Nossa Senhora: Por este sinal vencerás
Como indica a placa ao lado, a catedral é o ponto de partida de todas as rodovias do país. Ela é o coração da França e a bússola do "navegante".
Em trinta minutos, os franceses descobriram no dia 15 de abril que o legado da História não é um aparelho de jantar de porcelana Sèvres ou Limoges, cristais Baccarat, facas Laguiole e faqueiro de prata Christofle que atravessam os séculos intactos por não serem aproveitados; são obscurecidos pelas perdas, encharcados de lama, lágrimas, e obscurecidos por dramas que pesam nos herdeiros como uma corcunda invisível que os esmaga.
Em trinta minutos, os franceses e os católicos mundo afora descobriram o que nos une, Nossa Senhora. Era quem lamentávamos ao ver o fogo alastrar-se por sua catedral, pois é a Ela que nos confiamos, a Ela que pedimos a bênção, a Ela que agradecemos a bonança que nos traz após tempestades que nos ajuda a atravessar nos transmitindo esperança.
Quais olhos ficaram secos diante das chamas que engoliam a flecha e a floresta da catedral parisiense e universal?
Quais corações não palpitaram de temor que as paredes desmoronassem e que as torres viessem abaixo?
Quais mentes não ligaram inconscientemente o monumento universal ao patrimônio católico que nos acalenta a alma?
São pedras sobre pedras, é verdade.
A estrutura será fortalecida, a flecha e a floresta de cedro serão reconstituídas ou modernizadas, tudo isso é certo. A pena não vinha do concreto e sim do abstrato.
Não há fé que não irrompa ou seja reforçada ao ver no altar da Notre Dame escurecida e coberta de fuligem negra a Cruz ereta e incólume após a catástrofe - como um símbolo de Deus, do Cristo da Igreja inabalável que atravessou, de pé, os séculos e inúmeros tumultos civis e religiosos. O Crucifixo que é o pilar da nossa história greco-romana-cristã e de nossa civilização; símbolo de contrição e erudição, do que temos de melhor a legar de pais para filhos e deixar para a posteridade.
O incêndio da Notre Dame é um desses males que vêm para bem.
Serviu para sacudir os católicos, descomplexá-los, tirá-los da toca intelectualizada para manifestar a fé de uns aconchegada na intimidade, de outros soterrada no âmago debaixo de um monte de interdições que enrustem, desunem e esfacelam nossa comunidade e corroem fatalmente a humanidade e a clarividência necessária nesse mundo de Bolsonaros/Trumps/Netanyahus/ evangélico-sionistas atrasados, ignorantes e desalmados.
O mundo precisa que o catolicismo seja forte, tolerante, inabalável como as torres da Notre Dame. Que resista ao incêndio dos falsos profetas em pele de pastores de ovelhas desgarradas; que responda com presteza e certeza aos "apóstolos" improvisados que leem os evangelhos atravessado e pecam mortal em suas exegeses aproximativas (quando não totalmente deturpadas) da palavra do Cristo as tornando nocivas à evolução da humanidade.
O mundo precisa que o catolicismo seja forte, tolerante, inabalável como as torres da Notre Dame. Que resista ao incêndio dos falsos profetas em pele de pastores de ovelhas desgarradas; que responda com presteza e certeza aos "apóstolos" improvisados que leem os evangelhos atravessado e pecam mortal em suas exegeses aproximativas (quando não totalmente deturpadas) da palavra do Cristo as tornando nocivas à evolução da humanidade.
O Brasil, a América, a Europa, a Àfrica, a Oceânia, a Ásia, precisam do catolicismo dos estudiosos Santo Agostinho, São Tomás de Aquino e dos Franciscos, o santo e o papa, de ciência, consciência, empatia e humildade.
Havemos de inspirar-nos na Igreja dos três primeiros séculos, no catolicismo que gerou artistas memoráveis como Pier Paolo Pasolini e escritores magistrais como Victor Hugo e seu Corcunda que iluminou a Notre Dame do século XIX aos nossos dias, com uma luz tão intensa que nenhum fogo jamais extinguirá.
Havemos de inspirar-nos na Igreja dos três primeiros séculos, no catolicismo que gerou artistas memoráveis como Pier Paolo Pasolini e escritores magistrais como Victor Hugo e seu Corcunda que iluminou a Notre Dame do século XIX aos nossos dias, com uma luz tão intensa que nenhum fogo jamais extinguirá.
