Adam Victor Brandizzi

This morning a tiny fly was, true to its name and nature, flying about in the vicinity of my desk. It really was very tiny – a fruit fly, I’d guess. At one point it landed in front of me. I brushed it aside and it resumed flitting about in its patternless path. Then it landed again, and again I aimed to brush it aside. But this time, my aim was off. It was probably a matter of only a millimetre or so, but my finger landed, not next to the fly, but on it, and so what was meant to be a brushing motion became instead a squidging motion.

The fly was so small that it didn’t offer the least resistance to the pressure of my finger. Compliantly, it transformed itself into a dark smudge. Not a gory or bloody smudge; not one with the least detail or variation – not to my naked eye, anyway. Just a small, uniform, rather faint mark.

Now, I’m not a biologist, but I know that a fly is an animal, and more specifically, an insect. As such, it has (or had) wings, legs, eyes, antenna and a host of internal organs. Those parts are in turn made of cells, each one of which is hugely complex. And in those cells, among many other things, are – or were – the fly’s genes, which in turn embody an astonishing intricacy and an ancient, multi-million-year history, while in the fly’s gut would have been countless bacteria with their own genes, their own goals. Worlds within worlds, now squidged together into a single dark smudge that I am already finding it hard to pinpoint among the scratches and coffee rings. A history of life spread out before me, if only I were able to read it.

At this point, I guess that readers will be dividing into two parties. One party, probably the majority, will be thinking, ‘Get over it, it’s a fly.’ This, it seems to me, is a very reasonable position. Flies die in large numbers all the time – some, indeed, at my hand, whether I intend it or not (and I sometimes do). And in the summer evenings, when I sit on our terrace and watch swifts in their spectacle of swooping and screeching, this beautiful display is, of course, at the same time an orgy of insect death.

The other party of readers, probably the minority, will be horrified at my casual killing of this delicate life-form. They will be appalled at the waste and stupidity of my carelessness. To them, I must be an oaf; at best ignorant, at worst malevolent. And this, it seems to me, is also a very reasonable position. Even though I habitually write – sometimes about complex subjects – it is certain that with one mistimed finger-swipe I destroyed complexity and beauty many orders of magnitude greater than any I will ever create.

Thus it seems to me quite reasonable to think that the death of the fly is entirely insignificant and that it is at the same time a kind of catastrophe. To entertain such contradictions is always uncomfortable, but in this case the dissonance echoes far and wide, bouncing off countless other decisions about what to buy, what to eat – what to kill; highlighting the inconsistencies in our philosophies, our attempts to make sense of our place in the world and our relations to our co‑inhabitants on Earth. The reality is that we do not know what to think about death: not that of a fly, or of a dog or a pig, or of ourselves.

Which is a problem, because nature is a streamers-and-all, non-stop, cork-popping party of death. For example, I regularly take my children to a large park with a series of ponds, where in spring we look for frogspawn. This gelatinous broth is a mass of life in the making. Each batch contains many hundreds, even thousands of eggs. The next time we visit, the pond will be full of tadpoles, like a page covered in punctuation marks. But the time after that, there will be many fewer; and the next time we will have to look hard for those metamorphosing mini-frogs, as tiny as keychain toys, some still with their tadpole tails. Those we find are the few survivors, whose numbers will be thinned still more before any get as far as restarting the cycle with their own spawn. The Way of the Frog is to get Death so full at the feast that a few can slip past while he slumbers.

This party of death is, of course, at the same time a cork-popping party of life. For all the tadpoles that perish, some still make it to become frogs, and have been doing so for at least 200 million years. Those that don’t are the stuff of life for countless other creatures, from the littlest insect larvae to grand old storks. Indeed, frogs are regarded as a keystone species, which means that the death of their multitudinous offspring, along with the death that they themselves deal out, is crucial to the flourishing of the community of life. In the language of ecology, life and death are obligate symbionts, each wholly dependent on the other.

We too are built on a bedrock of old men’s bones. Our evolution to Homo sapiens is a product of the endless winnowing out of the unfit and the unfortunate. If some australopithecine apeman or woman had stumbled across the elixir of life, it is very unlikely that you or I would exist. It is worth bowing our heads for a moment to all our ancestors whose passing away made our lives possible.

I was drawn to imagine the great finger coming to squish me, my little life flashing before my bulging, compound eyes

But here we are – and many people would like it to stay that way. That tadpoles are fodder for pond-life is as natural as the leaves falling on the water in autumn; that flies get squidged is as ordinary as apples rotting in the orchard. One’s own death, on the other hand, seems most unnatural. It seems rather an error and an outrage; a cosmic crime; a reason to raise one’s fist and rebel against the regime that ordered this slaughter of innocents.

But here we are – guests at the party of life and death. We know we must exit along with the flies and the tadpoles. But we would rather not think about it. And that, perhaps, is the problem with my dead fly. When I squidged it, I summoned the Reaper to my desk. If only briefly, I caught his eye. If I had turned away fast enough, the fly’s death would have remained as insignificant as those of its invisible brothers and sisters caught by the swifts. But I was drawn instead inside its tiny head, drawn to imagine the great finger coming to squish me, my little life flashing before my bulging, compound eyes. Through a lapse in my indifference, I was drawn into the catastrophe, drawn to make its death my death.

Veganism, like the Indian religion Jainism and other movements that preach a very purist strain of non-violence to other beings, seems to me a response to this one side of our contradictory perception of mortality – its catastrophic nature. Such movements take seriously the catastrophe that is every single death of every single sentient creature, whether fly, rat, frog or human. And so they say: not by my hands, not on my watch, not if I can help it. They are anti-death movements, whose followers go to great lengths not to squash flies or mosquitoes, let alone have big fat pigs killed on their behalf.

This horror at the death of other creatures is intimately bound up with horror at the prospect of one’s own demise. Flies come and go in countless masses, mostly beyond my sight and care. But when something happens that causes me to empathise, to become the fly, then its death becomes terrible. As the poet William Blake realised when he, too, carelessly squashed an insect:
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

Some clever research from the field of social psychology has demonstrated a close association in our minds between animals, animal products, bodilyness generally and our own mortality. The upshot is that these things give off a whiff of the Reaper that colours our response to them. The studies are part of a body of work known as ‘terror management theory’, which holds that our world views largely function to help us manage the terror of death. That means all world views: in the case of religions such as Christianity with their promise of eternal life, the link is very obvious, but secular belief systems have their death-defence-mechanisms too, often closely paralleling the religious ones. For example, just as Christians believe they will be resurrected by God, those who subscribe to cryonics – being frozen upon death – believe they will be resurrected by scientists.

Veganism and, to a slightly lesser extent, vegetarianism both follow this pattern, as modern secular parallels of Jainism. Their response to the terror of mortality is to attempt to create a zone of non-death, a zone from which the Reaper has been entirely banished, visiting neither flies, nor rats, nor us. In Jainism, the death-denial element is explicit: your ultimate reward for keeping your hands unbloodied is to become godlike. In veganism, it is only implicit, but nonetheless the religious or ritualistic elements are present: such as in the actions of a friend of mine who, when deciding to become vegan, threw out the half-finished pack of butter in her fridge. What animals were helped by this act, what suffering allayed? None, of course. But it at least banished death from her toast.

I said that seeing each death as a catastrophe seems a perfectly reasonable response, and veganism and Jainism are its logical extensions. They attempt to resolve the paradox by denying the other side, which says that the death of a creature is at the same time insignificant, natural and inevitable. However, as reasonable as it is to take the catastrophe of death seriously, to ignore the other side of the paradox altogether leads us only into fantasy.

