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Misérias do Exílio. Ós Últimos Meses de Humberto Delgado

Ao longo dos últimos quarenta anos, com intervalos de sensivelmente uma década, tenho tido motivos para revisitar os anos que passei no norte de África entre 1962-66. Quando percorro esse caminho pela memória, apoiada na documentação que consegui acumular, fico cada vez mais impressionada. Ao reler o que escrevi nos anos oitenta sobre O Bando de Argel, e num segundo livro, As Misérias do Exílio, nos anos 90, a minha convicção aumenta de que os acontecimentos de Argel revelaram e continuam a revelar umas profundas verdades sobre a natureza da oposição anti-salazarista. Com efeito, ajudam a explicar a longevidade do Estado Novo. Para quem soubesse interpretá-los esses acontecimentos foram um pré-aviso de dramas futuros. Deviam ter servido como presságio do que viria a acontecer mais tarde depois da queda da ditadura.
É um lugar comum dizer que para compreender o presente temos que entender o verdadeiro significado do passado. Toda a gente concorda mas, na prática muitos ignoram. Se tivesse havido entre 1966 e 1974 um verdadeiro interesse pelos acontecimentos de Argel da parte dos opositores ao salazarismo, talvez não tinham acontecido algumas das desgraças de 1974-75 e a persistente hegemonia até hoje de uma esquerda velha, caduca e desacreditada. Não houve. Ninguém quiz falar desse periodo. Tudo foi varrido por baixo do tapete. A questão entrou no longo rol de tabus: temas que não podiam ser abordados para não perturbar a ‘unidade antifascista’ e hoje precisam de ser escondidos para preservar o status quo. Até os mais recalcitrantes dos maoistas nos conturbados tempos depois do 25 de Abril não queriam ouvir falar em acontecimentos que reflectiam tão pouco crédito nos protagonistas. O muro de Berlim pode ter caído, e os países da chamada ‘democracia popular’ podem ter corrido com os seus regimes comunistas, mas em Portugal em muitos meios—especialmente da comunicalão social e da universidade—continuam de pé os velhos ídolos com pés de barro. Muita gente continua empenhada em esconder a verdade. Não me refiro só ao mistério que rodeia o assassinato de Delgado, embora haja pessoas ainda vivas que não querem levantar o véu sobre o crime.

Independentemente do problema de saber quem mandou matar o general, e seja quem fosse o mandante, o que os acontecimentos de Argel revelam é a incompetência e a patética infantilidade de todos e, pior, a falta de moral de alguns dos actores no drama que se desenrolou na África do Norte. Foi, em boa verdade, um teatro onde todas as tendências da oposição tiveram uma oportunidade, que não existia em Portugal, para mostrar o que valiam. Relendo hoje os documentos tanto de Delgado, como dos comunistas, como da extrema-esquerda, ficamos com a sensação desconfortável de ver e ouvir bonecos de cartão a desempenhar papeis numa farsa e a disputar poderes imaginários no palco dum teatro do absurdo onde não é fácil distinguir entre o cómico e o trágico. É por isso que os comunistas inventaram histórias mirabulantes e o próprio Álvaro Cunhal aifrmou que os documentos eram ‘apócrifos’.

Os actores na peça, afinal, um grupo de quarenta criaturas, a maioria sem preparação política ou militar, e todos divididos entre si, a brigaram sobre o sonho de um confronto com Salazar, a Espanha franquista e a as forças da NATO todos juntos. Na realidade, só Cunhal e os comunistas sabiam que tal projecto seria uma loucura, nunca permitido pelos seus chefes no Kremlin. Mas tinham que preservar o mito do seu empenho revolucionário a todo o custo. Delgado, os seus apoiantes e os maoistas, impulsivos todos eles à sua maneira, viviam no mundo de Sancho Panza.

As divisões políticas e as impotências que observamos no Portugal de hoje derivam em larga medida da persistência obstinada de um mito que alimenta as hostes da esquerda e intimida e culpabiliza a castrada direita. Poucos compreendem realmente o passado. Nem querem compreendê-lo, como ficou amplamente demonstrado durante o famigerado concurso para o maior português; cmo fica demonstrado todos os anos com a benevolência estendida à ‘Festa’ do Avante. O ‘politicamente correcto’ proíbe uma discussão desapaixonada do salazarismo, como impede igualmente qualquer pergunta inconveniente sobre a impotência, baixo nível e em última análise o falhanço da oposição democrática. A continuada influência em dos comunistas alguns sectores cruciais da sociedade portuguesa depende do mito de uma heróica resistência à uma feroz ditadura. Podem os comunistas não apreciar os oposicionistas não-comunistas e não se perderem m de amores pelos herdeiros da Primeira República, mas estão todos de mãos dadas quando se trata de exagerar ao ponto de blasfémia os pecados da ditadura. Escrevo a palavra blasfémia sem ironia. Porque é evidente para um observador desapaixonado que em comparação com as sangrentas tiranias que foram os regimes comunistas ou os actuais infernos das ditaduras do terceiro mundo o salazarismo constituía uma ditadura bastante benevolente. Pretender o contrário é realmente uma blasfémia contra o sagrado dever de respeito pela verdade histórica e uma traição às centenas de milhões de mortos. Censura, partido único, algumas centenas de presos políticos, práticas típicas de um estado policial, obscurantismo no ensino, uma burocracia sufocante e muitas vezes prepotente, ausência dos normais direitos cívicos de protesto e manifestação pacíficas, estatuto subordinado da mulher: todos esses desafios aos princípios liberais existiam no Estado Novo e tinham fatalmente que culminar num desastroso confronto quando eclodiram as revoltas coloniais. Mas um regime criticável e em muitos aspectos condenável não é necessariamente um regime fascista. Confundir categorias políticas leva ao esvaziamento de sentido. É a arma do demagogo, do terrorista do verbo. Na escola é antipedagógico. Na política serve como instrumento de chantagem. É necessário para promover o seu estatuto heroico que os comunistas exagerem vergonhosamente os malefícios do antigo regime. Pena é que muita gente aceite a grande mentira.

É por isso que tudo que tenho escrito sobre Argel ao longo de quarenta anos tem sido bastante mal recebido. Fui avisada continuamente , até hoje, que apesar de minha narrativa ser verdadeira, seria sempre inconveniente. Até os anos 80, disseram-me que só podia ajudar os nostálgicos do fascismo. Hoje dizem-me que estou a prejudicar o bom nome da ‘resistência’ e ‘ajudar a reacção’. Houve só um breve periodo, nos fins dos anos setenta, quando o ambiente era diferente, a comunicação social mais diversificada e havia muito mais debate do que existe hoje. Era o tempo da Aliança Democrática. O meu primeiro ensaio sobre o ‘caso Delgado, foi um best-seller e venderam-se muitos milhares do livro em seis meses. O livro actualmente posto on-line, Misérias do Exílio, cuja apresentação e conteúdo documental é indiscutivelmente superior à primeira versão foi boicotado; não recebeu qualquer promoção ou publicidade e quantos exemplares foram vendidos não sei porque até hoje o editor não me apresentou quaisquer contas.
Foi pena—ou talvez não. Porque agora existe a World Wide Web, e uma audiência potencialmente muito maior e, sobretudo, toda uma nova geração de leitores. E se não tivesse havido o boicote, eu talvez não tinha tido o incentivo para colocar o livro on-line.
O valor histórico do livro consiste sobretudo na reprodução na totalidade de todos os documentos na minha posse referentes aos acontecimentos narrados. A primeira edição, por pressão de tempo, só trazia extractos de alguns. Também esta edição reproduz alguns comentários curiosos incluindo um de Álvaro Cunhal e outro de Pedro Ramos de Almeida. São curiosos porque descaradamente mentirosos, revelando mais uma vez a natureza dessa famigerada ‘superioridade moral dos comunistas’. Cunhal falou de ‘documentos apócrifos’. Ramos de Almeida mentiu descaradamente sobre o meu passado político e alegada pertença ao Intelligence Service. Quem mente tema a verdade. Porquê? A verdade sobre Delgado ainda está para provar e talvez nunca será conhecida. A verdade sobre a moralidade e as características de muitos opositores ao Estado Novo já se sabe. Resta agora tirar as conclusões. A minha esperança é de que os textos publicados neste site sejam de alguma ajuda nessa penosa tarefa.
Algures no Alentejo, 15 de Setembro de 20007

O texto integral encontra-se em:

http://lanca.patricia.googlepages.com/home

ADVERTÊNCIA

Transferência de Textos

Alguns textos que foram publicados neste blogue, foram transferidos para um local menos efémero: Portolani Books que não é um blogue e não comporta comentários.