Notre Dame resistiu, altiva, mas com a modéstia da Nossa Senhora que ela encarna, a Nossa Senhora que vela por nós junto com seu filho e o Pai, per saecula saeculorum.
FELIZ PÁSCOA!
I cried seeing Notre Dame in flames. I felt a deep sorrow for the cathedral, as a culture lover as much as a Catholic and a human being. My grief was great, but as a Catholic and a human being, it hurt less than Israel's daily barbarism in the Palestinian occupied territories. Talk about loss and destruction of culture and habitat and the historical Palestine instantaneously comes to my mind, sorry.
I can't mourn Notre Dame without remembering that the Israeli ambassador to the US valiantly defended Israel's "right" to bomb hospitals in 2014 and beyond - and yet the literal "horror" of this objectively "sad spectacle" hardly drew a mob of Twitter-mourners.
Ditto for the year-long killing and maiming spree unleashed by Israeli soldiers in 2018 onto peaceful protesters near the Gaza fence, which resulted in the death of more than 260 people and the injury of close to 30,000 others.
Nor has Yemen found itself to be especially heartbreaking on the international scene, despite being under continuous assault by a Saudi-led coalition. Though the country does attract split-second attention here and there - as when a US-supplied bomb slaughtered 40 Yemeni children on a school bus last year - there's been no sustained collective weeping over reports that, since the start of the Saudi onslaught in 2015, 85,000 children may have died of starvation.
Therefore, I understand that a few Catholics and some non-Catholics have expressed dismay that there is so much international grief over the loss of a building and not over the loss of nature, or the biosphere, or of human lives. That being said, I ask, why does there need be an “either or” response? Why do some people feel the need to limit the scope of grief?
The razing of a primeval forest, the violent removal of an ancient mountaintop, the despoiling of a holy river, the unnatural death of a species, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the hunger in Yemen and the destruction of its gorgeous capital Sanna by Ryad and Washington; all of them wound the human psyche as well, and in far greater ways. These places are not venerated or preserved by the forces of capital except as exploitable property; and these populations are victims of greed and evil.
Like Notre Dame, they represent our collective history and future and the population that are being martyrized and erased from their roots deserve attention and action against their executioners.
Of course that more than Notre Dame or any other human made structure, these places are the real world that we and countless species depend on for existence, and the populations that have been tortured and exterminated are our fellow human beings who depend on us for their survival. But the fact that buildings and structures are reflections of the collective human psyche itself should not be downplayed.
Some have said that Notre Dame represented colonial oppression and feudalism. But indeed, the same could be said about the Imperial Palaces of China, the monasteries of Tibet, St. Basil’s in Moscow, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Akshardham in Delhi, even the ancient ruins of the Acropolis or Teotihuacan, the royal palaces of Britain and elsewhere. All of them represent some kind of oppression, caste or injustice. And of course each of them should be understood beyond mere romanticism and in this historical context. Many of the colonial structures we see today were erected on the razed temples or cities of conquered peoples and were placed there erase that peoples history. A message of ruthless and brutal imperial supremacy. But there is often a tendency to reduce the power of place, that enduring spirit of loci, to fit places and their nuanced and complex meaning into neat and tidy narratives. What is lost is ambiguity, movement, and the very weight of human history itself.
To be sure, there are no shortage of hideous human made structures, ones that stand atop nature scraped of its life, convey alienation, brutality and raw power. Shopping and strip malls are one example, the White House is another. They reflect the cold and ravenous narcissism and insatiable cupidity of our age. Desolate places of alienation, where mind-numbing Muzak is piped through sterile, air-conditioned, cavernous tombs. Big Box stores are another. They squat shamelessly on seas of pavement. Former wetlands, meadows and woodlands raked and drained clean of their original inhabitants. Monuments to banality and a fitting sarcophagus for capitalist consumerism.
Over time, the meaning of structures often change. Events change them. People change them. Nature changes them. But some places and structures are imbued with grace from the start. They convey both a sense of place and connection with nature and an inexplicable transcendence from the repressive systems of their times. So their destruction or desecration can understandably leave a deep psychic wound especially in a world where the wounds appear to be piling up.
