O FUTURO ERA LINDO

A informação seria livre. Todo o saber do mundo seria compartilhado, bem como a música, o cinema, a literatura e a ciência. O custo seria zero. O espaço seria infinito. A velocidade, estonteante. A solidariedade e a colaboração seriam os valores supremos. A criatividade, o único poder verdadeiro. O bem triunfaria sobre os males do capitalismo. O sistema de representação se tornaria obsoleto. Todos os seres humanos teriam oportunidades iguais em qualquer lugar do planeta. Todos seriam empreendedores e inventivos. Todos poderiam se expressar livremente. Censura, nunca mais. As fronteiras deixariam de existir. As distâncias se tornariam irrelevantes. O inimaginável seria possível. O sonho, qualquer sonho, poderia se tornar realidade.

Livre, grátis, inovador, coletivo, palavras-chave do novo mundo que a internet inaugurou. Por anos esquecemos que a internet foi uma invenção militar, criada para manter o poder de quem já o tinha. Por anos fingimos que transformar produtos físicos em produtos virtuais era algo ecologicamente correto, esquecendo que a fabricação de computadores e celulares, com a obsolescência embutida em seu DNA, demanda o consumo de quantidades vexatórias de combustíveis fósseis, de produtos químicos e de água, sem falar no volume assombroso de lixo não reciclado em que resultam, incluindo lixo tóxico.

Ninguém imaginou que o poder e o dinheiro se tornariam tão concentrados em megahipercorporações norte-americanas como o Google, que iriam destruir para sempre tantas indústrias e atividades em tão pouco tempo. Ninguém previu que os mesmos Estados Unidos, graças às maravilhas da internet sempre tão aberta e juvenil, se consolidariam como os maiores espiões do mundo, humilhando potências como a Alemanha e também o Brasil, impondo os métodos de sua inteligência militar sobre a população mundial, e guiando ao arrepio da justiça os bebês engenheiros nota dez em matemática mas ignorantes completos em matéria de ética, política e em boas maneiras.

Ninguém previu a febre das notícias inventadas, a civilização de perfis falsos, as enxurradas de vírus, os arrastões de números de cartão de crédito, a empulhação dos resultados numéricos falseados por robôs ou gerados por trabalhadores mal pagos em países do terceiro mundo, o fim da privacidade, o terrorismo eletrônico, inclusive de Estado.

Marion Strecker

Adaptado de Folha de São Paulo, 29/07/2014.

Seymour Menton: El legado crítico de un lector apasionado

Conocí a Seymour Menton hace unos años, en la Universidad de California, cuyos departamentos de lenguas extranjeras contribuyó a formar. Recuerdo la emoción que me causó estrechar su mano. En su conjunto, el trabajo crítico de Menton es una de las semblanzas más completas y amplias de la experiencia literaria latinoamericana, escrita conforme la producción narrativa continental emergía y gradualmente encontraba lectores e interlocutores.

Por momentos, algunas de las limitaciones de la obra de Seymour (su reticencia ideológica a ciertas prácticas, su fidelidad a la vocación pedagógica del crítico) pueden resultar evidentes a un lector contemporáneo. Sin embargo, nuestra habilidad misma de debatir con él, de estar en desacuerdo con sus interpretaciones, de buscar complementar sus lecturas y llevarlas más allá, fue posibilitada por su incansable compromiso de poner a la literatura latinoamericana en el centro del debate crítico, de hacerla disponible a los lectores de Estados Unidos y América Latina, y de mostrar que existía en ella un depósito de riqueza cultural y estética que resultaba difícil discernir al momento de su publicación. Como norteamericano, Seymour hizo esto a contracorriente de una gran cantidad de prejuicios en ambos lados de la división continental.

En su país de origen, Menton fue uno de los primeros críticos en dar énfasis a la narrativa latinoamericana, en una época en que la enseñanza de la literatura en lengua española estaba fuertemente cargada hacia la literatura ibérica. Si los que trabajamos en Estados Unidos como latinoamericanistas podemos tener un espacio de debate y consideración, se debe al hecho de que Seymour Menton y otros de sus distinguidos contemporáneos limpiaron el terreno para poder desarrollar un campo y para poder preparar lectores de nuestra tradición.

Gracias a sus monumentales libros sobre literatura de distintos países, los lectores del subcontinente tenemos un lugar al que podemos siempre volver a ponderar y debatir nuestras tradiciones, desde la perspectiva que solo un extranjero enamorado de una cultura que le pertenece por naturalización, más que por nacimiento, puede proporcionar.

Creo que la triste pérdida de Seymour Menton, agregando su nombre a la lista de los que nos han dejado en 2014, debe ser, sobre todo, una oportunidad para volver a su obra, para reentablar con él la conversación que hemos tenido en algún tiempo.

Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado

milenio.com

Maya Angelou: the ache for home lives in all of us

Maya Angelou, whose passing at age 86 leaves us a bit orphans, said often that although she gave birth to one son, she had thousands of daughters. “I have daughters who are black and white, Asian and Spanish-speaking and native American. I have daughters who are fat and thin, pretty and plain”, she said. “I have all sorts of daughters who I just claim. And they claim me.”

I wonder if Angelou ever knew really how many girls were told about her, named after her or like me, growing up in a suburban corner of England, clinging fiercely to her books and even when not reading them, inhaling the spirit of her struggle from the titles alone: A song flung up to heaven, I know why the caged bird sings and Gather together in my name.

I loved and admired Angelou, but it was the content of her writing that had most power over me, her novels and poems all languishing playfully somewhere on her rich spectrum between poetry and prose.

