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Peço desculpas aos leitores pelo longo silêncio deste blog devido a complicados problemas com a minha ligação à internet. (Morte a Portugal Telecom!!!)

Hoje volto à questão do famigerado historiador pop AJP Taylor para chamar atenção aos ludibriados para uma nova biografia:
AJP TAYLOR:Radical Historian of Europe by Chris Wrigley,IB Taurus. 2006.
Uma recensão do livro aparece no jornal Guardian online em:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1967582,00.html

Mais uma vez retomo os meus argumentos: Taylor é uma figura desacreditada
entre os historiadores sérios. Todos reconhecem a sua diligència como pesquisador de arquivos mas poucos levam a sério as suas interpretações dos factos e ainda menos as suas predilecções ideológicas (leninistas e pro-soviéticas).

Os portugueses interessados em ler historiadores ingleses sérios só podem ganhar a ler Trevor Roper, Norman Davies ou Nial Ferguson. Taylor serve apenas como ídolo dos "semi-skilled intellectuals" no pub da esquina. Foi nesses ambientes que a sua fama cresceu depois do seus lançamento como tele-historiador.

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VERDADES E INVERDADES SOBRE O AMBIENTE: Leitura obrigatória

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/?id=110009181

O WSJ traz hoje um importante artigo sobre mudanças climáticas e o tratamento tendencioso que lhes é dado pela maioria da imprensa.

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O REFERENDO SOBRE O ABORTO

Um dos maiores problemas na Europa dos nossos dias, tanto humano como económico (portanto social) é o problema demográfico. Lentamente a Europa está a morrer. Enquanto os nascimentos continuam a descer, em vez de promover a natalidade através de incentivos fiscais e apoios sociais, o governo PS e os seus aliados enviam uma clara mensagem á população que desejam a liberalização do aborto. Dizem que esta medida chamada de "despenalização" é destinada a acabar com o flagelo do aborto clandestino. É uma falácia.

O aborto livre foi, durante quase toda a vigência do regime soviético, o método contraceptivo artificial mais preferido e banalizado.

A maneira mais saudável, humana e segura de evitar o aborto clandestino é o apoio à maternidade. O recente debate televisivo foi repleto de confusões, meias verdades e algumas mentiras. Piedosa mentira é essa repetida ad nauseam que nenhuma mulher encara o aborto com indiferença, mas que todas sofrem. Há, sim, muitas mulheres que recorrem ao aborto como método contraceptivo POR ROTINA. São as que têm dinheiro para isso. Muitas são da esquerda e estão simplesmente a seguir os passos traçados pelas suas avós revolucionárias.

O aborto livre desencoraja a contracepção, fornece um péssimo exemplo para as jovens e também para os jovens (desresponsibilizando-os) e assim constitui mais um factor nos riscos da sida. O aborto livre é péssimo para a saúde da mulher e da sociedade. A sua aceitação é sintoma indelível da decadência e do lento suicídio nacional.

DYING TO SUBMIT

Agradecemos a Melanie Phillips pela licença de reprodução deste seu último post.


November 1, 2006
DYING TO SUMIT
Another must-read piece at the Brussels Journal by Paul Belien says that the Dutch have effectively thrown in the towel before the unstoppable Islamisation of their country and progressively all of Europe:
In a recent op-ed piece in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard (23 October) the Dutch (gay and self-declared ‘humanist’) author Oscar Van den Boogaard refers to Broder’s interview. Van den Boogaard says that to him coping with the islamization of Europe is like ‘a process of mourning.’ He is overwhelmed by a ‘feeling of sadness.’ ‘I am not a warrior,’ he says, ‘but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.’
As Tom Bethell wrote in this month’s American Spectator: ‘Just at the most basic level of demography the secular-humanist option is not working.’ But there is more to it than the fact that non-religious people tend not to have as many children as religious people, because many of them prefer to ‘enjoy’ freedom rather than renounce it for the sake of children. Secularists, it seems to me, are also less keen on fighting. Since they do not believe in an afterlife, this life is the only thing they have to lose. Hence they will rather accept submission than fight. Like the German feminist Broder referred to, they prefer to be raped than to resist. ‘If faith collapses, civilization goes with it,’ says Bethell. That is the real cause of the closing of civilization in Europe. Islamization is simply the consequence. The very word Islam means ‘submission’ and the secularists have submitted already. Many Europeans have already become Muslims, though they do not realize it or do not want to admit it.
Some of the people I meet in the U.S. are particularly worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. They are correct when they fear that anti-Semitism is also on the rise among non-immigrant Europeans. The latter hate people with a fighting spirit. Contemporary anti-Semitism in Europe (at least when coming from native Europeans) is related to anti-Americanism. People who are not prepared to resist and are eager to submit, hate others who do not want to submit and are prepared to fight. They hate them because they are afraid that the latter will endanger their lives as well. In their view everyone must submit.
The crucial insight here is that only a strong indigenous faith has the capacity to resist Islamisation. That is why the collapse of Christianity in Britain and Europe and its steady replacement by secularisation is so catastrophic for the defence of the west. The useful idiots who believe that only a secular society can hold off the forces of irrational belief at the heart of the Islamic jihad have got this diametrically the wrong way round. Secularisation produces cultural enfeeblement, because the pursuit of personal happiness trumps absolutely everything else. The here and now is all that matters. Dying for a cause, however noble, becomes an absolute no-no. It’s better to be dhimmi than dead – the view that has now effectively prevailed in Britain and Europe.
The Islamists, whose shrewdness and perspicacity are consistently overlooked by racist European liberals who believe that Arabs and Muslims are too backward to have anything intelligent to say, are absolutely correct in their analysis of Europe as culturally decadent and too weakened by hedonism to fight for their way of life. The same danger looms, incidentally, for Israel, which despite all its vicissitudes, is fast turning into a spoiled, materialistic, consumer society in danger of eroding its Jewish values through precisely the same march of secularism (as Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, recently suggested). This is the single biggest difference between Britain and Europe, on the one hand, and America. Although the US is the high temple of consumerism, it is still a country with a very strong sense of its Christian faith. That fact is key to its robust sense of national identity, confidence and pride; and because it has such a strong sense of itself as a nation, it is prepared to fight to defend itself – the one bit of the analysis that the Islamists got wrong (although there are now deeply disturbing signs that the west’s cultural enfeeblement is beginning to erode American resolve too, at least around the edges).
That is why the cultural cringe of the Church of England before the advance of both secularism and Islamism is such unmitigated disaster, and why the Pope’s recent intervention was so significant. That is why those who sneer at President Bush’s strong Christian faith are cultural lemmings. And that is why I, a British Jew, argue that it is vital that Britain and Europe re-Christianise if they are to have any chance of defending western values.


http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1372

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SALAZAR: MAIS OBSERVAÇÕES LIBERAIS

Alguns comentários provocados pelo recente texto sobre Salazar demonstram que o espírito futebolístico continua a dominar as mentes menos preparadas para debater temas políticos. Entre as características principais do liberalismo clássico são o espirito aberto ao diálogo e a capacidade de distinguir entre louvor e análise.
Imaginemos um inquérito destes em França onde os organizadores começassem por omitir o nome de Napoleão Bonaparte. Depois de ceder aos protestos imaginemos o que sucederia a seguir. Fúriosas acusações de bonapartista, legitimista ou jacobino? Ou será que os franceses, depois de dois séculos, já adquiriram mais maturidade?

Evidentemente, o caso Napoleão não é exactamente parallelo ao de Salazar por muitas razões. Em primeiro lugar o tempo que passou. Talvez a Cristina tenha razão e teremos que esperar dois séculos para discutir Salazar num ambiente mais calmo. Eu não penso assim. Pelo contrário, mais longe estamos da época salazarista mais dificil é entender as condições nacionais e internacionais desses tempos. E nós que vivemos esses anos estamos rapidamente a desaparecer. Os que viveram todo o Estado Novo na idade adulta teriam hoje cem anos. Todavia, ainda existe gente como eu que passou uma grande parte dos anos adultos a viver o salazarismo. Portanto, os jovens (pessoas com menos de sessenta anos!), se estiverem realmente interessados na história de Portugal deviam nos ouvir com alguma atenção.

1º A miséria em Portugal nos anos trinta, quarenta e cinquenta do século passado era realmente atróz. Contudo, era essa a situação por toda a Europa rural salvo nos países nórdicos. Em Portugal começou a abrandar quando a emigração e as guerras coloniais diminuiram drasticamente a mão de obra e, pela primeira vez na história do país, os empresários da cidade e dos campos tiveram sérios incentivos para investir na mecanização. O surto de produtividade nos anos sessenta foi a consequência. Não foi por nenhuma decisão do governo que isto aconteceu, mas pela conjuntura.

2º Nos anos trinta, e mais tarde, o grande obstáculo ao progresso económico era a falta de mercado interno. Salazar ou qualquer outro governante não podia, nas condições da altura, fazer muito para melhorar a situação. Certamente ele fez mais do que fizeram os sábios doutores da República, que levaram o país à bancarrota e uma situação em que nas chancelarias da Europa a palavra portugaisé significava desordem, bagunça e corrupção. Salazar proseguiu uma política económica intensamente proteccionista, totalmente contrária a todos os princípios liberais. Na situação de crise económica mundial, a autarcia praticada por Salazar, protegeu o país de maior parte dos efeitos da Grande Depressão. Havia ordem mas a pobreza pouco melhorou. Bem podiam pregar os raros comunistas. Os soviéticos tinham a solução na colectivização dos campos. O que não explicavam é que o resultado foi a grande fome e a morte de milhões de camponeses russos.

3º Quanto à questão da ameaça nazi sobre a Península. É muito engraçado à volta da mesa do café especular sobre o “might-have-been” da história. Os ingleses também o fazem. (Se os alemães tivessem invadido...?) O que interessa é o que realmente aconteceu e não o que teriam sido as intenções de determinada figura em determinadas circunstâncias. O que de facto aconteceu nos primeiros anos da Segunda Guerra Mundial foi que em Portugal os governantes e as pessoas informadas receiavam, com ou sem razão, uma invasão hitleriana. Os interessados podem consultar o grande livro branco em onze volumes Dez Anos de Política Externa (1930-47) A Nação Portuguesa e a Segunda Guerra Mundial para ler os documentos relevantes e a interessantíssima correspondência entre os nossos governantes, os embaixadores e representantes de Portugal no estrangeiro e governantes de outros países. Também a biografia de Salazar por Franco Nogueira traz muitos elementos valiosos. Independentmente disso eu própria posso testemunhar dos receios da época. O Consul Geral de Portugal em Londres apresentou-se ao Governo inglês oferecendo-se para chefiar um governo português em exílio caso Portugal fosse ocupado. O meu pai que estava no Consulado de Liverpool, despachou-nos, a minha mãe, eu e o meu irmão para os Estados Unidos, preferindo arriscar as nossas vidas na perigosa travessia por barco do Atlântico a enviar-nos para Portugal para escapar aos bombardeamentos. Receava que num Portugal ocupado a minha mãe como britànica e nós nascidos na Inglaterra tivessemos dissabores com o ocupante.

