Klaus Hart Brasilientexte

Science has for some time investigated the missing link between ape and man. There is already consensus that Darwin was right.

Even Pope John Paul II, who wouldn™t easily allow his arm to be twisted, admitted to the relevance of Darwinism. This caused the bishops of Argentina who believed in fundamentalist creation to suspend teaching in the schools that between God and us there was no other intermediary other than Adam and Eve.

Creationists cannot go beyond the notion of a god who is a potter who, having played with clay and breathed on it, gave life to human maquettes. If these people could go a step further in the genealogy of the first couple they would be in trouble. If Adam and Eve only had two sons, Cain and Abel, how to explain the vast descendance of which we are a part? Would we all be the children of an incestuous paradise?

Adam and Eve are somehow involved in our custom of telling a bore to ”go plant potatoes[1] <#_ftn1> . When archaeologists in 3008 find this expression in thousand year-old documents, with no adequate explanations, they could be led to believe that, in our time, when a person became irritated with another, he sent him off to plant potatoes which certainly would explain the abundance of this root in the diet of humans at the beginning of the 21st century¦

Since the ancient Hebrews did not go to university and therefore were lacking in academic abstract language there is not one single lesson in doctrine or theology in the entire Bible. Their language is similar to that of someone from Minas Gerais, based on ”tales. We see what we read. Artistic language transforms concepts into images. Thus the name of Adam came from the Hebrew word for ”earth and Eve came from ”life.

So, let us return to the missing link before it, also, goes missing. The Bible simply wants to teach that God is the creator of the Universe and of humans who, in spite of being a divine work of art, suffer from two insurmountable limitations i.e. they have a ”use by date and faulty manufacturing which in Christian doctrine is known as original sin.

Obviously everyone will die one day in spite of writers™ societies filled with immortals some of whom show faulty manufacturing “ throughout their life they become corrupt, liars, opportunists, segregationists, male chauvinists and cynics. In other words men without quality as Musil would say. Many of them have a curious tendency towards politics.

When did the leap from simian to human occur? When a monkey used a piece of stick as an extension to his hands, as Stanley Kubrick shows in the film ”2001“A Space Odyssey? Or was it when an orang-utan decided, contrary to his zoological family, to stop eating because he was hungry and began setting aside a time for meals? Was it on that Saturday afternoon when the monkey put pepper on the game he had hunted and roasted it in the embers that remained from a fire produced by lightning without realizing that he was inventing a barbecued steak?

A true human would be a person gifted with creativity. Who has seen an oven bird™s house with a little veranda or addition where he protects his newly married chick? It so happens that creativity is also “ and, in general, particularly “ an attribute of thieves. Perhaps it is better to characterize humans for their virtues: a generous, altruistic, ethical, solidary, loving person capable of sharing his or her goods and gifts. Does this person exist?

If we agree that that is still a project, a prospect or a dream, we must accept that we are the missing link between ape and man, the chain of mammals who started with the curiosity of Adam and Eve sticking their noses where they shouldn™t have, up to the present generation of Bush and Bin Laden! As a matter of fact, two good examples of pre-human species who, like the apes, have something to hide; wherever they get involved they create confusion and are always taking over other people™s territory.

We are the link that was lost. However, it has always been close to us. All we need do is look in the mirror. The truly human person will appear in the future. This is if we are able to feel shame. On the contrary, the very link will be lost and the human project will remain as utopia which might be achieved on some other planet where there is an abundance of what is so lacking here: intelligent life.

Perhaps the Creator will decide to clean up His creation for the second time. I doubt that He will destroy it with a new flood. Water, today, is very scarce. God is generous, not a spendthrift. Perhaps global warming is the first sign that everything will turn to ashes. Then a new Genesis will begin.

I suppose that, on the sixth Day, God will create animals incapable of developing an evolutive chain. And, on the seventh, He will lie back in his hammock in the Garden of Eden – because nobody is made of steel – and will contemplate the beauty of the Universe which will now be free from the threat of a dangerous predator descended from the apes, the link between that which is no longer and never was.

[1] <#_ftnref1> ”Vai plantar batatas in Portuguese. A commonly used expression, which would translate as ”go fly a kite.

*Frei Betto is a writer, author of ”Sinfonia Universal “ a cosmovisáo de Teilhard de Chardin (Universal Symphony “ the Cosmo vision of Teilhard de Chardin) (Ática).

