domingo, 27 de julho de 2025

Reflexão - Alberto Gonçalves

 (sublinhados pessoais)


Os papagaios que dão a mão

Impõem-se duas perguntas. Porque é que os “media” não investigam a origem da propaganda pessimamente disfarçada de opinião? E porque é que convidam criaturas cuja opinião é propaganda escancarada?

O desastre nas urnas, a oposição forçada e um futuro nebuloso provocam desnortes espectaculares. A cada semana, a esquerda inventa uma polémica. Na que agora acaba, foram as alterações na disciplina de Cidadania e Desenvolvimento. Na anterior, as barracas de Loures. Na anterior a essa, a Lei da Nacionalidade e a relação do governo com o Chega. É possível que a próxima polémica, que já se esboça, seja a nomeação de Álvaro Santos Pereira para governador do Banco de Portugal. Ou outra que se ponha a jeito, que a esquerda é óptima a simular escândalos.

Talvez por serem simulados, a característica mais evidente e engraçada dos escândalos é a reacção invariavelmente unânime dos comentadores ao serviço da esquerda, incluindo muitos dos que se afirmam de “direita”. Falo dos políticos que, por razões que escapam ao bom senso, são chamados a comentar a actualidade, de profissionais do palpite que em teoria (mas não na prática) vão às televisões e aos jornais comentar com “isenção” e de meros amadores espalhados pelas redes sociais. O ponto é que todos, sem excepção, dizem exactamente as mesmas coisas sobre os mesmos assuntos. É quase fascinante. E é para lá de ridículo.

A título de exemplo, veja-se o episódio da Cidadania. Com atraso e timidez, o governo anunciou a eliminação de parte (parece que apenas de parte) das crendices “identitárias” dos currículos na disciplina em questão. Num ápice, avençados e voluntários da esquerda saltaram a repetir o carácter retrógrado da medida. Retrógrado e fascista. Fascista e prejudicial: a medida iria promover o “bullying” (?), aumentar a gravidez na adolescência, a violência no namoro, a quantidade de abortos, a propagação de doenças sexualmente transmissíveis, a ignorância dos jovens e a fome em Gaza.

A fome em Gaza fui eu que acrescentei para exibir virtude humanitária e a dose de “anti-sionismo” recomendada pela ONU. O resto é inteirinho da autoria daquela gente, que sem excepção enumerou alínea por alínea, sílaba a sílaba, os cataclismos inspirados pela remoção do “wokismo” nas escolas. Sucede que é tudo mentira. Nos seis ou sete anos em que o ensino público esteve forçado a informar os petizes de que o sexo biológico é uma “construção social”, o “bullying” (que, seja o que for, vinha em declínio até 2018), a violência no namoro e as doenças sexualmente transmissíveis difundiram-se com empenho. Os demais items ou mantiveram-se imperturbáveis ou, na gravidez das raparigas (os rapazes, para desmaio dos negacionistas da ciência, não menstruam), vêm diminuindo há décadas.

Em suma, na melhor das hipóteses os “conteúdos” folclóricos da Cidadania não tiveram nenhuma influência nos alunos, logo a sua ausência não poderá ter as consequências terríveis que o “komentariado” da esquerda garante. Na pior das hipóteses, o folclore foi nocivo e a sua ausência será benéfica. Em qualquer dos casos, ao prever o Apocalipse o “komentariado” da esquerda mentiu. Mentiu ou enganou-se, não importa. O que importa é que mentiu ou se enganou em uníssono e perfeita harmonia. Os factos estatísticos estão por aí, ao alcance de quem quiser consultá-los. No tema da Cidadania,  à semelhança do chinfrim que produz a pretexto dos temas que calha, o “komentariado” não se deixa tolher por factos e não consulta estatísticas. O que é que o “komentariado” consulta então?

A sincronia entre centenas de opinadores não é fácil. E se é legítimo imaginar que, além dos “bots” e das páginas falsas, as patentes baixas de serviçais se limitam a espreitar o que os seus superiores proclamam para imitá-los de seguida, não é plausível tamanho consenso no disparate por parte dos que têm voz nos “media”. Seria plausível se os disparates fossem sortidos e mutuamente contraditórios. Não são. São sempre idênticos, tão idênticos e afinados que exigem combinação prévia. Suponho que meia-dúzia de “grupos” no WhatsApp são indispensáveis ao exercício. Antes da intervenção na Sic Notícias ou de amanhar a crónica no “Expresso”, o opinador vai ao telemóvel perscrutar a opinião dos pares de modo a perceber qual é a opinião dele. Assegurado de que a demolição das barracas é um acto racista e xenófobo e de que a nomeação de Álvaro Santos Pereira se inscreve num projecto de conquista do aparelho estatal, o opinador entra em estúdio ou debruça-se no teclado do computador com teses claras, alucinadas e iguaizinhas às dos parceiros.