Portanto tentar tirar o mérito da política de neutralidade de Salazar, dizendo post factum que Hitler nunca teve intenções de invadir a península, não tem cabimento. Um homem de estado não pode brincar às adivinhas.

Portugueses da antiga oposição e especialmente os comunistas, cujo ódio visceral a Salazar ultrapassa os limites de racionalidade, parecem incapazes de examinar o fenómeno do Salazarismo com calma. Sobretudo o que impressiona é que foram até hoje incapazes de oferecer uma alternativa credível ao Estado Novo. O PCP era fraco nos anos trinta mas sem a repressão tinha crescido e tido a possibilidade de trazer a guerra civil aquém fronteira. Era isso que Salazar em parceria com Franco evitou. Até as sublevações nas colónias Salazar sempre seguiu uma política de prevenção. Era suposto ser autor da famigerada frase ”um safanão a tempo!” Toda a história do comunismo ensina que a desordem e o desgoverno sempre favorecem os comunistas, o que veio a confirmar-se nos tempos que se seguiram ao 25 de Abril.

É aquí que reside o paradoxo do liberalismo. É basicamente o paradoxo da democracia. Nos dias de hoje é o paradoxo do Iraq e de todos os Estados falhados.
Portugal no 28 de Maio de 1926 era um Estado falhado. Salazar, ditador, conseguiu retirar o país das ruinas. Democracia e liberalismo só florescem na prosperidade.
É por essa razão que os extremistas da esquerda e da direita regozijam com o colapso económico. Hoje a sua amargura e malevolência devem-se ao facto que não foram eles que trouxeram tempos mais prósperos para Portugal.

Causa Liberal

Causa Liberal

SALAZAR: UM OLHAR DESCOMPLEXADO

Discutir Salazar apresenta um desafio para quem se considera um liberal no sentido clássico. Há meio século assim me considero. Quando acordei pela verdade sobre o comunismo, ainda levei algum tempo para começar a entender a natureza complexa do problema português dentro do contexto da Europa do seu tempo. Longe vai o tempo em que colaborei num livro intitulado Oldest Ally: A Portrait of Salazar’s Portugal (1961) traduzido para francês, espanhol e checo. Injusto para com Salazar, foi um sucesso nos meios anti-fascistas, excepto entre os comunistas portugueses, que queriam controlar o conteudo e não conseguiram. Os salazaristas também não gostaram. Durante onze anos fui proibida de entrar em Portugal. Portanto é evidente que não venho de nenhuma linhagem salazarista. Estes apontamentos são fruto de uma reflexão extremamente longa e penosa.

Como se vê pela actual polémica ainda poucos são capazes de abordar a figura de Salazar e o seu regime de um modo objectivo e desapaixonado. Este facto em si é já uma indicação de que Salazar tenha marcado singularmente a história de Portugal. O problema na realidade é outro. Não é se ele marcou, mas como é que marcou. Naturalmente os que se consideram prejudicados pelo regime salazarista e a pós-revolucionária derrota da esquerda têm uma apreciação extremamente negativa, enquanto o outro lado é mais ecléctico e as suas motivações mais variadas, mas muitas vezes igualmente subjectivas.

Praticamente ninguém quer tocar no nó da questão. É demasiado chocante para os bem-pensantes de todos os quadrantes. A direita, em geral, ainda receia o rótulo de “anti-comunista primário”. Todavia a verdade neste caso não é complexa. É bem primária, isto é: simples. Qualquer observador imparcial, despido de preconceitos herdados, é obrigado a reconhecer que tanto Salazar como Franco salvaram não só a Peninsula Ibérica, mas também a Europa do comunismo. Talvez nem um nem outro tivesse total consciência das vastas consequências das suas tomadas de posição, e funcionasse, cada um a favor prioritariamente do que julgava ser o interesse do seu país. Mas a sociedade e a história são assim: tal como no mercado económico, um imenso número de factores, parecendo independentes, se conjugam para trazer consequências que nenhum dos individúos involvidos havia planeado. Quando Salazar alcançou o poder nos fins dos anos 20 o seu primeiro objectivo foi o de pôr fim à desordem nas ruas e nas contas. Era anti-comunista convicto e coerente, mas o inimigo prioritário era a desordem; que esta podia facilitar o avanço do comunismo era incidental. Toda a sua política interna destinava-se a estabelecer e manter a ordem a qualquer custo. Se o custo em muitas áreas foi o não demasiado alto não vem aqui ao caso. Na década dos 30 Salazar manteve Portugal fora do conflito espanhol e paralelamente do eixo italo-germânico. Com imensa destreza e sensibilidade para os interesses nacionais e internacionais conseguiu manobrar numa corda-bamba entre o velho aliado e os dois novos tiranos.

Durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial persistiu nesta política e manteve Portugal fora da guerra ao mesmo tempo convencendo Franco a manter também a neutralidade, enquanto na fronteira dos Pirineus esperavam, ameaçadores, dez divisões panzer prontos a invadir.

Sem a neutralidade dos dois governos ibéricos as forças do Eixo podiam ter ocupado a peninsula fechando o mediterraneo aos aliados. (A presente geração esquece ou nunca reparou que Portugal é dos poucos países do mundo que goza mais de século e meio de paz no seu território. E que passaram quase duzentos anos desde que o solo português conheceu as botas de qualquer soldadesca estrangeira.)

Depois da guerra, quando a nossa oposição anti-salazarista sonhava com a queda do regime, Salazar prosseguiu implacavelmente com a mesma política. America e a Grã Bretanha, pelo desconsolo dos oposicionistas portugueses, apoiaram Salazar, entendo perfeitamente o perigo da URSS, através dos seus agentes locais, extender as suas garras até o Atlântico. O mundo livre pagou um preço, na área da credibilidade democrática, por este apoio aos regimes ibéricos.

Todos conhecem o desfeixo. A URSS desmoronou-se. Para quem tem olhos de ver tanto o socialismo como o marxismo sofreram estrondoso descrédito. Todavia, o comunismo não morreu. Em toda a parte sobrevive como uma miasma venenosa. Hoje, em nome da democracia (que eles nem sabem o que é) os “idiotas úteis” querem eliminar Salazar da história de Portugal enquanto enaltecem Fidel Castro e outros sanguinários ditadores. A História não lhes ensinou nada nem eles querem aprender.

Quanto à política colonial de Salazar esta é sem dúvida criticável. Tal como a dos britânicos na India, na Malásia, no Chipre, no Kenya, na Irlanda. Ou dos holandeses na Indonésia. Ou dos franceses na Indochina e na Argélia. Mas aqui também, na questão colonial, nunca podemos esquecer o factor soviético e a guerra fria. No que diz respeita às colónias portuguesas o que é certo, depois de tanto sangue derramado, é que não fica nada bem aos luminários da esquerda criticar Salazar. Não foi ele o responsável pela descolonização histérica e desastrosa que levou às guerras civis de Angola, Moçambique e Timor, onde morreram muitíssimo mais homens, mulheres e crianças do que alguma vez no tempo de Salazar.

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QUE DIREITOS HUMANOS?
Crescem os poderes do Mega-Estado Europeu
O Tribunal Europeu dos Direitos Humanos em Estrasburgo acaba de apoiar a decisão de um tribunal alemão que proibe os pais de educarem os filhos em casa. O presidente do Congresso Mundial das Famílias Dr Allan Carlson expressou a sua revolta perante a atitude do tribunal.
"'The ban was instituted by the Nazis and it's a device worthy of the Nazis,' disse Carlson, 'The Euro Convention on Human Rights notwithstanding, the court specifically held that parents do not have a right to direct children's education."

A Convenção Europeia reconhece os direitos dos pais de assegurar que a educação e instrução dos filhos seja em conformidade com as suas convicções religiosas e filosóficas.
Parece, no entanto, que o tribunal não reconhece a Convenção.
Ler mais:

www.worldcongress.org

ou
www.profam.org

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Clinton e a Coreia do Norte
By Ben Johnson

Guess who gave North Korea a nuclear reactor, opposed missile defense, and still thinks we can buy off the rogue regime? Mais...
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=24826

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Mais um modernizador muçulmano.
La rue arabe n'existe pas, mais la rue de l'islam, la rue de Dieu, existe.
Uma entrevista de Mohamed Kacimi, escritor argelino, no jornal francês Libération.

Mohamed Kacimi, né en Algérie, pose un regard sans illusions sur le monde arabe et l'islam. Sur ces sociétés «profondément communautaires, tribales» où «la notion d'individu n'existe pas». Où l'intellectuel est constamment écarté, tant la soumission au texte religieux et le mépris de l'esprit y sont grands. Mohamed Kacimi est né en 1955 à El Hamel (Algérie) dans une famille de théologiens. En 1987, il publie son premier roman, le Mouchoir (l'Harmattan). Puis, avec Chantal Dagron, Arabe, vous avez dit arabe ? (Balland). Passionné par la Bible, il écrit, toujours avec Chantal Dagron, un essai sur l'imaginaire religieux, Naissance du désert (Balland) puis le Jour dernier, (Stock). Mohamed Kacimi a écrit aussi pour le théâtre : 1962, évocation des utopies et des rêves de l'enfance algérienne, la Confession d'Abraham (Gallimard, 2000). Pour la Comédie-Française, il conçoit Présences de Kateb et l'adaptation de Nedjma de Kateb Yacine. Dernier ouvrage paru : Terre sainte, (l'Avant Scène, 2006). Il est en outre président de l'association d'auteurs Ecritures vagabondes....mais
http://www.liberation.fr/transversales/weekend/2009081.FR.php

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Uma voz muçulmana

As an American Muslim who grew up loving his religion, I do not feel any happiness, nor do I see anything positive in realizing that the world now fears Muslims. IN FACT, I AM VERY SADDENED AND DEEPLY TROUBLED BY THESE DEVELOPMENTS. I AM VERY ANGRY AT THE RADICALS WITHIN MY FAITH WHO HAVE USED MY RELIGION AS A PLATFOR TO ESPOUSE HATE, PERPERTRATE ACTS OF VIOLENCE AND CREATE FEAR WITHIN THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN WORLD. Mais....

http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24790

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Tapar o rosto ou não tapar?

Desde as declarações do ex-ministro britânico Jack Straw a semana passada, a comunicação inglesa não para de falar do uso do véu pelas mulheres muçulmanas. Em comparação com outros aspectos da cultura muçulmana esta "moda" feminina parece um factor menor. No entanto da pequena faisca deflagrou um incêndio que ameaça alastrar e até a normalmente supina Igreja de Inglaterra acordou de repente

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1347

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1349

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MAIS UMA CONCESSÃO:
OPERA DE MOZART RETIRADA EM BERLIM


In Today's FeuilletonsWednesday 27 September, 2006Much to do about "Idomeneo". The decision by Berlin's Deutsche Oper tostrike the Mozart opera from its programme for fear of violent reprisals from the Islamic community has unleashed a storm of protest in the feuilletons. What has become of Germany's famedstate-subsidised cultural courage? The opera house's decision meets with little understanding and much outrage. Fortuitously coincident with the uproar is a conference on Islam in Germany, which opens today in Berlin.http://www.signandsight.com/intodaysfeuilletons/969.html

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UMA MEGA-MESQUITA EM LONDRES: E SE FOSSE EM LISBOA?

