Qualitative Leap

Olavo de Carvalho
O Globo, April 5th, 2003

“L’intéressant c’est de dire justement ce qu’il est convenu de ne pas dire.” (André Gide)

Gide was right: for a writer, the interesting thing is to say exactly what everybody else has agreed not to say. But the interesting thing may be dangerous as well.

In my last week’s article, for example, I gave two hints as interesting as they are forbidden. First: Federal deputy Alberto Fraga (PMDB-DF) claims to have definitive proofs of financial support given to the PT in the last elections by the Colombian guerrilla force (now it already has 88 signatures in its requirements for the start of a CPI¹ to examine the case). Second: that all neo-Nazi, neo-Fascist and anti-Semitic movements in the world are aligned with the Saddamist or anti-Bush cause, whose apostles, by calling by those names precisely those who are their adversaries, do nothing but imitate the example of Stalin, who camouflaged his alliance with Hitler behind a façade of anti-Nazism, as grandiloquent and histrionic as consciously pretended.

Having given this news, the reaction came fast: my condemnation to death, which used to arrive discreetly by e-mail, came to be published, without the least inhibition, on Internet sites. They are open invitations to the leftist militants to finish me as soon as possible, preferably by cruel and painful means:

“Yes, comrades, – writes one of my virtual executioners in the site www.comunismo.com.br – it is precisely this I am talking about: lynching, judgment and summary execution, with no right to a defense. This human scum is not part of the solution, it’s part of the problem. And he who is part of the problem must be physically eliminated. A fascist has no right to a turn or a voice. To silence their voices, we must identify them, and if not killing them tout court, cut off their hands so they cannot express their ideas through writing, and cut out their tongues so they cannot express themselves verbally.”

Giving more details, the site http://www.midiaindependente.org/pt/blue/2003/03/251552.shtml informs those interested of the place where I give classes regularly and, repeating hundreds of times the motto “Death to Olavo de Carvalho”, suggests:

“Is it not time to bring a physical end to this cancer named Olavo de Carvalho? Why not call for a protest in front of the place where he teaches and, if possible, physically eliminate this fascist, racist, miserable scumbag?”

How beautiful it is to hear these adjectives from the mouth of those who march side-to-side with skinheads for the destruction of the State of Israel! How touching it is reading the call for my gruesome elimination, and, some lines ahead, discover that it is, according to their advocates, part of a “campaign against intolerance” (sic).

If, when I was a child, they had told me that I would live to witness something like this, I would not have believed it.

But it must be progress. Tired of sending me threats that I answered with four-letter words, and of spreading fake messages in my name that any sensible reader could identify at first sight as childish fakes, the boys thought it was time for an upgrade, or as Mao Tse Tung used to say, for a qualitative leap in the proletariat struggle. They changed from whispers to shouting, from threats to the preparation for attack.

It is even more wonderful to know that these nuts are doing nothing but putting into practice the teachings they received from intellectuals and educators who, far from the stage, elegant and neat in their departments and newspaper columns, incarnate the living personification of civilized relations and good feelings. The ineffable Dr. Antônio Cândido, for example (I quote him in particular for no special reason, as one among thousands), said that there was no evil in suspending for some time rights and guarantees, if it was to build socialism. Well, there you have it, Dr. Antônio, you have not waited in vain: the boys from “Mídia Independente” have already suspended my rights and guarantees. It’s not socialism yet, but it’s already something. Now, of course, Dr. Antônio or anyone else in his place will say they did not want to go that far. Leftist intellectuals never want to go where they arrive. They never wanted the Gulag, the Laogai, the extinction of Ukranians by hunger or one million murdered Tibetans. They never wanted anything of what they actually produced: it was all the fault of cursed coincidences. They, the owners of all good intentions, always get away clean, do whatever they may.

At the moment, for example, they campaign against the American intervention in Iraq, but they say they are not pro Saddam Hussein. No, they are not. They are only against taking him out of power. They are against preventing him, by force or any other mean (for they also abhor the economic sanctions) from continuing to kill peaceful Iraqis, at the rate of 110 per day – much more than the war – as he has been doing in the last 24 years. They do not defend Saddam Hussein, but the Iraqi sovereignty – that is the sovereignty of Saddam Hussein. Who can demand from these creatures the responsibility for the consequence of their words, if their words are the very inconsequence themselves? Who can demand responsibility from creatures who give themselves the right to dream a new world shaped to their image and likeness and never have to recognize as their own work the hideous figure of their realized dream?

To whom then, should I run, looking for protection? To the authorities of a government to which, precisely, the Pure² trusted the realization of their most beautiful hopes? To those who deputy Fraga accuses of receiving money from the largest homicidal organization in Latin America? Loco sí, pero no tonto³, I would rather admit that I already don’t have any rights, any guarantees. What is the value of rights and guarantees put under the protection of people who are more willing to protect the Farc against the Colombian government than Brazilian citizens against the Farc?

NOTES:

1. A Brazilian CPI (“Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito”) is a comission that investigates political crimes. The comission members are selected from among the members of the Legislative branch of the government. – Editor’s Note. Back
2. This is a pun with Dr. Cândido’s name. The Portuguese word “cândido” means white, pure, innocent, ingenuous, simple etc., being used mostly in a religious context. – Editor’s Note. Back
3. In Spanish: “Crazy indeed, but not a fool”. – Editor’s Note. Back

Translation: Fábio Lins - Proof Reading: Jacqueline Baca