O problema é que nada costuma nascer espontaneamente, como se acreditava sobre as bichezas na era pré-Pasteur. Os consensos também não nascem assim. Sou capaz de apostar, e de ganhar a aposta, de que há alguém ou um conjunto de alguéns a decidir qual a “narrativa” (peço imensa desculpa pelo uso da palavra no contexto em causa, em que sofre de estafa e suscita-me repulsa) a adoptar. A “narrativa” (sinto um princípio de náusea) não cai do céu: cai decerto de uma sede partidária, de uma “agência de comunicação”, de uma ou cinco cabeças contratadas para conceber as patranhas ditadas nos “grupos” de WhatsApp ou em mesas de restaurantes. E os papagaios, agradecidos, engolem-nas.

Impõem-se duas perguntas. Porque é que os “media” não investigam a origem da propaganda pessimamente disfarçada de opinião? E porque é que os “media” convidam criaturas cuja opinião é propaganda escancarada? A resposta a ambas é comum, óbvia e, julgo, conhecida de todos.


The Spectator - The lost art of getting lost

 

(personal underlines)

The lost art of getting lost

One of the quietly profound pleasures of travel is renting cars in ‘unusual’ locations. I’ve done it in Azerbaijan, Colombia, Syria and Peru (of which more later). I’ve done it in Yerevan airport, Armenia, where the car-rental guy was so amazed that someone wanted to hire a car to ‘drive around Armenia’ that he apparently thought I was insane. Later, having endured the roads of Armenia, I saw his point – though the road trip itself was a blast.

Recently I rented a motor in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where they were slightly less surprised than the Armenian had been, but nonetheless gave me lots of warnings and instructions, chief of which was: ‘Don’t rely on Google Maps, it doesn’t work out here.’ As soon as I was told that I felt my heart lift, because it meant there was a fair chance of getting lost – and if I like renting cars in remote spots, I love getting lost, anywhere. And yet sadly, as technology gets ever more efficient, it becomes harder to end up completely clueless as to where you are. We are losing the fine art of getting lost.

Before the advent of Google Maps, GPS, Starlink and the rest, getting lost was a doddle. I’ve done it everywhere. Africa, Asia, the Americas, Surrey, the Antarctic peninsula (in a storm), Dartmoor. I’ve been really lost in south London without an A to Z (remember the A to Z?).

Amid this lexicon of lostness, some adventures still stand out. In Peru, while researching a thriller in the grey, weird, eerie Sechura desert north of Lima, I went looking for an ongoing archaeological dig, the excavations of which have revealed the unsettling sacrificial rites of the 2nd- to 9th-century Moche people, known for their incestuous sexual practices, culminating, it is thought, in the strangling of their own teenage children.

So it was that I got completely lost in the dusty scrub, failed to find the dig, panicked for an hour, then, as I finally worked out where I’d parked, I felt a scrunch underfoot. I was walking over an eroded adobe Moche pyramid and many pieces of Moche pottery, depicting their fanged Tarantula God. If I hadn’t got lost, I wouldn’t have those haunting shards on a shelf in my flat today.

Sometimes getting lost can be good because it revives your faith in human nature. On a later trip to upland Peru I got lost in a forest, took several wrong turnings in my car, went entirely off-road and ended up stuck in knee-high sand, wheels spinning uselessly. Running out of ideas, I looked in my guidebook. All it said was that the forest in which I was marooned was ‘known to be dangerous, and several tourists have been murdered here’.

A few minutes later a local passed me on a moped. He didn’t murder me. Instead, he went to his village, where he recruited half a dozen laughing friends who helped me get my car unstuck and refused the money I offered. They did it because most people around the world are really nice, given the chance. Getting lost teaches you that.

On some of my misadventures, the thrill comes from the sheer danger of being alone somewhere remote. That was the case when I drove the Fish River Canyon in Namibia. The baboons were fun and the birdlife was vibrant but then I realised I had no idea where I was, and I might be the only human for 30 miles. But then I thought, heck, it’s a canyon: all you can do is drive to the end, and I did, and it was fine – and a buzz I won’t ever forget. Yes, breaking down would have been a nightmare, but that didn’t happen.

Other times, lostness is aesthetically pleasing. One of the best things you can do in Venice is go there in winter (and dump your phone), then start aimlessly wandering away from St Mark’s Square at night. Soon you will be, yes, lost in a maze of damp calli and silent piazzette and chilly black canals, with an invisible gondolier plashing in the mist and the noise of a bar always just around the corner, and you swear you can see the ghost of Byron, or wicked little ladies in scarlet coats. Spellbinding.

Naturally, getting lost is not always good. I don’t recommend getting lost in Alphabet City, New York, in the mid-1980s. Try not to get lost any time in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Or, indeed, Mexico. Nonetheless, getting lost is a vital part of the human experience; if we forsake it, we will, ironically, lose something precious. So here’s my advice – and the final lines of a memoir I’ve just written about my absurdly wandering life. Wherever you are in life, get lost. It’s the only way to know if you truly want to be found.

Reflexão - LBC

Ele há coincidências...

