By
Cunha e Silva Filho (Brazil)
The
American presence in Iraq, even with the withdrawal of
the majority of military force still deployed in
the country, has not prevented the
continuous intolerance among rival factions, i.e.,
among Xiitas and Sunitas.
The
extremists go on with their attacks, without truce, with
neither side wishing a dialog, word which, as it seems,
is not to be found in the dictionary of civil war tragedies
that leave behind more dead bodies, car-bombs,
bloodshed and losses of lives and destruction in cities
and towns. It all points at a lack of control on
the part of country living in fratricidal
conflicts, whether in Egypt, in Syria, in Iraq or
other regions. It even looks as if we do not possess any
more international peace organisms that would
have the main purpose to reduce
conflicts among nations which destroy one another
in order to take power by means of bloody
religiosity and by other unknown arguments. I
wonder if we have come to a degree in which struggling nations
are doomed to destruction without having anyone
to help them concretely solve their problems and lead
them towards achieving peace.
Governments
have been ravaged, their leaders dead.
New leaders have been taken over by elections
or by coups who,
in turn, have not got to maintain the
integrity of their people or their unity as a
nation. This is a stage of Mankind History which is
not at all the best one to please nations
and peoples. Far otherwise.
At
this gloomy moment for the human being universally taken,
it would be necessary to draw water out of stone, never
say die, never fall into lassitude and call together all
good hearted-men of the Planet so that they may have their voices
heard and taken into account by those who are daily killing one
another led by extremisms, partisanship, intolerance,
fanaticism -- these great evil human creature is sometimes
unfortunately endowed with.
The
History of the peoples do not have so far been serviceable
as a lesson to all nations in conflict, inasmuch
as the atrocities of civil wars go on among several
peoples. How can one build a city, a state, a country in a
solid ground and with lasting peace if guerillas,
wars, battles, terrorism – this last one the most
inhuman tool of cowardice that in our days
human kind has ever give as an example!
To
be quite frank, international security organisms, like
UN, NATO and others, little success have
actually obtained in the dialogs and negotiations made
with countries’ delegations in warfare. I can
only see a way signaling some hope: a spiritual dimension without
fanaticism: a balance with transcendental force that may turn
fanaticism, intolerance and terrorism into attitudes taken by man
which, without forgetting the logical limits of human condition,
manage to lead peoples towards a frank dialog,
open-minded to mutual concessions, by recognizing
differences and diversified world views. I understand
that, by compromising a part of their opposing
views, there shall be a way which may be opened to a universal
understanding. If man, for example, is able to learn a foreign
language, like English, Spanish or other widely
spoken language, and get his meaning across other peoples,
why couldn’t he do so as far as peace goals are concerned
among nations and children of the same country?
There
exists a kind of Babel Tower that is still very active
in our contemporary time: the diversity of voices and
political, ideological and religious views. However, this confusion
of languages, here metaphorically considered, that
troubles the coming of peace could well be a sort of solution,
the decisive tool of a universal human language,
i.e., the use of a dialog, as I suggested some lines
behind, but an unbiased use of communication, without subterfuges,
without an attempt to hide unwanted intentions, a
dialog in which would be no room for one of the
biggest evils of life: hypocrisy. Indeed, this dialog would be
a way out towards sharing understanding others without
hegemonic connotations of whatever nature, without submissions
and opportunism. That would not be a Utopian ideal
of a young man, because this columnist is no longer a youngtster, but
just someone whose greatest aspiration is to see the world, the
nations, the Planet in a time ruled by lasting peace.
Francisco
da Cunha e Silva Filho (pen-name: Cunha e Silva Filho) was born
in Amarante, state of Piauí, December 7, 1945. Brazilian
writer, literay critic, essayst, translator, former
Professor of English and Brazilian Literature
(Universidade Castelo Branco, Rio de Janeiro RJ. Brazil;
Retired Full English Teacher from Colégio
Militar do Rio de Janeiro (CMRJ) Post-Doctor in Comparative
Literature(Federal University fo Rio de Janeiro,UFRJ); Doctor in
Brazilian Literature(Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; Master in
Brazilian Literature(Federal University of Rio de Janeiro);
Graduate teacher in Portuguese and English (Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ); Contributor of
a lot of newspapers, d journalsl and academic journals
from the state of Piauí and other Brazilian states. Among
other books, he wrote Da Costa e Silva : uma leitura da
saudade (Teresina, PI: Editorada UFPI/Academia Piauiense de Letras;
1996); “Da Costa e Silva: do cânone ao Modernismo”. In:
SANTOS. Geografias - literárias. Francisco Venceslau dos.;
Confronto : o local e o nacional. Rio de Janeiro: Editora
Caetés, 2003; p. 113-124; Breve introdução ao curso de
Letras: um orientação. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Quártica,
20009; As ideias no tempo. Teresina. PI: APL/Senado Federal,
2010. Apenas memórias. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Quártica,
2016; Com tos selecionados de José Ribamar Garcia (Org.) Rio de
Janeiro: Editora Litteris Editora, 2017; Paisagem, vida e
linguagem em Enéas Athanázio: uma leitura de O campo no
coração.” Balneário Camboriú – Santa Catarina, Brasil:
Editora Minarete, 2018. Effective Member of Brazilian
Academy of Philology(ABRAFIL). Member of Brazilian Union of
Writers (UBE, Section Piauí) Currently, Cunha e Silva Filho
has been writing for his Blog “As ideias no tempo”
since 1983. He belongs to the Editing Staff Council of the Site
Entretextos of which he is a literary and cultural columnist
(“Letra Viva.”) Quite a good number of his major
publications are to be found in the site www. Academia.adu. –
Francisco da Cunha e Silva Filho.At present, he is
been writing for the Romanian Journal Orizon Literar
Contemporan.
Things
did not change, did not improve since then! (Raymond Walden)
