Saudação do Paquistão

Mensagem enviada em 28 de Dezembro de 2009 por Syeda Henna Babar Ali, Presidente do Centro do PEN do Paquistão:

Peace requires tolerance and a large heart to accomodate difference. It means we need to understand the hardship of others, to feel compassion what others suffer and the price they pay so that others can have peace. Pakistan has known no peace since 1979, this year there have been 470 bomb blasts and several thousand people dead, families destroyed, property destroyed. We all want peace, we want the war on terror to end and we want the terrorists to leave our country forever. We will have no peace while there is poverty, inequality, huge disparity of income, lack of opportunity for the masses, illiteracy and a public educational system which does not teach critical thinking or analysis and does not develop the full intellectual capacity of young minds. The youth of Pakistan is bright, young, promising and vibrant, they want a better future for themselves and their country, they want peace, harmony and a good life for themselves and their families just as the developed countries of the Western world, Asia or the Middle East. Yes, we can bring peace to Pakistan through a better system of education, which will empower the youth, encourage them to become young entrepreneurs and create jobs for themselves. Prosperity brings hope tolerance and PEACE.

Aos Colegas do P.E.N. e a todos os que amam a Paz...

...mas que sabem que ela se conquista em cada gesto quotidiano e no conhecimento dos efeitos da sua ausência:

Desejamos a todos uma quadra com muita luz interior, que tem origens várias: razão, intuição, empenhamento no mundo. Muitos de nós, na face da terra e noutros Centros P.E.N., não poderão talvez juntar-se aos seres que amam devido a obstáculos que um pouco mais de razão, de intuição e de empenhamento no mundo tornariam desnecessários. Esperamos que o nosso trabalho, baseado numa comunicação e acção empenhadas, contribua para abolir em 2010 muitas barreiras ainda existentes, no interior e no exterior de cada um de nós - e para isso cada gesto consciente conta em cada momento, não apenas nesta quadra.

Saudações calorosas de Teresa Salema (Presidente do Centro do P.E.N. Português e Vice-Presidente do Comité de Escritores para a Paz do P.E.N. Internacional)

To the P.E.N. Colleagues ant to all those who love Peace but also know that it must be conquered in each daily gesture and in the knowledge of the effects of its absence:

We wish you all a season with lots of inner light, which comes from different sources: reason, intuition, engagement for the sake of the world. Many of us on Earth and also in other P.E.N. Centres will not be able to join their beloved ones due to obstacles that would turn out to be unnecessary with a little bit more reason, intuition and engagement for the sake of the world. We hope that our work, based upon an engaged communication and action, may contribute to abolish in the New Year many barriers that still exist, in the interior and the exterior of each of us – and for this each conscientious gesture counts every moment, not only in this season.

Warm greetings from Teresa Salema (President of the Portuguese P.E.N. Centre and Vice-President of the Writers for Peace Committee of International P.E.N.)

Aux Collègues du P.E.N. et à tous ceux qui aiment la Paix mais qui savent aussi qu’elle doit être conquise avec chaque geste quotidien et en connaissance des effets de son absence :

Nous souhaitons à tous une saison avec beaucoup de lumière intérieure, qui vient de différentes sources : raison, intuition, engagement au monde. Beaucoup d’entre nous sur la terre et dans d’autres Centres P.E.N. ne pourront peut-être pas joindre les êtres aimés à cause de quelques obstacles qu’un peu plus de raison, d’intuition et d’engagement au monde rendrait inutiles. Nous espérons que notre travail, basé sur une communication et action engagées, puisse contribuer pour abolir en 2010 beaucoup de barrières encore existantes, à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur de chacun de nous – et pour cela chaque geste compte à chaque moment, pas seulement pendant cette saison.

Saluts chaleureux de Teresa Salema (Présidente du Centre P.E.N. Portugais et Vice-Présidente du Comité des Écrivains pour la Paix du P.E.N. International)

Depoimento de George Monbiot, jornalista do jornal britânico The Guardian, no encerramento da conferência de Copenhaga (19.12.2009)

At no point has the injustice at the heart of multilateralism been addressed or even acknowledged: the interests of states and the interests of the world's people are not the same. Often they are diametrically opposed. In this case, most rich and rapidly developing states have sought through these talks to seize as great a chunk of the atmosphere for themselves as they can – to grab bigger rights to pollute than their competitors. The process couldn't have been better designed to produce the wrong results.

I spent most of my time at the Klimaforum, the alternative conference set up by just four paid staff, which 50,000 people attended without a hitch. (I know which team I would put in charge of saving the planet.) There the barrister Polly Higgins laid out a different approach. Her declaration of planetary rights invests ecosystems with similar legal safeguards to those won by humans after the second world war. It changes the legal relationship between humans, the atmosphere and the biosphere from ownership to stewardship. It creates a global framework for negotiation which gives nation states less discretion to dispose of ecosystems and the people who depend on them.

Even before the farce in Copenhagen began it was looking like it might be too late to prevent two or more degrees of global warming. The nation states, pursuing their own interests, have each been passing the parcel of responsibility since they decided to take action in 1992. We have now lost 17 precious years, possibly the only years in which climate breakdown could have been prevented. This has not happened by accident: it is the result of a systematic campaign of sabotage by certain states, driven and promoted by the energy industries. This idiocy has been aided and abetted by the nations characterized, until now, as the good guys: those that have made firm commitments, only to invalidate them with loopholes, false accounting and outsourcing. In all cases immediate self-interest has trumped the long-term welfare of humankind. Corporate profits and political expediency have proved more urgent considerations than either the natural world or human civilization. Our political systems are incapable of discharging the main function of government: to protect us from each other.

And should we care…?

On the day of Human Rights, should we care about the breaking of some protocol rules by Barack Obama in Oslo, or about the life of Aminatou Haidar, suspended on the thread of our silence and risking to fade under our incapacity to tell our anger to the ears that lead directly to the heads which can decide, to the hands which are able to act quickly?

On the day of Human Rights, should we care about the statement of the general-director of Amnesty International in Portugal, who finds it even possible that sending troops to Afghanistan could be a means for the sake of peace in the region, or about the lack of water in many Palestinian homes, at the same time as Israeli settlers declare themselves openly to be against the freezing of the settlements in East Jerusalem?

What should we really care about, if not the insustainability of too many situations on our planet, much more than our private soul can handle with? Listening to the beautiful song by Clint Eastwood, yet we have a feeling that it means more that the concerns of our private sphere – we are inevitably connected with all the world, let us not only hope for the better. Getting angry against injustice may be a pretty good first step to get energy to act – about how to act, there is no receipt, no formula, no way put the path.

10.12.2009

Teresa Salema