Este ano de 2024, se tudo correr normalmente, participarei no espectáculo de Teatro Musical "Música no coração", cantarei o "Et maintenant" e farei parte do elenco da "Canção de Lisboa". 

Porquê coincidências?

"Música no coração" sempre me fascinou desde o primeiro momento que o vi no Tivoli, com a minha tia, a Dacha e a mãe (Maria Avelina). E ainda fascina, sempre que o revejo.

"Et maintenant", a par de todas as outras música de Bécaud e Aznavour, sempre me acompanhou, ou não fosse a nostalgia daqueles primeiros tempos em que o ouvi, um "must" do meu quotidiano.

E, finalmente, um dos diversos filmes portugueses dos idos de 40 e 50 que me deliciaram e deliciam sempre que os revejo. Que não as adaptações que se pretendem vender. A nossa é uma brincadeira de meia dúzia de maduros que chegaram a velhos e se querem divertir. Não de duas dúzias de profissionais que tentam recriar algo, "irrecreável".










The Spectator - Why going nuclear is humanity’s only hope

 


(personal underlines)

Why going nuclear is humanity’s only hope

Powering a rising world population up to a decent standard of living is something only nuclear reactors can do – and it’s mad to think otherwise, argues Tim Gregory

There are three parties when it comes to global warming. First, the hard right, which says it isn’t happening, and even if it is that we can do nothing about it. Then there are the far leftish Luddites who would smash all power generation systems, allowing only wind turbines, wave power etc. Finally there are the suave centrists who know perfectly well that only nuclear can save us. This book will become their bible.

Tim Gregory is a nuclear scientist who works at Sellafield. He has a serious problem defending his conviction that nuclear is the answer: radiophobia, the terror people feel about radioactivity. Superficially, this terror seems well-founded. There have been some major nuclear power plant disasters: Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in 1979; Chernobyl in the then Soviet Union in 1986; and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. Together they destroyed faith in nuclear as a safe generation system. The industry was stalled and still largely is.

This, argues Gregory, is madness. After Fukushima, only one death can be directly related to radiation – a man who died from lung cancer seven years later. The remaining 20,000 casualties were caused by the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami. Even the direct death count from the Chernobyl disaster only amounted to the ‘low to mid thirties’. ‘That’s about the same number of people who die at work in the United Kingdom every three months,’ writes Gregory.

In contrast, a city of one million people using coal power would suffer 22 deaths per week; using gas would result in two or three deaths per week. Globally, some 8.8 million deaths a year are caused by air pollution. Hydro power, however, would lead to one death a week, and a combination of wind, nuclear and solar to one death every six months. ‘I know where I’d rather live,’ observes Gregory.

Even the multiple nuclear weapons tests that lasted until 1996 seem to have made little difference to the levels of radiation to which we are exposed. The climax of this testing craze came in 1961, when the biggest nuclear weapon ever – the Russian 50 megaton Tsar Bomba – sent up a mushroom cloud seven times the height of Everest and the blast shattered windows 560 miles away. But, as Gregory shows, all such monstrous detonations only had a tiny effect on global radiation.

Even, after all that, you choose to live near a nuclear power station, your total radio dose ‘would be no more than the harmless natural background you’d receive by spending a day or two in Colorado or Cornwall’.

If you believe Gregory, then the Luddites, the hard deniers and the radiophobes are doing a lot more harm than they can imagine. Powering a rising world population – now 8.2 billion – up to a decent standard of living is far beyond the Luddites’ aspirations. Only nuclear reactors could do this – preferably the breeder reactors which produce more fissile materials than they consume. In all, this should guarantee energy supplies for the next 900 years, by the end of which we can reasonably assume something either very good or catastrophically bad will have come along.

In the latter parts of the book, Gregory turns to the big picture. He might startle the average contemporary-minded and understandably paranoid reader by pointing out that the world has ‘enjoyed a period of unprecedented tranquillity since the end of the second world war’. He adds: ‘The spread of democracy and the growth of global trade no doubt played their parts, but it might also be the case that atom bomb deterrence, by frightening the world into peace, had a hand too.’ Perhaps, like Dr Strangelove, we should learn to ‘stop worrying and love the Bomb’.

There are many further reasons why we should learn about the numerous benign uses of nuclear science. Plutonium 238, a powerful but containable emitter of radioactivity, ‘lets us go anywhere’. Indeed, we couldn’t really go beyond the confines of our planet without nuclear power. Nuclear batteries have powered space voyages ever since 1969, when Apollo 12 touched down on the lunar surface.

In addition, we expose ourselves to radiation all the time, not least to save our lives. PET scanners send radiotracers dashing around our bodies and even the good old X-ray machine doses us with potentially dangerous ionising radiation; but, at current levels, it seems to be safe, or at least preferable to failing to detect a lethal tumour.

In short, Gregory’s case is that nuclear power is humanity’s only hope. Carbon dioxide emissions would vanish as an issue in a nuclear world and, I suppose, we could then get on with killing each other by more conventional means. His argument is powerful and it would be interesting to see a counter argument by somebody – certainly not a Luddite – who writes and thinks as well as Gregory. But perhaps there is no such person.

