Pope Francis is not afraid of the truth

28/08/2018 Leonardo Boff5 Comentários

We are presently suffering an enormous vacuum of leadership, both in the Church and in society. But there is one who stands out from this mediocrity. That is Pope Francis, precisely because he is not afraid to speak the truth.

A Pope who speaks the truth in the Church

The institutional Church, as all power holders, normally does a tightrope-walker’s discourse, pretending to be above all conflict and tension. The result is anodyne statements, lacking prophetic power, which, in the end, do not move society. Francis, who prefers to call himself Bishop of Rome rather than Pope, does not come from the crepuscular European Christianity (with only 25% Catholics), but from the new Churches, no longer colonial, but with their own indigenous roots. The great majority of Catholics (more than 62%) live in those Churches, to the point that it now can be said that Catholicism is a religion of the peripheral world.

One of the most notable characteristics of this Pope is that he is not afraid to speak the truth. He denounces the pedophiles in the Church, the financial scandals of the Vatican Bank (IOR) and the Church as a fortress, closed within herself and apart from contemporary society. He wants a Church that is open to everyone, better yet, he wants a Church like a field hospital, that welcomes everyone with no questions. Pope Francis levies harsh criticisms on the Bishops and priests who do not proclaim the beauty of the Gospels and the joy of the good news. Francis says that they seem to have a sour face, that they are people of Good Friday, who are as sad as if they were going to their own funerals.

My book, The Church: Charisma and Power, was condemned in 1984 by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI, because, according to him, in that book I criticized, as the Protestants did, how power, that carries arrogance and exclusion, predominates over Charisma in the Church. Listening to Pope Francis’ words and comparing them to what I wrote, my criticisms now sound like a pious text.

But, to me, what he said about hell to the faces of the new Cardinals was his most courageous. It is what great many theologians have thought but never could say without risking immediate censure. The Pope says, addressing the fear of hell the Church has used to torment the faithful: God does not know eternal damnation. His mercy is infinite and goes beyond justice. There surely will be a judgment because not everything is right with this world. But the world is not the last act of God, Father and Mother of infinite goodness and mercy. God always brings home everything He created with love, because they were born from the Father’s heart. When the time is right, they will return to what was prepared for them from the beginning of time: the communion in the Kingdom of the Trinity. They certainly would have passed through God’s purifying clinic, but that is the threshold of heaven, and not hell.

This is how we understand the transposition in the terminology of his announcement: Pope Francis speaks of the revolution of tenderness, of the joyfulness of conjugal love, of the beauty of the gospels that fascinates people.

More important than the Church is the creation that is threatened with destruction — the reason for his Encyclical letter about ecology that is addressed to all of humanity — and the commitment to safeguard the conditions that allow for life on Earth. Pope Francis strengthens a new type of ecumenism, putting aside the claim of exclusivity the Roman Catholic Church had that it was the only Church of Christ. It is important that the Churches mutually recognize each other and that together they be at the service of the world, especially of the most vulnerable.

Pope Francis has a clear option for the poor and suffering of this world. He seeks reconciliation with the Theology of Liberation, meeting with the father of this theology, Gustavo Gutierrez, and later on, with Jon Sobrino. As Pope Francis was writing his extraordinary Encyclical letter “on caring for our Common Home”, he was not afraid of asking for suggestions from the writer of these lines. According to well known ecologists, such as Edgar Morin and others, that Encyclical letter puts Pope Francis at the vanguard of the ecological world debate.

In a word, Francis, Bishop of Rome and Pope of the Catholic Church, has brought Spring to the Church, with the enchantment this season represents, after a rigorous winter under the severe doctrines and disciplines of previous Popes. Francis put aside all the titles of power, abandoned the pontifical palace to live in a guests-house and to serve himself as any other, because, as he humorously comments, “this way makes poisoning more difficult.”

The structural core of his preaching is the Tradition of Jesus. It is a theological concept recently used to identify the original intent of Jesus of Nazareth, prior to the elaboration of the four gospels. Jesus did not intend to found a new religion, but to teach us to live the goodness of his great utopia, the Kingdom of God, accomplished by total openness to God, unconditional love, unlimited mercy and the centrality of the poor and the invisible.