Os textos transferidos são os seguintes:

David Stove against Darwin and Popper
O desenvolvimento do capitalismo na Inglaterra
An Ignoble Nobel
In Defence of Reason
The Pope and the President
Evolution, Hayek and Scientific Progress
O Anti-semitismo como Doença da Alma

ZITA SEABRA (1) 1988

Como as memórias são curtas, publica-se a seguir um artigo meu escrito em Novembro de 1988 sobre o primeiro livro da Zita Seabra. O que penso sobre o seu segundo livro, Foi Assim, e algumas conclusões sobre os dois, irei escrever dentro de poucos dias.

Por agora, e para os mais jovens convem lembrar das 'coisas' da década de 1980.


O NOME DAS COISAS

(Artigo publicado no semanário O DIABO de 29 de Novembro de 1988)

No próprio dia da publicação comprei e li o livro de Zita Seabra, O Nome das Coisas. Li o livro e fiquei na mesma! 0 que escreveu Zita Seabra näo nos traz nada de novo, nada que não tenha sido já dito ou escrito noutros lugares. Tem a publicação, porém, a virtude de reunir convenientemente os argumentos da ex-deputada no seu contencioso com a direcção do PCP. Assim temos facilmente à mão a corroboração do que escrevi a semana passada, a saber: que Zita Seabra não deixou de ser comunista e que o que ela quer é um PCP melhorado, modernizado e mais eficaz. 0 que ela lamenta é que o presente estado avançado de esclerose do partido enfraquece a causa do comunismo e da Esquerda em Portugal. Esta é a posição declarada dela! Se estiver a ser sincera então Zita Seabra revela-se bastante menos inteligente do que se alega por al.

E isto porque, apesar de ainda se considerar comunista, Zita Seabra reúne no seu livro citações da imprensa soviética contendo admissões gravíssimas. Entre estas figuram as seguintes:

• 0 facto que grandiosas obras em Moscovo e outros sítios foram realizadas com mão-de-obra de prisioneiros de guerra soviéticos libertados ou fugidos de campos de concentração nazis, os quais eram enviados para trabalhos forçados por se terem ‘deixado’ fazer prisioneiros... Os barcos que circulam nas águas de determinados canais navegam por cima dos ossos de centenas de milhares de infelizes que fizeram os canais a mão sob o olhar atento dos guardas armados. (p. 140).

• Pormenores sobre o destino da maioria dos revolucionários bolcheviques, devorados (como acontece habitualmente) pela própria revolução. A Enciclopédia Filosófica Soviética, admite a ex-deputada, acaba de revelar uma lista verificada dos membros do Comité Central do PCUS vítimas de repressão, mortos ou que se suicidaram, entre o XVII Congresso (1934) e o XVIII Congresso (1939). Tiveram trágico destino 98 dos 139 membros efectivos e suplentes do Comité Central do PCUS. (p. 140).

• A tragédia de Kuropaty, perto de Minsk onde foi descoberto um lugar de execuções maciças. Nesse lugar, de 1937 a 1941, foram fuziladas e enterradas, todos os dias, centenas de pessoas. 0 total calculado pelas autoridades soviéticas atinge o número de 102.000 (p.141).

E, mais! Zita Seabra reconhece que estes factos eram conhecidos há muito tempo pelos ‘inimigos do partido’ Perguntamos: Então, quais serão os atractivos do comunismo? Qual a superioridade do ‘socialismo real’ sobre o capitalismo ou o que os comunistas gostam de chamar ‘a social-democracia .de direita’? É aqui que reside o essencial da questão. E é porque Cunhal e os seus homens percebem isso que eles perseguem a ex-deputada. Os crimes do estalinismo (e do pós-estalinismo) não causam nenhuma indignação no seco coração de Cunhal. 0 que ele sente é só e simplesmente a inconveniência de revelar esses factos.

Os Soviéticos nunca pouparam comunistas estrangeiros
0 comunismo só tem qualidades atractivas enquanto vestido de roupagens que escondem a sua fealdade essencial. Antes das revelações de Gorbachev quanto ao atraso e ineficácia da economia soviética, o militante simplório era facilmente consolado pelos dirigentes. Até admitiam ‘urna certa falta de liberdade e alguma repressão’ nos países de leste ‘contra o inimigo de classe’ porque essas eram necessárias para garantir as tais conquistas sem preço:
1. A vitória triunfante do socialismo, que na URSS já estava próxima da fase do próprio comunismo onde a exploração do homem pelo homem teria deixado de existir.

2 O fim desses flagelos característicos do capitalismo, a saber:
• a inflação
• o desemprego
• a prostituição
• a criminalidade
• a droga
• o alcoolismo

3. O florescimento da criatividade cultural e científica.
4. Serviços sociais (de Saúde e de Educação) de alto nível.
5. Alta produtividade e inovação tecnológica.
6. Um campesinato contente e produtivo labutando alegremente nos campos colectivizados.

Através das revelações de Gorbachev os militantes comunistas ficaram a saber que nada disto era verdade! Ficaram a saber, afinal, o que os não-comunistas (os desprezados leitores das Selecções do Reader’s Digest) sabiam já há muito tempo.
Gorbachev, ao revelar a outra face da lua, não estava certamente a pensar nos partidos comunistas estrangeiros. Estava, sim, a pensar no grande público internacional não-comunista. Gorbachev sabia que esse público ficaria bem impressionado com a candura das auto-críticas do dirigente soviético. Porque esse público já sabia que o comunismo não constituía a utopia em que Zita Seabra até há pouco tempo piamente acreditava. 0 que o dirigente soviético, sendo um homem inteligente, pretendia era modificar na medida do possível a péssima irnagem que tem o regime e a sociedade soviética no Ocidente, e que um estilo de propaganda caduco não conseguia mais esconder.

Pretendia criar em Margaret Thatcher, em Ronald Reagan, e nos outros dirigentes ocidentais uma impressão favorável e uma disposição mais amigável para com a URSS. E conseguiu. Este objectivo era muito mais importante do que o risco de semear confusões no meio dos comunistas ocidentais. E isto porque Gorbachev precisa de implementar projectos de redução nas despesas militares, essenciais para permitir algum melhoramento nas baixas condições de vida da população soviética. Como disse Sakharov nos Estados Unidos, a URSS tem actualmente mais elementos nas forças armadas do que quaisquer três países ocidentais em conjunto. Só uma détente palpável nas relações internacionais permitiria essa redução. E o melhoramento da economia soviética é tão indispensável para a sobrevivência do regime como para a sobrevivência da URSS como grande potência.

Quer isto dizer que para Gorbachev e a sua estratégia os reflexos desagradáveis para os ‘partidos irmãos’ são pouco significativos. A URSS nunca hesitou quando parecia necessário sacrificar comunistas, nacionais ou estrangeiros. A história está plena dos cadáveres de ‘partidos irmãos’ e dos seus militantes imolados no altar dos interesses imperialistas de Moscovo: desde o PC espanhol, ao polaco ou ao cubano. Estes casos são meros acidentes de percurso.

No caso de Portugal, Cunhal sabe que a sua sobrevivência depende do isolamento de Zita Seabra. 0 ideal para esta direcção do PCP seria empurrá-la para fora da Esquerda, para que ela e os outros dissidentes não conseguissem o apoio de Moscovo. Mas Gorbachev não está preocupado nem com Cunhal nem com Zita Seabra. Se a sua politica vencer, surgirão mais cedo ou mais tarde outros ‘amigos da URSS’ tanto em Portugal como nos restantes países não-comunistas.

De qualquer modo, Cunhal está, a médio prazo, condenado; e, quando se diz Cunhal entende-se a sua equipa, por que ele próprio, pela natureza das coisas, não pode reinar muito mais tempo. Zita Seabra, como ser politico que é, tem várias opções. Uma é a de prosseguir na via de comunista profissional e era capaz de ter algum sucesso. Outra alternativa, intelectualmente mais honesta, era de escolher o longo caminho da autocrítica às suas próprias posições ao longo dos anos e às do seu partido. Pode não haver no passado do PCP nem gulags nem fuzilamentos em massa (mas só encobrimento dessas monstruosidades cometidas por outros!).