It is the fantasy of a day when (in the words of the Old Testament) ‘the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the goat’. It imagines a world in which the catastrophe of mortality has triumphed over its insignificance. ‘Then,’ as St Paul wrote, ‘shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory”’, and we all might live happily ever after, flies and all.

Just because nature is a cork-popping party of death does not mean that death is right or good

But it is a fantasy. We cannot do away with death without doing away with life. In the Natural History Museum in my adopted home of Berlin, there is a glass cabinet in which a lion looks into the eyes of a zebra. They are just a few feet away from each other, with no barrier between them, but this lion will nonetheless never claw at this zebra’s flanks, nor break its neck nor tear out its bowels. They seem instead quite comfortable in each others’ presence, like old acquaintances, reminiscing perhaps about the warm savannah sun. The threat of imminent, violent death has been banished. And that, of course, is because they are filled with cold metal and wood shavings, instead of the hot blood that made them once alive and mortal enemies.

No, we cannot do away with death without doing away with life. And this applies equally to the animals in our charge. The vegan friend who threw away the butter also once said to me that she did not want animals to die because of her. But of course, before they die for her (or you or me), they live. Whether they live well is a very important, but nonetheless separate, question. Caring and campaigning about animal welfare is noble and worthwhile. But abolishing such animals altogether is saying: because I am horrified that they must die, I will not let them live.

It is a well-known fallacy to extrapolate from what is to what ought to be. Just because nature is a cork-popping party of death does not mean that death is right or good. Just because all flies die, this does not mean that my fly deserved what it got when I squidged it. But on the other hand, nature does set limits to what is possible, and perhaps even thinkable. Nature will not tolerate an end to these cycles; it will not tolerate life without death.

There is an equal and opposite alternative to veganism’s insistence on the momentousness of each death, and its ensuing death-denial. We can instead assert death’s insignificance. Whereas in the first approach, each life acquires infinite value such that we dare not let it end, in the second approach, we strip each life of its value so that its end is a matter only of indifference. This approach, of course, is nihilism.

Perhaps death’s relentless reaping should make us question the existence of higher meaning. But who thought there was such a thing anyway?

There is a long tradition of seeing in the omnipresence of death the negation of all meaning, hope and value. It was what the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson meant when in 1849 he described Nature as ‘red in tooth and claw’. He laments that she is ‘so careless of the single life’, then, on considering fossils, how she is so careless of whole species. She cries: ‘I care for nothing, all shall go’, and Tennyson concludes: ‘O life as futile, then, as frail!’

But just as the first attempt to escape the paradox becomes an attempt to deny the undeniable, so does this one. The fact of death does not destroy meaning: indeed, as we pass through the heat of life we cannot help but produce meaning, like a popcorn machine produces popcorn. This is what living things do: they imbue the world with significance and value; for an organism there is always better or worse, relevant or irrelevant; there is always something to do. This is what differentiates us from the rock that is indifferent to being pummelled to sand by the sea.

Perhaps, as Tennyson believed, death’s relentless reaping should lead us to question the existence of some higher meaning – one above, beyond or external to us. But whoever thought there was such a thing anyway? Not the frogs and tadpoles. And not me – yet I’m not therefore tempted to despair, at least not while a good dinner is waiting.

Because life is so teeming with intentions and meanings, the death of each creature really is a catastrophe. But we must live with it anyway: as we saw, the alternative is the most desperate and convoluted of denials.

Once when on holiday as a child, I remember my father wielding some insecticide spray against a column of ants invading our rented chalet. Thinking this looked like a fun thing to do, I took the spray-can outside to the ant’s nest and went on the offensive. To my surprise, my father came out and told me to stop. I had no business killing them all like that, he said. I was confused: my dad was a sausage-eating, fly-swotting man, who had grown up on a farm, and had himself just moments before brandished the same spray-can. But I was also relieved. I was glad that he thought it wrong; I was glad that he thought the death of an ant not only insignificant, but at the very same time a catastrophe.

from the viewpoint of the gods, the deaths of us and the flies are equal in their insignificance

He did not explain exactly why he thought my ant-hunting was wrong. He did not try to rationalise the apparent contradiction in his own actions with a grand theory. Though if he had been pushed, he might have said: we cannot stop Death from going about his business; and we oughtn’t pretend that sparing the ants (or the flies or the butter) will keep him from our door; but we need not rush to be his foot soldiers either.

Those hoping that I would resolve this paradox might now be getting a little anxious, as we are reaching the penultimate paragraph with no solution in sight. But it should be clear by now that I do not believe there is a solution. I believe that the death of the fly was both insignificant and a kind of catastrophe. And I believe that about the deaths of frogs and pigs too, and about my own death, and yours.

This, as Shakespeare knew, is the source of tragedy: ‘As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods,’ said the much-suffering Gloucester in King Lear. The boys are wanton because the death of any creature, even a fly, is a catastrophe; but at the very same time, from the viewpoint of the gods, the deaths of us and the flies are equal in their insignificance.

Philosophers academic and amateur – which is to say, pretty much all of us – prefer to think that paradoxes must have solutions, that they are somehow just the wrong way of looking at things, or a muddle of grammar and syntax. But not this one. It is, as far as I can see, part of the nature of things. To take both sides seriously and to seek some way to live with them is part of what it is to be human; part of what it means to be a guest at the party of life and death.

25 July 2014

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REUTERS

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Yuval Diskin, former director of Israel's internal security service Shin Bet, speaks of the current clash between Israel and the Palestinians, what must be done to achieve peace and the lack of leadership in the Middle East.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Diskin, following 10 days of airstrikes, the Israeli army launched a ground invasion in the Gaza Strip last week. Why now? And what is the goal of the operation?

Diskin: Israel didn't have any other choice than to increase the pressure, which explains the deployment of ground troops. All attempts at negotiation have failed thus far. The army is now trying to destroy the tunnels between Israel and the Gaza Strip with a kind of mini-invasion, also so that the government can show that it is doing something. Its voters have been increasingly vehement in demanding an invasion. The army hopes the invasion will finally force Hamas into a cease-fire. It is in equal parts action for the sake of action and aggressive posturing. They are saying: We aren't operating in residential areas; we are just destroying the tunnel entrances. But that won't, of course, change much in the disastrous situation. Rockets are stored in residential areas and shot from there as well.

SPIEGEL: You are saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pressured to act by the right?

Diskin: The good news for Israel is the fact that Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and Army Chief of Staff Benny Gantz are not very adventurous. None of them really wanted to go in. None of them is really enthusiastic about reoccupying the Gaza Strip. Israel didn't plan this operation at all. Israel was dragged into this crisis. We can only hope that it doesn't go beyond this limited invasion and we won't be forced to expand into the populated areas.

Diskin: Israel is now an instrument in the hands of Hamas, not the opposite. Hamas doesn't care if its population suffers under the attacks or not, because the population is suffering anyway. Hamas doesn't really care about their own casualties either. They want to achieve something that will change the situation in Gaza. This is a really complicated situation for Israel. It would take one to two years to take over the Gaza Strip and get rid of the tunnels, the weapons depots and the ammunition stashes step-by-step. It would take time, but from the military point of view, it is possible. But then we would have 2 million people, most of them refugees, under our control and would be faced with criticism from the international community.

SPIEGEL: How strong is Hamas? How long can it continue to fire rockets?

Diskin: Unfortunately, we have failed in the past to deliver a debilitating blow against Hamas. During Operation Cast Led, in the winter of 2008-2009, we were close. In the last days of the operation, Hamas was very close to collapsing; many of them were shaving their faces. Now, the situation has changed to the benefit of the Islamists. They deepened the tunnels; they are more complex and tens of kilometers long. They succeeded in hiding the rockets and the people who launch the rockets. They can launch rockets almost any time that they want, as you can see.