Any conscious visitor to Notre Dame would have understood it to be one of those places. Beyond the holiness of the place, they would have noticed its graceful curved lines which boldly celebrated the feminine as divine. Indeed, it was built on an ancient and sacred pagan site and I cannot help but wonder if the artisans and architects reflected this either consciously or not in their work. Any visitor would have taken time to sit in its gardens which carved out a sanctuary of nature in a city bustling with noise, chaos and pollution. They would have taken refuge under the watchful gaze of more gargoyles and chimeras perched on virtually every ledge than in any Harry Potter movie. They would have marveled at the number of depictions of the Virgin Mary, a striking avatar for the pagan goddesses, and an amazing thing considering the repression of religious patriarchy elsewhere. They would have noticed its symmetry and geometry as reflections of nature and the universe or multiverse that we humans inhabit, often unconscious of it all.
So the loss of this structure is perhaps a portent of our times. A time where grace, beauty and nature itself are under perpetual siege. The flames we witnessed devouring her tender spire and arched roof are akin to the fires that are devouring our fragile biosphere. She was a refuge, now scorched. How many others await a similar fate?
It shouldn’t be too difficult to draw from the symbolism of Notre Dame’s desecration. Notre Dame, “Our Lady,” was considered the mother of God. How often is our living earth referred to as our mother? So we need not have to pare down our grief over the loss of this sacred temple. On the contrary, we should expand it to encompass the entire imperiled biosphere. The soul devoid capitalist class may have claimed her smoldering ashes as their own, as they have done with the entire planet. But they are merely pale and pitiful shadows against her walls. Notre Dame is perhaps the best human made symbol for the living earth, and she belongs to no one. On the contrary. We have always belonged to her. Our Lady. Nossa Senhora. Notre Dame. She, or her son, or the three of them - mother, Son and Father, did not allow the fire to take any human life. None. Nor did they allow the fire to desecrate the two most precious Christian symbols of the magestic cathedral: the Cross, which stood unscathed and shines more than ever, and Her image, beside it, at the altar. She keeps watching over Him and us.
As I see it, this fire came to reunite Christians all over the world and allow French catholics to come out of the closet, to break their silence, to show their grief, to pray and to sing together their faith without being mocked or reprimanded.
The fire of Notre Dame reconcile the French for a few hours, maybe days.
They needed it, badly.
Our Lady knows, better.
What's behind the atrocious attacks in Sri Lanka?
VENEZUELA
PALESTINA
Speaking of Our Lady above makes me think of empathy, compassion and the land where She and Her son come from, Palestine, and of course, the Palestinians run through my mind.
It makes me think that along the political spectrum, from the far left to extreme right, and spanning racial and ethnic lines, nearly everyone who has something to say about protesters in Gaza seems to fail the task of recognising Palestinian humanity. If it's coming from the right, the narrative is of terrorists, rockets and Hamas, a legitimate Palestinian resistance fully cemented as the Boogieman in the western imagination.
From the left, the stories are the stuff of legends, portraying unfathomable Palestinian heroism, courage and "sumud", an Arabic word romanticised in English to convey epic Palestinian steadfastness.
At both ends of the spectrum, defenceless Palestinians are larger than life, unlike other humans, either superhumanly posing a threat to highly armed soldiers several football fields away, or displaying supernatural courage and fearlessness before near-certain death. The latter narrative, which manages to sentimentalise unspeakable misery is so enticing that even Palestinians have taken up this framing.
Just days ago, I watched a video of a young man who was shot in the legs. He limps along, falls and gets up, only to be shot again. The scene repeats over five or six bullets before the man cannot get up again and others come to evacuate him. The headline and comments extolled the "brave young man" who continued to stand up to his oppressor despite being hit multiple times in his legs.
I saw something else in that man, young enough to be my son. Maybe he was utterly divested of hope and robbed of the will to live a life encased in the barbaric, malicious, and creative savagery of Israel's siege on Gaza. A young man who has probably known little more than fear, despair, want, and impotence to do anything. Maybe a young man with nothing to lose, someone already bled of his rightful life, attempting a single moment of dignity in defiance, knowing, and maybe hoping, it would be his last. And maybe this is what the soldier saw, and chose instead to add the trauma of amputated limbs to a tortured man feebly raising a small rock with no will or energy to even throw it.
Maybe the Palestinian youngster's motivation was nationalism. Maybe it was the hope of securing money for his family following his martyrdom or injury. Maybe he thought his death would give his people an inch towards liberty. Maybe it was the only thing left for him to do. We cannot know what is in the hearts of those who put their bodies between bullets and despair. But we can be sure that their motivations are painfully human. There is nothing godlike to see or fetishise.
There is no doubting the courage required to stand up to hateful, murderous Israelis, but narratives that imbue Palestinians with mythical bravery are harmful. They propose an otherworldly ability to withstand what no human should be forced to withstand, and they obscure the very human and very dark reality of life in Gaza, which has led to rates of suicide never before seen in Palestinian society.