O projecto de construir ao lado do terreno destinado às Olimpiades de 2012
da maior mesquita da Europa com uma capacidade de até 70.000 fieis provoca uma séria reflexão sobre os princípios liberais e a sua aplicação.

1.Até que ponto o liberalismo permite planeamento urbano e ordenamento territorial?
2.Será uma consulta à população uma possível solução? E qual a população a consultar? Local? (No caso em questão parece que a maioria da zona de West Ham é muçulmana.) Londrina? Nacional?
3.Terá a proveniência dos fundos (neste caso Arábia Saudita) alguma pertinência?
4,E se Lisboa tivesse uma população muçulmano mais significativa e esta quizesse seguir o exemplo britânico, qual seria a posição liberal?

Ver “The shadow cast by a mega-mosque” por Philip Johnson
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
e outro artigo sobre o mesmo assunto:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1336

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A RAZÃO DO PAPA BENEDITO XVI

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/736fyrpi.asp?pg=2

Um artigo excelente sobre a recente aula do Papa, Socrates, Kant, Ciência, Razão e a civilização europeia.

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Teórias de conspiração

O debate sobre a natureza das teórias de conspiração tem vindo a renascer ultimamente. É pertinente o que disse Karl Popper na Sociedade Aberta e os seus Inimigos, Vol.II, p.94-95.

“In order to make my point clear, I shall briefly describe a theory which is widely held but which assumes what I consider the very opposite of the true aims of the social sciences; I call it the ‘conspiracy theory of society’. It is the view that an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the men or groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon (sometimes it is a hidden interest which has first to be revealed), and who have planned and conspired to bring it about.

This view of the aims of the social sciences arises, of course, from the mistaken theory that, whatever happens in society—especially happenings such as war, unemployment, poverty, shortages, which people as a rule dislike—is the result of direct design by some powerful individuals and groups. This theory is widely held; it is older even than historicism (which, as shown by its primitive theistic form, is a derivative of the conspiracy theory). In its modern forms it is, like modern historicism, and a certain modern attitude towards ‘natural laws’, a typical result of the secularization of a religious superstition. The belief in the Homeric gods whose conspiracies explain the history of the Trojan War is gone. The gods are abandoned. But their place is filled by powerful men or groups—sinister pressure groups whose wickedness is responsible for all the evils we suffer from—such as the Learned Elders of Zion, or the monopolies, or the capitalists, or the imperialists.

I do not wish to imply that conspiracies never happen. On the contrary, they are typical social phenomena. They become important, for example, whenever people who believe in the conspiracy theory get into power. And people who sincerely believe that they know how to make heaven and earth are most likely to adopt the conspiracy theory, and to get involved in a counter-conspiracy against non-existing conspirators. For the only explanation of their failure to produce their heaven is the evil intention of the Devil, who has a vested interest in hell.

Conspiracies occur, it must be admitted. But the striking fact which, in spite of their occurrence, disproves the conspiracy is that few of these conspiracies are ultimately successful. Conspirators rarely consummate their conspiracy.

Why is this so? Why do achievements differ so widely from aspirations? Because this is usually the case in social life, conspiracy or no conspiracy. Social life is not only a trial of strength between opposing groups: it is action within a more or less resilient of brittle framework of institutions and t traditions, and it creates—apart from any conscious counter-action—many unforeseen reactions in this framework, some of them perhaps unforeseeable.

To try to analyse these reactions and to foresee them as far as possible is, I believe, the main task of the social sciences. It is the task of analysing the unintended social repercussions of intentional human actions—those repercussions whose significance is neglected both by the conspiracy theory and by psychologists, as already indicated. An action which proceeds precisely according to intention does not create a problem for social science (except that there may be a need to explain why in this particular case no unintended repercussions occurred). One of the most primitive economic actions may serve a an example in order to make the idea of unintended consequences of our actions quite clear. If a man wishes to buy a house, we can safely assume that he does not wish to raise the market price of houses. But the very fact that he appears on the market as a house buyer will tend to raise market prices. And analogous remarks hold for the seller. Or to take an example from a very different field, if a man decides to insure his life, he is unlikely to have the intention of encouraging some people to invest their money in insurance shares. But he will do so nevertheless. We see here clearly that not all consequences of our actions are intended consequences; and accordingly, that the conspiracy theory of society cannot be true because it amounts to the assertion that all results, even those which at first sight do not seem to be intended by anybody, are the intended results of the actions of people who are interested in these results.

The examples given do not refute psychologism as easily as they refute the conspiracy theory, for one can argue that it is the sellers’ knowledge of a buyer’s presence in the market, and their hope of getting a higher price—in other words, psychological factors—which explains the repercussions described. This, of course, is quite true; but we must not forget that this knowledge and this hope are not ultimate data of human nature, and they are, in their turn, explicable in terms of the social situation— the market situation.”

PORTOLANI

PORTOLANI

The perils of showmanship
The following article about the opinions of the leading Australian philosopher, the late David Stove, may be of interest to those who are following the renewal of discussion about Darwinism. Others who may be interested in debate about whether Karl Popper was a liberal or a social democrat, a relativist or a realist, may also find the article of interest.

DAVID STOVE AGAINST DARWIN
AND POPPER
There is nothing so absurd or incredible that it has not been asserted by one philosopher or another. (Descartes)


THERE IS ALWAYS something immediately enjoyable about watching, listening to or reading apparently outrageous attacks on received opinion. Reductio ad absurdum is, after all, a time-honoured trick of rhetoric. The attempted dictatorship of 'political correctness' nowadays makes the trick even more liable to work. According to those who listened to the lectures of the Australian philosopher David Stove, he was a virtuoso in the genre. Professor Michael Levin says: 'Reading Stove is like watching Fred Astaire dance. You don't wish you were Fred Astaire, you are just glad to have been around to see him in action'.

There is, however, a problem with ridicule, especially if we ourselves have our own reasons for not liking its victims. It is liable to obscure solid grounds for criticism and play into the camp of the adversary by providing facile, spurious or distorted arguments. This would seem to be the case with some of Stove's writing as exemplified in the two books under review. Not that he isn't worth reading. His provocative style is such as to make many readers stop, think and re-examine their own preconceptions. On the other hand, those unfamiliar with the subject matter, especially among the younger generation, are likely to be seriously misled about some of his targets and to mistake rhetoric for serious argument.. Stove, who died in 1994, was a conservative, an anti-communist and desperately at odds with the fashionable Left-wing views prevalent in the academy. He taught Philosophy at the University of Sydney for many years and according to his friend and literary executor, James Franklin:

“The list of what he attacked was a long one, and included, but was certainly not limited to, Arts Faculties, big books, contraception, Darwinism, the Enlightenment, feminism, Freud, the idea of progress, leftish views of all kinds, Marx,....metaphysics, modern architecture and art, philosophical idealism, Popper, religion, semiotics, Stravinsky and Sweden...Also, anything beginning with ‘soc’ (even Socrates got a serve or two).”

Two of these targets, among others, appear in two recently published books by Stove: Popper and Darwin in Against the Idols of the Age (1998) while Anything Goes, Origins of the Cult of Scientific Irrationalism (Ed. Roger Kimball, 1999) gives Popper pride of place.

Stove against Darwin
In “Darwinian Fairytales”, the third section of the former book, Stove fails to present the most cogent arguments for his case. Now, Stove is not a creationist and seems to accept Darwinian evolutionary theory up to a point. Where he objects is when it comes to mankind and here he brings big guns to bear on the concept of the “survival of the fittest” and “natural selection”. He takes as his premise that the idea of competition for survival in Darwinian theory was inspired by Malthus and is mainly concerned with the getting of food and that this competition is essentially within each species rather than mainly between species. But Darwinism holds that it is the latter kind of competition which is the motor force of species differentiation while it is sexual selection that is the significant factor within a species. Human beings, Stove believes, are not generally subject to competition for survival (despite all the obvious exceptions) or we would not have hospitals, social security arrangements and other examples of altruism and co-operation.
He overlooks entirely that competition for survival in all species is not simply over the getting of food but, perhaps more important, over the avoidance of becoming someone else's food. After all, it is likely that most organisms will give first, or at least equal, priority to avoiding being eaten by others over having a meal themselves. This priority seems evidenced by the fact that hunting, eating, digesting and excreting follow remarkably similar patterns among all species from insects upwards. However, the really enormous differences between species are the stratagems adopted for protection against predators—from butterflies to zebras, from hedgehogs to tortoises. If we follow this line of reasoning then we have little problem in applying the Darwinian idea about struggle for survival to mankind and presenting altruism, hospitals and social security as part of our protective stratagems. We can argue, if we are Darwinians, that physically fragile humanoids developed co-operation and communication skills as their means of protection against predators and the elements..

Stove in fact leaves Darwinism's most vulnerable aspects untouched. These, persuasively criticized by others, include the mystery of consciousness, especially human self-consciousness, and the apparently insuperable problem of how there can be the gradual selective evolution of organs which have survival value only when they are fully developed, the paradigm case being that of the eye. And this is to leave out the truly formidable challenge to Darwinism, whether of the orthodox or neo variety, of recent advances in molecular biology—but perhaps Stove's rather early death excuses him in this latter respect. If we wish to have a go at the weaknesses of Darwinism it would be more useful to look at some of the extensive recent literature on the subject and an accessible overview of some of the main criticisms to be found in, for instance, the work of Raymond Tallis. When we have looked at these we cannot help reaching the conclusion that Stove simply did not understand Darwin well enough to criticize his thought and that others have done this more successfully.

Where Stove's critique of Darwinism does have leverage, however, is when he sets his sights on the much-hyped 'selfish gene', popularized by Dawkins. Here Stove is at his best, mixing wit with a perceptive critique.

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More troubling than the above is the smaller of these two books. Anything Goes: Origins of the Cult of Scientific Irrationalism. It is troubling because irrationalism and relativism in philosophy of science are widespread, influential and deserve dissection and Stove is quite right in his denunciation of some of those responsible. He is also especially interesting in his analysis of 'how irrationalism about science is made credible' which forms Part One of the book. The titles of its two chapters are elucidative:
'1. Neutralizing success words' and
'2. Sabotaging logical expressions'.
As the epistemologist Susan Haack says, Stove's analysis of certain linguistic devices used in sociology of science is genuinely illuminating. So, too, are his criticisms of Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend.