The message of Jesus is summarized in the Our Father, which affirms God as our Father and no just mine, signifying our upwards dimension; and Our Bread, not my bread, representing the human being taking root in the concrete life. Amen can only be pronounced by those who have united these two poles: the Our Father in heaven and our bread on Earth; Father of all and bread for all.

Because of the Tradition of Jesus, Pope Francis emphasizes that love must come before dogma and doctrine, and the poor before discipline. The obsession with abortion must be overcome by the use of contraceptives and the communion of couples in renewed nuptials. The gospel must not be reduced only to these question, because if this happens, the gospel looses its fragrance and its beauty. Pope Francis forcefully said: “it is better to be a non-believer than to be a hypocritical believer”. And to the lay and the young, Francis said: “A Christian who is not a revolutionary is not a Christian; we must be the revolutionaries of grace”. Francis once again challenged them this way: “Do not be more papist than the Pope, do not be more restrictive than the Catholic Church”.

Pope Benedict XVI wanted a pure Church. Francis prefers a Church that is troubled because she walks in the world, Francis wants the Church to be inclusive, with open doors, and without an office of prosecutors of the faith. The Pope wants a Church always seeking an encounter with the other, a Church for the world… A Church for the poor.

In sum, Pope Francis is not Euro-centric but open to universality. He is not eclesio-centric, because the Church is not an auto-referent, he is not Vatican-centric, because he prefers to guide the Church in a collegiate manner with love, not in a monarchical form with canon laws. Pope Francis lives in a boarding house, not in the Pontifical Palace; he is not pope-centric because he puts the People of God above all and feels like one of its members, clearly with a mission for all the Church. Being the Pope does not keep him from carrying his own briefcase, going to buy his own ticket from Alitalia to fly to the Island of Lampedusa, and to use his own cell phone to call someone who wrote him a letter. And he does not forget his friends, such as the shoemaker and the laborer from Buenos Aires, calling them on the phone once in a while, as he does with his old friends.

Faced with so many Christians who had abandoned the institution, such a Pope returns confidence, morality and respectability to the Church. With Pope Francis the Church regains relevance vis a vis the secular world.

The Pope who speaks the truth in Politics

The first that must be acknowledged with respect to the public and political dimensions of Pope Francis is his own person: charismatic, unaffected, in solidarity with the pain of the world and a friend of the poor. Francis is more than a name. Is a new way to exercise power, as real service and not as a privilege and an instrument of control.

This becomes clear in his total rejection of the titles and privileges that historically were added to the figure of the Popes. In the first pages of the Pontifical Yearbook are often found all the honorific titles that belonged to the Popes. Pope Francis renounced all of that, and simply put his name Fransiscus, with no qualifications.

Heads of State have a powerful security apparatus. Pope Francis foregoes that and travels to even the most dangerous places, such as Egypt and South Sudan. with no protection.

Francis argues: “I did not want to be Pope. It was God who wanted it; so God must defend me. If I am killed, it will be a sign that God has called me and then I will go joyfully to meet Him”. Who can talk in such a free and liberating, I would say, mystical, form, of life and death? Only one who feels himself in the palm of the hand of God. So he has nothing to fear.

Moreover, few Popes were truthful regarding the ills of our culture that directly affect the most vulnerable. Francis is a Pope who has taken sides: he is with the least and the invisible, and against those who disgrace humanity and Mother Earth.

He strongly attacks the system of accumulation an idolatry of money. Francis does not use the word Capitalism, so as not to create difficulties for millions of Catholics who live within this system. But he describes the system in such a way that we are inevitably led to identify the capitalist system and its culture of unlimited consumption, individualism, and lack of solidarity, as the cause of misery and of the profound wounds to the body of Mother Earth.

His speech in the Island of Lampedusa where refugees from Africa arrive and many drown in the journey was very harsh. Francis said: “This culture of the well-off leads to indifference regarding the others; it is the globalization of indifference… We are the society that forgot the experience of crying, of being compassionate; the globalization of indifference has robbed us of the ability to cry”.

A society that no longer cries with the one who is crying has lost its sense of humanity and is effectively on a path of self-destruction and barbarism.