Reflexão - LBC (direito de resposta de Maria Helena Costa ao ex-ministro da Educação, João Costa)

Felicito-a pelo artigo. É bom haver quem insiste em manter a memória, em veicular ideias sensatas, em pugnar por valores em crescente extinção e monitorar e denunciar os que, apesar de eleitos, nunca mascararão as suas limitações mesmo apaparicadas pelos media e pelo persistente "pseudo-intelectualismo" de que enfermamos. 

The Spectator - The importance of feeling shame

 (personal underlines)


The importance of feeling shame

Shamelessness is now ubiquitous in our narcissistic society. But to the ancient Greeks shame was a spur to honourable deeds and synonymous with modesty and respect

In several homilies, the late Pope Francis spoke of the ‘grace of feeling shame’. What a strange idea! Nobody wants to feel shame. Adam and Eve, after all, first felt shame only after being expelled from the Garden of Eden. Shame was God’s punishment: they felt ashamed of what had never troubled them before, namely their nakedness and their sexual desires.

But what the Pope meant, I think, is absolutely salutary for our age. Shamelessness is ubiquitous. It is the accelerant of social media that encourages us to narcissistically fire up our victimhood to a gimcrack blaze. It is why so many of us are chained to the brazen idea that we can never be wrong. It’s the seeming life strategy of the most powerful man on Earth.

In our fallen world, very few pray to God for the grace of shame, or otherwise come to feel ashamed. But for the French philosopher Frédéric Gros in this elegant book, it would be good if more did. Being a secular Parisian penseur, of course, Gros doesn’t think we need God-given gifts. But we do need grace of some kind to confront our shame. He writes:

The decision to confront [shame] amounts to a commitment to inner transformation. And this is where grace comes in, for it can be extremely difficult to completely eradicate the temptation to be lenient on oneself… We need external assistance, because otherwise it is too easy to downplay things.

Without the help of others, that’s to say, it’s hard not only to develop a conscience but also to shine the light of that conscience on oneself – to expose what one might downplay as a peccadillo and instead see it as shameful.

Both Christian spiritual advisers and Freudian shrinks, Gros notes, have delighted in the human capacity to blush. To feel a burning sensation in your throat and cheeks suggests something about you is wrong. That may well be the first step to purification, or at least ethical compunction.

Instead, what most are happy doing is shaming others, revelling in schadenfreude. Hence the story told in Jon Ronson’s harrowing look into the social media abyss, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. The PR executive Justine Sacco, before boarding her flight from London to Johannesburg in 2013, tweeted: ‘Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get Aids. Just kidding. I’m white!’ By the time she landed 13 hours later, what Gros calls ‘a deluge of digital hatred was raining down on her’. Staff at her hotel threatened to strike if she was allowed to stay there. Her South African family shunned her and she lost her job. Even though Sacco deleted her tweet and account, someone posted: ‘Sorry @JustineSacco, your tweet lives on forever.’ True enough. One stupid, racist and otherwise hurtful message defined this woman for all time.

One might feel sorry for Sacco (as well as hoping she has the grace to feel shame), and wonder why so many who joined the Twitter pile-on didn’t look into their own hearts. Maybe those jonesing for the hit of another’s misfortune should better do the hard work of developing humility, restraint and shame.

Gros, best known for his delightful A Philosophy of Walking, has written another lovely little book that might start toxic haters on a different path. But I boggled at its subtitle: ‘A Revolutionary Emotion.’ One might think that experiencing shame isn’t revolutionary but a terrible thing to feel. Consider rape victims, whose testimonies included here show how we feel shame for things of which others should properly feel ashamed.

Or think of poor Annie Ernaux. The Nobel Laureate recounted in her memoir A Woman’s Story how at school a fellow pupil recoiled because her hands smelled of bleach. Little Annie, you see, had washed her hands in the kitchen sink, only to learn that bleach was a marker of social class. The life she once took to be normal turns shameful. Her schoolmates consider that she lives in a shabby grocery-cum-café frequented by drunks and that her diction needs work. Sensitised to shame, she averts her eyes when her mother uncorks a bottle of wine, trapping it between her knees. ‘I was ashamed of her brusque manners and speech, especially when I realised how alike we were.’

Shame is different from guilt, Gros explains. One feels guilty about what one has done. By contrast, shame is ‘the state of being able to conceive oneself only within the constraints… imposed by another’. That is to say, shame is catalysed by others, particularly voyeurs – a very French theme. In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre imagines a Peeping Tom looking in at the keyhole of somebody’s apartment. He only feels shame when he finds himself observed by a third party. Shame is a mirror others hold up to us to make us realise what we are. Or what they think we are.

How, then, can feeling shame be a good thing? In his fabulous book Shame and Necessity, the late philosopher Bernard Williams gave us a clue. He cited Ajax rousing his friends to battle in the Iliad:

Dear friends, be men; let shame be in our hearts…Among men who feel shame, more are saved than die.