Stove against Popper
Unfortunately, however, these three musketeers are extended by Stove to a gang of four. He sees Karl Popper as their forerunner and the prime originator of scientific irrationalism from whom the succeeding three took their inspiration. By means of caricature and highly selective quotations Stove makes Popper out to be the villain of the piece. This endeavour cannot be left uncriticized, especially because each author of the respective prefaces to these books appears to accept Stove's grossly unfair caricature with little demur.
It is not easy here to produce a rebuttal of the required brevity or to embark on a boringly technical argument for and against Popper's epistemology, but justice does require some attempt to be made. It must first be stated quite unequivocally that certain of Popper's epistemological positions, once widely accepted, have in recent years come under forceful criticism from many quarters. Like so many innovators, Popper did to some extent become a prisoner of his own creation, extrapolating too far and clinging so tenaciously to certain views that they reached the point of dogma. Nevertheless it is one thing to criticize and quite another to misrepresent.

Venerated by many distinguished practising scientists and immensely popular for many decades among the educated general public, Popper never encountered the same acceptance among professional philosophers. Nor did he expect to do so because, apart from their lack of interest in his special sphere which was the philosophy of science, he declared virtual war on what was then the prevailing school, namely philosophical analysis. He stated at the outset that he was interested in the discussion neither of definitions nor of meaning. What interested him passionately was the problem of the growth of knowledge and he was convinced that the key to its solution was to study the growth of scientific knowledge. As he said in the preface to Objective Knowledge: an Evolutionary Approach, “The phenomenon of human knowledge is no doubt the greatest miracle in our universe.”
This study became his life's work, but he was also passionately interested in political philosophy and conclusions he reached in the philosophy of science led him to believe that his ideas in this area were relevant to politics. His best-known work was indeed political and The Open Society and Its Enemies as well as The Poverty of Historicism vaccinated generations of students and intellectuals against the virus of Marxism and totalitarianism. It is indeed ironic that the anti-communist Stove should find Popper so objectionable when there is probably no academic figure in the last half century who has done as much to combat their common enemy. In fact on many matters Stove and Popper were on the same side. Against irrationalism and relativism, against Freud, against philosophical idealism, against scepticism, critical of some aspects of Darwinism, and, much else.

What Stove really loathed and derided in Popper was his stance against inductivism and his denial that it played any part in science. It is this position of Popper's, and what he believed followed from it, that Stove saw as leading to a whole host of other consequences and eventually to the irrationalism in Science studies protagonized by Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend.

Induction (or the procedure of inferring a general law from its instances, acting on our belief that the future will be like the past) received its first great critique from David Hume, and Popper freely acknowledged his debt to the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher. Stove was the author of a book on Hume and therefore familiar with Hume's argument, with which he disagreed.

But Popper made the rejection of inductivism the cornerstone of his entire philosophy, holding that there can be no logical justification for it. Logic, for Popper, is deductive or it is not logic. (At least until late in his career, when he turned towards greater stress on probabilism). From what the unphilosophically-minded might regard as nit-picking, Popper drew immense conclusions. They were shattering, because hitherto, at least from the time of Bacon, induction had been regarded as the hallmark of the scientific method. Scientists, it was thought, corroborate their theories by observation and experiment and having done so expect these to be replicated. This expectation, or generalizing from the known to the unknown, Popper thought was in fact not the method of science. We cannot know the future and in science it is always likely that something will turn up to alter what was previously thought of as an immutable law as happened with the overthrow of Newtonian physics by Einstein's relativity hypothesis.

So, Popper concluded, scientific laws are not immutable but are always hypotheses. All you can have are better or worse theories and the scientist's work is to produce ever-better theories. The only logically and practically acceptable way to do this is to try to falsify your theory by appropriate testing: the method of trial and error. This, Popper says, is what scientists actually do in real life. Scientific method is basically one of testing, making public and criticizing. Failed theories are abandoned and the search begins again, either by trimming or adapting the old theory or formulating a new one. So a good scientific theory should be framed in such a way that it is testable, in other words falsifiable. If this is not the case then the theory is neither a good theory nor even a scientific theory.

Demarcating science
Popper was interested in finding a criterion for demarcating science from non-science and he concluded that such theories as Marxism, Freudianism or astrology do not meet the criteria required of a genuinely scientific theory. They are couched in such broad terms that they are invulnerable to falsification. Whatever happens their proponents regard them as either corroborated or unfalsified. They are theories against which no arguments or criticisms can count.
Whatever the justice of his views on induction, Popper's conception of falsifiability proved a rich field and he mined it for theories in the realm of his other passion: politics and social questions.. Having thrown out positive corroboration as crucial in favour of its negative, namely falsifiability, and having made criticism the essential method for this, he proposed a similar approach in the political and social spheres. The aim of government, of the State, should never be the positive one of trying to make people happy, a quite impossible aim. Happiness is a private matter and conceived of differently by every individual. On the contrary the only feasible objective of government is the negative one of reducing misery. Suffering, starvation, disease and the rest are objective, public and measurable and it is the State's job to try to minimize them because the only justification for the existence of government is the protection of the citizen. To this end freedom to criticize, to discuss and debate solutions are essential. So for Popper democracy means freedom of criticism and institutional arrangements that provide for the removal of unsatisfactory rulers without bloodshed. He deduced from this position the enormous importance of institutions and an institutional tradition, of gradual reform as against revolution, and wrote and lectured widely on these subjects, declaring untiringly that the political systems of Britain, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were the best models so far known.

Popper’s philosophy of science
Now none of this can be unacceptable to a reasonable person, least of all to a conservative. What has stuck in the throat of many people is that Popper makes his anti-inductivism bear too much weight. To deny the possibility of inductive knowledge is to fly in the face of everybody's everyday experience, including that of our dogs, cats and most other sentient beings. If we did not start by assuming regularities and their more or less indefinite replication none of us would survive for a moment. Indeed, we would be unable to learn anything at all. It would seem, in fact, that all of us, including animals, have an innate predisposition to use induction. Popper did not accept this: he thought that what is innate is the predisposition towards using methods of trial and error. However, to object to induction on the grounds that it does not use the rules of entailment of deductive logic, is to extend the criteria of formal systems and mathematics beyond what is appropriate. Deductive logic is one thing, inductive logic is another and their modes of justification are distinct. In science both logics would appear to have their place. Indeed in the areas of logic and epistemology we can find an ever-growing literature in which even deductive logic is questioned and alternative logics proposed.

Popper's great contribution to the philosophy of science was to highlight the importance for good theorizing of the need for clear articulation so that it is immediately, or as immediately as possible, apparent what would be the conditions for falsification. Such procedure is both practically and intellectually economical and nurtures the critical approach and in no way encourages relativism.

Stove will have none of this. In a dizzying dithyramb he inveighs against Popper, not only ignoring his closely woven arguments, but accusing him of such crimes as denying the accumulation of scientific knowledge, of irrationalism and of self-contradiction. The aim of science in Popper's view, Stove alleges, is not to seek truth but to find untruth. Popper's insistence on the provisional nature of scientific theories, on what he calls 'conjectural knowledge' is regarded by Stove as irrational in the extreme. Popper, in effect, denies the accumulation of scientific knowledge because, if it is all provisional, then it cannot be knowledge. Knowledge, for Stove, always means knowledge of the truth, and truth cannot bear the adjective 'conjectural' (as though truth were absolute). He implies that to talk about 'conjectural truth' is rather like talking about somebody being 'a little bit pregnant'. So the concept of 'conjectural knowledge' is a nonsense, a contradiction in terms and meaningless, and leads to the denial of objective truth found in the relativists. Stove makes much of this with his usual darting wit. But his objections are unconvincing. Without entering into the sorely disputed question (among philosophers) of what constitutes truth it seems no more unreasonable to talk of 'conjectural knowledge' than to talk of 'partial knowledge', which everybody does without batting an eyelid. All Popper means by 'conjectural knowledge', is 'the knowledge we have so far on the basis of our unfalsified theories', that is, those theories which when tested are found to have verisimilitude with empirical facts. This is something we hear every day when we are told about 'the present state of knowledge'. So the proposition that absolute truth is unattainable does not entail relativism and, indeed, seems undeniable to most people.

That Popper believed fiercely in objective truth (in its non-absolute sense) is evidenced from his constant stress that the job of the scientist is the quest for truth. He also thought that this was an unending quest, for our ignorance is infinite before the infinity of what is to be known and the finite nature of our knowledge. This is not the place to examine Popper's somewhat bizarre theory of 'epistemology without a knowing subject', what he called World Three, that mysterious sphere in which are stored books and all man's artefacts, but any serious study of this shows just how much Popper believed in the objectivity of knowledge.

So, because of his misreading, Stove sees Popper as the ultimate progenitor of the real irrationalists including the unspeakable Feyerabend whose relativism led him quite openly to declare that schoolchildren should be taught astrology and myth as equally valid explanations of the world along with science. Popper's frequent and extended criticism of these attitudes is regarded by Stove as mere quarrelling between inmates of the same stable. He totally ignores the historical fact that the actual forerunners of relativism in philosophy of science were the sociologists of knowledge going back to Mannheim, examined and combatted by Popper himself in many writings. Today, of course, relativism in science studies, rather than coming mainly from Stove's three musketeers has sadly been given a new boost by philosophers of cognitive science in conjunction with artificial intelligence theory such as Stitch, the Churchlands and their disciples.

Those who wish to have a more informed and balanced view of Popper's ideas would do well to read Anthony O'Hear or Susan Haack. The latter should be of especial interest also to adversaries of all forms of relativism, gender feminism and the corruption of the academy.

For anyone acquainted with what Popper actually wrote, Stove's wholesale condemnation, can only be regarded as dogmatic and unjust. This is serious because in the present academic atmosphere of relativism, irrationalism and sub-marxism, there could be no better antidote for today's students than to read what Popper has to say about these matters.

Reading Stove's opinions about him will do little to encourage them in this direction. The trouble is, as indicated at the beginning of these comments, that Stove's style is frequently so engaging and humorous that many readers will be taken in.
Patricia Lanca

(First published in The Salisbury Review, Summer 2001 under the title: “The Perils of Showmanship”.)

Causa Liberal

Causa Liberal

WHEN THE POT CALLS THE KETTLE BLACK: A response from the kettle

Como a metodologia de debate público tem muito a ver com comportamentos e princípios liberais eu estou convencida, ao contrário de CN, que é precisamente este blog um dos lugares mais aprópriados onde discutir este assunto..

Desde das minhas primeiras participações neste maravilhoso mundo do Blog, decidi não ceder às provocações de determinado tipo de comentárista. Não aceito debates que principiam com insinuações, argumentos ad hominem, falácias genéticas, a falácia do homem de palha e outros truques de má fé. Digo má fé porque, naturalmente, não posso neste caso atribuí-los à ignorância. Quando CN screveu o seu primeiro comentário sobre palavras minhas entrou logo a matar (e sem me conhecer de parte nenhuma) com o seu habitual sarcasmo e a presunçao (falsa) que eu tieria determinadas posições que ele confessadamente detesta. Apesar do meu silêncio persistiu no mesmo estilo. E assim continua até hoje alegando ou insinuando que eu apoio os chamados neo-conservadores, que Churchill e Thatcher são os meus herois e por aí adiante. Os “neo-conservadores” parecem ser uma verdadeira obsessão de CN. Saberá ele que a própria expressão é, de facto, uma invenção da esquerda e um dos epítetos favoritos dessa gente? Aliás outras obsessões são Churchill, Thatcher e o “erro” de classificar os terroristas islâmicos como islamo-fascistas. Estas também, tal como o ódio a Bush, são mesmo obsessões da esquerda. Não estou a insinuar nada. Estou a afirmar, sem receio de contradição, que grande parte das atitudes políticas de CN não são atitudes de um liberal, mas sim atitudes típicas da Extrema Esquerda. Sei do que falo: catortorze anos de miliância comunista ensinou-me alguma coisa.Falo, evidentemente, das atitudes políticas e não das económicas. Assim entende-se as simpatias de CN por AJP Taylor.