There is no doubting the courage required to stand up to hateful, murderous Israelis, but narratives that imbue Palestinians with mythical bravery are harmful. They propose an otherworldly ability to withstand what no human should be forced to withstand, and they obscure the very human and very dark reality of life in Gaza, which has led to rates of suicide never before seen in Palestinian society.
Individuals in Gaza have different reasons for joining the Great March of Return, but the prevailing analyses are reductive, often coupling epic Palestinian bravery with non-violent resistance, because western imaginary cannot abide armed resistance, no matter how enduring or merciless the violence inflicted on them. The kind of heroism that is connected with guns is the exclusive purview of western soldiers. The only moral resistance available for the oppressed in the western psyche is exclusively non-violent. This means that the case for Palestinian liberty and dignity collapses the minute they fly an incendiary kite or fire a rocket towards a state that has been eviscerating Palestinian society and Palestinian bodies for decades. It does not help that even some Palestinians reinforce this notion by dismissing Hamas or downplaying any form of armed resistance as outliers in an otherwise ideal and tidy protest of a preternaturally strong and valiant oppressed people.
But the truth must be said, and the truth is abysmally ugly and bleak. There is nothing for the world to romanticise in Gaza. Nothing to idealise. Gaza is a death camp. Death and suppression technology is "the Jewish Nation's" single greatest export and Gaza is the human laboratory where Israeli arms manufacturers fine-tune their wares on the bodies, psyches and spirits of Palestinians. It is a wretched existence that spares none of the two million prisoners in that concentration camp.
Israel has turned Gaza, once a great city at the intersection of trade across three continents, into a black hole of dreams. Gaza is hope's coffin, an incinerator of human potential, and extinguisher of promise. People can barely breathe in Gaza. They cannot work, cannot leave, cannot study, cannot build, cannot heal. By all accounts, the tiny strip is unlivable, literally unfit to sustain life. Nearly 100 percent of the water is undrinkable. Youth unemployment is so high that it makes more sense to measure employment, which stands at a pathetic 30 percent. Approximately 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Most residents get just a few hours of electricity every day. The sewage system has collapsed. The healthcare system has been stretched to its breaking point and hospitals are closing for lack of vital supplies and fuel, which Israel often prevents Palestinians from buying or even receiving from donors. This ineffable misery is intentional. Israel designed and made it. And the world allows it to persist.
When Palestinian lives, resistance and struggle are framed in mythical terms, not only does it obscure their humanity, but it diminishes the depravity of Israel's control over millions of fellow human being lives; many of them Christians like me and most of my readers. The discourse of sumud set us up for failure at every turn. On one hand, it supposes that Palestinians can endure anything. On the other hand, it suffuses the unuttered assumption that Palestinians deserve to be free because we are good, brave, nonviolent and steadfast.
But the truth is that they are nothing more, or less, than human. Just like us Brazilians, French, British, Americans or any other people.
They are collectively neither monsters nor heroes, and even the worst of them are entitled to live free of foreign occupation.
It must be said again and again that their struggle against their tormentors is legitimate in every form, whether nonviolent or violent.
It must be said again and again that however they fight, their resistance is always self-defence.
It must be said again and again that their right to life and dignity is not predicated on measures of their collective goodness, bravery or steadfastness.
Ultimately, the left must stop fabulizing Palestinians and instead look squarely into the gruesomeness of the despair and anguish of Gaza, which I suspect most of us cannot even imagine.
Daily Life Occupation
NOTRE DAME of GAZA
"As the 300-foot spire of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris tragically came tumbling down on live television, my thoughts ventured to Nuseirat Refugee Camp, my childhood home in the Gaza Strip.
Then, also on television, I watched as a small bulldozer hopelessly clawed through the rubble of my neighborhood mosque. I grew up around that mosque. I spent many hours there with my grandfather, Mohammed, a refugee from historic Palestine. Before grandpa became a refugee, he was a young Imam in a small mosque in his long-destroyed village of Beit Daras.
Mohammed and many in his generation took solace in erecting their own mosque in the refugee camp as soon as they arrived to the Gaza Strip in late 1948. The new mosque was first made of hardened mud, but was eventually remade with bricks, and later concrete. He spent much of his time there, and when he died, his old, frail body was taken to the same mosque for a final prayer, before being buried in the adjacent Martyrs Graveyard. When I was still a child, he used to hold my hand as we walked together to the mosque during prayer times. When he aged, and could barely walk, I, in turn, held his hand.