Mas haverá, talvez, outras culpas relacionadas com a história de Portugal durante muitas décadas deste século. E isto porque não há acção sem reacção. Podemos, com alguma justificação, perguntar: Se, sem o fanatismo pró-soviético do PCP, o Estado Novo teria sido, a seguir a Segunda Guerra Mundial, tão ditatorial? Ou se, sem a actuação do PCP como filial estrangeira do Ministério de Negócios Estrangeiros Soviético, teria havido a polarização dos campos quanto a questão colonial e a tragédia que se seguiu?

O espírito do mal
O que Zita Seabra devia colocar como questão é, afinal, quais as realizações benéficas do comunismo. Tanto no Leste como em Portugal?

É perfeitamente plausível que a Rússia, sem a Revolução Bolchevique de 1917, sem gulags, sem ditaduras do proletariado, fosse hoje uma grande potência industrializada e moderna—até democrática. Não aconteceu a industrialização, a modernização—e, ate, a democratização—do Japão sem qualquer intervenção de partidos socialistas ou comunistas? E quanto a Portugal podemos colocar semelhante pergunta. O que de bom tem trazido o PCP ao nosso país? A existência desse partido impediu ou travou a democratização que podia ter acontecido, talvez com Norton de Matos, em 1948?

Nem foi o PCP que acabou com o Estado Novo mas sim um movimento eminentemente sindicalista de militares. A melhoria dos níveis de vida e de cultura dos portugueses, já visível antes do 25 de Abril, não foi certamente obra do PCP.

Afinal, o que valeram tanto sacrifício, tanta militância, tanta obediência? A tragédia de Zita Seabra, como de todos os comunistas dissidentes que deixam inacabada a sua reconversão, é a de ter adorado deuses com pés de barro sem o perceber.

E Cunhal? Não será ele também uma figura trágica?
Não no rnesmo sentido. Zita Seabra está chocada com os crimes no leste e os atropelos a justiça cometidos pela direcção de Cunhal. Porque, para ela e outros cornos ela, o comunismo é um ideal—o tal deus com pés de barro. Cunhal, pelo contrário, não está chocado com os crimes da União Soviética, e a sua revelação constitui urna simples inconveniência. Para Cunhal o comunismo não é um ideal. Tornou-se uma doença psíquica, que antigamente teria sido classificado como um caso de possessão. Reagan, quando falou no império do mal, estava a referir-se a urna grande verdade. Corno podemos comemorar as vitimas do nazismo (que durou 14 anos) com sinceridade, ignorando as vitimas (quiçá mais numerosas ainda) dum regime que dura há setenta anos? Quem se indigna selectivamente corre o risco de ver postas em causa as suas motivações. No caso de Álvaro Cunhal, não é de facto um deus de pés de barro que ele adora mas sim o espírito do mal. E é isso que está patente no seu discurso, quando aparece nas câmaras de televisão. É isto que a maioria do povo português pressente. Estão afinal a ver e ouvir o apologista e o encobridor do gulag.

UM NOVO SITE

Novidade

Os meus caríssimos leitores são convidados a visitar o meu novo site:

PORTOLANI REDUX

Este site será dedicado exclusivamente a assuntos relacionados com o
que na anglosfera se chama 'Gender Studies', e assuntos relacionados como
a legislação sobre o aborto, o casamento, a adopção e a família. Os textos
são inspirados por uma óptica estritamente liberal e sociológica, sem recurso à argumentação religiosa. Numa sociedade pluralista é ainda mais importante distinguir entre o científico e o sagrado. Presume-se sempre que todas as pessoas instruidas serão sensíveis a argumentos científicos. Onde existe uma pluralidade de confissões, ou nenhuma, torna-se difícil argumentar num espaço aberto sem bases comuns. Quanto aos leitores católicos, aconselha-se a leitura dos textos do Papa Bento XVI sobre a necessidade de distinguir o científico do divino. Os comentaristas, evidentemente, estão inteiramente livres a esse respeito. Se eles quizerem empregar argumentos religiosos, não haverá da minha parte qualquer oposição tipo jacobino.

Agradeço a todos os comentaristas que mostraram interesse pelos meus textos. Aos outros só posso desejar ainda mais divertimento com a leitura de PORTOLANI REDUX.

AYAAN A GRANDE LUTADORA

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, autora de Infidel, Free Press, New York, 2007

Ayaan, filha de Hirsi que era filho de Magan: ainda em criança sabia recitar os nomes dos oito séculos de antepassados da linha paterna. Se não memorizava a bem, então era a mal e sempre às mãos da implacável avó. Lembra o Livro de Génesis e o recital dos descendentes dos patriarcas. Quando Ayaan conta a história da sua infância em Mogadishu na Somália e mais tarde na Arábia Saudita, na Etiópia e no Quénia, somos transportados para a época bíblica onde a tribo e o clã estão omnipresentes e a vida individual não conta. Apesar de haver camiões e carros, telefones e rádios, é um mundo muito distante do nosso.

É um mundo onde a mulher é totalmente subordinada ao homem; onde a sua virgindade é garantida com a faca através da mutilação genital em criança; onde é obrigada a casar com um homem escolhido pelo pai; onde uma palavra ou um olhar trocado com um homem que não seja pai ou irmão, pode trazer a pena de morte. Um mundo onde a mulher violada é castigada e não o violador. Um mundo onde as mulheres, desde uma tenra idade, terão que tapar o rosto e o resto do corpo, para não provocar os (aparentemente) incontroláveis apetites dos homens. Um mundo em que aprender os dogmas do Islão consiste em decorar o Alcorão em Árabe, muitas vezes sem conhecer essa língua. Um mundo em que uma das doutrinas decoradas é do direito do marido de bater na mulher.

Foi esse o mundo em que Ayaan cresceu. Ela conta tudo, com uma candura quase compulsiva, não omitindo nada. Conta os horrores, mas também as benesses, Lembra-se da tirania da família e do clã, mas também da solidariedade e generosidade deles em tempos difíceis. Fala da ternura dentro da família, ternura que, apesar, da crueldade, também existia. Fala, sobretudo do pai que adorava, e que relativamente ao obscurantismo generalizado na Somália, era um homem moderno e esclarecido, e que queria que a filha tivesse acesso ao ensino. Ele não concordava com a mutilação genital das raparigas mas a avó, na ausência dele, obrigou a mãe a cumprir com a tradição. Tanto a Ayaan como a irmã foram excisadas, com consequências lamentáveis para a irmã. O pai era um político perseguido pelo regime de Siad Barré, e muitas vezes ausente do lar, ou fugido ou na prisão. Dele ela recebeu os primeiros exemplos de militantismo político e uma certa introdução à política. No entanto o modernismo do pai era muito relativo e foi ele que, mais tarde, obrigou-a a casar e provocou a fuga da Ayaan de África.

A política repressiva de um comunismo africano na Somália seguido por mais de uma guerra civil, a fuga dela com os irmãos e a mãe para a Arábia Saudita, e mais tarde para a Etiópia e o Quénia, forneceram oportunidades para conhecer outros povos e outros costumes e, sobretudo, de comparar a vida dos muçulmanos com a dos povos cristãos. Como Ayaan, desde pequena infância fora um ser cheio de curiosidade, todas as experiências a fizeram reflectir. Observava, apontava na memória e reflectia. Observou a terrível animosidade e ódios entre os diversos grupos e clãs, o não menos intenso desprezo de todos os somalis para com os etíopes e os quenianos. Por estes não serem muçulmanos? Só em parte, porque o desprezo e o ódio aos árabes, especialmente os de Meca onde Ayaan e a família se refugiaram durante algum tempo, são constantemente expressos pela mãe, muito consciente do seu estatuto social entre os somalis.