Ajax regarded shame as the desirable compunction that stopped one from fleeing battle like a coward, that steeled one to fight and perhaps die honourably before the approving gazes of one’s comrades. The Greeks called shame aidos and made it a goddess whose name also means modesty, respect and humility. But we aren’t ancient Greeks. They lived in a society of honour; we in one of shameless disinhibition.

Gros writes that shameless behaviour is ‘an absence of reserve. I flaunt myself, my qualifications, my personality, my success, my private life and my body’. We all know people like that. Perhaps you voted for them. Contrast such shamelessness with what James Baldwin felt one day strolling past newsstands on a Parisian boulevard. A single image screamed from the world’s papers: 15-year-old Dorothy Counts being spat on and reviled by a white mob as she became the first black pupil admitted to a North Carolina high school. ‘It made me furious, it filled me with both hatred and pity,’ wrote Baldwin. ‘And it made me ashamed. Some one of us should have been there with her!’

Gros glosses Baldwin’s fury, suggesting it was not just the feeling of shame of a black American looking back to his hated homeland and wishing he were there to support the poor African-American girl (which is what I took Baldwin to be saying), but as a stain on humanity, shaming each of us. ‘What did I do to prevent this?’ Gros writes. ‘Nothing.’ We should blush for shame.

Nietzsche thought shame was a poison, and his Übermenschen were utterly shameless (no wonder Hitler liked Thus Spake Zarathustra). We have become too Nietzschean. We need the wisdom of the ancient Greeks and of the late Pope, or to read this elegant book. In any event, we need to blush more.

Livros - África Traída

 











Almoço - Vetvals

Uma vez mais, o Filipe Melo disponibilizou a sua casa, em 19.07.2025, para encerrarmos a época dos VetVals. Orestes, Amorim, A. Pires, Alfredo, Filipe, Barroso, Azevedo, Miranda, Piedade e Guerra











Livros - Banda Desenhada (Selecções BD)

 

Back to old days...




Séries - Uma família de bem

 





Os segredos que guardamos por amor. Série finlandesa de 6 episódios, baseada no romance "Dark Light" de Petri Karra.

Um drama centrado na luta de uma família contra traumas e segredos, dividida entre o dever e os laços de sangue, e abalada por um sinistro triângulo amoroso.
Quando o filho desaparece, o conhecido chefe do crime Lefa chantageia a detetive Anna, com quem tem um historial, para obter informações privilegiadas sobre o caso. Mas, o misterioso desaparecimento transforma-se numa investigação de homicídio, e a pista leva diretamente ao filho de Anna, Niko. Enquanto mantém o marido, Henrik, um romancista policial, na ignorância, Anna faz tudo o que pode para encobrir os rastos de Niko e protegê-lo tanto dos seus colegas polícias como da ira assassina de Lefa. Mas, Henrik também lhe esconde um segredo: também está a ajudar Niko a encobrir o assassinato. Anna e Henrick são lançados para um submundo perigoso, onde os instintos parentais rapidamente se sobrepõem à moralidade.

segunda-feira, 21 de julho de 2025

Reflection - Education (The Michaela School)







 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlItMr2L-N4

Livro - A minha vida (Golda Meir)

 Que livro! Que vida!













The Spectator - The police have lost it


(personal underlines) 

The police have lost it

A police officer in 1927 (Getty Images)

When hyper-liberal identity politics went into overdrive in that year of madness, 2020, one of the greatest casualties in this country was to be our police forces. This wasn’t obvious at the time, although officers ‘taking the knee’ at the foot of Black Lives Matters protestors hinted at things to come, as did their growing inclination to attend Pride events and adorn their vehicles in LGBT+ colours. Only in recent months, however, has there emerged the extent to which our police have become contaminated and compromised by this ideology.

As today’s Sunday Telegraph reveals, in November 2023 officers from Kent Police arrested and detained an old man for a social media post he made warning about the threat of anti-Semitism in Britain. Julian Foulkes, 71, a retired special constable from Gillingham, had challenged a pro-Palestinian supporter on X. The consequent exchange ultimately resulted in the police arriving at Foulkes’s house, seizing his electronic devices and locking him in a police cell for eight hours. Following interrogation on suspicion of malicious communication, he accepted a caution, despite having committed no offence.

In a rational country, a pensioner and a former policeman should rank low among those likely to pose a threat. But we don’t live in a country governed by reason, or, it would seem, have policemen who take seriously the principle of impartiality. Police body-worn camera footage of the event showed officers rifling through Foulkes’s books and magazines, including works by Douglas Murray and copies of the Spectator, pointing to what they described as ‘very Brexity things’.

This is but the most egregious example in what is turning into a long and alarming rollcall of police overreach, one that betrays a deep and wide capture by woke ideology, a mindset that is unduly preoccupied with matters of gender and race and a related desire to reprimand and censor those who might cause offence or hurt the feelings of others. 