SPIEGEL: Is Israel not essentially driving Palestinians into the arms of Hamas?

Diskin: It looks that way, yes. The people in the Gaza Strip have nothing to lose right now, just like Hamas. And this is the problem. As long as Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was in power in Egypt, things were going great for Hamas. But then the Egyptian army took over and within just a few days, the new regime destroyed the tunnel economy between Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, which was crucial for Hamas. Since then, Hamas has been under immense pressure; it can't even pay the salaries of its public officials.

SPIEGEL: All mediation attempts have failed. Who can stop this war?

Diskin: We saw with the most recent attempt at a cease-fire that Egypt, which is the natural mediator in the Gaza Strip, is not the same Egypt as before. On the contrary, the Egyptians are using their importance as a negotiator to humiliate Hamas. You can't tell Hamas right now: "Look, first you need to full-stop everything and then we will talk in another 48 hours."

SPIEGEL: What about Israel talking directly with Hamas?

Diskin: That won't be possible. Really, only the Egyptians can credibly mediate. But they have to put a more generous offer on the table: the opening of the border crossing from Rafah into Egypt, for example. Israel must also make concessions and allow more freedom of movement.

SPIEGEL: Are those the reasons why Hamas provoked the current escalation?

Diskin: Hamas didn't want this war at first either. But as things often are in the Middle East, things happened differently. It began with the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. From what I read and from what I know about how Hamas operates, I think that the Hamas political bureau was taken by surprise. It seems as though it was not coordinated or directed by them.

SPIEGEL: Netanyahu, though, claimed that it was and used it as a justification for the harsh measures against Hamas in the West Bank, measures that also targeted the joint Hamas-Fatah government.

Diskin: Following the kidnapping of the teenagers, Hamas immediately understood that they had a problem. As the army operation in the West Bank expanded, radicals in the Gaza Strip started launching rockets into Israel and the air force flew raids into Gaza. Hamas didn't try to stop the rockets as they had in the past. Then there was the kidnapping and murder of the Palestinian boy in Jerusalem and this gave them more legitimacy to attack Israel themselves.

SPIEGEL: How should the government have reacted instead?

Diskin: It was a mistake by Netanyahu to attack the unity government between Hamas and Fatah under the leadership of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel should have been more sophisticated in the way it reacted. We should have supported the Palestinians because we want to make peace with everybody, not with just two-thirds or half of the Palestinians. An agreement with the unity government would have been more sophisticated than saying Abbas is a terrorist. But this unity government must accept all the conditions of the Middle East Quartet. They have to recognize Israel, renounce terrorism and recognize all earlier agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

SPIEGEL: The possibility of a third Intifada has been mentioned repeatedly in recent days, triggered by the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip.

Diskin: Nobody can predict an Intifada because they aren't something that is planned. But I would warn against believing that the Palestinians are peaceful due to exhaustion from the occupation. They will never accept the status quo of the Israeli occupation. When people lose hope for an improvement of their situation, they radicalize. That is the nature of human beings. The Gaza Strip is the best example of that. All the conditions are there for an explosion. So many times in my life I was at these junctions that I can feel it almost in my fingertips.

SPIEGEL: Three of your sons are currently serving in the Israeli army. Are you worried about them?

Diskin: And a fourth is in the reserves! I am a very worried father, but that is part of it. I defended my country and they will have to do so too. But because real security can only be achieved through peace, Israel, despite its military strength, has to do everything it can in order to reach peace with its neighbors.

SPIEGEL: Not long ago, the most recent negotiations failed -- once again.

Diskin: Yes, and it's no wonder. We have a problem today that we didn't have back in 1993 when the first Oslo Agreement was negotiated. At that time we had real leaders, and we don't right now. Yitzhak Rabin was one of them. He knew that he would pay a price, but he still decided to move forward with negotiations with the Palestinians. We also had a leader on the Palestinian side in Yasser Arafat. It will be very hard to make peace with Abbas, but not because he doesn't want it.

SPIEGEL: Why?

Diskin: Abbas, who I know well, is not a real leader, and neither is Netanyahu. Abbas is a good person in many respects; he is against terror and is brave enough to say so. Still, two non-leaders cannot make peace. Plus, the two don't like each other; there is no trust between them.

SPIEGEL: US Secretary of State John Kerry sought to mediate between the two.

Diskin: Yes, but from the beginning, the so-called Kerry initiative was a joke. The only way to solve this conflict is a regional solution with the participation of Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan and Egypt. Support from countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and maybe Turkey would also be necessary. That is the only way to consider all the demands and solve all problems. And we need more time, at least five years -- and more to implement it step-by-step.

SPIEGEL: Why isn't Netanyahu working toward such a compromise, preferring instead to focus on the dangers presented by an Iranian nuclear bomb?

Diskin: I have always claimed that Iran is not Israel's real problem. It is this conflict with the Palestinians, which has lasted way too long and which has just intensified yet again. The conflict is, in combination with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the biggest security risk for the state of Israel. But Netanyahu has made the invocation of an existential threat from Iran into his mantra, it is almost messianic. And of course he has derived political profit from it. It is much easier to create consensus about the Iranian existential threat than about an agreement with the Palestinians. Because there, Netanyahu has a problem with his electorate.

SPIEGEL: You have warned that the settlements in the West Bank may soon become irreversible and that it will make the two-state solution impossible.

Diskin: We are currently very near this point of no return. The number of settlers is increasing and already a solution to this problem is almost impossible, from a purely logistical standpoint, even if the political will were there. And this government is building more than any government has built in the past.

SPIEGEL: Is a solution to the conflict even possible anymore?

Diskin: We have to go step-by-step; we need many small successes. We need commitment on the Palestinian side and the acceptance of the Middle East Quartet conditions. And Israel must freeze at once any settlement activity outside the big blocks of settlements. Otherwise, the only possibility is a single, shared state. And that is a very bad alternative.

SPIEGEL: Mohammed Abu Chidair, the teenager murdered by Israeli right-wing extremists, was recognized as being a victim of terror. Why hasn't Israel's security service Shin Bet been as forceful in addressing Israeli terror as it has with Arab terror?

Diskin: We invested lots of capabilities and means in order to take care of this issue, but we didn't have much success. We don't have the same tools for fighting Jewish extremism or even terrorists as we have when we are, for example, facing Palestinian extremists. For Palestinians in the occupied territories, military rule is applied whereas civilian law applies to settlers. The biggest problem, though, is bringing these people to trial and putting them in jail. Israeli courts are very strict with Shin Bet when the defendants are Jewish. Something really dramatic has to happen before officials are going to take on Jewish terror.

SPIEGEL: A lawmaker from the pro-settler party Jewish Home wrote that Israel's enemy is "every single Palestinian."

Diskin: The hate and this incitement were apparent even before this terrible murder. But then, the fact that it really happened, is unbelievable. It may sound like a paradox, but even in killing there are differences. You can shoot someone and hide his body under rocks, like the murderer of the three Jewish teenagers did. Or you can pour oil into the lungs and light him on fire, alive, as happened to Mohammed Abu Chidair.... I cannot even think of what these guys did. People like Naftali Bennett have created this atmosphere together with other extremist politicians and rabbis. They are acting irresponsibly; they are thinking only about their electorate and not in terms of the long-term effects on Israeli society -- on the state as a whole.

SPIEGEL: Do you believe there is a danger of Israel becoming isolated?

Diskin: I am sorry to say it, but yes. I will never support sanctions on my country, but I think the government may bring this problem onto the country. We are losing legitimacy and the room to operate is no longer great, not even when danger looms.