But Al-Masjid al-Kabir – the Great Mosque, later renamed Al-Qassam Mosque – was completely pulverized by Israeli missiles during the summer war on Gaza, starting July 8, 2014.
Hundreds of Palestinian houses of worship were targeted by the Israeli military in previous wars, most notably in 2008-9 and 2012. But the 2014 war was the most brutal and most destructive yet. Thousands were killed and more injured. Nothing was immune to Israeli bombs. According to Palestine Liberation Organization records, 63 mosques were completely destroyed and 150 damaged in that war alone, oftentimes with people seeking shelter inside. In the case of my mosque, two bodies were recovered after a long, agonizing search. They had no chance of being rescued. If they survived the deadly explosives, they were crushed by the massive slabs of concrete.
In truth, concrete, cements, bricks and physical structures don’t carry much meaning on their own. We give them meaning. Our collective experiences, our pains, joys, hopes and faith make a house of worship what it is.
Many generations of French Catholics have assigned the Notre Dame Cathedral with its layered meanings and symbolism since the 12th century.
While the fire consumed the oak roof and much of the structure, French citizens and many around the world watched in awe. It is as if the memories, prayers and hopes of a nation that is rooted in time were suddenly revealed, rising, all at once, with the pillars of smoke and fire.
But the very media that covered the news of the Notre Dame fire seemed oblivious to the obliteration of everything we hold sacred in Palestine as, day after day, Israeli war machinery continues to blow up, bulldoze and desecrate.
It is as if our religions are not worthy of respect, despite the fact that Christianity was born in Palestine. It was there that Jesus roamed the hills and valleys of our historic homeland teaching people about peace, love and justice. Palestine is also central to Islam. Haram al-Sharif, where al-Aqsa Mosque and The Dome of the Rock are kept, is the third holiest site for Muslims everywhere. Yet Christian and Muslim holy sites are besieged, often raided and shut down per military diktats. Moreover, the Israeli army-protected messianic Jewish extremists want to demolish Al-Aqsa and the Israeli government has been digging underneath its foundation for many years.
Although none of this is done in secret; international outrage remains muted. In fact, many find Israel’s actions justified. Some have bought into the ridiculous explanation offered by the Israeli military that bombing mosques is a necessary security measure. Others are motivated by dark religious prophecies of their own.
Palestine, though, is only a microcosm of the whole region. Many of us are familiar with the horrific destruction carried out by fringe militant groups against world cultural heritage in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Most memorable among these are the destruction of Palmyra in Syria, Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan and the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul.
Nothing however can possibly be compared to what the invading US army has done to Iraq. Not only did the invaders desecrate a sovereign country and brutalize her people, they also devastated her culture that goes back to the start of human civilization. Just the immediate aftermath of the invasion alone resulted in the looting of over 15,000 Iraqi antiquities, including the Lady of Warka, also known as the Mona Lisa of Mesopotamia, a Sumerian artifact whose history goes back to 3100 BC.
I had the privilege of seeing many of these artifacts in a visit to the Iraq Museum only a few years before it was looted by US soldiers. At the time, Iraqi curators had all precious pieces hidden in a fortified basement in anticipation of a US bombing campaign. But nothing could prepare the museum for the savagery unleashed by the ground invasion. Since then, Iraqi culture has largely been reduced to items on the black market of the very western invaders that have torn that country apart. The valiant work of Iraqi cultural warriors and their colleagues around the world has managed to restore some of that stolen dignity, but it will take many years for the cradle of human civilization to redeem its vanquished honor.
Every mosque, every church, every graveyard, every piece of art and every artifact is significant because it is laden with meaning, the meaning bestowed on them by those who have built or sought in them an escape, a moment of solace, hope, faith and peace.
On August 2, 2014 the Israeli army bombed the historic Al-Omari Mosque in northern Gaza. The ancient mosque dates back to the 7th century and has since served as a symbol of resilience and faith for the people of Gaza.
As Notre Dame burned, I thought of Al-Omari too. While the fire at the French cathedral was likely accidental, destroyed Palestinian houses of worship were intentionally targeted. The Israeli culprits are yet to be held accountable.
I also thought of my grandfather, Mohammed, the kindly Imam with the handsome, small white beard. His mosque served as his only escape from a difficult existence, an exile that only ended with his own death." Ramzy Baroud
NO to Eurovision in Tel Aviv
BRASIL
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