Curiously, returning from his visit to Poland, Pope Francis spoke sharply when journalists in the plane mentioned the issue of terrorism as being of Moslem roots. Courageously, Francis said that which analysts do not want to hear. Religions, including Islam, do not want war, but peace. The refugees are in Europe now, because for centuries we had been in their countries, stealing their wealth and imposing our ways on the organization of their societies. True terrorism is the economic-financial system that is against life. “We must say no to an economy of exclusion and social inequality, that type of economy kills”.

As can be seen, he speaks directly, without obscuring metaphors, like the tightrope-walker type of speeches of previous Pontiffs, who put more emphasis on security and distance than on truth and clarity in their own Papal position. Francis’ position is very clear: he talks and acts evangelically, from the perspective of the poor and wretched of this world and especially for the poor. “About this”, he emphasizes, “there should be neither doubts nor explanations that debilitate such an option, because an indissoluble link exists between our faith and the poor”.

In his Encyclical letter about How to Care for the Common Home he repeats 35 times the need to change our relationship with nature; to change and change if we want to subsist. It is important to feel not that we are outside of nature, as if we were her owners, but that we are part of her and responsible for her sustainability. We must change our form of production, our mode of consumption and distribute well the natural goods and services. In this search for alternatives, Francis will not rely on the Social Doctrine of the Church, even though he respects it. But he notes: “We cannot avoid being concrete so that the great social principles do not remain mere generalities that do not move anyone”. For Francis, we cannot wait for anything to come from above, the logic of which is always more of the same: that of ever increasing income, with no other consideration.

Francis believes in those who are outside of the system and are totally forgotten, because they produce little and consume less. Pope Francis trusts in those on the bottom. Therefore, he has met four times with popular social movements all over the world, three times in Rome and once in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. In that meeting he was unquestionably clear: we must demand the three “Ts”: Tierra, techo y trabajo; (Land, Home, and Work). No one without land for survival, no one without a home or anywhere to live, no one without work to earn life’s essentials.

That is one part. The other was a challenge to popular social movements to be protagonists of the new, new solidarian forms of production, agro-ecological cooperatives, forms of consumption characterized by shared sobriety and by a special care for Mother Earth, who offers us everything and is the basis of all we can project in this life. Pope Francis emphasized three points: that the economy not be at the service of the market, but at the service of life; that of building social justice, the basis of peace, and of caring for the Earth, our Common Home.

His travels have been noteworthy for his invitations to dialogue between peoples and religions. Francis proposes a culture of peace in the face of the more than 40 conflicts that exist now around the world that cost so many people their lives, and destroy so much cultural heritage. He has often noted that the level of conflicts and tensions in the world puts us in danger of a Third World War, whose consequences are unimaginable for the human species and the future of life.

He sounds like a prophet who proclaims in the desert, with extreme gravity and simultaneously, with a sense of hope that we can avoid the tragedy because we have technology, human genius, and above all, because we believe in a God who is “the sovereign lover of life ” (Sabiduria 11,26).

Perhaps his most important political contribution was his 2015 Encyclical letter Laudato Si: About caring for the Common Home. It was addressed not only to Catholics, but to all of humanity. Pope Francis is aware of the threats to life and the Earth systems. And he makes a general call to care for our Common Home.

Francis uses the best scientific data, and from there, he develops a rigorous critique of the causes of the present situation: principally anthropocentrism, because of which humans believe they are the lord and master of nature and can use it at their pleasure. Humanity has developed a culture, now globalized, of total exploiting all natural goods and services for individual accumulation, without considering the destruction of entire ecosystems. This voracity has produced a double injustice: a social injustice, creating immeasurable poverty in a large part of humanity, and an ecological injustice, with the slow erosion of the physical and chemical basis that sustains life.

It is not about a green ecology, as many have called it. The vision of Francis is wider. It is about an integral ecology that includes the environment, society, the human mind (its projects, values and prejudices), politics, and, finally, its spirituality. The document incorporates cordial and sensible reason, that enable us to feel the suffering of nature as our own, that hears both the cry of the poor and the screams of the Earth. If we want to save the Earth we must nourish “a passion for caring for the world… a mysticism that moves us, encourages us, motivates us, and gives us courage” to love Mother Earth and to respect her inhereht limits.