SPIEGEL: Do you sometimes feel isolated with your view on the situation?

Diskin: There are plenty of people within Shin Bet, Mossad and the army who think like I do. But in another five years, we will be very lonely people. Because the number of religious Zionists in positions of political power and in the military is continually growing.

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George Bush e Al Gore estavam em plena corrida eleitoral no segundo semestre de 2000 quando o embaixador de FHC nos Estados Unidos entrou em contato com a assessoria dos candidatos.

"Vocês precisam prestar atenção no Brasil", afirmou Rubens Barbosa. "Não somos apenas um país latino-americano. Somos um dos Big Four, junto com Índia, China e Rússia."

Ninguém em Washington enxergava no Brasil um peso pesado. Na visão dominante, sua economia era instável e sua sociedade, atrasada. A sigla Bric ainda não existia.

Em seguida à vitória de Bush, Barbosa enviou um telegrama secreto para o Itamaraty: "O momento de agir e de lançar as bases de um novo relacionamento [com os Estados Unidos] é agora". E apresentou um projeto para elevar o perfil brasileiro na capital americana.

No entanto, o embaixador ficou sem resposta. A relação diplomática entre os dois países ia de mal a pior, e ninguém em Brasília estava disposto a bancar uma grande iniciativa.

Esse era o clima quando FHC encontrou Bush pela primeira vez, no início de 2001.

Os dois presidentes seguiram o script da conversa à risca durante a parte formal do encontro. Porém, nos 18 minutos que tiveram de conversa reservada, o diálogo empacou.

FHC propôs um acordo entre Mercosul e Estados Unidos como forma de evitar uma Área de Livre Comércio das Américas (Alca), mas Bush desconversou.

Em seguida, FHC mencionou a reforma do Conselho de Segurança da ONU. "A ONU é um shopping center de boas ideias", diria Bush a Lula anos depois.

Em 2001, falando com FHC, o presidente americano deu uma resposta que pegou a diplomacia brasileira de surpresa. "Vocês precisam entrar para o G7", disse Bush.

Era uma ideia radical. Afinal, o G7 era um clube exclusivo que mantinha um diálogo formal com a Rússia, mas não com países como o Brasil.

Em tese, a proposta era excelente para FHC, que insistia em uma "repactuação" do poder mundial. No entanto, a documentação disponível revela que o tucano deixou o comentário sem resposta.

Por quê?

Segundo um assessor, a proposta soava tão irrealista que mais parecia uma tentativa americana de desviar a conversa.

Não é essa a memória americana. "As palavras de Bush eram genuínas", lembra um colaborador de Bush. "Cardoso deveria ter se agarrado a elas."

Nas semanas seguintes, a Casa Branca plantou o boato em Wall Street de que pressionaria os europeus a expandir o G7, abrindo espaço para grandes economias emergentes.

Por isso, ninguém na equipe de Bush se surpreendeu quando o banco Goldman Sachs cunhou a expressão Bric.

A caracterização de Brasil, Rússia, Índia e China como membros de um mesmo clube era mais do que mera aposta econômica. "O G7", concluía o relatório do banco, em sintonia com o governo americano, "precisa ser ajustado."

O Brasil ganhou a Copa de duas maneiras. A primeira é que a Copa aconteceu e funcionou. Claro, houve problemas, grandes e pequenos. Claro, também, descobriremos (se não sabemos já) que o custo foi muito superior ao que deveria ter sido. Mas não fizemos feio: a maioria dos hóspedes achou que o Brasil organizou bem a festa e que valeria a pena voltar um dia. Em suma, bem melhor do que eu imaginava.

A segunda (e mais importante) razão pela qual o Brasil ganhou a Copa é que a seleção perdeu de 7 a 1 contra a Alemanha e de 3 a 0 contra a Holanda, mas isso não foi uma tragédia.

De fato, nem sequer foi um drama -a não ser para a indústria do espetáculo. Uma leitora, Eliane Brígida Falcão, contou que assistiu ao jogo Brasil x Alemanha na avenida Atlântica ("no telão da Fifa, mas no asfalto mesmo, fora do cercadinho").

No fim, "havia música, uns riam aqui e ali, dançavam, xingavam, reclamavam (), havia de tudo! Voltei para casa andando nas ruas, não vi confusão, nem briga, nem gente se rasgando ou se desesperando. Nenhuma criança aos prantos". Uma vez em casa, Eliane ligou a televisão e viu "comentaristas com cara de velório" e "explorando a imagem de duas crianças chorando" para falar do "desespero do povo".

Nos jornais do dia seguinte, os títulos: "humilhação", "vexame", "vergonha". Eliane conclui: "Esse quadro de emoções desesperadas é mentiroso Não vi e não estou vendo nada disso Só vejo muita conversa Muita ironia".

Concordo com ela: a expectativa midiática de um desespero nacional contrastou com a maturidade do povo, que lamentou, xingou, achou engraçado e seguiu andando.

Conclusão: podemos festejar -porque, sim, infelizmente a seleção perdeu, mas o Brasil parece saber que a seleção não é o Brasil. E essa descoberta é uma vitória.

O país (digo "o país" porque "pátria", para mim, sempre tem um lado grandiloquente e ridículo), de vez em quando, coloca as chuteiras, como qualquer um, num domingo à tarde. Mas, aparentemente, não por isso precisamos acreditar que o "homo brasiliensis" seja especialmente expressado pelas suas chuteiras.

A derrota da seleção se transforma em vitória por revelar o "óbvio ululante": o Brasil é muito, mas muito mais do que a seleção.

Talvez o próprio Nelson Rodrigues, hoje, aceitasse a ideia de que o Brasil pode ter se curado do famoso complexo de vira-lata -não graças a uma vitória na Copa, mas graças a uma derrota.

Surpreendente? Nem tanto. O complexo de qualquer vira-lata é o sentimento de que lhe falta uma identidade que preste: vira-lata é quem sonha com algum tipo de "pedigree". Na escala de uma nação, o complexo de vira-lata é, antes de mais nada, uma pressa doentia em responder à pergunta: "quem somos nós?". Dessa pressa nascem glórias e "imortalidades", que são sobretudo pitorescas. Quem somos nós? Somos os da ginga, da batucada, do drible, do futebol. Por que não os do jeitinho, hein?

Talvez isso não seja mais necessário. Podemos torcer sem que o país precise de vitórias da seleção para acreditar que ele existe. Como escreveu Antonio Prata no domingo retrasado (http://folha.com/no1484964), "temos inúmeros exemplos de brasileiros que se unem com um objetivo e chegam, com trabalho e competência, a resultados extraordinários".

Das meninas do vôlei ao Impa, Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada, no Rio de Janeiro. Do Grupo Corpo ao Instituto Butantan. Da Osesp à Pastoral da Criança. De Inhotim ao programa gratuito de tratamento da Aids. Da cozinha do Alex Atala aos programas sociais que tiraram 50 milhões de pessoas da miséria. Sem falar na Copa, que, apesar da seleção, deu certo". A lista continua com o contingente brasileiro no Haiti, a lembrança de Sérgio Vieira de Mello, quatro missionárias que encontrei nas montanhas do Timor Leste Realmente, o país não precisa da seleção para existir.

Numa troca de e-mails sobre aspectos e consequências do complexo de vira-lata, um outro leitor, Ricardo Villela Junqueira, evoca a pergunta que é colocada ao estrangeiro que volta para sua casa: "O que você achou do Brasil?".

Ninguém me pergunta mais (não sou estrangeiro o suficiente para isso), mas, se perguntassem, responderia: achei o Brasil do caramba.