A autora tem o dom de narrar os pormenores da vida quotidiana com a mesma objectividade que dedica aos grandes acontecimentos das fugas como refugiada de um país africano, para outro, as mudanças de uma escola e uma língua para outras. Conta sem inibição a sua conversão para o islamismo militante da irmandade muçulmana e o curto percurso pelo fundamentalismo. Tapou a cara e o corpo, dedicou-se aos estudos corânicos, ansiosa para uma vida espiritual e uma orientação ética certa e coerente. A sede da Ayaan lembra as crises espirituais das adolescentes cristãs atraídas para a vida religiosa. Ela descreve o seu combate com a fé e a tradição com tal vivacidade que o leitor esquece a sua própria cultura e consegue identificar-se com a jovem muçulmana.

É esta identificação provocada pela autora o grande mérito do livro. Quando foge do casamento imposto e finalmente chega à Holanda, continuamos a partilhar as reacções da Ayaan face ao novo mundo livre que ela encontra. Partilhamos o seu espanto perante a ordem e a civilidade das pessoas, a gentileza de gente desconhecida, a pontualidade e limpeza dos transportes, o facto que tudo funciona, depois da anarquia, desordem e arbitrariedade da vida que ela conhecia em África.

Afinal o percurso da Ayaan é a passagem da vida fechada, a closed society, da vida tribal para a sociedade aberta da democracia liberal do mundo industrializado. Muitos imigrantes têm essa oportunidade mas a maioria não tem nem a inteligência nem a curiosidade da Ayaan e acabam por recusá-la, e alguns de tentar destrui-la. Ela passa maus momentos na Holanda e também triunfos, do estatuto de refugiada ao de cidadã e deputada no Parlamento holandês. Trabalha em vários ofícios desde operária fabril à mulher de limpeza e à intérprete. Tem ampla oportunidade para observar os outros refugiados da sua terra, sobretudo as mulheres e verifica que a grande maioria fica no gueto, fechadas na concha criada pela sua religião. E chega à conclusão que é a política do multiculturalismo da esquerda europeia que reforça os mais retrógrados aspectos do islão. A jovem africana recusa a concha. Trabalha e estuda, estuda e trabalha. Conhece e convive com os holandeses. Consegue com imenso esforço superar todas as dificuldades e acaba por entrar na melhor universidade do país para estudar Ciências Políticas. Está determinada a conhecer a razão de ser deste mundo novo. Quer saber como os europeus conseguiram sair do obscurantismo. Quer estudar a Idade das Luzes e os filósofos. Quer saber o que é o liberalismo.

Sobretudo Ayaan quer falar em nome da mulher muçulmana, quer denunciar a sua situação de oprimida. Ao pôr em prática o que sente ser a sua vocação Ayaan torna-se um alvo a abater. Theo Van Gogh, o produtor de um filme escrito por ela sobre a sujeição da mulher muçulmana, é assassinado e ela ameaçada de morte. É empurrada para a clandestinidade na livre Holanda e finalmente para fora do país. O livro acaba com a chegada da Ayaan nos Estados Unidos, país que ela, em África, tinha odiado como opressor imperialista.

A autobiografia de Ayaan Hirsi Ali é um case study da problemática de toda uma geração de jovens muçulmanos confrontados com a contradição entre dois mundos: o mundo da liberdade e o mundo da servidão. A autora é uma verdadeira heroína dos nossos tempos. A sua autobiografia devia ser lida por todos os adolescentes perplexos perante o mundo moderno e todos os adultos confusos com os lugares comuns do multiculturalismo.

COMENTÁRIO SOBRE AS DECLARAÇÕES DE UM SHEIKH

Este artigo, publicado na revista australiana, Quadrant, aparece no site

de Roger Sandall

Sexualizing everyday life

from Mann and Nabokov to Sheik al-Hilaly

Roger Sandall

My first question is this: was the mad Mufti right?

When Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly said that half-clothed Australian women went around like “exposed meat” inviting rape there was an immediate uproar from all enlightened opinion. Unbelievable! How could anyone say such a thing? Shock-horror was general, and the ugly imagery confirmed a growing suspicion that our Islamic leadership is stuck in the Dark Ages.

But it’s less clear that the Sheik was entirely wrong. Perhaps he could even be seen as a kind of messenger bringing bad news. What he was complaining about, if we’re honest, was a process that has been going on so long, and has now gone so far, that it has become the water we swim in and the air we breathe: a sexually heightened moral environment far removed from any known culture in the past, in which everyday activities like buying a paper or visiting a supermarket continually present us with acres of erotica and exciting flesh—along with once forbidden instincts, thoughts, and desires now normalized and routine.

My second question is this: Has a moral tsunami left our middle classes, the erstwhile custodians of civil order and decency, in ruins? What has been the corrupting role we ourselves have played in this state of affairs—every one of us that is, from the sensation-mongering media at the bottom, to our most celebrated cultural paragons at the top? Recently the papers have been filled with scandalised reports of paedophilia in a surprising variety of milieus. Have the works of even our most gifted artists and exalted writers contributed to a climate in which this too has become inevitable? The Sheik’s comments were tasteless. His language was brutal. But can we truly say he was unprovoked?

Art and innocence

“The kingdom of art increases and that of health and innocence declines.”

So wrote Thomas Mann, and he knew what he was talking about. Moral degeneration and civilisational decline, he argued, come with the ascendancy of the modern artist and the subversive role of art in modern life, a doctrine fully explicit in his novella Tonio Kröger. There he tells us that today’s artists are estranged from life, pursue goals hostile to life, work continually to subvert and destroy the bourgeois firmament, and jeer when it comes tumbling down.

The weird thing is that nobody saw what was happening. The middle classes thought Communist revolution in Russia was out to ruin them—and it certainly made every effort to do so. But capitalism proved more easily debauched than overthrown, and the western bourgeoisie more vulnerable to moral than political subversion. The possibility that the libertine values of artistic bohemia might be more dangerous in the long run, however, never seems to have entered their giddy heads. Artists were exciting. Artists were creative. Artists were free and uninhibited, and art was a raison d’etre much more noble than trade and commerce. As part of this delusion the bourgeoisie came to believe that the counter-cultural creators of beautiful paintings and music must also have beautiful souls.

But this was nonsense. The so-called artist’s ‘gift’, wrote Thomas Mann, has dark roots in a poisoned psyche. “It is a very dubious affair and rests upon extremely sinister foundations.” The world should know that most artists today are sick in mind and spirit, a danger to decent people and heedless of the damage they cause. Plumbers and carpenters and other tradesmen were reliable friends. But artists were the enemy. And because he understood this so clearly, the eponymous Tonio Kröger (the character of a writer in the book who speaks for Mann himself) was embarrassed to find complete strangers sending him letters of praise:

…I positively blush at the thought of how these good people would freeze up if they were to get a look behind the scenes. What they, in their innocence, cannot comprehend is that a properly constituted, healthy, decent man never writes, acts, or composes…”

Literature is not a calling, it is a curse, believe me! It begins by your feeling yourself set apart, in a curious sort of opposition to the nice, regular people; there is a gulf of ironic sensibility, of knowledge, scepticism, disagreement, between you and the others; it grows deeper and deeper, you realize that you are alone; and from then on any rapprochement is simply hopeless! What a fate!

The rise of the paederaesthetic

If art increases as innocence declines, is it a matter of cause and effect? In that case Mann would seem to be supporting Rousseau’s view in the First Discourse that literature and the arts are actually making the world worse. It certainly sounds like that. In Mann’s view the writer stands in permanent moral opposition, sceptical and ironic and relentlessly gnawing away. Worse still: having found a role in Art he may have lost a useful role in Life. The sense of being set apart in an alien moral universe is overwhelming:

You can disguise yourself, you can dress up like an attaché or a lieutenant; you hardly need to give a glance or speak a word before everyone knows you are not a human being, but something else: something queer, different, inimical.

Sexually inimical too—or sexually perhaps most of all. “Is an artist a male, anyhow? Ask the females! It seems to me we artists are all of us something like those unsexed papal singers. We sing like angels; but…” Here Kröger/Mann breaks off. Perhaps from weariness or boredom. Perhaps also because the angelic songs of yearning can hardly be named for what they are. Readers of Death in Venice will however take his meaning. In that story the ageing writer Aschenbach lusts after the youth Tadzio, and the ironic sensibility so ably described, the scepticism, the irony, the extreme narcissism, is combined with the mysterious obsessions of the paedophile—such obsessions being those of the author himself.