In spite of the grave calls he makes to all, the Pope also elicits hope, be it in the capacity of humans to awaken to their responsibilities, or by using science, done with consciousness, to save life, and finally, by trusting in the Spirit, that according to Judeo-Christian Scriptures is the “Spirit of Life” and “sovereign lover of life”. In the end, he expresses confidence, writing, “Let us walk singing, that our struggles and our concerns for this planet do not take from us the joys of hope” (n.244).

In effect, he has given political content to hope and tenderness. “Tenderness is not weakness but courage; it is the path of solidarity and humility”. Hope is the capacity to say, “We”. And if together we say “we… there starts a revolution”… The revolution of the future starts from the moment when people see themselves as part of a “we”. That is where the social revolution lies, when the “we” opposes the “I alone” and all the other “I’s”, the typical attitude of the current capitalist system.

Bruno Giussani, the European director of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), a media organization that puts on conferences and exchanges at the world level, put it well: “Francis has become the only moral voice capable of reaching people beyond our borders, to create clarity and propose a convincing message of hope”.

In a world filled with words of hate and prejudice among religions and cultures, the words of Pope Francis ring like a bell of peace, with an authority that radiates from his kindness, from his profound humanism and from hope against all hope; valuing the beauty, the joy of life and an intimate caring for Mother Earth.

Leonardo Boff pilosopher, theologian an writter

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Leonardo Boff, lboff@leonardoboff.eco.br,
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Crise política e desesperança geral

21/08/2018 Leonardo Boff5 Comentários

Um dos efeitos perversos de nossa crise nacional é sem dúvida a desesperança que está contaminando a maioria das pessoas.Ela se manifesta pela angústia de não ver nenhum horizonte do qual se possa vislumbrar um solução salvadora. Emerge a sociedade do consaço e da perda da alegria de viver.
São as consequências da ausência de sentido, de que tudo vai continuar na mesma lógica, feita de corrupção, falsificação das notícias (fakenews) e daí da realidade, maledicência generalizada, a dominação dos poderosos sobre as massas entregues à sua própria sorte.
Tal desolação alcança também a percepção do futuro de nosso mundo e da humanidade, pouco importa o que possa ocorrer. Bem observou o Papa Francisco em sua encíclica “sobre o cuidado da Casa Comum”: ”As previsões catastróficas já não se podem olhar com desprezo e ironia. Para as próximas gerações poderíamos deixar demasiadas ruínas, desertos e lixo. O estilo de vida atual, por ser insustentável, só pode desembocar em catástrofes”(n.161). Mas quem pensa nisso a não ser quem acompanha o discurso ecológico mundial?
Portanto, além das múltiplas crises sob as quais sofremos, temos ainda esta sombria de natureza ecológica.
Neste contexto voltam os pensamentos de coloração niilista como o do Nobel em biologia Jacques Monod:”É supérfluo buscar um sentido objetivo da existência. Ele simplesmente não existe. Os deuses estão mortos e o homem está só no mundo” ( O acaso e a necessidade, Vozes 1979, p.108). Ou o famoso C. Levy-Straus que tanto amava o Brasil deixou escrito no seu admirável ”Tristes trópicos” (1955):”O mundo começou sem o homem e terminará sem ele. As instituições e os costumes que eu teria passado a vida inteira a inventariar e a compreender, são uma eflorescência passageira de uma criação em relação com a qual elas não têm sentido, senão, talvez, aquele que permite à humanidade a desempenhar o seu papel”(p.477).
Mas será que o ser humano não é o inverso de um relógio? Este funciona em si mesmo e anda conforme seu mecanismos internos. O ser humano não é um relógio. Ela anda bem quando estiver em sintonia permanente com o Todo que o envolve por todos lados e está para além dele mesmo. Portanto, temos que deixar de lado todo antropocentrismo e assumirmos uma leitura mais holística do sentido da vida.
Diferentemente pensava o físico britânico Freeman Dyson (*1923):”quanto mais examino o universo e os detalhes de sua arquitetura, mais acho evidências de que o universo sabia que um dia, lá na frente, nós seres humanos, iríamos surgir”(Disturbing the Universe, 1979, p. 250). Quase com as mesmas palavras o diz talvez o maior cosmólogo atual, Brian Swimme (The Universe Story,1996 p.84).
As tradições espirituais e religiosas são um hino ao sentido da vida e do mundo. Por isso observava o grande estudioso das utopias Ernst Bloch em seus dois grossos volumes O princípio esperança: “Onde há religião aí há sempre esperança”.
A questão do sentido é inadiável. Cito aqui o mais critico dos filósofos Immanuel Kant:”Que o espírito humano abandone definitivamente as interrogações metafísicas (do sentido do ser e da existência) é tão inversossímil quanto esperar que nós para não respirar um ar poluído, deixássemos, uma vez por todas, de respirar”(Prolegomena zu einer jede künftigen Metaphysik, A 192, vol.3 p.243).
Porque o Cristo do Corcovado se escondeu atrás das nuvens, não significa que tenha deixado de existir. Ele está lá no alto da montanha estendendo seus braços e abençoando a nossa sofrida população.
No Brasil de hoje devemos recuperar a esperança de que o legado final da presente crise será a configuração de um outro tipo de Estado, de política, de partidos, de justiça e do próprio destino do país.
Termino com o profeta Jeremias que viveu no tempo do cativeiro babilônico sob o rei Ciro. Os habitantes da Babilônia zombavam dos judeus porque já não cantavam suas canções e, desanimados, dependuravam seus instrumentos nos galhos dos cicómoros. Pergurtaram a Jeremias:”Você tem esperança”? Ao que ele respondeu: “eu tenho esperança de que o rei Ciro com todo o seu poder não poderá impedir o nascimento do sol”. E eu acrescentaria não poderá impedir o amor e as crianças que daí nascerem e renovarem a espécie humana.
Semelhante esperança alimentamos nós de que aqueles que provocaram esta crise, rasgaram a Constituição e não seguiram os ditames da justiça não prevalecerão. Sairemos mais purificados, mais fortes e com um sentido maior do destino a que nosso país está chamado em benefício para todos, a começar para os mais pobres e para a inteira humanidade.