É um lugar-comum que não serve só para consolar crianças inseguras: às vezes, saber perder é muito mais importante que ganhar.

Por trás dos panos, o governo diz a empresários e políticos aliados que reconhece erros de política econômica. É o relato extensivo de reportagem de ontem desta Folha e é o que tem pingado em entrevistas também anônimas de gente do governo para outros jornais.

"Errei, sim, manchei o meu nome", "devo, não nego", vou mudar, "não me deixem só" em palanques e sem dinheiro para a campanha, parecem dizer assessores de Dilma Rousseff.

Em certa medida, trata-se de um reconhecimento de que não colou a história de que o triste estado da economia foi resultado da crise mundial, do pessimismo doido de empresários ou de campanhas que contaminaram o humor da população ("guerra psicológica", disse a presidente).

Nos relatos desse mea culpa não há, porém, menção direta ao efeito da inflação sobre eleitores, empresas e negócios, erro que deriva do núcleo de um pensamento fundamentalmente equivocado sobre economia, o qual baseou todas as intervenções na economia que o governo admite agora erradas (tais como tabelamentos informais).

Não, não houve alta destrambelhada e crítica de preços, mas, dadas a situação da economia nos anos recentes e as novas expectativas da população, foi o bastante para desarranjar os negócios e pingar mais azedume no caldo de insatisfação evidente desde pelo menos meados do ano de 2013.

O governo em geral escarnecia de quem observava os problemas causados pela alta regular de preços, em torno de 6% ao ano, mesmo que o crítico não fosse um "economista neoliberal" ou tolice assim. Um "cidadão honesto e prestante", como dizia João Ubaldo Ribeiro, observaria no mínimo e de boa-fé que a inflação degradava, como de costume, a vida dos mais pobres e tirava mercado do produto nacional. Era uma crítica "nacional e popular", para dizê-lo de modo sarcástico, em tese dois temas de afeição do PT.

Note-se de passagem que jamais houve tal coisa como movimento articulado ou disseminado de alardes "catastrofistas" e "pessimistas", como até ontem dizia o governo.

Como se escrevia aqui em janeiro: "Nos três anos Dilma, os economistas em geral acreditavam que o país cresceria muito mais do que de fato cresceu, 'opinião otimista' que foi mantida mesmo passados dois terços de cada ano. A inflação do IPCA, a 'oficial', também seria menor, no cálculo dos economistas do Focus, 'economistas do mercado'".

Durante a onda de piadas amargas de abril de 2014 sobre a "inflação do tomate", metáfora para uma inflação de alimentos então muito alta, o governo acusava os críticos de terrorismo. O governo subestimava o efeito do preço da comida na vida do cidadão. Pode perceber o tamanho desse erro na inflação de mau humor que viria a seguir.

As pessoas sabem cuidar de suas vidas, na média, e entendem de economia na carne. Pesquisas mostram a insegurança causada pela carestia, do mesmo modo que mostram relativa tranquilidade a respeito de desemprego, de fato baixíssimo.

A inflação tende a cair um tico. Isto é, a variação de preços será um tico menor. Mas mudou para cima o nível de preços de coisas básicas como comida, que agora levam um naco maior dos salários. A vida piorou. Ficou na memória do bolso.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A group of five countries have launched their own development bank to challenge the United States-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Leaders from the so-called BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—unveiled the New Development Bank at a summit in Brazil. The bank will be headquartered in Shanghai. Chinese President Xi Jinping said the agreement would have far-reaching benefits for BRICS members and other developing nations.

PRESIDENT XI JINPING: [translated] Through the concerted effort from all sides, we have managed to reach a consensus in the creation of the BRICS development bank today. This is the result of the significant implications and far reach of BRICS cooperation and is therefore the political will of BRICS nations for common development. This will not only help increase the voice of BRICS nations in terms of international finance, but, more importantly, will bring benefits to all the people in the BRICS countries and for all peoples in developing countries.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Chinese President Xi Jinping. Together, BRICS countries account for 25 percent of global GDP and 40 percent of the world’s population.

For more, we’re joined now by Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, professor at Columbia University, author of numerous books. His new book is called Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress.

We welcome you to Democracy Now!

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Good to be here.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance of this bank.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Oh, it’s very, very important, in many ways. First, the need globally for more investment—in the developing countries, especially—is in the order of magnitude of trillions, couple trillion dollars a year. And the existing institutions just don’t have enough resources. They have enough for 2, 3, 4 percent. So, this is adding to the flow of money that will go to finance infrastructure, adaptation to climate change—all the needs that are so evident in the poorest countries.

Secondly, it reflects a fundamental change in global economic and political power, that one of the ideas behind this is that the BRICS countries today are richer than the advanced countries were when the World Bank and the IMF were founded. We’re in a different world. At the same time, the world hasn’t kept up. The old institutions have not kept up. You know, the G-20 talked about and agreed on a change in the governance of the IMF and the World Bank, which were set back in 1944—there have been some revisions—but the U.S. Congress refuses to follow along with the agreement. The administration failed to go along with what was widely understood as the basic notion that, you know, in the 21st century the heads of these institutions should be chosen on the basis of merit, not just because you’re an American. And yet, the U.S. effectively reneged on that agreement. So, this new institution reflects the disparity and the democratic deficiency in the global governance and is trying to restart, to rethink that.

Finally, there have been a lot of changes in the global economy. And a new institution reflects the broader set of mandates, the new concerns, the new sets of instruments that can be used, the new financial instruments, and the broader governance. Realizing the deficiencies in the old system of governance, hopefully, this new institution will spur the existing institutions to reform. And, you know, it’s not just competition. It’s really trying to get more resources to the developing countries in ways that are consistent with their interests and needs.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the importance of countries like China, which obviously has huge monetary reserves, and Brazil, which had developed its own development bank now for several years, their being key players in this new financial organization?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Very much. And that illustrates, as you say, a couple interesting points. China has reserves in excess of $3 trillion. So, one of the things is that it needs to use those reserves better than just putting them into U.S. Treasury bills. You know, my colleagues in China say that’s like putting meat in a refrigerator and then pulling out the plug, because the real value of the money put in U.S. Treasury bills is declining. So they say, "We need better uses for those funds," certainly better uses than using those funds to build, say, shoddy homes in the middle of the Nevada desert. You know, there are real social needs, and those funds haven’t been used for those purposes.

At the same time, Brazil has—the BNDES is a huge development bank, bigger than the World Bank. People don’t realize this, but Brazil has actually shown how a single country can create a very effective development bank. So, there’s a learning going on. And this notion of how you create an effective development bank, that actually promotes real development without all the conditionality and all the trappings around the old institutions, is going to be an important part of the contribution that Brazil is going to make.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how has that bank functioned differently, let’s say, than other development banks in the North?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, we don’t know yet, because it’s just getting started. The agreement—it’s been several years underway. The discussions began about three years ago, and then they made a commitment, and then they—you know, they’ve been working on it very steadily. What was big about this agreement was—there was a little worry that there would be conflicts of the interests. You know, everybody wanted the headquarters, the president. Would there be enough political cohesion, solidarity, to make a deal? Answer was, there was. So, what it is really saying is that in spite of all of the differences, the emerging markets can work together, in a way more effectively than some of the advanced countries can work together.

AMY GOODMAN: Joe Stiglitz, you’re the former chief economist of the World bank. What’s your assessment of the World Bank under the tenure of Jim Yong Kim, who is the former Dartmouth president? We just passed the second anniversary of his tenure there.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, it’s still too soon to say.