This capture was on show in March, when it emerged that Hertfordshire Police sent six uniformed officers to arrest a couple after their child’s school objected to their emails and ‘disparaging’ comments in a parents’ WhatsApp group. In November last year, Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson was visited by Essex Police for alleged incitement to racial hatred.

We used to talk of ‘bad apples’ in the police, in reference to racism or financial corruption within its ranks. These days the term might better apply to chief constables who are infatuated by woke ‘anti-racism’ and who have been morally corrupted by it. Yet even the term ‘bad apples’ no longer seems sufficient when beholding this nationwide contagion. It’s a whole rotten, festering orchard.

While the Macpherson Inquiry of 1999 had an ultimately baleful effect, in which by overstating the prevalence of ‘institutional racism’ in the police, they reacted in turn with overcompensation, the influence of the ‘Great Awokening‘ of 2015-16 cannot be underestimated. 

Suspicions were first aroused to its knock-on effect in matters related to law in January 2019 when Harry Miller, also a former police officer, was investigated by Humberside Police for poems he had posted on Twitter mocking the trans movement. A ‘cohesion officer’ from the force telephoned Miller telling him that while his tweets had not broken any laws, he should not engage in public political debate ‘because some people don’t like it’. The feminist writer Julie Bindel was also visited by police in 2019 after a ‘transgender man’ in the Netherlands reported one of her tweets to the police.

In concluding the Miller affair in December, the judge at the court of appeal ruled that Humberside’s actions were ‘disproportionate interference’ with the man’s right to freedom of expression. But that was not the end of matters. It merely marked the beginning of a new era, one in which many police forces had started to become enforcement officers of an emergent and unforgiving ideology, officers whose presumed remit was now to ask people if they’d had too much to think.

This activism in the police is disturbing in itself, but that it should be taking place now in tandem with the endless reports regarding the lenient verdicts of activist judges, particularly on asylum-seekers of dubious merit, makes this development doubly-concerning. We are witnessing the simultaneous perversion of the judiciary and the creeping ideological capture of the police, both arms of the state which now seem intent in enforcing a worldview sanctioned by the last Conservative government and endorsed by our Labour politicians today.

Livros - Crítica XXI (nº10)


 






Islay Whisky

 Laphroaig, Caol Ila, Ardbeg, Lagavulin? Great whiskies!




Desporto - Bilhar (Dr. Henrique Marques)

Se todos os dirigentes desportivos comunicassem desta forma...

Dr. Henrique Marques, o nosso primeiro dirigente a nível mundial, em 1973...


https://arquivos.rtp.pt/conteudos/movimento-parte-i-9/




terça-feira, 15 de julho de 2025

The Spectator - ‘It is sad that we are sometimes seen as just killers’: an interview with Japan’s last ninja

 (personal underlines)

‘It is sad that we are sometimes seen as just killers’: an interview with Japan’s last ninja

Getting an interview with Jinichi Kawakami, the man known in Japan as ‘the Last Ninja’, was no easy task – but nor should it have been. Ninjas, Japan’s legendary covert operatives and assassins, were renowned for their elusiveness, so it would have been disappointing if tracking one down had proved a cinch. It took a good deal of research and persistence before I was granted an interview by landline telephone – which also seems appropriate since ninjas were reputedly able to make themselves invisible.

Kawakami is head of the Banke Shinobinoden school of ninjutsu (ninja culture), director of the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum and Ninja Council, and a professor of Ninja Studies at Mie University. At 76, he is the last living embodiment of a centuries-old tradition and the master of a very particular set of skills that have been passed down orally. Kawakami has chosen not to take on an apprentice, so when he goes, that will be it: no more ninjas. How does he feel about this?

‘Well, I never called myself “the Last Ninja”, but I suppose there is a certain sadness,’ he tells me, speaking so quietly that he is almost inaudible (that feels appropriate too: it is easy to imagine him stealing up on you unawares). ‘But it’s a misconception that ninjas still exist in their traditional form. It’s a pity people still believe that.’

 What exactly that traditional form was is a matter of contention. We know ninjas – or, more accurately, shinobi (‘those who conceal themselves’) – existed and something of what they did, but details are scant. From surviving documents, most notably the 17th-century ninja manual Bansenshukai, they appear to have been more spies and saboteurs than killers, though they were armed with elaborate weapons and could dispatch an enemy in short order if required.

Ninjas worked on a mission-by-mission basis for samurai overlords, mainly through the Sengoku period: an era of almost continuous civil war from 1467 to 1603. According to Kawakami, their main purpose was to prevent war (‘Winning without fighting’, he says), so the idea that they were forever scaling escarpments, flashing swords, hurling ninja stars and doing acrobatic manoeuvres while dressed in black pyjama-like costumes is a romantic exaggeration. ‘Ninjas were independent, self-reliant and often operated outside the norms of regular society, with a focus on peace and maintaining balance in their own way,’ Kawakami explains.

