Bem-vind@! Este é um “livro” - Miguel Vale de Almeida

It is common to hear characters in American movies saying “this is a free country”. They say it
in the most common everyday situations, like when someone asks someone if he or she can do
or say whatever. The sheer fact of having a rhetorical tick like “it’s a free country” sounds like
propaganda and ideology to “Most Europeans”, as if you guys had to constantly state that which
is not obvious and granted. Just take a look at the censorship that most Americans so easily
accept once the US goes to war, and you’ll see what I mean. This is also why – and I could add
the general American ignorance of world affairs, other countries, other experiences of
democracy and freedom – we felt sick when we heard all the anti-European remarks during
Pentagonic preparations for aggression and attack. They do not offend Europeans (I for one
couldn’t care less if Chirac were offended), because they can’t care less about patriotism and
nationalism 21[1] . They just confirmed their darkest suspicions: that there’s something
dangerously juvenile and gang-like in the mainstream, American political frame of mind. It
scares Europe. And America has the bombs.
It scares Europe, but it scares even more the rest of the world, especially the large majority that
is made up of the poor and the excluded (the kind of people who turn to idiotic Muslim
Fundamentalism and cheer the 9/11 bombings). You see, people all over the world do not “hate
the American way of life” or “envy” it. First and foremost, they are scared shitless of the
American military, of the under-developing effects of American-based international capital, and
of the dangerous mixture of consumerism and Puritanism –the hazardous ideological cocktail
that is the American contribution to mental warfare. The truth is that for the greater portion of
Humankind, America is not the land of freedom but the place where exploitation and bombs
come from. No wonder, then, that there is something called anti-Americanism. But that will
only change when Americans change the system, starting with the small pre-emptive step of
stepping down Bush and stopping this war.
Most of all, do not try to sell the ultimate ideological twist and perversion – that which claims
that “democracy” can be imposed by war. Once again, only “Most Americans” seem to believe
in that – with the usual messianic wishful thought that the oppressed will cheer the GIs as they
step down the dictator. Anyway, if the democracy to be imposed is the American kind, well
then, thanks but no thanks.
Most of what I said about what is wrong with the American political system could be applied –
with adaptations – to Europe. But one huge difference remains. America is an Empire. America
is the Empire. That is what people hate, because that is what people fear. God (strike that:
people) save us from Empire.
All the best,
Miguel Vale de Almeida (just someone from Portugal)
Jogos de Linguagem
(Webpage, 25.04.03)
Talvez por causa da guerra – uma situação propícia à manipulação da informação – tenho
andado sensível aos pequenos truques, mudanças e subtilezas de linguagem nos media. Tudo
começou, portanto, com a guerra. Só ao fim de alguns dias me apercebi que os locutores – e,
portanto, as redacções e quem toma decisões editoriais – usavam e abusavam da expressão
“coligação”. Para o senso comum (neste caso, também bom senso), o Iraque foi invadido pelos
americanos. Em bom rigor – o que se esperaria do jornalismo – o Iraque foi invadido por forças
21[1] Some of us do, actually. Just think of the Balkans and a great deal of Eastern Europe. But those
people had to endure soviet regimes that totally deprived them of democratic culture. Not surprisingly,
they are some of America”s best supporters now.
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