AMY GOODMAN: When it comes to issues of debt and other issues.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: You know, because it takes a while for somebody to get in charge of the bank and to—you know, it’s like a big ship, and you’re trying to shift it. I think there’s a broad concern that he brings certain very positive strengths to the bank—a focus on health and other social issues—but successful development will have to continue to have a focus on some of the old issues. So, you know, you have to grow. And he has a little bit less experience in the fundamentals of economic growth. I think he has probably more sensitivity to some of the problems that have plagued these international financial institutions in the past, the high conditionality. But he faces a governance problem. And that’s what this issue is about, a governance problem, where the head of the World Bank is chosen by the U.S., even though the U.S. is not playing the economic role and the leadership role that it did at one time. And we all believe in democracy, but a democracy says it shouldn’t be just assigned to one country.

One of the interesting aspects of the discussions that I’ve heard is, you know, during the East Asia crisis, one of the senior, very senior U.S. Treasury officials said, "What are you complaining about, about our telling countries what to do? He who pays the piper calls the tune." And what I hear now is the developing countries, emerging markets, China and the other countries, saying, "We’re paying the tune. We’re the big players now. We have the resources. We’re where the reserves are. And yet, you don’t want to let us play even a fair share in the role, reflecting the size of our contributions in the economy, in trade." And so, that’s one of the real grievances—I think valid grievances. And it’s hard for an institution where the governance is so out of tune with current economic and political realities to be as effective as it could be.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about a subject we just had on—were discussing in an earlier segment: immigration and this whole issue of the world economy and financial systems. You have the contradiction that, on the one hand, globalization is breaking down barriers to capital everywhere, and yet, in the advanced countries especially, you have the growth of anti-immigrant movements, not just in the United States, but in Europe, in England and in Holland. And so you have a situation where there’s an effort to erect barriers to labor and to the free flow of labor. And the impact of these kinds of debates—just a few days ago, you had Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Sheldon Adelson, a conservative Republican, all blasting Congress for not being able to achieve some kind of comprehensive immigration reform. The impact of this on the world economy?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, I think there are a couple of aspects of this that one has to appreciate. On the one hand, it’s absolutely true that free mobility of labor would have an impact on global incomes that is an order of magnitude greater than the free mobility of capital. So, the agenda that the U.S. has pursued, that free mobility of capital, has been driven not by on the grounds of global economic efficiency. It’s really special interests. It’s the banks that wanted this. On the other hand, both the movement of capital and labor can have disturbing effects. You know, we saw how free mobility of capital, short-term capital, especially, going in and out, can cause crises. We also know that migration of labor has—social adjustment processes have to occur. One of the real concerns, increasing concern, say, in a country like the United States, is that—how do you share the benefits of globalization? And there are wages are driving—been driven down. You know, the median income, income in the middle, of the United States today is lower than it was a quarter century ago. Median income of a full-time male worker is lower than it was 40 years ago. Productivity of workers has gone up over 100 percent in, say, the last 40 years—

AMY GOODMAN: We have 15 seconds.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: —but wages are down by 7 percent.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to continue this conversation off air, and then we will post it at democracynow.org. I also want to ask you about the Trans-Pacific Partnership—you talk about it being on the wrong side of globalization—your assessment of President Obama when it comes to the growing gap in inequality in this country. Joe Stiglitz is the Nobel Prize-winning economist, professor at Columbia University, former chief economist of the World Bank. He is author of many books; his latest, Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress.

That does it for our show. I’ll be speaking at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, Monday, July 21st, at 7:00 p.m.; in Martha’s Vineyard, Saturday, July 26, 7:00 p.m. at Katharine Cornell Auditorium in Vineyard Haven. Check out democracynow.org.

By Noah J. Nelson (@noahjnelson)

Speaking about Miguel Oliveira's Thralled using the language of video games can be difficult.

"Thralled is an interactive experience about a runaway slave in 18th century Brazil who becomes traumatized over the disappearance of her baby boy," Oliveira told me as we met in the University of Southern California's Doheny Memorial Library in the week leading up to this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. "So the whole experience is about going through a historic representation of her memories and trying to find out what happened to the kid."

With Thralled, Oliveira is at the forefront of a growing movement among emerging game designers to create experiences that go far beyond the highly polished shooters and retro classic homages that take up the bulk of gamers' mindshare. It's a movement emerging from the recently reorganized USC Games program, which has turned one of the top game design schools in the nation into the cradle of the indie games scene.

Yet Oliveira said he's "kind of hesitant to call (Thralled) a game in the first place, because of the stigma that's attached to the term."

The mechanical language of video games is very much present, however. A game controller is used to guide the character Isaura through the Brazilian wilderness. As part of the story she carries her infant son, and a critical part of solving puzzles includes pressing the button that gets her to hold her child closer. This calms his cries, and prevents her from being discovered by a phantom that stalks her.

"You're holding the baby yourself, in a way. By interacting with the character in such a way, by guiding and helping the character through those motions you're really in it in a different way than in a novel or a film."

Thralled also differs from game experiences in its intent. Others seek to entertain or educate, while Oliveira chases a different "e" word: empathy.

"It's really an exploration of the relationship between mother and son, within this larger context of slavery and an exploration of how slavery--or what the extreme circumstances of slavery put this person through--affects that relationship."

Thralled began as Oliveira's senior thesis project, and was showcased at the annual Demo Day the Interactive Media & Games program puts on at the university. There it was seen by Ouya's head of developer relations Kellee Santiago, one of the luminaries of the indie game scene. Santiago offered Oliveira a chance to create a fully realized version of the game in exchange for an exclusivity deal with Ouya.

That's the business side of the story, but far more interesting is Oliveira's motivations for making a game about the human impact of slavery. Part of the reason, he offers, is because slavery is something that we still live with.

"Some estimates point to 27 million people suffering under slavery today. That's a really high number."

Yet the core reason is Oliveira's desire stems from his childhood in Portugal.

"Growing up in history class I'd hear these stories: 'Oh the Portuguese are heroes in history.' We found out this and we found out that and they really focused on the glories of the Portuguese and the achievements. But what they failed to mention, what was never really talked about was that Portugal was the nation that pioneered the slave trades. The nation under which the majority of Africans were enslaved. It's estimated that between 30 and 50 percent of all human beings trafficked in the slave trade of the colonial ages were victimized by Portuguese and Brazilian people."

Oliveira points to racism as a direct effect of the Atlantic slave trade that we still live with: attitudes that were formed to justify the debasement of other human beings.

"I feel like this is such a large problem, and a lot of people say that racism doesn't exist anymore. Which is of course baloney, right? If we are to talk about this issue I really feel like we have to talk about the origin of that issue.

"That's really what Thralled's about."

In spite of its tone Thralled still looks and feels like a puzzle platform video game. That means it has the potential to draw the criticism that it is making light of a heavy issue.

"We are extremely carful to try and not trivialize the subject matter," said Oliveira. "So really it will be up to each person. If people say that the subject is trivialized just because it's being depicted through this medium, I don't think that would be a valid reason, really."

As the medium of gaming matures alongside its earliest adopters we are going to see more attempts to tackle serious subject matter. Thralled is part of a wave of experiences, like the much talked about That Dragon, Cancer which is also set for the Ouya, that are bubbling out of the gaming underground and gaining attention from a more mainstream audience.

The generation that never knew a world without video games is beginning to find its voice, and how they speak will prove as interesting as what they have to say.

Public media's TurnstyleNews.com, covers tech and digital culture from the West Coast.