Resolvi a semana passada quebrar o meu silêncio e escrever sobre o Taylor por julgar necessário explicar aos portugueses (tantas vezes ludibriados pelo brilho falso da imprensa estrangeira) quem foi essa figura que eu conheci de nome e reputação quase toda a minha vida adulta. Agradeço ao CN por ter pegado no assunto. Talvez agora, devido também aos extractos da Wikipedia (seleccionados por ele) ao menos algumas pessoas irão ler o artigo completo da Wiki. E agora algumas palavras que julgo pertinentes sobre metodologia.

1º McCarthyismo. Embora entendido como insulto, eu pessoalmente não o considero como tal. O senador americano tinha modos desagradáveis, mas o facto é que a grande maioria das pessoas chamadas a testemunhar perante a sua comissão eram, sim, comunistas. Este facto é agora reconhecido por todos menos a esquerda. Até chegei a conhecer pessoalmente alguns deles. É evidente que para um liberal a própria ideia de uma comissão de inquérito sobre as opiniões políticas das pessoas é repugnante. Todavia temos que recordar a época: o começo da Guerra Fria e o desmascaramento dos espiões atómicos soviéticos. Tal como hoje com o problema actual do terrorismo. temos que nos lembrar que o primeiro dever do Estado é o de proteger os cidadãos. Há males menores. Coisa que alguns libertários e todos os pacifistas esquecem.
2. Falácias de raciocínio. Talvez não seja relevante referir as suas posiçóes políticas para avaliar as competências de um biólogo, um médico ou outro perito em ciências naturais. No caso de um especialista em História Política é certamente relevante conhecer as suas posições políticas. Quando estudo a história social e política é para mim importante saber que tanto Eric Hiobsbawm quanto Christopher Hill foram membros activos do PC britânico. Como é para mim relevante que Taylor até o fim da vida simpatizou com a URSS e considerou Lenine o seu principal heroi. Aliás as atitudes de Taylor referidas no meu artigo não são da sua vida particular. Pelo contrário, foram posições públicas, posições que ele nunca escondeu e que sempre invocou, até o ponto de alguns suspeitarem que ele assim fez com o intúito de aumentar a sua notoriedade e, por conseguinte, os seus rendimentos como publicista. Se eu tivesse repetido essas suspeitas sem mais nem menos, entáo aí sim, estaria a fzer um processo de intenções e usar de um argumento ad hominem. Agora estou a repeti-los não por assim pensar, mas para exemplificar o que seria realmente um argumento ad hominem.

Assim, (atenção também LAS) eu não estava a praticar nem o McCarthyismo, nem utilizar argumentos ad hominem quando chamei atenção para as posições políticas de Taylor, relevantes repito, para qualquer avaliação das suas interpretaçóes históricas.

Finalmente, acho importante em qualquer discussão política conhecer as fontes de informação dos nossos interlocutores. Se eu fosse convidada a discutir, por exemplo, os argumento económicos contra o socialismo acharia relevante que soubesse à partida que o meu interlocutor apoiava as ideias expressas em Das Kapital. Assim daria o relevo apropriado a determinados pontos. Até aí tudo bem. Se soubesse que o interlocutor também costumava usar os conhecidos truques de retórica em vez de argumentos substantivos então nesse caso recusava a minha participação.

Assim aconteceu com o caso de CN. Tenho idade, experiência e leitura suficientes para reconhecer as fontes dos seus argumentos. Também idade e experiência suficientes para não querer gastar tempo com refutações e contra-refutações fúteis. Por princípio não costumo usar a arma da insinuação nem de argumentar a respeito de milhentas citações de autores que todos podemos facilmente consultar.

Por isso acho que, tal como no caso de AJP Taylor, seria proveitoso para o esclarecimento de todos, referir outras fontes do pensamento político de CN, tais como Patrick Buchanan, Lew Rockwell, Hans Herman Hoppe, Justin Raimundo e outros heterodoxos da “Far Right” americana que andam a enganar alguns liberais. Razão: a estranha coincidência do pensamento dessas figuras (e aparentemente de CN) tanto com o pensamento da extrema esquerda como o da exrema direita. Certos sectores do palaeo-conservadorismo americano constituem realmente, como diz Tom Palmer do Cato Institute, um “fever swamp”, um pàntano febril, para os europeus ingénuos que nunca sonharam com a existência de tais fantasistas.


Para a elucidação de CN e ajudá-lo a evitar mais um desparate, só um último reparo.. Sugerir que Taylor não podia ser germanófobo porque se dedicou ao estudo dos seus queridos Habsburgos indica desconhecimento dos usos académicos no mundo anglófono. Os britânicos cultos sempre fizeram uma rigorosa distinção entre germânicos e austríacos, tal como a fazem os austriacos eles próprios. Toda a gente no Reino Unido sabe que nem todos que falam alemão são alemães: alguns são suiços, outros austriacos. È como tentar provar que alguém não podia detestar os brasileiros porque gosta dos portugueses. Igualmente para os ingleses e os americanos. Aliás, Taylor fez toda uma teorização sobre o assunto e a natureza inerentemente bélica das antigas tribos alemãs, atitude que lhe custou muitas amizades na universidade.

Não pensem os meus críticos que é agora que vou ceder às provocações e entrar numa discussão sobre os desméritos intelectuais dos habitantes do tal pântano. Não tenho nem tempo nem disposição para isso. O que irei fazer, dentro em breve, é indicar alguns locais na Internet de fácil acesso. Assim poderão os interessados tirar as suas próprias conclusões e revelá-las nestas colunas.

PORTOLANI

PORTOLANI
A.J.P. TAYLOR: UM HISTORIADOR POUCO RECOMENDÁVEL

Em recentes posts na Causa Liberal, e também em Wars 4 Status Quo, Carlos Novais tem referido o nome de A.J.P.Taylor como um “conceituado historiador” e por conseguinte, entende-se, autoridade credenciada relativa a algumas posições controversas. Na realidade Taylor, por causa da sua dedicação às pesquisas nos arquivos oficiais goza de alguma respeitabilidade académica unicamente enquanto especialista em documentos diplomáticos. Como historiador não se interessava senão pelo que vem escrito nos documentos. A opinião generalizada é que o seu volume na Oxford History of England 1914-45 foi um tour de force nesse domínio. “He revelled in the unforeseen connection…and in certain paradoxes”. But “ideas, intellectual movements, were of no importance. For him (as for Hobsbawm) high art was an irrelevance because it had ceased to be popular. He declared that Charlie Chaplin, not Virginia Woolf, was the most important artist of the first half of the century. Nor did he mention the triumphs of the scientists and technologists.” (Noel Annan no seu livro Our Age).

De facto Taylor era o protótipo do professor inglês excêntrico que se deliciava em chocar os colegas e também o público. Oxford nunca lhe concedeu a cadeira que ele cobiçava. Continuou a leccionar, adorado pelos alunos, mas na última parte da sua vida dedicou mais energias à vida de publicista na imprensa e na rádio onde as suas posições populistas tornaram-no bem conhecido de um vasto público.
Foi sempre um dedicado esquerdista. Os pais foram ambos comunistas activos e a mãe trabalhou na Internacional Comunista. Ele próprio passou dois anos da juventude no Partido Comunista e nunca explicou o que motivou a sua desistência da militância activa. Todavia continuou até o fim da vida no seu apoio indefectível à URSS e insistia sempre que o seu grande heroi era Lenine.

As suas análises idiosincráticas da política internacional foram sempre influenciadas pela sua germanofobia. Tão intenso era o seu ódio aos alemães que tomou parte activa na campanha a favor da expulsão da minória alemá (dois milhões de seres) da Sudetenland (Checoslovákia).

A campanha teve êxito e os sudetas foram deportados das suas terras ancestrais numa limpeza étnica que logo manchou a Checoslovákia mesmo antes da descida da cortina de ferro.

Durante os anos ‘30 a política de Taylor era de zigue-zague, mas sempre a favor da URSS. Depois da Segunda Guerra o seu revisionismo foi precursor do de David Irving e outros quem mais tarde negavam o holocausto embora Taylor não foi tão longe. O seu ódio aos alemães não o impedia de considerar Hitler um estadista cujo principal defeito era falta de previsão. Durante a Guerra Fria, Taylor foi um fervoroso anti-americano, apelando para o desarmamento nuclear e, mais tarde, condenando a política estrangeira de Reagan.

A postura que lhe granjeou uma notoriedade duradoira foi a sua atitude quanto a um membro proeminente da rede de espiões pró-soviéticos dirigida por Kim Philby. Tratava-se de Sir Anthony Blunt, um especialistaa em História de Arte e “Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures” Quando este foi desmascarado, desapossado das suas multiplas honras e obrigado a demitir-se da British Academy, Taylor demitiu-se voluntariamente por solidariedade com o amigo dos soviéticos.

A postura de Taylor como campião de causas impopulares encontra-se amplamente documentada na Wikipedia onde os cibernautas podem facilmente confirmar que Alan Percivale Taylor realmente não merece menção como autoridade séria sobre a história política contemporânea.

Activistas pela paz

Activistas pela paz ajudam terroristas

Como jovens esquerdistas são recrutados para combater contra
Israel. Ver:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24377

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ALGUMAS CAUSAS DA DEGRADAÇÃO EM ÁFRICA

Eis uma análise de Roger Sandall do fracasso económico de alguns paísesafricanos duas gerações depois da independência: Dereliction express: Care and maintenance in Africa and beyond... Uma lição de economia aplicada.

INGLATERRA: PAÍS CRISTÃO?

A Inglaterra estará a deixar de ser um país cristão?É do conhecimento geral que o Reino Unido não é um país laico. No entanto parece que está em vias de tornar uma terra de perseguição religiosa---isto é, um país onde se persegue o cristianismo!How Britain is turning Christianity into a crimeDaily Mail, 7 September 2006How long will it be before Christianity becomes illegal in Britain? This is no longer the utterly absurd and offensive question that on first blush it would appear to be.An evangelical Christian campaigner, Stephen Green, was arrested and charged last weekend with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour.... ver este artigo de Melanie Phillips no Daily Mail de 7 Setembro.

