To  ^{RODA VIRTUAL}

----- Original Message -----
From: Mestre Jeronimo Capoeira - JC  Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Subject:  CAPOEIRA - ENTREVISTA BRAZINE e.V. - Berlin, Alemanha
 

9. a program to add to organise Capoeira throughout the world is promoted by Gilberto Gil, the Minister of Culture in BR. What can the government add to help capoeiristas working and promoting Capoeira outside BR?

*mJC = this program seem to focus on the 'capo-sporte' - it should add to CAPOEIRA!

Outside BR capoeiristas are doing fine Minister with the Capoeira work that we promote to our communities. What about Capoeira in Brasil? This program is not in tune. Is that a program 'jogo' to s$lave capoeiristas - voters, tax-payers? We may be suspicious because there are many politicians and multinational groups involved to promote this capo-sport program. What's going on minister Gil?

Having Capoeira organised from outside to inside (?) does not help Brasil REAL Capoeira-Life social situation to the present - a mess!

Is that the case that the people of BR are being mislead again? Money from the taxpayers used to satisfy egos? Brazilians will end up importing Capoeira this way. Same on this Program!!

Outside BR, in AUS for exemplo, Capoeira will follow what we live here, and elsewhere in EU, USA, etc the same thing. We don't need this mess that is BR social sis$tem to ginga our lives. As for the capo-sport that seem to be the focus of this Program - Olympic Capoeira? - that is something thaat does not fit to CAPOEIRA and our Brazilian Culture, ritual. Le'ts hope that our singer G. Gil can add to the education of our people as a Minister from Mr. Lula program to edify Capoeira to Brasil!
 

*This segment is part of an interview with Mestre Jeronimo with the BRAZINE e.V. - Berlin, in Germany. READ THE WHOLE INTERVIEW.
 

BRAZINE e.V.
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       ----- Original Message -----
From: Beto Defreitas
To: [email protected] ; [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 1:40 AM
Subject: [ICAFICA] Capoeira Angola meets United Nations

Discurso do ministro Gilberto Gil em Genebra  -  Brasil, Paz no Mundo
 

    Speech by Minister Gilberto Gil: Brazil, Peace in the World 

    GENEVA, 19th AUGUST, 2004.

    Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,

    Exactly one year ago today, one of the biggest militants and defenders of world peace died in Baghdad: Sérgio Vieira de Mello. A Brazilian. A UN Ambassador. A citizen of the world. An example and the essence of what we call solidarity, respect, courage and union. With him, another 22 people died, including 19 UN officers, all in the name of peace.

    Such deaths caused the birth of a path to be tread in a global scale: by all peoples, all countries and in all languages.

    Vieira was certainly the speaker of a universal aspiration, but he was also a living proof of the spirit of the Brazilian nation. A plural nation: multiracial and multicultural. A pacific and cordial power by nature that substitutes the desire for domination for the will to include and live together.

    Brazil has a unique role in the world today. Its economic, cultural and ecologic might serves as a basis to sustain a pacifist project.

    Therefore, in support of the United Nations World Program for the Dialogue Among Civilizations, the Brazilian government is offering to prepare an international conference on the Dialogue Among Civilizations.

    Brazil is determined to implement actions for the building of harmony among peoples of the world, strengthening the role of cultural diversity for the prevention and mediation of conflicts, with the purpose of building lasting peace.

    Our country celebrates the art of the encounter, of cultural resistance and of fraternity. This is why today I bring to the UN capoeira players from all over the world to pay a tribute to Sérgio Vieira and his fellow colleagues. After all, no one can fight alone, no one can dance alone.

    Capoeira is a Brazilian attitude that recognizes a history written with the body, with rhythm and by the immense libertarian nature of man faced with intolerance.

    It is fight, dance, rhythm and physical vigour. The Negroes created capoeira to serve both pleasure and combat. They accomplished this image of life in their own flesh, and it is fundamental to date.

    Afro-Brazilians knew how to turn violence into camaraderie, involving dance, rhythm, chanting, touch and improvisation. Capoeira is an existential affirmation of the black people in the context of slavery and racist domination, which were present in numerous moments of Brazilian society. The playful sway and the mandala of the capoeira ring encompass the history of the black people in the diaspora.

    Humanism is the root of capoeira. It educates, teaches respect, gives meaning to mind and body, and builds the self-esteem of those that practice it - it gives meaning to the life of its people. The drums were the party of the black people, opportunities to celebrate cultural values brought in by the Africans.

    But it wasn't easy for capoeira to put its feet in the world and turn itself into a planetary form of art. Many were the adversities faced along history: social and racial prejudice, police persecution and rejection by the elite. The two biggest capoeira icons in Brazil, Master Bimba and Master Pastinha, died in oblivion and without recognition. Today, a few Masters even win prizes abroad but in Brazil they receive nothing. Many are in a situation of absolute want.

    Thus have been the capoeira rounds. Faced with obstacles, they spin and, with their quick turn, manage the art of avoidance and the malice of the unfinished strike, turning the wheel of life and destiny.
 

    The have survived! The Negroes have become Capoeira and have danced they way they managed to dance. They discovered a way of being and have thus taught us to proceed. They swerved from the whip and learned to contort their bodies in their fight. They have turned the clashing of the shackles into the shaking of the rattle. They swallowed their tears with a higher chant. And returned art and slyness to what was blood and chastisement.

    Capoeira players have overcome their difficulties. Today, capoeira is practiced in over 150 countries.