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Juan David, trabajador autónomo de 12 años, celebraba la entrada en vigor del nuevo Código de la niñez que permite trabajar a los críos desde los 10 años, y no a partir de los 14 como hasta ahora. Bolivia se ha convertido en el único país del mundo que lo autoriza. La medida es producto de la presión que ha ejercido, durante los meses de trámite parlamentario, la Unión de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes Trabajadores de Bolivia (Unatsbo), una especie de sindicato de trabajadores infantiles. En general en el Código se prohíbe el trabajo a menores de 14 años, pero se prevén excepciones a partir de los 10 años si tienen permiso de los padres o son autónomos, algo que causa preocupación entre los organismos internacionales, como la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT), que ha anunciado una detallada revisión de la medida.

Frente a la alegría de los niños trabajadores, el Defensor del Pueblo y las organizaciones de derechos humanos consideran la ley “un retroceso” porque “desoye las reflexiones, los convenios y protocolos internacionales suscritos por el Estado”, critica la presidenta de la Asamblea Permanente de Derechos Humanos de Bolivia, Yolanda Herrera.

Los niños y adolescentes bolivianos frenaron, en diciembre, el proyecto de Código que prohibía el trabajo a menores de 14 años. Protestaron en las calles de La Paz y la policía les dispersó con gases lacrimógenos, algo que levantó una oleada de condena ciudadana a la dura represión. Con ello logró también la atención del presidente, Evo Morales, que, días después, les invitó a desayunar en la Casa de Gobierno. Allí les dio la razón y se identificó con sus demandas, pues él trabajó desde pequeño como pastor y agricultor.

El vicepresidente boliviano, Álvaro García Linera, promulgó el documento el jueves en la sede del Gobierno ante casi un centenar de representantes de Unatsbo. Reconoció que ha costado elaborar la ley “porque había un conjunto de convenios internacionales que el Estado ha firmado referido a los derechos de las niñas, niños y adolescentes, y existe una realidad boliviana, una modalidad propia de lo que es el trabajo y la situación de los niños y adolescentes del país”, afirmó.

Juan David sabe mucho de esa realidad. “Mi papá nos dejó a mi mamá, a mis tres hermanos y a mí hace ocho años y, desde entonces, hemos buscado trabajo para ayudar a mi mamá”, cuenta el chico. “Soy carretillero por cuenta propia y tengo mi propia carretilla”, afirma. Su empleo consiste en ir al mercadillo de los sábados y ofrecerse para transportar mercancía de las personas que acuden a comprar al sitio. Lleva hasta 12 kilos en cada viaje de los seis o siete que hace en un día. Gana entre tres y siete euros, y trabaja en mejores condiciones que los críos que cargan los sacos a pulso y lo hacen a diario. Como él, cientos de miles de niños en Bolivia están obligados a trabajar si quieren a sobrevivir a la extrema pobreza o la disgregación familiar en las ciudades. Otros miles trabajan como una forma cultural de aprendizaje de técnicas para un oficio futuro. El nuevo código de la infancia propone elaborar un censo del segmento de población entre cinco y 18 años para saber cuántos son trabajadores. Las cifras oficiales, de 2008, calculan que hay 850.000 pequeños trabajadores —de una población total del país de 10 millones—, pero cálculos recientes elevan la cifra a un millón.

Desde el 2003, cuando se creó la Unatsbo, muchos están organizados. Juan David, que cursa el primer curso de Secundaria, es representante en Cochabamba.

Su estructura —supervisada por exafiliados mayores de edad— se basa en grupos de niños vendedores de dulces, de flores, lavadores de vehículos, lustradores de zapatos, portadores de agua en los cementerios. Se forman asociaciones gremiales locales, regionales para luego integrar una organización en casi todo el país.

Tienen reuniones virtuales cada mes. “Tenemos el Facebook”, apunta Juan David, que explica las condiciones que debe tener un representante, elegido en votación. “Tienes que conocer bien el Código, saber hablar bien, estar muy atento y no distraerse en las reuniones”, explica.

Él espera seguir estudiando. “Muchas señoras son mis clientas y me conocen hace tiempo. Una de ellas me ha prometido que si acabo el Bachillerato, me ayudará en la universidad”, explica orgulloso. “Me gusta mi trabajo, desarrollo mi fuerza, hago amigos, me ayuda a socializarme con la gente”, dice.

O fazendeiro G.B., de 80 anos, foi preso em fevereiro de 2011 quando mantinha relações sexuais com X, uma menina de 13 anos, dependente de álcool e drogas, em uma camionete estacionada no meio de um canavial. Outra menina, Y, de 14 anos, já havia masturbado o homem e também se encontrava dentro do veículo. Pelo serviço, X recebeu R$ 50. Y ficou com R$ 20. A ordem de prisão em flagrante foi dada pela Polícia Militar.

Como X era, na ocasião dos fatos, menor de 14 anos, a Justiça de Catanduva (384 km de São Paulo) condenou G.B. a oito anos de prisão em regime fechado por estupro de vulnerável. Mas o fazendeiro ficou apenas 40 dias detido. Recorreu da condenação e o Tribunal de Justiça de São Paulo reverteu a condenação, que virou absolvição.

Isso, apesar de o artigo 217-A, introduzido no Código Penal pela Lei nº 12.015, de 2009, ser claríssimo ao definir o chamado “estupro de vulnerável” como a conjunção carnal ou a prática de outro ato libidinoso com menor de 14 anos. Pena: reclusão, de 8 a 15 anos. Pelo mesmo artigo, define-se que incorre em igual pena quem mantenha relações sexuais com alguém que, por enfermidade ou deficiência mental, não tem o necessário discernimento para a prática do ato, ou que, por qualquer outra causa, não pode oferecer resistência.

“O acusado cometeu crime de violação dos direitos da criança e deveria ser punido por isso. Houve exploração sexual de menor, o que é crime hediondo”,  Míriam Maria José dos Santos Presidente do Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente

Leva a assinatura do relator, desembargador Airton Vieira, o acórdão que absolveu o fazendeiro. Airton Vieira, só para lembrar, foi um dos assessores do ministro Cezar Peluso, do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF), no caso do “mensalão”. O julgamento do fazendeiro pedófilo teve a participação também dos desembargadores Nuevo Campos e Hermann Herschander.

A absolvição de G.B. foi recebida com consternação pelas entidades de defesa dos direitos de crianças e adolescentes. “O acusado cometeu crime de violação dos direitos da criança e deveria ser punido por isso. Houve exploração sexual de menor, o que é crime hediondo”, disse a presidente do Conanda (Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente), Míriam Maria José dos Santos.

A Ponte obteve a íntegra do acórdão de absolvição. Como o caso correu sob segredo de Justiça, para preservar as meninas, não será mencionado nenhum apelido ou nome ou endereço que eventualmente permita identificá-las.

A Ponte também teve acesso ao excepcional documentário “Bagatela” (DocTV, direção Clara Ramos, 2009), que acompanhou as trajetórias de mulheres presas por cometer os chamados “crimes de bagatela”, aqueles pequenos furtos de produtos de valor irrisório (xampu, bolachas, leite em pó, queijo). No documentário, tem papel destacado o mesmo Airton Vieira, então juiz da 4º Vara Criminal Central de São Paulo, desta feita defendendo máximo rigor no julgamento desses crimes insignificantes.

Um juiz, duas atitudes, duas Justiças. Uma é tolerante e compreensiva com o fazendeiro, patriarca em Paraíso (cidade próxima a Catanduva), proprietário de canaviais no interior rico de São Paulo, que teria sido “enganado” pelas meninas, as quais lhe teriam asseverado serem maiores de 18 anos. A outra é indignada, raivosa, vingativa, exemplar. Esta é para as mulheres pobres que cometem os tais “crimes insignificantes”.