Assimetrias

Crónica de Nenhures

Eis um excelente exemplo da assimentria com que a imprensa trata de assuntos sérios. Guernica é icone internacional da Guerra Civil de Espanha ilustrado pela pintura de Picasso.
O massacre de Katyn ignorado ou negado durante longos anos ainda merece o siléncio da esquerda. Foi muito inconveniente a admissão tardia dos russos. Ver mais no apontamento ilustrado em A Voz Portalegrense

FRUTOS DE BROWSING

Uma Voz Essencial

Ao passear pela blogoesfera encontrei hoje por puro acaso o site www.avozportalegrense.blogspot.com.
Bonito, muitas imagens e documentos com imenso interesse sobre um passado recente português. Pode-se ou não simpatizar com alguns dos autores focados, o que é certo é que o site é tudo menos politicamente correcto. Pode ser o que alguns chamam saudosista. Infelizmente muita gente não tem a mínima ideia da produção intelectual que havia durante a vigência do antigo regime, isto é, ignora uma grande parte da história do século vinte português. As diversas oposições ao salazarismo encarregaram-se de re-escrever a história, ou por vezes até mudá-la ou distorçá-la.

Felizmente os tempos são outros e o mundo do blog abriu novas e excitantes espectativas. Este site preenche muitas lacunas.

Um pequeno exemplo pessoal: sõ agora é que descobri no site da Voz Portalegrense do dia 23 de Julho deste ano, não só uma referência mas também a imagém da capa do meu livro sobre os últimos meses de Humberto Delgado . A falta de publicitação e as falhas na distribuição, quando apareceu em 1998, de Misérias do Exílio constituem uma história exemplar de como as esquerdas hoje fazem a sua censura.
Aconteceu também com o meu O Bando de Argel, embora este não foi totalmente silenciado. Nos primeiros anos após o 25 de Abril, apesar de toda a repressão que então havia, a imprensa era menos monolítica e havia alguma possibilidade de debate.

Com certeza o facto de As Misérias do Exílio ser mencionado na Voz Portalegrense e de eu louvar este site irão me valer (mais uma vez) do epíteto de salazarista. Não o mereço. Quem não acredita pode ir ao Google e inserir o nome de Patrícia McGowan Pinheiro. Ficará surpreendido ao encontrar Oldest Ally: A Portrait of Salazar's Portugal, publicado em Londres em 1961. O livro não ganhou as simpatias do regime: durante onze anos foi-me proibida a entrada em Portugal.

Hei de voltar a este tema das censuras contemporâneas noutra ocasião.

Entretanto os meus parabens para A Voz Portalegrense e Bem Haja!

Patricia Lança

PRESENTATION

PRESENTATION

Portolani, known also as portolans, were early maps used by seafarers to find their way round the coasts of the Mediterranean. As they were produced by draftsmen on dry land from the accounts furnished by medieval sailors they were not very accurate, but they were better than nothing and gave mariners some idea of the dangers to avoid. This site aims to chart some of the dangers facing modern navigators who must cope with even rockier costs.
~º~º~º~

Projecto de reconquista

Projecto da reconquista de Al Andaluz

Já há muito o plano foi anunciado.

Mais........
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=24141

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The following post is by courtesy of Melanie Phillips
www.melaniephillips.com omitted due to some technical glitch

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August 31, 2006
The war against Israel (5)

An interesting take on the Lebanon war from an IDF captain:

This was perhaps both the most cynical and barbaric disregard for innocent civilian lives of all of Hezballah’s and Iran’s strategic choices. It was also the most successful. It was predicated not on its knowledge of its enemy (Israel) but its true genius lay in its knowledge of the press. The calculus was simple: launch a rocket from within a civilian population; if you kill Jews that’s a victory. If the Jews hit back and in so doing kill Lebanese civilians, that’s a victory. If they don’t hit back because they’re afraid to hit civilians, that’s a victory. Now repeat the process until you kill so many Jews they have to hit back and in so doing kill more Lebanese civilians. That’s the ultimate victory, because they know that in striking just those chords exactly what music the press will play. The awful truth, which the Western Press was manipulated to ignore or downplay, was that Iran, through its terrorist operational arm Hezballah, had invaded Lebanon from within. Hezballah did not protect Lebanon, they occupied it and they used those Hezballah occupied territories to launch Iran’s offensive in response to the West’s ultimatum to cease development of nuclear weapons.
From a military perspective there can be absolutely no doubt as to the results of Hezballah and Iran’s offensive against Israel. It was a defeat. Every part of their war plan except the manipulation of the media failed. Hezballah expected and planned for a massive charge of Israeli armor into Southern Lebanon. The amounts and type of anti-tank weapons they acquired and had operationally deployed in their forward positions as well as their secondary and tertiary bands of fortresses and strongholds through Southern Lebanon attest to this fact. They intended to do in mountainous terrain what Egypt had so effectively done in the Sinai desert in the Yom Kippur war. In that war, Sinai indeed became a graveyard for Israeli armor. Hundreds of tanks were destroyed. Whole brigades were decimated in single battles by the Egyptians’ highly effective anti-tank missile ambushes. In that war almost three thousand Israeli soldiers were killed. That was Hezballah’s plan. It was a good one. And it failed.
Far from the prevailing impression in the media, the IDF was not “badly bloodied” nor “fought to a stand still,” much less “handed a defeat.” Just prior to the cease fire, Israel suffered twenty nine tanks hit. Of those, twenty five were back in service within twenty four hours. Israel suffered one hundred and seventeen soldiers killed in four weeks of combat. As painful as those individual losses were to their families and to the Israeli collective psyche which views all its soldiers as their biological sons and daughters, those numbers in fact represent the fewest casualties suffered by Israel in any of its major conflicts. In 1948, Israel suffered six thousand killed. In 1967, in what was regarded as its most decisive victory, Israel lost almost seven hundred killed in six days. In 1973, Israel lost two thousand seven hundred killed and in the first week of the first war in Lebanon, Israel suffered one hundred seventy six soldiers killed.
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O FEMINISMO RADICAL E OS SEUS DISCONTENTES
Novo artigo no site da Causa Liberal:"A Gender-Neutral Society?"Por Patrícia Lança

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Why Do Muslims Execute Innocent People?Islamist Ideology
by Denis MacEoinMiddle East QuarterlyFall 2006
www.meforum.org/article/1000

Artigo recomendado aos investigadores sérios.

As Mentiras das média sobre Israel

As Mentiras das média sobre Israel,
por Melanie Phillips
melaniephillips.com
August 30, 2006