* * *

Thomas Mann was a towering figure, intellectually in touch with the major currents of thought in his time, and to try and reduce him to his erotic interests would be ridiculous. His diaries for 1933 and 1934 reveal an observer whose understanding of European realities was second to none. Under the Nazis, he wrote, the Germans were becoming a “wretched, isolated, demented people, misled by a wild, stupid band of adventurers whom they take for mythical heroes.” In his entry for December 15, 1933, Mann reported Max Planck’s meeting with the Führer:

Planck had requested a personal interview with Hitler regarding anti-Semitic dismissals of professors. He was subjected to a three-quarter-hour harangue, after which he returned home completely crushed.

He said it was like listening to an old peasant woman gabbling on about mathematics, the man’s low-level, ill-educated reliance on obsessive ideas; more hopeless than anything the illustrious scientist and thinker had ever heard in his entire life.

Two worlds coming together as the result of the one’s rise to power: a man from the world of knowledge, erudition, and disciplined thought is forced to listen to the arrogant, dogmatic expectorations of a revolting dilettante, after which he can only bow and take his leave.

Stephen Spender wrote of the diaries that “Thomas Mann is a monumental figure of our time. Reading these journals one feels that this monument is made of very hard, resistant, almost cruel material: but under the surface there is a human being who, together with Freud, was the greatest human being this century.”

Under the surface, too, unmentioned by Spender, was a pederastic interest that pervades his work and accurately reflects his inclinations. There is far more to his stories than that. And we might note that he appears to have spent most of his life in chaste frustration. But with their adored ‘Hermes’ (and their slight and ridiculous women) the tales he spun probably helped to disinhibit, to condone, and to legitimise predatory behaviour that mothers with children can only regard with dread.

Mann and Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov once joked that if Lolita had been about a man and a boy he would have had no American publishing problems—and that this was considered a joking matter is almost as revealing as anything else to do with the book. It would of course be ludicrous to suggest a direct connection between the works of these authors and what is now going on in the media and the streets. The self-conscious complexities of literary style alone would exclude all but the most determined reader from the experiences Mann and Nabokov publicise.

Still, there it is, an unbudgeable fact of literary history: two of the most distinguished writers of the 20^th century, the most relentlessly cerebral and self-conscious writers, and the most academically admired and studied writers with whole shelves of earnest research devoted to their books, gave what I shall call “paederaesthetics”—the world of belief and feeling embodied in erotically idealised juveniles frankly treated as sexual prey—an important place. A widely used Simon & Schuster reader’s guide for college students from 1995 tells us that

Lolita, with its murder, paedophilia, sadism, masochism, and even hint of incest, clearly struck a nerve in our society by violating a number of its strongest taboos.

I’d have thought that any healthy society very reasonably should have taboos against murder, paedophilia, sadism, and incest. I am neither a prude nor a killjoy, yet rules against these things seem sensible to me. But the author of this student guide to Lolita apparently feels otherwise, suggesting, in accord with bohemian principles, that the proper function of literature is to overcome such taboos. And perhaps in the case of paedophilia it has succeeded.

The sexualising of everyday life

Our culture is deeply divided. Should we be in favour of public copulation or might that be OTT? If it’s okay for Paris Hilton to make a video of herself having sex and to share it about in cyberspace, why shouldn’t our very own Susie and Jim make one too? A glance at any newspaper shows how each libertine advance ratchets up another without anyone knowing where to stop.

A mass-market color supplement to Sydney’s Sun-Herald for October 29 2006 has the Hilton sisters on the cover, while inch-high yellow lettering shouts “Hedonism is Back, How to Party Celebrity Style”. The following 30 pages promote celebtrashery as a way of life.

Spectrum, a literary supplement of the Sydney Morning Herald edited and written largely by women, moves up a cultural notch and features a story about the female author “of a best-selling erotic novel”. This cites “a man who wishes women would make more noise in bed, and a divorcee in her 50s finding sex on the internet.” Reviews follow, a scene from the film Suburban Mayhem showing a chesty chick with thigh-high boots who, we are told, is “mistress of the SMS, and the local boys are her Praetorian Guard.” Reviewer Sandra Hall reports that “Wanna Fuck? is their call to arms” and that the young woman in question “usually obliges.”

Some relief from this brazen brutishness is provided by the writer Elizabeth Farrelly. Her essay “In search of a cure for paradise syndrome” questions the concept of illimitable human desires, and quotes Raymond Tallis’s thoughts on this subject. But only pages later there’s a full-colour cartoon of a pole dancer getting her rocks off—if that’s the expression I need. This illustrated a contribution by Mr David Marr.

Not wanting to unfairly target a single Sydney newspaper I looked at The Weekend Australian Magazine for November 11-12. The cover is a bold come-on for an article asking if it is right or wrong for women teachers to seduce male pupils. No particular moral stance is adopted, and a number of court cases are examined. Yet by only the second paragraph we are treated to a vivid description of a 37-year-old woman who “wound up in the front seat of her car giving one of her boys oral sex… His friends thought he was ‘a bit of a legend’. He let them in on juicier details, like her glasses fogging up.”

* * *

Now then. Let us stop for a moment and consider. Put yourself in the position of conventionally respectable immigrants from some traditional culture—Sri Lankan Buddhists, Colombian Catholics, Greek Orthodox from the Ukraine—who are used to certain standards of dress and decorum, who go to buy a weekend newspaper, and who are confronted with this sort of thing. We might also mention the good Rabbi and the pious Lubavitchers over my back fence, whose views of female decorum are in all important respects indistinguishable from the Sheik’s.

What conclusion can they possibly draw from the daughters of billionaires fornicating on the web, cries for more noise in bed, shouts of “Wanna Fuck?” from movie stars, a female pole dancer engaged in public masturbation, and Australian women teachers who seduce their pupils and provide them with oral sex? Sheik al-Hilaly may be a boor and a pest. He doubtless has a wider political agenda. But I ask you: if these are not examples of white western women aggressively calling for action, what exactly are they?

Philip Rieff has suggested that we ourselves are the counter-culture now. If that is true, with the values of bohemia saturating the mass media and barely distinguishable from those of the general populace, then we can probably find the reasons for the Mufti’s outburst by gazing thoughtfully in the nearest mirror.

Civility and common sense

Getting the balance right between the animal and the civil has been a problem since civilization began. It hasn’t been easy. There has been a perpetual strain between the puritan tendency and the libertine, in China, in Japan, in India, and in the West as well. Some cultures and some eras veered to the one; some to the other. Alexander Pope saw this perplexity as part of Man’s condition. Created half to rise and half to fall,

He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;

In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;

In doubt his mind or body to prefer;

Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;

Alike in ignorance, his reason such,

Whether he thinks too little or too much;

Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;

Still by himself abused or disabused…

For Europe’s educated classes the situation in the 18^th century may have been as near as we are likely to come to a secular world where mind and body, thought and passion, were in some kind of balance—the various worlds of Hume and Rousseau, of Gibbon and Voltaire, of the Baronne de Warens and the Marquise du Deffand—a world where both the conventional Johnson and the promiscuous Boswell could separately thrive and flourish.

* * *

Be that as it may, the usual way of dealing with this matter involved a common sense separation of realms. You didn’t publish entertaining accounts of oral sex provided by female teachers for their male pupils in family magazines. You didn’t have leading novelists advertising the joys of paedophilia. Though one should expect, in a free country, that such matters may be discussed and argued about—the pros (few) and the cons (many)—it has usually also been assumed that this would be constrained by a thoughtful choice of time, place, and occasion.

That’s where we seem to have gone wrong. An abandonment of the common sense rules to be found in hundreds of traditional cultures, and a foolish refusal to confine the sexual world to where it belongs, has led to its being indiscriminately mingled with everything else, 24/7. A burly Middle Eastern peasant in a nightshirt may seem an improbable source of moral guidance, yet in a way that’s what the outspoken Sheik really is—and he’s calling the shots as he sees them. But shooting the messenger is hardly the answer. Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly and his followers are what they are. We are what we have fatefully become.

END

O DEBATE CONTINUA E ATINGE A CASA BRANCA

Para ler o que diz a 'oposição'

'Homosexuality Isn't Natural or Healthy'

Bush's Choice for Top Doc Compared Human Genitalia to Pipe Fittings and Said Homosexual Practices Can Cause Injury or Death

By JAKE TAPPER

June 7, 2007 —

President Bush's nominee for surgeon general, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., wrote a paper in 1991 that purported to make the medical argument that homosexuality is unnatural and unhealthy. Doctors who reviewed the paper derided it as prioritizing political ideology over science, and Democratic aides on Capitol Hill say the paper will make his confirmation hearings problematic, if not downright bruising.