Here was a woman who had been raised in the America of racial segregation. As the structural injustice of race had become more subtle and sophisticated during her lifetime, she called it by its right name. Therefore, her comment on 9/11: “Living in a state of terror was new to many white people in America, but black people have been living in a state of terror in this country for more than 400 years.”

Here was a woman who was not a historical relic, but a living, breathing one-woman phenomenon. She gave me a language of identity that radiated as much from her very existence as it did from her work. The book that had the most impact on my life was All God’s children need travelling shoes – the fifth instalment in her series of autobiographies – about the time she spent in Africa during the civil rights movement.

Here was a woman who gave voice to the struggle of black people. In Ghana, she was part of a community of African Americans, but her travels stand out as an act of defiance against the view perpetrated by many then that Africans and people of African descent in countries like the US have nothing in common. She didn’t just live it, she wrote about it, warts and all. “If the heart of Africa remained elusive, my search for it had brought me closer to understanding myself and other human beings”, she wrote. “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

With her departure, America has not just lost a talented woman and gifted raconteur. It has lost a connection to its recent past which helped it make sense of its present.

Afva Hirsch

theguardian.com

Mandela: l’homme qui a fait tomber l’apartheid

“Madiba”, comme l’appelaient affectueusement les sud-africains en référence à son nom de clan tribal, a arrêté de combattre. Car les héros meurent aussi, et à 95 ans Mandela était un homme affaibli, qui souffrait d’une infection pulmonaire. Mi-novembre, son ex-femme Winnie Madikizela-Mandela déclarait au journal sud-africain The sunday independent que Mandela n’était pas capable de parler et communiquait par signes. Il s’est éteint en décembre 2013 à son domicile de Johannesburg.

Sa disparition prive le monde d’un des derniers grands leaders charismatiques et visionnaires. Certains se souviendront avant tout de l’homme qui a évité une guerre civile à son pays, en tendant la main aux anciens oppresseurs, lesquels l’avaient pourtant maintenu en prison pendant vingt-sept ans, de 1963 à 1990. D’autres rappelleront qu’il est devenu, le 27 avril 1994, le premier président noir d’un pays qui fut longtemps le plus raciste du monde et que son long combat pour la liberté prouve que la résistance est toujours payante.

Devenu le premier avocat noir du pays, il rejoint en 1944 le Congrès National Africain, l’ANC, le plus vieux parti africaniste du continent qu’il va vite pousser à des actions plus radicales pour contester la domination blanche. Sa résistance pacifique lui vaudra d’être jugé avec 156 autres accusés pour “haute trahison”, lors d’un procès qui durera de 1957 à 1961, à l’issue duquel ils seront tous acquittés. Mais la victoire sera de courte durée: la répression se fait de plus en plus féroce alors que le Parti National, arrivé au pouvoir dès 1948, durcit sa politique d’apartheid. Quand l’ANC est interdit, Mandela renonce, en 1961, à la non-violence pour la lutte armée. Entré en clandestinité, il sera arrêté un an plus tard et condamné à cinq ans de prison. Alors qu’il est détenu, la police découvre le quartier général secret de l’ANC près de Johannesburg. Les documents saisis valent un second procès à Nelson Mandela, qui échappe à la peine de mort mais sera condamné à la prison à perpétuité avec ses dix compagnons.

Au soir de sa vie, les reproches qu’on a pu lui faire se sont estompés: aussi bien sur son caractère un peu autoritaire, sur sa trop grande insistance à la réconciliation avec les blancs alors qu’il a été plus timoré en matière de justice sociale. Mais la légende du combattant est restée intacte, cette “âme invincible et fière” que glorifie son poème préféré, Invictus, du poète anglais William Henley. Adieu, “Madiba”, cette fois-ci le combat est bien fini. Grâce à toi, la flamme de l’espoir d’un monde plus juste ne s’éteindra jamais.

Maria Malagardis

liberation.fr

Maya Angelou: the ache for home lives in all of us

Maya Angelou, whose passing at age 86 leaves us a bit orphans, said often that although she gave birth to one son, she had thousands of daughters. “I have daughters who are black and white, Asian and Spanish-speaking and native American. I have daughters who are fat and thin, pretty and plain”, she said. “I have all sorts of daughters who I just claim. And they claim me.”

I wonder if Angelou ever knew really how many girls were told about her, named after her or like me, growing up in a suburban corner of England, clinging fiercely to her books and even when not reading them, inhaling the spirit of her struggle from the titles alone: A song flung up to heaven, I know why the caged bird sings and Gather together in my name.

I loved and admired Angelou, but it was the content of her writing that had most power over me, her novels and poems all languishing playfully somewhere on her rich spectrum between poetry and prose.

Here was a woman who had been raised in the America of racial segregation. As the structural injustice of race had become more subtle and sophisticated during her lifetime, she called it by its right name. Therefore, her comment on 9/11: “Living in a state of terror was new to many white people in America, but black people have been living in a state of terror in this country for more than 400 years.”

Here was a woman who was not a historical relic, but a living, breathing one-woman phenomenon. She gave me a language of identity that radiated as much from her very existence as it did from her work. The book that had the most impact on my life was All God’s children need travelling shoes – the fifth instalment in her series of autobiographies – about the time she spent in Africa during the civil rights movement.

Here was a woman who gave voice to the struggle of black people. In Ghana, she was part of a community of African Americans, but her travels stand out as an act of defiance against the view perpetrated by many then that Africans and people of African descent in countries like the US have nothing in common. She didn’t just live it, she wrote about it, warts and all. “If the heart of Africa remained elusive, my search for it had brought me closer to understanding myself and other human beings”, she wrote. “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

With her departure, America has not just lost a talented woman and gifted raconteur. It has lost a connection to its recent past which helped it make sense of its present.

Afva Hirsch

theguardian.com