The media war against IsraelEarly in the recent Lebanon war, the blogosphere revealed the fabrication of images by Reuters, whose reputation is now in shreds among those dwindling numbers in the western mainstream media who still acknowledge there is such a thing as the truth. Since then, the nature and scale of the various frauds perpetrated by the media during that war put those doctored Reuters pictures into the shade. The western media are no longer merely producing questionable professional practices in reporting a war. They are now active participants in it — and on the wrong side of history.One of the very few politicians to voice concern at this phenomenon is Australia’s foreign minister Alexander Downer, who said:What concerns me greatly is the evidence of dishonesty in the reporting out of Lebanon. For example, a Reuters photographer was forced to resign after doctoring images to exaggerate the impact of Israeli air attacks. There were the widely-reported claims that Israel had bombed deliberately a Red Cross ambulance.In subsequent weeks, the world has discovered those allegations do not stand up to even the most rudimentary scrutiny. After closer study of the images of the damage to the ambulance, it is beyond serious dispute that this episode has all the makings of a hoax. Yet some of the world’s most prestigious media outlets, including some of those represented here today, ran that story as fact - unchallenged, unquestioned. Similarly, there has been the tendency to report every casualty on the Lebanese side of the conflict as if a civilian casualty, when it was indisputable that a great many of those injured or killed in Israeli offensives were armed Hezbollah combatants.My point is this: in a grown-up society such as our own, the media cannot expect to get away with parading falsehoods as truths, or ignoring salient facts because they happen to be inconvenient to the line of argument - or narrative - that particular journalists, or media organisations, might choose to adopt on any given controversy or issue.Can anyone imagine the British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, saying this? Of course not. The level of anti-Israel, anti-American madness has reached such a pitch in Britain that any similar expression of alarm at the manifestly blatant mendacity in the reporting of the Middle East has simply become unthinkable. Yet thanks to the efforts of the blogosphere — notably Little Green Footballs, Powerline, Zombietime and EU Referendum, we can see that the behaviour of the western media during the Iranian/Syrian/Hezbollah war against Israel has constituted a major, world-wide scandal, and one which has the capacity to derail the efforts of the west to defend itself.The major incidents of apparent media fraud are these.* The claim that Israeli aircraft intentionally fired missiles at and struck two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances performing rescue operations, causing huge explosions that injured everyone inside the vehicles. This claim, which gave such incendiary traction to the lie that Israel deliberately targeted civilians, was repeated by ITV News, Time Magazine, the Guardian, Boston Globe, The Age, NBC News, the New York Times and thousands of outlets around the world.Zombietime, however, convincingly exposed this claim as a fraud. It is worth reading its analysis in full in order properly to grasp both the enormity of the libel and the way it was not only uncritically accepted but gleefully embellished by respected media outlets, whose journalists either didn’t know or care that they were transmitting an outright fabrication. Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the kind of missiles used by the Israeli air force would grasp immediately that the hole in the roof of the ambulance whose picture went round the world could not have been caused by such a missile. If a missile had indeed hit it there would have been no roof remaining to inspect; nor would there have remained an ambulance. Yet the rest of the ambulance in the pictures, although damaged, was pretty well intact — and the allegedly seriously injured ambulance driver not only was pictured with minor injuries, but even these had miraculously disappeared without trace in pictures taken a few days later.In short, the whole claim was patently risible. As Zombietime revealed, the hole was almost certainly made by an air vent in the roof. It was part of the ambulance. There was no attack on the ambulance. The whole claim was a lie, a hoax, a fraud. Yet this lie has gone round the world, been ‘shown’ on TV, been embellished by familiar trusted commentators and thus has attained the status of unchallengeable truth. But it is a lie.Now the Red Cross has rebuked Australian Foreign Minister Downer for relying on an ‘unverified’ blog for his claim. As Little Green Footballs observes, this was the same Red Cross that — as LGF previously reported — had quietly removed from its website the high-resolution image of the ambulance that had allegedly been struck, once the bloggers started using those vanishing journalistic attributes such as eyesight and brain activity to state the overwhelmingly obvious. For if these pictures were indeed a lie, then the Red Cross itself is squarely in the frame for disseminating it.* The claim that Israel fired a missile which hit a Reuters vehicle and wounded two cameramen. One was a Reuters employee, Fadel Shana; the other, Sabbah Hmaida, was described by Reuters as working for a ‘local news website’; although as Little Green Footballs noted, he was also reported variously as working for1) a local news web site, 2) an Arabic network, 3) Palestinian Media Group, and 4) Dubai TV— and now Caroline Glick has revealed in the Jerusalem Post that he was actually working for none other than Iran.But as Powerline has reported here, here, and here, pictures of this Reuters vehicle suggest that it was not hit by anything remotely resembling a missile. There was a modest and rusty gash in the roof and a windscreen that was shattered (although even that is in doubt in another picture). That was it. As with the Red Cross claim, the notion that such damage was consistent with a missile strike is simply ludicrous.* The claim that the Israelis deliberately perpetrated a massacre of civilians at Kana. Apart from the fact that the initial claimed casualty rate here was subsequently all but halved by the Red Cross (to 28), there is significant evidence that many of the most harrowing pictures of the victims, which did so much to turn public opinion against Israel in this war, were staged. EU Referendum has now assembled a compendium of its considerable investigative efforts over three weeks entitled The Corruption of the Media, which it has submitted to the Press Complaints Commission. Again, the whole thing repays study. In summary, it says:…many of the incidents recorded in visual form by the media were indeed staged. In fact, we feel we can go further. In our view, the bulk of the relief effort at Khuraybah on 30 July was turned into a perverted propaganda exercise. The site, in effect, became one vast, grotesque film-set on which a macabre drama was played out to a willing and complicit media, which actively co-operated in the production and exploited the results.EU referendum concludes:…what we do see from Qana is the sheer scale of the staging - not the occasional picture of the many. The majority seems to have been either posed or staged, or both. Given the large AP team present, this suggests that we are looking at more than just a rogue photographer - the malpractice seems institutionalised as normal practice.And even more devastatingly:In defence of the media, if it can be considered thus, one can only postulate that staging scenes such as these is so common a practice, and so deeply embedded in the whole fabric of photo-journalism (and not just locally in the Middle East), that no one at the incident saw anything wrong with what transpired. Either that or, so familiar were they with the techniques used that they simply did not register what was happening. As for the others, in their air-conditioned offices, hundreds and thousands of miles away from the action, did they care one way or the other? After all, Shane Richmond of The Daily Telegraph implied, the greater truth was being served. ‘Is the child dead?’, he asked. ‘Was the child killed by Israeli bombs?’ Thus, did he say: ‘If so, the picture illustrates the story. If the picture does not alter the truth of the story, we’re not being disingenuous. And the truth of the story is this: Israeli bombs killed several civilians in Qana, many of whom were children.’ That is the nearest to an admission we have that it is acceptable to stage photographs.In short, much of the most incendiary media coverage of this war seems to have been either staged or fabricated. The big question is why the western media would perpetrate such institutionalised mendacity. Many ancillary reasons come to mind. There is the reliance upon corrupted news and picture agencies which employ Arab propagandists as stringers and cameramen. There is the herd mentality of the media which decides collectively what the story is. There is the journalists’ fear for their personal safety if they report the truth about terrorist outfits. There is the difficulty of discovering the truth from undemocratic regimes and terrorist organisations. There is the language barrier; there is professional laziness; there is the naïve inability to acknowledge the depths of human evil and depravity; there is the moral inversion of the left which believes that western truth-tellers automatically tell lies, while third world liars automatically tell the truth.But the big answer is that the western media transmit the lies of Hezbollah because they want to believe them. And that’s because the Big Lie these media tell — and have themselves been told — about Israel and its place in history and in the world today has achieved the status of unchallengeable truth. The plain fact is that western journalists were sent to cover the war being waged against Israel from Lebanon as a war being waged by Israel against Lebanon. And that’s because that’s how editors think of the Middle East: that the whole ghastly mess is driven by Israel’s actions, and that therefore it is only Israel’s aggression which is the story to be covered. Thus history is inverted, half a century of Jewish victimisation is erased from public consciousness, victims are turned into aggressors and genocidal mass murderers turned into victims, and ignorance and prejudice stalk England’s once staunch and stalwart land.That’s why the fact that hundreds of thousands of refugees from the north of Israel fled to the shelter of strangers in the south; that within one third of Israel, those too poor or old or handicapped or disadvantaged to seek refuge elsewhere were forced to live in shelters for a month in great hardship; that the entire economy of northern Israel was effectively shut down for a month; that thousands of rockets were fired at northern Israel, hundreds every day, many times more than were daily fired at Britain during the Blitz — that’s why none of this was reported in Britain (where as a result such facts, when now related, are received with open-mouthed astonishment) because journalists were told to ignore it all since that wasn’t the story their editors wanted. Israel’s victimisation simply was not, could not, be the story. The only story was Israel’s aggression. But that story is a Big Lie. So a host of lies were transmitted to support it.Certain conclusions are now inescapable. First, hatred of Israel and the irrationality associated with that hatred have now reached unprecedented proportions within Britain and the west. Second, with a few honourable exceptions the mainstream media are no longer to be believed in anything they transmit, either in words or pictures, about the Middle East. It is only the blogosphere which is now performing the most elementary disciplines of journalism: to aspire to objectivity, to separate facts from prejudices, to apply basic checks to claims being made by partisans to a conflict, and to be particularly wary of those with a proven track record of lying. Third, the mainstream media must now be regarded as active accessories to the war being waged against the free world and therefore as a fifth column in that world – an enemy within. Fourth, the impact of the lies and distortions transmitted by the mainstream media in inflaming the already pathological hatred of the west within the Arab and Muslim world is incalculable. Fifth, the mainstream media’s vilification, demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel, based on outright fabrications and malevolent distortions, is imperilling the very existence of the country that is the front line of defence of the free world. Sixth, that vilification is also imperilling the safety and well-being of Jewish communities around the world, subject now to the double victimisation of attack by Islamists and attack by non-Muslims for belonging to a Jewish people that refuses to submit passively to a second attempt at genocidal slaughter and instead fights to defend itself.To date, as far as I can determine, not one mainstream editor or proprietor has acknowledged this corruption of the western media. The scale of this corruption now threatens to have a lethal impact on the course of human history. Hatred now drives not just the jihadists but their western dupes, too. Truth and freedom are indivisible. The deconstruction of the former inevitably presages the destruction of the latter. This is the way a civilisation dies.

Salman Rushdie on terrorists

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SALMAN RUSHDIE ON TERRORISTS
Germany - Der SpiegelSalman Rushdie on the different types of terrorism In an interview with Erich Follath, Salman Rushdie discusses what makes people turn to terrorism. According to Rushdie, social discrimination is not a major motivation. "Lenin once described terrorism as bourgeois adventurism. I think there, for once, he got things right: That's exactly it. One must not negate the basic tenet of all morality - that individuals are themselves responsible for their actions. And the triggers seem to be individual too. Upbringing certainly plays a major role there, imparting a misconceived sense of mission which pushes people towards 'actions'. Added to that there is a herd mentality once you have become integrated in a group and everyone continues to drive everyone else on into a forced situation. There's the type of person who believes his action will make mankind listen to him and turn him into a historic figure. Then there's the type who simply feels attracted to violence. And yes, I think glamour plays a role too." (28/08/2006) » to the homepage (Der Spiegel)» further articles on the theme (Society/Global)

O que Dizem de Nós

O que dizem dé nós
Hungary - Nepszabadsag
New EU member states outstripping Portugal: According to a Eurostat study on economic development in the different EU states, several new members now have stronger economies than Portugal. Portugal has been an EU member since 1986, and has received considerably more EU funding than the new EU members in the years since it joined. The daily's Brussels correspondent Balazs Pocs cites Portugal as a negative example of the handling of EU funding. "Opening new roads and buildings is a favourite activity of politicians, and Portugal's politicians are no exception. They don't want to be distracted by statistics according to which the country's productivity is well below the average, its workforce is poorly educated, its old industries are fighting a losing battle with international competitors and its salaries are too low… The Portuguese have only slowly come to realise it makes better sense to spend the millions from Brussels on creating jobs, investing in high-end technologies and creating sustainable value." (29/08/2006) » full article (external link, Hungarian)» further articles on the theme (Politics of the EU/Europe)

Notícias do Vaticano

Notícias do VaticanoRecomenda-se este link onde se pode subscrever um muito útil newsletter por e-mail. Nos próximos tempos Chiesa Expresso irá dedicar algum espaço ao debate sobre Darwinismo.

posted by Patrícia Lança : 8/30/2006 01:30:07 AM

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MULTI-CULTURALISMO

Artigos importantes hoje em dois jornais londrinos. Sendo o Reino Unido o "modelo" da política "multi-cultural", é significativo que algumas vozes influentes agora anunciam o seu fim.

Telegraph: Honeyford article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid
=CAFV3DSWPD31VQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/08/27/nmulticul27.xml

Times: Notícia
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2330258,00.html

Times: Alagiah:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2330021,00.htmlhttp:/www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2330021,00.html


George Alagiah é de Sri Lanka, um imigrante de sucesso que trabalha como locutor na BBC. A sua denúncia da política oficial do governo do RU contrasta com a linha até há bem pouco tempo do seu patrão. A BBC é conhecida pela sua atitude acrítica quanto à questão do multi-culturalismo.

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ALL ABOUT JOSÉ SARAMAGO

(First published in The Salisbury Review, Summer, 1999)



AN IGNOBLE NOBEL


Some weeks after the announcement of this year’s Nobel prize-winner for literature a normally well-informed friend rang me from London to ask me about José Saramago. My friend is a frequent visitor to Portugal, interested in its people and politics, and she had been intrigued to see British book-shops full of translations of the latest Nobel prize-winner’s works. Was he worth reading? she wanted to know. Now, I am hardly qualified to answer this particular question. Although I am a voracious reader I have, like most of my Portuguese friends, been quite unable to get beyond the first twenty pages of any book by this particular Nobel laureate. I am perfectly willing to admit that our reactions may be due to prejudice—if prejudice means pre-judgement.

Perhaps it is true that literary quality is unconnected with a writer’s private life or political opinions. However, the intellectual Left usually holds the opposite opinion, at any rate when it comes to political views, and has all too often consigned to Limbo many a fine writer while raising to fame mediocre ones, because of this particular approach to literature. I am inclined to absolve myself of prejudice because I have read and enjoyed Gabriel Garcia Marquez despite disliking his politics. Because of his penchant for the supernatural, Saramago is often compared with Garcia Marquez and Latin American magical realism. But for me, at least, the latter writes well and Saramago does not: he leaves me and many others with the impression that his contempt for conventional punctuation and verb tenses owes itself rather to incompetence than deliberate experimentalism. And these latter faults are not always apparent in translation. These, of course, are simply personal opinions, so I will say no more about Saramago, the writer. What I believe is worth saying is something about Saramago, the political thinker, because he provides impressive proof not only that communism still lives (in the person of the writer), but also that Lenin’s useful idiots are also still around (in the persons of his admirers).