They were also, I’m tempted to suggest, more likely to be working-class than their noble samurai masters, who maintained a sense of superiority by following the moral code known as Bushido. The ninjas did the dirty work their posh superiors didn’t want to be associated with, a little like Ricki Tarr in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Kawakami started learning ninja techniques at the age of six when he was taken under the wing of a traveller whom he later learned was the 20th heir of the Ban Family Koka style of ninjutsu (Kawakami is not sure if the meeting was really ‘chance’ or ‘inevitable’). The wanderer started teaching Kawakami all manner of techniques, including how to break into houses. ‘I thought I was being trained to be a burglar,’ he says. His physical training alone lasted for more than a decade. ‘The hardest part was learning how to endure, training to overcome basic human desires, like going without food or holding it in when I needed to go to the bathroom.’

Does he keep up the physical training now that he’s in his mid-seventies? ‘I don’t do so much now, I keep going as much as I can, while being aware of my age and physical limits – but it’s totally different from when I was younger.’

 That is probably wise. There is footage of his younger self with grotesque calluses on his hands from hitting a rock 500 times a day.

Even now, though, Kawakami is ready for action. He maintains a fearsome armoury of weapons at his house, including ninja stars, sickles, grappling hooks and swords sharp enough to cut through a metal helmet and decapitate. He shares the grim detail that the swords were purposefully allowed to rust so that wounds would quickly suppurate.

I wonder whether, rather than disappearing, ninja culture has simply transformed and diffused. When Kawakami talks of overcoming basic human desires, maintaining group harmony and not going to the bathroom for lengthy periods of time, it doesn’t seem a million miles away from a typical modern Japanese office.

What ninjas value, like harmony and patience, is actually something deeply rooted in Japanese culture,’ Kawakami says. ‘So it’s not just about ninjas; it’s more like a reflection of how Japanese people live in general.’

Others would go further and say that rather than becoming obsolete, ninja philosophy has never been more relevant. A 2022 masters dissertation by Miki Hashimoto on the application of ninja intelligence to the contemporary world maintains that ninjutsu aligns perfectly with asymmetrical warfare. Cyberjutsu, a 2021 book by Ben McCarty, argues that updated ninja techniques are perfect for modern security and cyberwarfare.

Jinichi Kawakami in 2012 KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/GettyImages

Kawakami is inclined to agree with this, and thinks that ‘the essence of the ninja will endure, transforming in appearance and form with the times’. But he has some concerns about his country, particularly how it will cope with the widely expected influx of foreigners to compensate for the low birth rate.

‘In Japan, especially among young people, there is this idea of multiculturalism – living in a way that respects others. But the reality is that wars still happen because we can’t fully live that out,’ he says. ‘Countries were formed when people who shared similarities came together to build villages and nations. Conflict is inevitable. I am a little worried whether Japan will be able to co-exist with people from different countries as the population decreases and immigration increases. But since young people can easily connect online, they might come up with great solutions. I’m hopeful.’

On a lighter note, what about all the fantastical depictions of ninjas in the entertainment world? From the manga series Naruto to the films Teenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesKill Bill and the rest – are these good for the image of Japan or offensive?

Kawakami is remarkably tolerant. ‘There is a lot of exaggeration, but I think it’s fun. I just hope people don’t take it too seriously and get the wrong idea. It’s interesting to see how people overseas view Japan. It is sad that ninjas are sometimes seen as just killers, though. That’s a misunderstanding. And, of course, samurai don’t exist anymore but the samurai spirit, being noble and strong, helps create a positive image of Japanese people. Manga and movies are works of imagination, so it’s natural they’re dramatised. I think it’s great when that sense of adventure sparks people’s interest in Japan.’ There is a YouTube video of Kawakami cheerfully reviewing eight ninja movies and ranking them from best to worst (Batman Begins does OK, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, not so well). He takes no offence whatsoever and seems to enjoy them all. The concept of cultural appropriation has yet to catch on in Japan.

But there is an alternative future for ninjutsu and perhaps a better one than as fodder for Hollywood schlock. Kawakami has spent as much of his life pursuing the lifestyle and health techniques of the ninja as the combat skills. These include a special breathing and concentration technique called okinaga which supposedly puts the body and spirit in harmony to reduce stress and allow for perfect control of emotions. There’s also a diet regimen and a range of exercise techniques.

Given that the western world has a seemingly insatiable appetite for Japanese wellness trends – Marie Kondo’s tidy room philosophy, Zen, bonsai, minimalism and matcha tea – it would surprise no one if the way of the ninja could find a place in this realm too.

Kawakami seems pleased when I suggest it. He describes ninjutsu as a ‘comprehensive survival art’ and perhaps it still can be – though with more relevance for worriers than warriors.

sábado, 12 de julho de 2025

Livros - Espiões

 









Reflexão - A reforma estrutural com que o PS mudou Portugal: a imigração (Helena Matos)

 (sublinhados pessoais)


A reforma estrutural com que o PS mudou Portugal: a imigração

Em 2017, Portugal contava com 3,6 % de cidadãos estrangeiros. Em 2024 chegámos aos 15%. Se isto não é uma reforma estrutural o que será então uma reforma estrutural?