Holsinger, 68, presented "The Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality" in January 1991 to a United Methodist Church's committee to study homosexuality. (Read the paper here.) The church was then considering changing its view that homosexuality violates Christian teaching, though it ultimately did not do so. Relying on footnotes from mainstream medical publications, Holsinger argued that homosexuality isn't natural or healthy.

"A confirmation fight is exactly what the administration does not need," said David Gergen, a former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, who predicted the paper would cause a "minor storm" among Democrats on Capitol Hill.

"You have to wonder given the quality of some of the nominations that have gone forward recently, whether the selection group in the White House has gone on vacation," Gergen said. "There has been a growing criticism the administration favoring ideology over competence, and this nomination smacks of that."

White House Avoids Direct Response to Paper

In its response to the controversy Thursday, the White House avoided directly discussing the controversial paper.

"Dr. Holsinger has dedicated his life to the care of others and public service and his respect for all is evidenced by his actions and his career ," said White House spokesman Emily Lawrimore. "On numerous occasions, he has taken up the banner for under represented populations and he will continue to be a strong advocate for these groups and all Americans. Dr. Holsinger is a highly respected, well-qualified physician and educator. His impressive medical background, which includes leading one of the Nation's largest healthcare systems, decades of service in the armed forces, along with his commitment to combating childhood obesity, will serve him well as Surgeon General. We urge the Senate for a swift confirmation."

HHS: Paper Not Reflective of Holsinger's Thinking

But Holly Babin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Heath and Human Services -- the agency that will take the lead on trying to achieve Holsinger's confirmation -- insisted that the paper was by no means reflective of Holsinger's thinking.

"That paper was a survey of scientific peer-reviewed studies that he was asked to compile by the United Methodist Church, it's not that he was saying 'this is what I believe,'" Babin said. "It's a reflection of the available scientific data from the 1980s. It should be noted that in 1991, homosexuals were banned from the military and several years before that, homosexuality and Haitian nationality were considered risk factors for HIV/AIDS. Over the last 20 years, a clearer understanding of these issues has been achieved.

Asked about medical experts who disputed that Holsinger's paper expressed opinions timely in 1991 and pressed to explain what Holsinger's views on homosexuality are currently , Babin said, "we look forward to the confirmation process, where we can share Dr. Holsinger's qualifications and views."

Advocacy Groups Protest Nomination

Those answers will likely not quell the controversy. Critics say the paper certainly seems to be written from Holsinger's point of view.

Noting that Holsinger also belongs to a church that offers a ministry to "cure" gays of the sexual orientation, gay and lesbian rights advocates immediately protested Holsinger's nomination. "His writings suggest a scientific view rooted in anti-gay beliefs that are incompatible with the job of serving the medical health of all Americans," said the Human Rights Campaign in a statement. "It is essential that America's top doctor value sound science over anti-gay ideology."

Democrats will likely be sympathetic to such arguments. Holsinger's confirmation hearing, which has yet to be scheduled, will be heard by the Senate Health Committee, chaired by longtime gay rights advocate Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. Members of the committee include three Democratic presidential contenders -- Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Barack Obama, D-Illinois -- eager to prove their bona fides during the primary season to the gay and lesbian community.

Holsinger, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, did not return calls for comment.

When announcing his nomination on May 24, Bush said that as "America's chief health educator, [Dr. Holsinger] will be charged with providing the best scientific information available on how Americans can make smart choices that improve their health and reduce their risk of illness and injury."

What Holsinger's Paper Argues

Holsinger's paper argued that male and female genitalia are complementary -- so much so "that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming pipe fittings either the male fitting or the female fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other." Body parts used for gay sex are not complementary, he wrote. "When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur."

Holsinger wrote that "[a]natomically the vagina is designed to receive the penis" while the anus and rectum -- which "contain no natural lubricating function" -- are not. "The rectum is incapable of mechanical protection against abrasion and severe damage ... can result if objects that are large, sharp or pointed are inserted into the rectum," Holsinger wrote.

The cardiologist details many different diseases gay men can catch, and several sexual practices they may engage in, including "anal eroticism," which can lead to injuries and even death. "From the perspective of pathology and pathophysiology, the varied sexual practices of homosexual men have resulted in a diverse and expanded concept of sexually transmitted disease and associated trauma ?"

In the context of the larger argument in his church as to whether homosexuality should be accepted, Holsinger presented a medical and scientific argument that anal intercourse was not natural.

"It is absolutely clear that anatomically and physiologically the alimentary and reproductive systems in humans are separate organ systems, i.e., the human does not have a cloaca," he said, referring to the posterior orifice that serves as the one opening for genital, urinary and intestinal tracts in amphibians, birds and reptiles. The surgeon general nominee wrote that "even primitive cultures understand the nature of waste elimination, sexual intercourse and the birth of children. Indeed our own children appear to 'intuitively' understand these facts."

A Political Agenda?

Professor Eli Coleman, Director of the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota Medical School said that the paper seems to have a pre-1970s view of human sexuality. "I an't imagine that any scientific journal would be able to publish this material because of its very narrow views of homosexuality," he said.

In fact, if one of his students handed the paper in, Coleman would give it a failing grade, he said. "I find it rather outdated in terms of its scientific knowledge and also narrow in its view of homosexuality," Coleman said. "It concerns me because I think our public policy really should be based upon best available science."

"It's a totally faulty paper. The man doesn't know anything about human sexuality," said June M. Reinisch, Ph.D., director emeritus of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender & Reproduction. "There's clearly a political agenda in this paper. This is not a scientific paper."

Paragraph by paragraph, Reinisch said Holsinger presents faulty arguments. Many homosexuals do not engage in the sexual act he criticizes; 40 percent of heterosexuals do. "It seems to me he's arguing the only way reproduction happens is in a loving heterosexual environment which is of course not true," Reinisch said, noting artificial methods, rape and one-night stands.

Reinisch, who was director of the Kinsey Institute when Holsinger wrote this paper, said that if Holsinger "is going to come up with this position in 2007 I think I can clearly say that he is not qualified to be surgeon general."

Holsinger holds a doctorate in anatomy and physiology and an M.D. from Duke University. He spent much of his career working for the Veteran's Health Administration. From 2003 to 2005 he was Kentucky's secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF MALE HOMOSEXUALITY

PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF MALE HOMOSEXUALITY

Prepared for the
Committee to Study Homosexuality of The United Methodist Church
by James W. Holsinger Jr., M.D.
Committee Member
January 14, 1991