Boff é teólogo e filosofo e escreveu: Brasil: concluir a refundaçãol ou prolongar a dependência, Vozes 2018.

Crisis política y desesperanza general

21/08/2018 Leonardo Boff1 comentário

Uno de los efectos perversos de nuestra crisis nacional es, sin duda, la desesperanza que está contaminando a la mayoría de las personas. Ella nace de la angustia de no ver ningún horizonte desde el cual podamos atisbar una solución salvadora. Emerge la sociedad del cansancio y de la pérdida de la alegría de vivir.

Son las consecuencias de la falta de sentido, de que todo continuará con la misma lógica, hecha de corrupción, de falsificación de noticias (fake news) y de la realidad, difamación generalizada, la dominación de los poderosos sobre las masas abandonadas a su destino.

Esta desolación proviene también de la percepción del futuro de nuestro mundo y de la humanidad, importa poco lo que pueda suceder. Bien lo observó el Papa Francisco en su encíclica “Sobre el cuidado de la Casa Común”: «las predicciones catastróficas no pueden subestimarse con desprecio e ironía. A las próximas generaciones podríamos dejarles demasiadas ruinas, desiertos, basura. Dado que el estilo de vida actual es insostenible, solo puede terminar en una catástrofe» (n.161). Pero, ¿quién piensa en todo esto a no ser los que se mantienen al día acerca del discurso ecológico mundial?

Por lo tanto, además de las múltiples crisis que nos oprimen y nos hacen sufrir, tenemos esta sombría amenaza de naturaleza ecológica.

En este contexto, vuelven los pensamientos de molde nihilista, como los del Nobel de biología Jacques Monod : «Es superfluo buscar una sensación objetiva de la existencia, porque simplemente no existe. Los dioses están muertos, el hombre está solo en este mundo» (El Azar y la Necesidad, Vozes 1979, p.108). O lo que el famoso C. Levy Strauss que tanto amaba a Brasil dejó escrito en sus admirables Tristes Trópicos (1955): «el mundo comenzó sin hombre y terminará sin él. Las instituciones y costumbres que he pasado toda mi vida en inventariar y comprender son una floración pasajera de una creación en relación a la cual no tienen sentido, a no ser, tal vez, el que permite a la humanidad desempeñar su papel» (n. 477).

