are bringing the capitalist system to its knees. If it wanted the well being it offers the rich countries to be universal, we would need at least three Earths equal to the one we have, which clearly is impossible. The level of exploitation of the «goodness of nature», as the Andean people call the natural goods and services, is such that this September the «Earth Over-Reach Day» occurred. In other words, the day when the Earth no longer has the capacity, by herself, to meet human demands. She needs a year and a half to replace all that is taken from her in one year. She has become dangerously unsustainable. Either we restrain the voracity of wealth accumulation to let her rest and replenish herself, or we must prepare for the worst.

Since it is about a living super-Being (Gaia), finite, with scarce goods and services, and now infirm, but still combining the elements that guarantee the physical, chemical and ecological bases for reproducing life, this process of excessive degradation could cause an ecological-social collapse of Dantesque proportions.

The consequence would be that the Earth would definitively defeat the capitalist system, which would be incapable of reproducing itself, with its materialist culture of limitless and individualistic consumption. What we historically have been unable to accomplish by alternative processes (that was the goal of socialism), nature and the Earth would accomplish. The Earth, in fact, would free herself from the cancer that threatens to metastasize throughout the whole organism of Gaia.

Meanwhile, our task is within the system, to widen the openings, exploring all its contradictions to guarantee the essentials for subsistence: nourishment, work, housing, education, basic services and some free time, especially to the humble peoples of the Earth. This is being done in Brazil and in many other countries. From the bad, we must take only the necessary minimum for the continuity of life and of civilization.

And, also, we must pray and be prepared for the worst.
Leonardo Boff is theologian and writter.
Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Nativity: Every Child’s birth is a sign that God still believes in humanity

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

We are in the time of the Nativity, but the aura is not one of Christmas, but more nearly of Good Friday. There are so many crises: the terrorist attacks, the wars the bellicose and militarist powers (The United States, France, England, Russia and Germany) jointly carry out against the Islamic State, practically destroying Syria, with the dreadful killing of civilians and children. As their own press has shown, the environment is contaminated by bitterness and the spirit of revenge in Brazilian politics, not to mention the astronomic levels of corruption. All this turns out the lights of the Nativity and fills with darkness the holiday trees that should create the environment of joy and childlike innocence that still exists in all humans.

Those who can see the movie All the Invisible Children, in seven different scenes, directed by well known film directors, such as Spike Lee, Katia Lund and John Woo, among others, can understand the destroyed lives children live in many parts of the world, children who are condemned to live off garbage and in garbage dumps. And yet there are moving scenes of comradery, of small joys in those sad eyes; and of solidarity among them.

And to think that there are millions in the world today and that the baby Jesus Himself, according to the Scriptures, was born in a manger, because there was no room for Mary, who was nearing childbirth, in any hostel in Bethlehem. He, the Son of God, joined Himself to the destinys of all the children who are mistreated by our lack of sensitivity.

Later on, that same Jesus, as an adult, would say: “who welcomes these brothers and sisters of mine, the smallest ones, welcomes me”. The Nativity takes place when this welcome is offered, such as the one Father Lancelotti organizes in São Paulo for the hundreds of street children under a viaduct, that for several years counted with the presence of President Inacio Lula da Silva.

Amidst all these disgraces in the world and in Brazil, there comes to mind a piece of wood with a fire engraved inscription, that an intern in a psychiatric hospital in Minas Gerais gave me during a visit I made to encourage the staff. Inscribed in that piece of wood is written: «Whenever a child is born it is sign that God still believes in the human being».

Can there be an act of faith and hope greater than this? In some cultures of Africa it is said that God is especially present in those we call “mad”. For that reason, the insane are adopted by everyone, and everyone cares for them as if they were their brothers or sisters. This way the insane are integrated into society, and live in peace. Our culture isolates the insane, and refuses to recognize them.

This year’s Nativity takes us to this degraded humanity and to all the invisible children whose suffering is like that of baby Jesus, who certainly in the winter of the countryside of Bethlehem shivered in the manger. According to an old legend, baby Jesus was warmed by the breath of two old horses that, as a reward, thereafter regained complete vitality.

It is worth remembering the religious meaning of the Nativity: God is neither an old bearded man with penetrating eyes, nor a stern jurist who judges all our actions. God is a child. And as a child, God judges no one. A child wants only to live and to be loved. From the manger comes this voice: «Oh, human creature, do not be afraid of God! Don’t you see that His mother has swaddled his little arms? He threatens no one. More than help, He needs to be helped and carried in an embrace».