During the course of the meetings of the Committee to Study Homosexuality, biology has come to mean the nonpsychological causation of homosexuality. However, biology also means “the division of physical science which deals with organized beings or animals and plants, their morphology, physiology, origin, and distribution” (Oxford English Dictionary, 1971). I believe that we must seriously consider the scientific disciplines of anatomy (structure or morphology), physiology (function), pathology (abnormal anatomy), and pathophysiology (abnormal function). Not to do so would simply fail to be true to our charge as a committee. There is absolute consensus in the scientific community concerning the structure and function of the human alimentary [pertaining to the digestive tract] and reproductive systems. These two systems are absolutely separate since the human does not possess a cloaca. Reproduction can occur only by utilizing the reproductive system, requiring both the female ovum (egg) and the male sperm. Ova are fertilized naturally in the fallopian tubes of women following sexual intercourse by the sperm which transits through the vagina and uterus following release from the penis. Although artificial methods are available and used, the anatomy and physiology of humans have resulted in a natural means for conception. The structure and function of the male and female human reproductive systems are fully complementary. Anatomically he vagina is designed to receive the penis. It is lined with squamous epithelium and is surrounded by a muscular tube intended for penile intromission. The rectum, on the other hand, is lined with a delicate mucosal surface and a single layer of columnar epithelium intenuea primarily for the reabsorption of water and electrolytes. The rectum is incapable of mechanical protection against abrasion and severe damage to the colonic mucosa can result if objects that are large, sharp, or pointed are inserted into the rectum (Agnew, 1986). The anus and rectum, unlike the vagina contain no natural lubricating function. Thus insertion of unlubricated objects or inadequate dilation of the anus before insertion of a large object can result in tissue laceration. “The internal and external anal sphincters are elastic rings of muscle which generally remain tightly constricted except during defecation. The anal sphincters are also intended for material to pass through them in a direction that leads out of the body. When an attempt is made to insert something in the reverse direction, the muscles of the sphincter constrict” (Agnew, 1986). From the perspective of pathology and pathophysiology, the varied sexual practices of homosexual men have resulted in a diverse and expanded concept of sexually transmitted disease and associated trauma. “Four general groups of conditions may be encountered in homosexually active men: classical sexually transmitted diseases (gonorrhea, infections with chlamydia trachomatis, syphilis, herpes simplex infections, genital warts, pubic lice, scabies); enteric diseases (infections with Shigella species, Campylobacter jejuni, Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia lamblia, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis non-A, non-B, and cytomegalovirus); trauma (fecal incontinence, hemorrhoids, anal fissure, foreign bodies, rectosigmoid tears, allergic proctitis, penile edema, chemical sinusitis, inhaled nitrite burns, and sexual assault of the male patient); and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)” (Owen, 1985). A study of sexually transmitted diseases in heterosexuals, bisexuals and homosexuals reported from Copenhagen in 1988 (Christopherson), demonstrated that the profile of diseases was strongly correlated to sexual lifestyle. “Amoebiasisa and giardiasis were found respectively in 31.9% and 13.8% of homosexuals. None of the heterosexuals had pathologic protozoa … Among males with homosexual partners, 14% had rectal infections. Gonococcal and chlamydial infections were equally frequent. Three percent had symptomatic anorectal herpes simplex infection and 11% anal warts…Urethral gonorrhea and/or chlamydia infections were diagnosed in 39% of heterosexuals compared to only 10% of homosexuals and bisexuals. Twelve percent of the homosexuals had untreated early syphilis, whereas syphilis was exceptional among heterosexuals. The total burden of infections expressed as the actual number of infections was largest among homosexuals, 40.4%, 22.4%, and 5.3% having one, two, and three infections respectively.” In addition to infection, trauma and tumors are the primary problems related to the anorectum in homosexual men. “Consensual penile-anal intercourse can be performed safely provided there is adequate lubrication. Few anorectal problems and no evidence of anal-sphincter dysfunction are found in heterosexual women who have anal-receptive intercourse. However, forceful anal penetration without lubrication against a resistant sphincter will result in abrasive trauma, causing fissures, contusions, thrombosed hemorrhoids, lacerations with bleeding, pain, and psychic trauma” (Bush, 1986). The most severe type of anorectal trauma follows fist fornication which during the 1970s was practiced by approximately 5% of the male homosexual population (Geist, 1988). It should be noted that this activity is occasionally practiced by heterosexual and lesbian couples. This technique of anal eroticism involves having the partner insert their hand and forearm into the rectum for erotic stimulation. “The insertion of such a large object as a hand or fist creates the potential for rupture of the rectum or severe damage to the anus or rectal walls” (Agnew, 1986). “Participants frequently use drugs to produce inhibition or relaxation, thereby clouding appropriate responses to painful stimuli. Injuries sustained in this sexual activity generally tend to be severer and account for most sphincter injuries, as well as a disproportionate number of the lacerations, perforations, and deaths seen in connection with anal eroticism” (Geist, 1988). In addition to infections and trauma, tumors are a definlte rlsk for homosexual men. “Homosexual behavior in men is a risk factor for anal cancer. Squamous-cell anal cancer is also associated with a history of genital warts, an association suggesting that papillomavirus infection is a cause of anal cancer” (Daling, 1987). Anal warts are commonly found among individuals who practice anal intercourse and only rarely found among heterosexuals practicing vaginal intercourse. “In one series of 260 homosexual men seen by proctologists, 134 (51.5 percent) had anal warts. They may occur anywhere in the anal-genital area but are particularly common in the anus of homosexual men” (Quinn, 1984). This infection appears to be correlated with the higher incidence of anal cancer in homosexual men. At our Boston meeting, we spent some time discussing the complementarity of the human sexes. Although one could gather from the discussion of the consultants in scripture, theology, and Christian ethics that there may be some lack of assurance that the human sexes complement each other, I believe that it is possible to argue succinctly from an anatomical (structure) and physiological (function) point of view that the human sexes are indeed complementary. It is absolutely clear that anatomically and physiologically the alimentary and reproductive systems in humans are separate organ systems; i.e., the human does not have a cloaca. Likewise it is clear that even primitive cultures understand the nature of waste elimination, sexual intercourse, and the birth of children. Indeed our own children appear to “intuitively” understand these facts. I think we should note that these simple “scientific” facts are the same in any culture — patriarchal or matriarchal, modern or primitive, Jewish or gentile, etc. The anatomic and physiologic facts of alimentation and reproduction simply do not change based on any cultural setting. In fact, the logical complementarity of the human sexes has been so recognized in our culture that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming various pipe fittings either the male fitting or the female fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other. When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur as noted above. Therefore, based on the simplest known anatomy and physiology, when dealing with the complementarity of the human sexes, one can simply say, Res ipsa loquitur — the thing speaks for itself! January 14, 1991 BIBLIOGRAPHY Agnew, Jeremy, Hazards Associated with Anal Erotic Activity. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 15:307-314, 1986. Barone, James E. and Nealon, Thomas F., Jr., Management of Foreign Bodies and Trauma of the Rectum. Surgery,Gynecoloqv and Obstetrics, 156:453-457, 1983. Busch, David B. and Starling, James R., Rectal Foreign Bodies: Case Reports and a Comprehensive Review of the World’s Literature. Surgery, 100:512-519, 1986. Bush, Robert A., Jr., and Owen, William F., Jr., Trauma and Other Noninfectious Problems in Homosexual Men. Medical Clinics of North America, 70:549-566, 1986. Christopherson, Jette, et al, Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Hetero-, Homo- and Bisexual Males in Copenhagen. Danish Medical Bulletin, 35:285-8, 1988. Daling, Janet R., et al, Sexual Practices, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and the Incidence of Anal Cancer. New England Journal of Medicine, 317:973-977, 1987. Eckert, William G., And Katchis, Steven, Anorectal Trauma. American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Patholoqy, 10:3-9, 1989. Elam, A.L., and Ray, V.G., Sexually Related Trauma: A Review. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 15:576-584, 1986. Geist, Richard F., Sexually Related Trauma. Emerqency Medicine Clinics of North America, 6:439-466, 1988. Patton, Harry D., et al, Textbook of Physiology, 21st ed., Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders Co., 1989, pp. 1263-1460. Quinn, Thomas C., and Holmes, King K., Proctitis, Proctocolitis, and Enteritis in Homosexual Men. IN: Sexuallv Transmitted Diseases, ed. by Holmes, King K., et all New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1984, pp. 672-691. Torre, Carlo, Delayed Death from “Fisting.” American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 8:91, 1987. Williams, Peter L., et al, Gray’s Anatomy, 37th ed., Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1989, pp. 1369-77, 1424-47. Zinner, Stephen H . , Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Homosexuals. Chapter 8 , IN: STDs: Sexually Transmitted Diseases, New York, Summit Books, 1985, pp. 102-114.