As ruas estão mais ou menos na mesma. O estacionamento, esse, é cada vez mais escasso. Continuam no seu sítio as cervejarias, restaurantes, barbeiros e oficinas. Já o que foi o Bairro 6 de Maio continua à espera do empreendimento que há uns anos, a acreditar nas notícias, era mais um triunfo do betão e agora, segundo notícias que são lídimas sucessoras das anteriores no estilo activista, é urgente para resolver a crise da habitação. A linha de comboio que há-de ser modernizada continua antiquada e até o núcleo do PCP parece mais memória que realidade.

Eleitoralmente falando estamos em terras que começaram por passar do PCP para o PS e em que agora os socialistas ganham, ou melhor dizendo ainda ganham, enquanto o PSD cresce muito lentamente e o Chega quase multiplicou por dez a sua votação entre 2019 (2,20) e 2025 (21,20).

Mas neste cenário em que a paisagem permanece quase como metáfora da ineficácia do Estado – o bairro Cova da Moura é um imbróglio urbano-administrativo-judicial há 50 anos e até o que já funcionou, como alguns túneis e passagens, deixa de funcionar porque não se consegue garantir a sua utilização em segurança – a grande mudança é humana e é dada pela imigração. Ou mais precisamente pelas características da imigração dos últimos anos.

Na verdade, a esta outrora cintura vermelha foram chegando desde os anos 60 do século passado cabo-verdianos que vinham trabalhar na então metrópole. Vieram depois os retornados, os angolanos… Portanto, e ao contrário do que acontece noutros locais de Portugal, nesta zona não é de modo algum novidade a presença de migrantes, imigrantes, estrangeiros. O que mudou foi o seu perfil – num raio de algumas centenas de metros existem quatro mesquitas – e a sua quase omnipresença em alguns locais.

Ao caminhar nas ruas da Damaia-Reboleira tornou-se-me óbvio que é falso afirmar que os governos de António Costa não reformaram o país. Na verdade, o PS mudou estruturalmente o país. E sabemos como, lei da nacionalidade e lei dos estrangeiros, e quando, 2017.

Em 2017, segundo o Eurostat, Portugal contava com 3,6 % de cidadãos estrangeiros. No final de 2023 esta percentagem ia em 9,83 % também segundo o Eurostat. Mas quando a AIMA actualizou estes dados para 2024 chegámos a 15% de população imigrante.

Se isto não é uma reforma estrutural o que será então uma reforma estrutural?

Já se sabe que existem países onde estas percentagens são mais elevadas, o que não minora de modo algum os nossos problemas mas deixa perguntas a que temos de responder, nomeadamente sobre as formas de acolhimento e o perfil dos imigrantes: a Suíça tem uma percentagem de 31,2% de imigrantes mas tem incomensuravelmente menos problemas nesta matéria que a Bélgica que conta com 19%. Os países não são todos iguais na forma como acolhem e os imigrantes também não. Sabemo-lo bem por experiência própria como emigrantes!

Em Portugal há um antes e um depois dos governos de António Costa nesta matéria. Habitualmente assaca-se a responsabilidade da alteração da legislação sobre estrangeiros à nefasta influência do BE e do PCP na geringonça de esquerda que então governava Portugal. Mas essa é apenas uma parte da explicação e em boa parte visa mais desculpar António Costa e o PS do que retratar a realidade. António Costa não só não hesitou em afastar Luísa Maia Gonçalves, a directora do SEF que ele mesmo nomeara, quando esta se manifestou contra as alterações legislativas e alertou para o impacto negativo que estas teriam nas políticas de imigração, como o seu governo tratou de impedir que o parecer do SEF chegasse ao parlamento quando as alterações à legislação estavam a ser discutidas.

O PS não precisou da ajuda do BE e do PCP para alinhar com entusiasmo e vigor nas acusações de xenofobia a Passos Coelho quando este alertou para o tremendo erro que se estava a cometer:Pela primeira vez em muitos anos tivemos em Portugal um líder político do maior partido da oposição a ensaiar um discurso racista e xenófobo, à semelhança do que vemos noutros países, como França e Estados Unidos”  afirmava João Galamba, enquanto António Costa propalava que “O PSD e o seu líder, Pedro Passos Coelho, estão “mal informados” em relação à lei da imigração” e Ana Catarina Mendes acusava Passos de espalhar o medo.  Em 2023  já não existia geringonça alguma e o ministro da Administração Interna era nem mais nem menos que o moderado José Luís Carneiro quando foram atribuídas autorizações de residência a milhares de imigrantes de países de língua portuguesa sem que se verificasse o registo criminal do país de origem, como a lei prevê.

Em Portugal, além da culpa que morre solteira temos também a culpa com que vivem aqueles que se aliam ao PS. O BE e o PCP não enganaram ninguém. O PS sim.  Mas para memória futura registe-se que sim, o PS de Costa fez uma reforma estrutural. Chama-se  imigração descontrolada.