¿Pero es que el ser humano no es lo inverso de un reloj? Este funciona por sí mismo y continúa según sus mecanismos internos, pero el ser humano no es un reloj. Funciona correctamente cuando está en armonía permanente con el Todo lo que lo envuelve por todos lados y lo sobrepasa. Por lo tanto, debemos dejar de lado todo antropocentrismo y asumir una lectura más holística del sentido de la vida.

El pensamiento del físico británico Freeman Dyson (*1923) es diferente: «Cuanto más examino el universo y los detalles de su arquitectura, más evidencia encuentro de que el universo sabía que un día, en el futuro, los seres humanos naceríamos» (Disturbing the Universe, 1979, p.250). Casi con las mismas palabras lo dice el gran cosmólogo contemporáneo, Brian Swimme (The Universe Story, 1996, p.84).
Las tradiciones espirituales y religiosas son un himno al sentido de la vida y del mundo. Por esto, el gran estudioso de las utopías, Ernst Bloch, en sus dos grandes volúmenes de El principio de la esperanza observaba: «donde hay religión, siempre hay esperanza».

La cuestión del sentido es inaplazable. Cito aquí al más crítico de los filósofos, Immanuel Kant: «Que el espíritu humano abandone definitivamente las cuestiones metafísicas (del sentido del ser y de la existencia) es tan poco probable como esperar que nosotros, para no respirar aire contaminado, dejemos de respirar de una vez por todas» (Prolegomena zu einer jede kunftigen Metaphysik, A 192, Vol. 3, pp. 243).

Que el Cristo del Corcovado se haya escondido detrás de las nubes no significa que ha dejado de existir. Él está allí encima de la montaña, extendiendo sus brazos y bendiciendo a nuestra población sufrida.

En el Brasil de hoy debemos recuperar la esperanza de que el legado final de la presente crisis será la configuración de otro tipo de Estado, de política y de partidos, de justicia e incluso del destino mismo del país.

Termino con el profeta Jeremías, que vivió en el tiempo de la esclavitud de Babilonia bajo el rey Ciro. Los habitantes de Babilonia se burlaban de los judíos porque ya no cantaban sus canciones y, desanimados, colgaban sus instrumentos sobre las ramas de los sicómoros. Le preguntaron a Jeremías: «¿Tú tienes esperanza?» A lo que él respondió: «Tengo la esperanza de que el rey Ciro, con todo su poder, no podrá impedir que nazca el sol». Y yo añadiría: no podrá impedir el amor y los niños que de ahí nacerán y renovarán la especie humana.

Alimentamos una esperanza similar de que aquellos que han provocado esta crisis, que han roto la Constitución y no han seguido los dictados de la justicia, no prevalecerán. Saldremos más purificados, más fuertes y con un mayor sentido del destino al que está llamado nuestro país para beneficio de todos, empezando por los más pobres, y para toda la humanidad.

*Leonardo Boff es teólogo y filósofo y ha escrito: Concluir la Refundación o prolongar la dependencia, Vozes 2018.