COMPORTAMENTO SEXUAL E SAÚDE

SODOMY: A PUBLIC HEALTH RISK MEN: - A 1997 study in British Columbia found the life expectancy of men who engage in sodomy to be comparable to that of the average Canadian man in 1871. Researchers estimate that nearly half of the 20 year old men currently engaging in sodomy will not reach their 65th birthday.1 - Ninety-five percent or more of the AIDS infections among gay men result from receptive anal intercourse.2 - The risk of anal cancer "soars" by nearly 4,000% for men who have sex with men. The rate doubles again for those who are HIV positive. A Michigan homosexual newspaper admits there is no such thing as "safe sex" to prevent this "soaring" cancer risk. Condoms offer only limited protection.3 - Homosexual men face a significantly higher risk of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, anal cancer, gonorrhea and gastrointestinal infections as a result of their sexual practices.4 - Men who engage in sodomy are 860% more likely to contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD), increasing up to 500% their risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Men who commit acts of sodomy with men have large numbers of anonymous partners, which can result in rapid, extensive transmission of STDs. Control of STDs is a central component of HIV infection prevention in the United States; resurgence of bacterial STDs threatens national HIV infection prevention efforts.5 - Anal Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection is nearly universal among HIV-positive homosexual or bisexual men and about 60% in HIV-negative men exhibiting the same sexual behavior.6 WOMEN: - Many innocent victims suffer the health consequences associated with sodomy as a result of blood transfusions, rape and having normal sexual relations with those who have committed unnatural relations with others. While men of all ages who commit sodomy with other men remain at an alarming risk, young bisexual men are said to be a significant "bridge" for HIV transmission to women.7 - Women who commit sex acts with other women face a significantly higher risk of bacterial vaginosis, breast cancer and ovarian cancer than heterosexual women.8 - The spread of Human Papilomavirus (HPV) is not prevented by condoms. The persons most susceptible to cancer associated with HPV are young women (under 20) and people who practice anal intercourse.9 - Women who engage in receptive anal sex are at a higher risk for contracting anal cancer. In fact, in the U.S. general population, anal cancer is more prevalent among women than men — between 1.5 and 2 times more common, perhaps because more women than men engage in receptive anal sex.10 - The following chart provides a broad synopsis of medical problems related to sodomy:11 Sex Practice: Potential Consequences: 1. Close Body Contact 1. Pubic lice 2. Scabies (mites) 3. Fungal Infections 2. Performer of Oral Sex 1. Oral gonorrhea 2. Oral lesions from herpes, HPV (warts), chancroid, lymhogranuloma venereum, or granuloma inguinale. 3. Nongonolococcal pharyngitis from chlamydia, other STD's 4. Syphilis 5. Hepatitis B 6. Enteric (intestinal) infections 3. Receptive Anal Intercourse 1. Traumatic proctitis 2. Rectal gonorrhea 3. Anal warts 4. HIV/AIDS 5. Nonspecific procitis (from chlamydia and other STDs) 6. Anorectal herpes 7. Anorectal syphilis 8. Hepatitis B 9. Rectal trichomoniasis 10. Lymphogranuloma venereum 11. Anorectal granuloma inguinale 12. Anorectal chancroid 13. Cytomegalovirus 14. Anorectal candidiasis 4. Receptive Manual-Anal Intercourse 1. Enteric (intestinal) infections 5. Receiver of Oral Sex 1. Physical abrasions 2. Bites 3. Herpes 4. Urethritis from various STDs 6. Insertive Anal Intercourse 1. Nongonococcal urethritis 2. Genital herpes 3. Molluscum contagiosum 4. Genital warts 5. Syphilis 6. Trichomoniasins 7. Epididymitis and/or proctitis 8. Fungal infections 9. Lymphogranuloma vencreum 10. Granuloma inguinale 11. Chancroid 12. Hepatitis B 13. HIV/AIDS 7. Oral-anal Intercourse 1. Enteric (intestinal) infections 2. Shigellosis 3. Campylobacter fetus (bacteria) 4. Enterogenic E. coli bacteria 5. Hepatitis (A, B, and others) 6. Amebiasis 7. Giardiasis 8. Salmonellosis 9. Enterobius vermicularis (parasite) 10. Oral warts 11. Oral gonorrhea 12. Syphilis 13. Lymphogranuloma venereum 14. Oral granuloma inguinale 15. Oral chancroid 16. HIV/AIDS 17. Herpes 18. Anorectal meningococcal infection 1. International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 26, 657-661, "Modelling the Impact of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and Bisexual Men."" 2. Michael Fumento, "AIDS: Are heterosexuals at Risk?" Commentary 84, (November, 1987) pp. 22-23. 3. Between the Lines, "Anal Cancer and You," Sept. 29, 2000. 4. Medical Institute of Sexual Health, "Health Implications Associated with Homosexuality," 1999. 5. Centers for Disease Control, "Resurgent Bacterial Sexually Transmitted Disease Among Men Who Have Sex With Men," September 10, 1999. 6. Infectious Disease News, "Because of HPV, anal cancer screening indicated for certain high-risk groups," October, 1997 7. Manila Bulletin (Philippines), "Bisexuals Serve as 'Bridge' Infecting Women With HIV," July 30, 2000 8. Medical Institute of Sexual Health, "Health Implications Associated with Homosexuality," 1999. 9. WebMD Forum: "HPV and Cervical Cancer with John R. Diggs, Jr., M.D.," April 7, 2000. 10. Infectious Disease News, "Because of HPV, anal cancer screening indicated for certain high-risk groups," October, 1997 11. DG & Altman Ostrow, "Homosexual Behavior and Sexually Transmitted Diseases." New York: McGraw Hill, 1990. pp. 61-69. Family Policy Network: http://familypolicy.net/us

CASO PARA RIR? OU MATA MESMO?

O artigo aqui reproduzido trata da questão levantada no meu comentário n'O Insurgente ao post de Pedro Sette Câmara, 'Bem No Alvo'. Explica em mais pormenor porque o comportamento da maioria dos homosexuais constitui um perigo para eles próprios e para a saúde pública.

STRATEGY in the TRENCHES

The following was written as a response to a response to an email on hate-crime laws.

If you are one who supports homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle, please tell the public just what that lifestyle entails. The attached *.pdf article gives a shot at it. Also available in *.html at http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/22SxSo/BroSx/Html/Strtgy1pg.htm

The article notes sexual behaviors typical of homosexual persons:

Around 99% of homosexual males engage in oral sex;

91% engage in anal sex;

82% engage in 'rimming', touching the anus of one's partner with one's tongue and inserting the tongue into the anus;

22% engage in 'fisting', inserting one's fist into the rectum of the partner;

23% engage in 'golden showers', urinating on each other;

4% engage in 'scat', the eating of feces, and in 'mud rolling', rolling on the floor where feces have been deposited.

These above figures are from one of the largest studies on the subject by two homosexual authors, not by rigid, right-wing, fundamentalist Christians.

Some, perhaps all, of these listed behaviors are being taught openly in Massachusetts public schools to children as young as 14, and maybe younger -- proving that all this is not just about what happens in someone's bedroom. It is about what happens in lots of public places.

Visit http://www.article8.org/ and http://www.parentsrightscoalition.org/ for more details. Search, e.g., for 'fistgate'.

The goal of homosexual activists is that of Alfred Kinsey and SIECUS, unlimited sexual freedom cradle-to-grave.

I understand that homosexual persons engage in many activities other than these, but it is only the sexual behaviors that are in question.

Love is not an issue between us, neither is compassion or inclusiveness, if defined consistently with the law and grace of God. Only specifically sexual behavior. I applaud that homosexual men form choirs, have clubs, eat meals together, and love each other. I love my father and my brothers, and they love me. None of those is the issue at stake if they are not sexualized.

Clarity always favors truth, unclarity always favors falsehood. The public must have clarity on the item homosexual persons want the public to approve (in this case homosexual behavior) or the public discussion cannot proceed (and has not proceded) either rationally or compassionately.

So please tell the public whether these are the behaviors you understand to be more or less typical of homosexual persons. If this list is not accurate, please supply the public with the accurate list, and explain why the two authors noted above gave us this one (for starters).

And, please tell the public which of these behaviors you think God wants to bless, and which you think the Church ought to bless.

If the above list is accurate, can you tell the public what the health consequences are of relating sexually in these ways?

And concerning hate-crime laws, the law is engineered to make it illegal to have an honest discussion of the issues. One cannot challenge the homosexual agenda without having the enforcing gun of the law pointed at one. That is commandeering the law of the land in a treasonous manner -- to subvert our constitution and the most precious aspect of a democratic republic -- the protection by law of open, honest, uncoerced public discussion of public issues. The homosexual agenda is all about public policy, and hardly at all about one's bedroom.

If the facts show that I am wrong, I will change my mind.

I offer a challenge to homosexual supporters: You and I are on opposite sides of the homosexual issues. But if the evidence should show that God approves of homosexual behavior, and that that is a safe way to engage sexually, then I will stand with you. On the other hand, if the evidence should show that God does not approve of such behavior, or that such behavior is health-eroding, not health-promoting, I ask, would you be willing to reconsider your position?

You can read much more at http://theroadtoemmaus.org/EM/ShpMl/WinSxWrs.htm

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