    In the Americas, Japan, China, Israel, Korea, Australia and Africa, and practically all over Europe. Capoeira has disseminated throughout the world with enthusiasm. Albeit they do not speak any Portuguese, a Chinaman, an Arab, a Jew or an American can repeat the beat of the same song, the art of the same step and the sway of the same touch.

    The diaspora of capoeira in the world is a reality that has the assurance of educational institutions such as UNICEF, which countersigns initiatives by Brazilian capoeira players in different countries.

    Often these capoeira players are invited to take part in actions for social inclusion of children and adolescents under social risk (drop outs), as well as repatriates, victims of war and people who are physically challenged.

    There is no more doubt that capoeira is an instrument of socialization and re-socialisation in many levels. It integrates different languages in its form of expression: it is ballet, circus art, street dance, it is a work out, chanting, it is fight, it is game, it is sway. It helps to overcome the limits of both body and mind; the recuperation of energy after fatigue; in the creation of a collective camaraderie spirit for the art, slyness and tricks of its game of enigmas.

    There could not be a more significant date than this - a tribute to world peace - for historicall reparation to this manifestation of enslaved Africans in Brazil.

    We announce here, on the stage of the United Nations, the basis for a future Brazilian and World Programme for Capoeira.

    Now the Brazilian government is "making a revolution", as it recognizes capoeira as one of the noblest cultural manifestations. The Ministry of Culture of the Lula Administration now recognizes this practice as an icon of Brazilian representativeness before other peoples of the world.

    This year we will meet with capoeira players from Brazil and the world to outline a grand action for capoeira. We want to listen and assimilate the needs and demands of different capoeira players: from Brazil and the world.

    We already have a few proposals lined up. We want to build a year calendar, national and international, for capoeira. We want to create a Reference Centre at Pelourinho, in the city of Salvador, which will serve not only as a collection of research, books, adornment and figures, but also as a space for activities. Thus, Bahia should be affirmed as a kind of "Mecca for Capoeira".

    Among other measures planed out, is the creation of a programme to be implemented in schools throughout Brazil by our Ministry of Education - considering capoeira as cultural and artistic practice, not only a sport. We also propose to create a specific welfare for artists and, among them, special attention for capoeira players.

    We intend to give diplomatic support to capoeiras who today live abroad - who can be considered true ambassadors of Brazilian Culture, as well as making effective the recognition of the notorious knowledge of capoeira Masters. Last, but not least, we also plan calls for tenders to foment projects that use capoeira as an instrument of citizenship and social inclusion.

    This is the first manifestation of the Brazilian government in recognition of the cultural authenticity of capoeira. And I say more: the historical difficulty of this recognition by the government is explained exactly by the origins of capoeira being part of the social and cultural context of the society's blacks. Capoeira offers a glimpse of the game of legends and heroic stories of the martyrdom of the black people in Brazil. The moment is arrived to leverage this millennial cultural practice, seen only as a sport. May we value this immensurable cultural base, and not dispossess it.
 

    May we learn from Capoeira to keep intact and integral in this great global ethnic salad. May we play without the blemish of submission. May we sway to dribble the control that tries to unify world culture by imposing the one.

    Capoeira is among the great contributions from Brazil to the imagination of the world. This is proof that the sea takes awayŠ and the sea brings it back: we have left the acrid holds of slave ships and returned consecrated by the fraternity of art. The Capoeira ResistanceŠ

    Let us now begin a globalising ritual, a prayer of all languages: Yoruba, Chinese, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, whatever it is: let them all come. Together we will say this prayer of dance and body, of sound and voice.

    Let us invoke our Masters and these many Masters who wrote capoeira into history. I want to reverence a few Masters who are already gone: Bimba, Pastinha, Aberrê and Besouro Mangagá. I call unto Masters Noronha, Maré, Bilusca, Rosendo, Atenilo, Samuel Querido de Deus, Waldemar, Traíra and Naké.

    I invoke the living Masters: Cobrinha, João Grande, João Pequeno, Caiçara, Canjiquinha and Camisa, who today have almost 40 thousand pupils scattered throughout the world.

    In the name of these and many other Masters, the Ministry of Culture of Brazil summons all present for a ring, rather, for a mandala of dance for peaceŠ

    I give you the Masters and capoeira players who today will plant this seed of love and unification. I would like to invite to the stage the old Masters from Angola - Moraes and Curió, who travelled from Bahia. Also from there, Master Duende.

    From the interior of Maranhão, our glorious Espoleta, who found in capoeira a way to fight poverty and is today an example that this is in fact a practice for inclusion - our dear Bracinho, who is physically challenged, another proof that capoeira is a great means of inclusion.

    Now, the son of our dearly departed Master Bimba: Luisinho, who honoured the roots of his father the all Afro-Brazilians.

    And directly from Belgium: Dendê and Abelha. From Japan: Katana. From Israel: Sapio and Gato Branco. From the Netherlands: Samara. They are all proof that capoeira can be globalised in the same tone.

    Hehêê: it's Peace in the World, ComradeŠ

_____________
 

Peter Schardt
Limmattalstr. 11
CH 8049 Zürich
+41.43.311 55 57
+41.79.708 31 37

--
H. Julia Eksner
Graduate Program in Learning Sciences
School of Education and Social Policy
Annenberg Hall, R. 307
Northwestern University
2115 North Campus Drive; Evanston, IL 60208-2610
Tel. 847-491-5795
[email protected]