O que se verá nas linhas abaixo será o debate do desembargador Airton Vieira consigo mesmo. Em vermelho, trechos do acórdão por ele redigido, absolvendo o fazendeiro pedófilo ao mesmo tempo em que culpa as vítimas por seu modo de vida “devasso”. Em azul, trechos de sua fala contra as ladras de xampu e queijo.

Seria divertido, se não fosse trágico demais.

“É bem verdade que se trata de menor de 14 anos, mas entendo ser crível e verossímil, diante do que aconteceu, que o réu tenha se enganado quanto à idade real da vítima X, Afinal, partindo-se do pressuposto de que, no presente caso, a vítima X, à época dos fatos, contava com parcos 13 anos, 11 meses e 25 dias de idade, e, levando-se em consideração que era pessoa que se dedicava ao uso de drogas e ingestão excessiva de bebidas alcoólicas, [e que] já manteve relações sexuais com diversos homens, o que significa não ser ela nenhuma jejuna na prática sexual, é que não se pode presumir que o réu tinha conhecimento real da idade da vítima e que tinha o dolo de manter conjunção carnal ou praticar outro ato libidinoso com menor de 14 anos”.

Desembargador Airton Vieira/ Fotos/ilustração sob reprodução de imagens do documentário “Bagatela”

“Hoje é uma gilete, amanhã é um quilo de carne… Você vai somando nos vários supermercados, nas várias lojas, isso ganha milhões. Por outro lado, se você não punir quem faz desse tipo de ação o seu dia a dia, ou ainda que seja uma vez isolada, você há de convir comigo o seguinte: todos nós estaremos legitimados a entrar em qualquer supermercado e subtrair algo na faixa de 5, 10, 20 reais. (…) Vejam o prejuízo que isso causa”.

“Não se pode perder de vista que em determinadas ocasiões podemos encontrar menores de 14 anos que aparentam ter mais idade, mormente nos casos em que eles se dedicam à prostituição, usam substâncias entorpecentes e ingerem bebidas alcoólicas, pois em tais casos é evidente que não só a aparência física como também a mental desses menores se destoará do comumente notado em pessoas de tenra idade.”

Não são muitos os casos que se amoldariam em tese ao princípio de bagatela. Por mês, eu não chego a contar nos dedos de uma mão. Sabonetes, xampus, giletes, gêneros alimentícios, mas não de primeira necessidade. Ou seja, bolachas, queijos, postas de bacalhau. Tem coisas interessantes neste aspecto. Porque a pessoa não furta, via de regra, aquilo que você pode pensar que é uma necessidade premente dela. Eu não vejo como uma necessidade premente de alguém o uso de xampu.”

“Seria insensibilidade, a meu ver, distante dos verdadeiros contornos em que o fato se deu, manter a condenação do réu, que na época dos fatos contava com 76 anos de idade, pela prática do crime de estupro de vulnerável contra a vítima X, menor de 14 anos, sobretudo quando emerge dos autos uma verdadeira e clara situação de erro de tipo, pois o réu não tinha consciência da idade dela.”

“Se eu mantenho alguém preso é porque eu entendo que aquela pessoa ou deve permanecer presa, ou deve vir a ser presa. Se ela vai sair melhor ou pior, isso não é problema meu. Foi opção dessa pessoa. Ela podia ter seguido o exemplo honesto, que apesar de sofrer muito, dignifica o país. Honra a população brasileira. Sofre, mas sofre com altivez, olhando nos seus olhos.”

“Logicamente, não se pode desprezar a possibilidade, bastante frequente, da ocorrência de erro de tipo em relação à idade do menor [Não é possível que se exija] ao ‘consumidor’ que, antes de qualquer ato de libidinagem, exija a apresentação de documentos, os quais, ainda assim, podem não ser verdadeiros. Nesse meio, por outro lado, é comum que menores tenham aparência envelhecida além de sua idade real, decorrente de insônia (noites mal dormidas), ingestão excessiva de álcool, enfim, os maus-tratos que a vida devassa lhes oferece contribuem para a aparência de ‘amadurecimento’ (entenda-se envelhecimento) precoce.” (Airton Vieira citando Cezar Roberto Bitencourt)

“Você contrataria para trabalhar na sua residência, para usufruir da intimidade do seu lar alguém que tivesse sido condenado por furto? Eu vou ser franco: eu não contrataria. Eu não vou ser hipócrita. Como eu não gostaria de trabalhar com alguém já condenado, eu não gosto de mandar alguém prestar serviços à comunidade numa escola ou num hospital porque alguém em nome dessa escola ou em nome desse hospital celebrou um convênio qualquer. Eu não vejo isso como salutar. Não estou querendo dizer que eu defendo a prisão sistemática de todo mundo. O que eu defendo é que a pessoa sinta efetivamente uma retribuição por parte do Estado do mal que ela causou com ao praticar um crime. Do contrário, ela vai se sentir autorizada a praticar outros crimes, quiçá piores até.”

“Desse modo, não posso, sobretudo pela forma em que ocorreram os fatos, aplicar friamente o que dispõe o artigo 217-A do Código Penal e fundamentar a manutenção da condenação do réu com base na jurisprudência de nossa Corte Suprema, que entende tratar-se de vulnerabilidade absoluta, deixando passar despercebido o verdadeiro quadro de como se realizou essa relação de que teria resultado o estupro de vulnerável. Ante o exposto (…), dou provimento ao recurso da defesa para fins de se absolver o réu.”

“Nós gostamos de ter essa visão romanceada do criminoso, como se o criminoso fosse um coitado. Como se fosse alguém que a sociedade não deu oportunidades para ele. Longe disso. O julgador não é legislador. Muitas coisas que eu entendo erradas sou obrigado a cumprir. Eu sou escravo da lei. Isso é uma segurança para toda a população. Até porque, amanhã ou depois, o que eu posso entender irrisório, 5 ou 10 reais, outro vai entender que irrisório é 400 ou 500 reais. Onde iremos parar com esse raciocínio?”

O silêncio dos julgadores

O site Ponte dirigiu à assessoria de imprensa do Tribunal de Justiça de São Paulo as seguintes perguntas:

1. “X”, 13 anos, e “Y”, 14, são apresentadas como adolescentes usuárias de álcool e drogas. Diz o acórdão que teriam experiência “dessas coisas de sexo” e que “se prostituíram livremente para o réu”. Pergunta: o fato de serem dependentes químicas não as torna mais vulneráveis ainda, já que estariam tangidas pela síndrome de abstinência?

2. Como falar em “liberdade” de se prostituírem se está claro que as meninas “saem com homens para arrumar dinheiro para comprar substâncias entorpecentes”?

3. O fato de serem usuárias contumazes de álcool e drogas em vez de lhes aumentar a autonomia de decisão não as deixa em condição de vulnerabilidade análoga à de alienados ou débeis mentais “ou aqueles que, por outra causa, não pudessem oferecer resistência”, tal como prevê o artigo 217-A do Código Penal?

4. Qual a estatura de “X” e “Y” à época dos fatos?

5. Por que o relator aceitou sem mais a alegação de que não se pode “determinar ao ‘consumidor’ que, antes de qualquer ato de libidinagem”, exija a apresentação de prova de idade? Não caberia ao menos a caracterização de crime culposo?

Mas nenhuma resposta foi dada. Abaixo, o email enviado pela assessoria de imprensa do Tribunal de Justiça de São Paulo:

“Os magistrados não podem conceder entrevista porque o caso está sob segredo de Justiça e, também, porque há um impedimento pela Lei Orgânica da Magistratura (o artigo 36 veda manifestação, por qualquer meio de comunicação, de opinião sobre processo que esteja sob sua responsabilidade ou de outro juiz).”