Traducción de Mª José Gavito Milano

Il neo–fascismo, ondata planetaria

13/08/2018 Leonardo Boff1 comentário

Il fascismo è una derivazione del fondamentalismo portata all’estremo, con ampia tradizione in quasi tutte le culture. S.Huntington nella sua discussa opera, Scontro di civiltà, denuncia l’Occidente come uno dei più violenti fondamentalisti. Immagina che la sua cultura è la migliore del mondo, possiede la religione migliore l’unica vera, la miglior forma di governo, la democrazia, il migliore apparato tecnico scientifico che ha cambiato la faccia del pianeta e che ha dato la capacità di distruggere tutti gli esseri umani e parte della biosfera con le sue armi letali.
Conosciamo il fondamentalismo Islamico, e altri della chiesa cattolica ufficiale che ancora credono che la loro è l’unica e esclusiva chiesa di Cristo, e che fuori di questa non c’è salvezza. Tale visione erronea apre la strada alla demonizzazione e per fino alla persecuzione di altre denominazioni cristiane e non cristiane. Grazie a Dio adesso abbiamo un Papa ragionevole e di buonsenso che rende nulle tali distorsioni.
Tutti coloro che pretendono essere portatori esclusivi della verità è condannato a essere fondamentalista e a chiudersi in sé stessi, senza dialogo con altri.
Qui è opportuno ricordare le parole di un grande poeta spagnolo, Antonio Machado: “Non è la tua verità ma la verità, vieni insieme a me a cercarla”.
Il fascismo è nato e nasce in un determinato contesto di anomia, disordine sociale e crisi generalizzata. Spariscono le certezze e le leggi in vigore si indeboliscono. La società e gli individui hanno difficoltà a vivere in tale situazione. Scienziati del settore sociale e storici come Eric Vogelin (Order and History,195; L. Götz, Entstehung der Ordnung 1954; Peter Berger, Rumor de Anjos: la società moderna e la riscoperta del soprannaturale,1973), hanno mostrato che gli esseri umani possiedono una tendenza naturale all’ordine. Là dove arrivano stabiliscono ordine e il loro habitat. Quando questo hábitat si degrada, si usa comunemente la violenza per stabilire un certo ordine, senza il quale non si forma la coesione sociale di convivenza.
La nicchia del fascismo incontra in questo disordine la sua fonte. Così alla fine della prima guerra mondiale nacque caos sociale specialmente in Germania e in Italia. L’uscita fu l’istaurazione di un sistema autoritario, di dominazione che monopolizzò la rappresentazione politica con l’aiuto di un unico partito di massa gerarchicamente organizzato, inquadrando tutte le istanze quella politica, quella economica e la cultura in un’ unica direzione. Questo fu possibile mediante un capo (Führer in Germania e il Duce in Italia) che organizzarono un stato autoritario e di terrore.
Come legittimazione simbolica si coltivavano i miti nazionali, gli eroi del passato e le antiche tradizioni generalmente in una cornice di grandi liturgie politiche inculcavano l’idea di rigenerazione nazionale. Specialmente in Germania i seguaci di Hitler si investirono della convinzione che la razza tedesca bianca è superiore a tutte le altre con il diritto di sottomettere e perfino di eliminare le razze inferiori.
La parola fascismo fu usata per la prima volta da Benito Mussolini nel 1915 mentre si creava il gruppo “Fasci di azione rivoluzionario”. Il fascismo deriva dalla parola Fascio (fasci) di verghe, strettamente legate tra di loro, con una scure fissata di fianco: una verga può essere spezzata, un fascio, difficilmente. Nel 1922/23 fondò il partito nazionale fascista che durò fino alla sconfitta, 1945. In Germania si stabilì a partire dal 1933 con Adolf Hitler che quando diventò cancelliere creò il nazionalsocialismo, il partito nazista che impose al paese una dura disciplina, spionaggio totale e terrore di Stato.
Il fascismo si presentò come anti comunista e anti capitalista, come una corporazione che supera le classi e crea una totalità sociale stretta. La vigilanza e la violenza diretta e il terrore e lo sterminio degli oppositori sono caratteristiche del fascismo storico di Mussolini e di Hitler e sono presenti anche nel Neo Fascismo.
Il fascismo non è mai sparito totalmente. Sempre ci sono gruppi mossi da un ideale archetipico fondamentale che pretende ordine a tutti i costi e in qualsiasi modo. È il Neo-fascismo attuale. Oggi in Brasile c’è una figura più ridicola che ideologica che propone il fascismo in nome del quale giustifica la violenza, la difesa della tortura e dei torturatori, della omofobia di altre deviazioni sociali. Sempre in nome di un ordine che deve essere forgiato contro l’attuale disordine vigente usando la violenza.
Il fascismo è stato sempre criminale. Creò la Shoà (eliminazione milioni di Ebrei). Usò la violenza come una forma di relazionarsi con la società per lungo tempo. La perversione maggiore della socialità umana. In Brasile non sarà differente. Qui non avrà l’opportunità di imporsi por el radicalismo che rapresenta.

Traduzione di Romano Baraglia e Lidia Arato