No one understood better than Fernando Pessoa, the great portugiese poet, the human meaning and the truth of the child Jesus:

“He is the Eternal Child, the God who was missing. He is so human that He is natural. He is the Divine One who smiles and plays. This is why I know with all certainty that He is the true Child Jesus. He is a child so human that he is divine. The two of us get along so well, in the company of all, that we never think the one of the other… When I die, beloved Child, let me be the child, the smallest one. Take me in your arms and carry me to your home. Strip naked my tired and human being. Put me to bed. Tell me stories if I awaken, that I may go back to sleep. And give me your dreams to play with, until the day dawns, the one you will know”.

Seeing such beauty, can we contain our emotions? For that reason, in spite of all the distress, we still can quietly celebrate the Nativity.

I end with another message whose meaning I like: «Every child wants to be man. Every man wants to be king. Every king wants to be a “god”. Only God wanted to be a child».

Let us embrace one another as if we were embracing the Divine Child that hides within us, and who never abandoned us. And may the Nativity still be a quietly happy holiday.
Leonardo Boff is theologian and writter

Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

The West has chosen the worst path: War

Leonardo Boff1 comentário

The terrorist actions perpetrated in Paris on November 13th, by terrorist groups of Islamic extraction, were certainly abominable and totally worthy of condemnation. Such nefarious acts do not fall from the sky. They have a prehistory of rage, humiliation and the desire of revenge.

Academic studies conducted in the United States have shown that the continuous military interventions of the West, its geopolitics towards the Middle East, and to guarantee the supply of oil – the blood of the world system, that is abundant in the Middle East, further aggravated by the unconditional support of the United States for the State of Israel, with its notoriously brutal violence against the Palestinian people, are the principal motivation for Islamic terrorism against the West and against the United States (see the vast literature by Robert Barrowes: Terrorism: Ultimate Weapon of the Global Elite, in his site: http://www.WarisaCrime.org ).

Starting with George W. Bush, vigorously retaken now by François Hollande and his European allies, plus Russia and the United States, the reply the West has been the path of implacable war against terrorism, be it internal, within Europe, or external, against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. But this is the worst path, as Edgar Morin noted, because war is not combated either with another war, or with fundamentalism (the cultural fundamentalism of the West that presumes to be the best in the world, with the right to impose it on everyone). War as a reply, which most likely will be interminable, given the difficulty of defeating fundamentalism, or those who decide to turn their own bodies into highly destructive bombs, is still based in the old pre-globalization paradigm, a paradigm harbored by nation-states, without realizing that history has changed and that the human species and life on planet Earth now share a collective destiny. The path of war has never brought peace, at best some pacification, leaving a macabre burden of rage and a will for revenge on the part of the defeated, who, to tell the truth, never will be totally defeated.

The old paradigm answered war with war. The new paradigm, of the global phase of the Earth and of humanity, responds with a paradigm of comprehension, hospitality of all for all, of dialogue without boundaries, of inter-exchanges without borders, of the win-win and of alliances among all. Otherwise, with war becoming ever more destructive, we could put an end to our species, or make our Common Home uninhabitable.

Who can guarantee that the current terrorists will not adopt sophisticated technologies and start using chemical and biological weapons that, for example, are released in the water system of a great city, and end up causing unprecedented loss of human life? We know that they are preparing to mount cyber attacks, and attacks on computer systems that could affect the entire energy system of a big city: including hospitals, schools, airports, and public services. The war option could be carried to these extremes, all of which are possible.

We must take seriously the warnings of the wise, such as of Eric Hobswbam at the conclusion of his well known book, The era of extremes: the brief XX Century, (1995:562): «The world runs the risk of explosion and implosion; the world must change … the alternative to change is darkness». Or the warning of the eminent historian Arnold Toynbee, who, after writing ten volumes about the great historical civilizations, in his autobiographical essay, Experiences (1969:422) tells us: «I lived to see the end of human history become an intra-historic possibility, capable of being made real, not as an act of God but as an act of man himself».

The West has opted for war to the end. But the West will never again have peace and will live full of fear, and hostage to the potential attacks that are the Islamicists’ revenge. Let’s hope that the scene described by Jacques Attali in, A brief history of the future (Una breve historia del futuro, 2008): regional wars, ever more destructive to the point of threatening the human species, does not come to pass. And humanity, to survive, will have to consider a global government with an hyper-planetary democracy.

What is important, this is what we think, is to accept as a fact the existence of an Islamic State, and then, to create a pluralistic coalition of nations and diplomatic means and peace, so as to create the conditions for dialogue, to address the common destiny of the Earth and humanity.

I am afraid that the typical arrogance the West, with its imperialistic vision of itself as being better in everything, will not welcome this peacefull path and prefers war. In that case, the prophetic phrase of Martin Heidegger, discovered after his death, will again become significant: «Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten: then only God can save us».

We should not naively wait for divine intervention, because our destiny is our responsibility. We will be what we chose: either a species that preferred self-extermination and holding on to its absurd will to power, above everything else, or better, that we forge the bases for a lasting peace (Kant), that allows us to live both different and united, in our one Common Home.

Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.