The asymmetry of indulgence
His case is indeed a supreme example of what Ferdinand Mount called the ‘asymmetry of indulgence.’ After all, one can scarcely imagine the elders of Stockholm attributing the Nobel Prize for literature to a writer, whatever his artistic merits, who notoriously denied the holocaust or was guilty of pro-Nazi militancy. And yet, if we replace the words ‘holocaust’ and ‘Nazi’ by ‘gulag’ and ‘Stalinist’, we will find that Saramago is far guiltier than the shame-faced Heidegger, who at least had the grace to give up his rather pallid militancy and, once Nazism was discredited, to feel uncomfortable about his past. But Heidegger was an intelligent and cultivated man. Whether Saramago is either of these is, on the evidence, open to doubt—and perhaps the only excuse for his abject politics.
It would scarcely be worth dissecting his past, and present, were it not that, even before the Nobel award, Saramago had become something of an icon on the literary Left world-wide with his works translated into some thirty languages and over 600,000 copies sold. Since the prize, this figure must have been far exceeded. So that with the roughly one million dollars in prize money and soaring royalties, Saramago is now rich indeed. In his own country he remained top of the best-seller list for weeks on end and his were the most-bought books to be given as presents during the 1998 Christmas season. Schools, libraries, streets and even a bridge have been named after him. Local councils and other institutions in his own country invite the writer to address sessions of ‘literary homage’, while abroad he enjoys similar VIP treatment. On these occasions and in his numerous television and Press interviews Saramago has little to say about literature: instead he is, in his own peculiar way, remarkably frank about his political views. Not for him the contortions of a Heidegger. He is, at least, fairly loyal to his past and continues uncompromising in the present. Whether his life-style has been altered, ‘bourgeoisified’, by the wealth of recent years we do not know, for this summit of Portuguese letters has been a voluntary exile from his homeland for a number of years and lives some distance away in Lanzarote in the Canary Isles. This does not, however, keep him from taking a keen interest in national politics: he is now on the Portuguese Communist Party list for election to the European Parliament. Way down on that list, certainly, in an ineligible tenth position, for the communists are unlikely to obtain more than three seats at the very most. But, explains Saramago, it is not because he wants to be a Euro-deputy that he has accepted nomination. He knows he won’t be elected and would not want to be. ‘I accepted,’ he declared, ‘as a matter of militancy.’ He will campaign for the Party which wanted his name on their lists to give them much-needed prestige (and perhaps a few votes), and the artist agreed. We can have no doubt that much as communists denigrated the value of Nobel awards when they went to such as Sakharov or Solzhenitzyn, communist euro-campaigning will make a lot of the Nobel this time round.


Who is Saramago?
So just who is José Saramago? Is he just another ‘useful idiot’? An anguished upper-middle-class intellectual with a conscience whose guilt is as deep as his ignorance of the party machine? Or is he perhaps like one of those disgraced unpolluted true believers whose first thought after release from years of the Gulag was to hasten to Party headquarters to renew their cards? Saramago is none of these.
He is no fellow-travelling ‘useful idiot’, for he has been a self-confessed card-carrying party militant since 1969, and it wasn’t pleasant to be a communist under the dictatorship, even though its rigour was waning by that year. He is no upper-middle-class intellectual: as he told his Swedish audience at the prize-giving ceremony, he was born and reared in rural poverty, has little formal education and his early employment was as a welder in a motor workshop. Nor is he ignorant of the workings of the Party machine as we shall presently see. And. as we shall also see, he is not one of those unpolluted militants, subjected to disgrace because of some act of human decency and subsequently rehabilitated. On the contrary, his standing in the party can be gauged by the words of its leader Carlos Carvalhas. ‘As a member of our party,’ he said recently, ‘Saramago makes a great contribution to our ideals and to the struggle for social change.’
José Saramago, who was born in 1922, first attained national notoriety in the turbulent years following the 1974 military coup which overthrew the Portuguese right-wing dictatorship. Prior to that he had one small novel to his credit, which helped him out of the working class and into jobs on literary journals. But he did not produce another book for many years. In 1974 with the Communist Party and its armed forces allies prominent in the government, and the Press taken over, Saramago was named Editor of the Lisbon Diário de Notícias, the country’s leading national daily newspaper. There he proceeded to do what communists in most of the country’s institutions were busy at: summarily purging them of ‘reactionaries’. Saramago arbitrarily dismissed many of the paper’s staff, journalists of long-standing whose only crime was that of not aligning themselves with the country’s new masters. These people, many with families to support, were consigned to unemployment, for nowhere else in the Press was there room at that time for the politically incorrect. The DN became one of the CP’s chief sounding boards, a Portuguese Pravda, supporting and publicizing the Party line at home and abroad. Not as narrow as Pravda, of course, for in that confused year-and-a-half of the Portuguese revolution some space was given to the antics of the less extreme of the ‘loony Left’ —something a Soviet paper would not have tolerated. Nevertheless Saramago’s DN enthusiastically promoted the land occupations which helped to destroy Portuguese agriculture, the wholesale nationalization of the economy which brought it to ruins and the disastrous kind of decolonization whose fruits are so apparent in present-day Angola.
Saramago’s career at the DN was a short one—it lasted nineteen months—as short as that of the communists in government, for they suffered an ambiguous defeat when more moderate Leftists gained power in November 1975. After that he dedicated himself to his budding career as a novelist. He did not, however, abandon his militancy and for a decade and a half thereafter was to be seen regularly on the campus of Lisbon’s classical university, especially on a Saturday morning, plying the Party Press to unwary students. What he was doing less publicly among the Party’s intellectuals only they know. Wave after wave of disenchanted dissidents left the Party during those years, but Saramago’s name was never among them. His name, however, was always present among the signatories of those regular manifestos, petitions and open letters beloved of semi-skilled intellectuals. His following solidified and grew as his literary output increased. As the years went by and memories began to fade most people outside intellectual and university circles had forgotten Saramago’s role in the 1974-75 purges.

Notoriety brings its own rewards
His name really became known outside literary circles with the publication of The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, a book condemned by the Catholic Church as blasphemous because of its portrayal of Jesus as the innocent victim of a nasty God whose real purpose was to found a persecutory Church guilty of the inhumanities of the Inquisition. The book was greeted with glee by Portugal’s powerful anti-clerical lobby and the Socialist Party then in opposition. It met with hostility from conservatives (centrist Cavaco Silva was Prime Minister) and an under-secretary of State for culture refused to allow Saramago’s name to go forward for a 1992 European literary prize. A conservative mayor turned Saramago down for a local honour. Prelates and priests denounced the book from the pulpit. Deserved or not, this hostility proved a gift for Saramago and made him a hero of the Left. Democratic socialists, always eager to attack the Church and recall its not always tacit support for the dictatorship, promptly forgot the author’s communist affiliations: Saramago became a martyr for anti-clericals, both inside Portugal and abroad. His name was now made and nobody on either side of the barricades thought of discussing literary merit. From that moment onwards he began to be mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel. It was rumoured that his communism was a thing of the past. So much so that in the immediate aftermath of the Nobel announcement the first comments in the New York Times referred to Saramago as ‘then (in 1975) a committed communist’, but now ‘an outspoken nonconformist who has a soft spot for the common man’; and someone who ‘reflects views that are always inspired by his deep concern for his fellow man.’
In interviews, Saramago frequently and simplistically exhibits this concern. Describing his novel Blindness, the tale of how an inexplicable blindness sweeps through society, he said ‘this isn´t a real blindness, it’s a blindness of rationality. We’re rational beings but we don’t behave rationally. If we did there’d be no starvation in the world.’ All this is, of course, very consoling for the orthodox Left and youthful idealists. And, if he had been shrewder, Saramago might have stopped just there.
But the Nobel prize went to his head. To the dismay of many of his admirers Saramago’s mask suddenly dropped. It happened that not long after the Nobel prize was announced there took place in the north Portuguese city of Oporto a meeting of Ibero-American heads of State, including that well-known defender of the common man, Fidel Castro. The Nobel laureate could not resist the opportunity of meeting the Cuban caudillo. A near-hysterical street demonstration of some ten thousand was organized by the communists and addressed by Castro from a balcony. Saramago stood beside Fidel, each with arms lovingly around the other’s shoulders. Castro repeatedly referred to his new friend as ‘a comrade whose views are identical with my own.’ Saramago himself was prolix in his words of praise for the Cuban tyrant. These were not well received in the Press and because the scene was shown on TV, everybody heard them. Apart from the communists, whose share of the electorate is now well below ten percent, and a rump of discredited socialists, the Portuguese do not have a good opinion of Fidel. Indeed Cubamania has largely died and it is rare to see a Che Guevara T-shirt these days. But Saramago remains impenitent when the question of his support for Fidel now repeatedly comes up in interviews as well as inconvenient questions about communism.
In his last interview on television in February, Saramago presented a very different image from the triumphant humanitarian laureate of a few weeks earlier. Questioned about political prisoners in Cuba, which he had just visited, he declared there were none. ‘Those in prison are counter-revolutionaries,’ he declared without a blush. Then he counter-attacked. ‘Why are you always picking on the errors of communism as crimes,’ he declared, ‘why do you never mention the far worse crimes of capitalism.’ All this has been too much, even for some of Saramago’s admirers and Press comments have become increasingly hostile. However, now that he is a Euro-candidate he does have the consolation of knowing one constituency to be secure: that of his permanent patron, the Communist Party.

A continuing icon of the Left
Has any of this much importance? After all, Portugal is a small country nobody knows much about. Nor does anybody know much about its communist party although it is probably the strongest old-time unrepentant Stalinist party in Europe. It has been unable to control the Press for years and nowadays its own publications are meagre and it has no theoretical journal worth mentioning. But Saramago continues to be an icon. The first official act of the new Portuguese emissary to Indonesia was to visit the Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusmão, now released from jail and living in a private residence under surveillance. She proudly displayed to the TV cameras the two books she had brought as a present: one of them was a book by Saramago. Soon, it is said, he will be compulsory reading on the secondary school curriculum in Portugal. Despite hostile comment from more intelligent columnists, he is now consecrated by all of officialdom as the doyen of Portuguese letters, invited to State functions and a visitor at the presidential palace. Even centrist politicians pay him tribute, considering their attitude to his book on Jesus an unfortunate mistake. It has now become part of ‘political correctness’ to venerate Saramago and express pride in what he has done for Portugal and the Portuguese language. It appears that he is particularly beloved in Brazil and words of praise have been coming from former Portuguese Africa.
To judge by Press reports of his reception outside the Luso world, things are probably even worse there, where scarcely anybody knows who the Nobel prize-winner really is.
So the Saramago phenomenon is not to be dismissed lightly. There are a number of lessons it has to offer. First, that the literary judgement of elderly Swedes is as little to be trusted nowadays as when their grandfathers flunked Tolstoy in 1901. Second, that communism, a decade after its fall, is now quite respectable and not to be held against its adepts. This means that at least in one way things are worse than they were before the fall, when the daily publicized testimony of dissidents had made it decidedly unrespectable. Third, that the international news media, so well-informed when it comes to things lubricious, can be remarkably ill-informed on important matters. Fourth, that there are still a huge number of ‘useful idiots’ around. Indeed there are probably more of them today in consequence of 1968 and its heirs helping to destroy educational standards. Finally, that strange things happening in ‘far-away, unknown countries’ should not be dismissed lightly. The Luso world of Portugal, Angola and Brazil occupies a sizeable mileage of the Atlantic coastline and is not to be ignored when it comes to strategic considerations. Which, of course, is why Cuban and Russian military advisers are once again appearing in war-torn Angola. But that is another story which has even less to do with
literature than has Saramago.
Patricia Lança