ABOUT THE AUTOR

He is a Brazilian Dominican with an international reputation as a liberation theologian.
Within Brazil he is equally famous as a writer, with over 52 books to his name. In 1985 he won Brazil™s most important literary prize, the Jabuti, and was elected Intellectual of the Year by the members of the Brazilian Writers™ Union.

Frei Betto has always been active in Brazilian social movements, and has been an adviser to the Church™s ministry to workers in Sáo Paulo™s industrial belt, to the Church base communities, and to the Landless Rural Workers™ Movement (MST).

In 2003-2004, he was Special Adviser to President Lula and Coordinator of Social Mobilisation for the Brazilian Government™s Zero Hunger programme.

Cuba – Socialismo: O nome político do amor

Por que o socialismo, em tese uma alternativa humanitária ao capitalismo, fracassou na Europa e na Ásia? O capitalismo teve a esperteza de, ao privatizar os bens materiais, socializar os bens simbólicos. De dentro do barraco de uma favela uma família miserável, desprovida de direitos básicos como alimentaçáo, saúde e educaçáo, pode sonhar com o universo onírico das telenovelas e ter fé de que, através da loteria, da sorte, da igreja que lhe promete prosperidade ou mesmo da contravençáo, haverá de ter acesso aos bens supérfluos.O socialismo cometeu o erro de, ao socializar os bens materiais, privatizar os simbólicos, e confundiu crítica construtiva com contra-revoluçáo; cerceou a autonomia da sociedade civil ao atrelar ao partido os sindicatos e movimentos sociais; coibiu a criatividade artística com o realismo socialista; permitiu que a esfera de poder se transformasse numa casta de privilegiados distantes dos anseios populares; e cedeu ao paradoxo de conquistar grandes avanços na corrida espacial e náo ser capaz de suprir devidamente o mercado varejista de gêneros de primeira necessidade.

Hoje, resta Cuba como exemplo de país socialista. Todos conhecemos os desafios que a Revoluçáo enfrenta às vésperas de seu meio século de existência. Sabemos dos efeitos nefastos do bloqueio imposto pelo governo dos EUA e de como a queda do Muro de Berlim deteriorou a economia da Ilha.

Apesar de todas as dificuldades, nesses 49 anos a Revoluçáo logrou assegurar a 11,2 milhões de habitantes os três direitos básicos: alimentaçáo, saúde e educaçáo. Elevou a auto-estima da cidadania cubana, que táo bem se expressa em suas vitórias nos campos da arte e do esporte, bem como na solidariedade internacional, através de milhares de profissionais cubanos das áreas da saúde e da educaçáo presentes em mais de uma centena de países do mundo, em geral em regiões inóspitas marcadas pela pobreza e a miséria.

O socialismo cubano náo tem o direito de fracassar! Se acontecer, náo será apenas Cuba que, como símbolo, desaparecerá do mapa, como ocorreu à Uniáo Soviética. Será a confirmaçáo da funesta previsáo de Fukuyama, de que „a história acabou“; a esperança – uma virtude teologal para nós, cristáos – findou; a utopia morreu; e o capitalismo venceu, venceu para uns poucos – 20% da populaçáo mundial que usufrui de seus avanços – sobre uma montanha de cadáveres e vítimas.

Nós, amigos da Revoluçáo cubana, náo esperamos de Cuba grandes avanços tecnológicos e científicos, serviços turísticos de primeira linha, medalhas de ouro em disputas desportivas. Esperamos mais do que isso: a açáo solidária de que falava Martí; a felicidade de um povo construída em base a valores éticos e espirituais; o princípio evangélico da partilha dos bens; a criaçáo do homem e da mulher novos, como sonhava o Che, centrados na posse, náo dos bens finitos, e sim dos bens infinitos, como generosidade, desapego, companheirismo, capacidade de fazer coincidir a felicidade pessoal com os sucessos comunitários.

Em resumo, almejamos que, em Cuba, o socialismo seja sempre sinônimo de amor, que significa entrega, compromisso, confiança, altruísmo, dedicaçáo, fidelidade, alegria, felicidade. Pois o nome político do amor náo é outro senáo socialismo.

[Autor de „A mosca azul – reflexões sobre o poder“ (Rocco), entre outros livros]

(Text von Brasiliens katholischer Nachrichtenagentur ADITAL – demnächst in englischer Sprache)