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 Dear friends, attached as a Word document is the news published in today's (Saturday, April 29) Globo newspaper about a primer called "Politically Correct." It is terrifying. Are we entering a totalitarian era in which the government is taking the first step to establish a new language and impose rules on the words we must use?
Will the use of swearwords in the language spoken in Brazil be soon forbidden ? Will terms and expressions considered inappropriate by the Government be eliminated from dictionaries? Will venerable words from the language like "beata" (beatified or sanctimonious), in any sense, be banished? Will a language police be created ? Will Brazilians be forbidden by law from arguing vigorously and swearing at each other?
What authority has this Human Rights Secretariat to emit these opinions? For now, they can just be opinions, but nothing prevents, in the hardly disguised dictatorship in which we live, that a Temporary Measure be signed by the President.
It happened before when they confiscated our savings and bank accounts, during the Fernando Collor de Mello administration. They might also confiscate our language and our habits, even though they might be considered unacceptable by the majority.
Will writers and journalists have their books and texts scrutinized so that they can expurgate terms or condemned expressions? Will telling jokes be considered antisocial and discriminatory conduct? Is the government the owner of the language?
Will the words "negro", "preto" (black), "escuro" (dark) and similar be vetoed if they are not being used without any relation with the skin color of anybody, when appearing in any context considered negative?
Are rainy clouds by chance white and is someone insulting blacks, when he says that there are black clouds in the horizon (and there are)? Are tunnels dark and is there any racial allusion in the expression "light at the end of the tunnel"? Can't the bubonic plague be mentioned as the "black plague" anymore?
Will it be considered an offense or defamation calling communist somebody who might be one, but does not consider himself as such? Can't we say anymore that someone is "burro" (ass) or that he committed a "burrice" (stupidity)? Will a list be published containing words that are allowed and words that are forbidden?
Does this happen in any other part of the world? If a homosexual, as many of them do, labels himself as "veado" (deer and queer), can he be censored or punished? Will the indefinite pronoun peculiar to the language spoken in Brazil ("nêgo", as in "nêgo likes to party a lot") only be acceptable in a laudatory or positive statement?
The ridicule of this primer should not blind us to the fact that it is starting what it seems to be a wide distribution, which will certainly reach schools, in which, today, there are already obligation to racially classify students, letting be understood that some areas will certainly consider a progress and a step towards the sought third world, the institution of segregation in Brazil.
We cannot accept this totalitarian, authoritarian, biased (yes), stupid, deleterious and potentially destructive delirium - and, what is worse, paid with our money. What is happening in this country? Where are we going, at this pace? How much longer before the idle bureaucrats who swell the government machine will regulate our domestic sexual conduct or our use of sanitary facilities?
After all, what is this, for God's sake? How long are we going to tolerate being treated as a country of featherbrained sheep subject to the incontestable yoke of "authority"? Does all power emanate from the people or from bureaucracy? Can we be prosecuted, if we call "employee" a member of the public service? Is there freedom left for anything?
It was the State who gave us the right to think, give an opinion and tell, or is this a basic and inalienable right, which cannot be taken away from us? I do not know what else to tell about this calamity, this scandal, this shame, this monstrous sign of backwardness, which from now on I cannot call as clownery, as not to insult the clowns.
How far back are we going to regress? It is necessary that we react, it is indispensable that the men responsible for such foolishness be fired from public service, because they are there to commit offenses against freedom and outrages of this kind.
It is indispensable that we take over our role as citizens who detain sovereignty that, at least nominally, is among us popular sovereignty. ENOUGH STUPIDITY, ENOUGH ABUSE, ENOUGH INCOMPETENCE, ENOUGH SHIT THROWN OVER OUR HEADS!
Or we would better shut up and live the fate of cattle, a fate they are trying hard to impose on us. The choice is ours to make sure that this grotesque and idiotic initiative be immediately squashed, or soon we will not have the right to anything, neither our language, our feelings and the choice of our behavior, which as long as it's not criminal, is exclusively our business and nobody else's.
We cannot be humiliated and embarrassed like this anymore. Let's demand respect and seriousness, let's defend our integrity and dignity, let's resist and, yes, let's swear - good sons of bitches - or, rather, good offsprings of female sex professionals, in accordance to the new guidelines.
Go jump in the lake, and not at our expense, as you have been doing up to now. Excuse me, but I cannot contain my indignation and I'm trying to pass it around to as many fellow Brazilians as possible.
Democratic and rebellious greetings about to become revolutionary, from João Ubaldo Ribeiro.
This text was sent as an email by renowned Brazilian writer João Ubaldo Ribeiro to friends and acquaintances upon reading the news that Brazil's Human Rights Secretariat had printed and started distributing 5,000 booklets entitled "Politically Correct" containing 96 terms, expressions and jokes considered offensive, which should be avoided.
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"[O ministro Nilmário Miranda] afirmou que a cartilha foi publicada para fazer as pessoas refletirem sobre expressões do dia-a-dia. O ministro disse que sua secretaria jamais editaria um texto autoritário. 'Não há nada de autoritário na decisão do governo de publicar a cartilha. É um texto educativo. Não irá ser transformado em lei', disse. A revisão será feita pelo Comitê Nacional de Educação em Direitos Humanos. Serão levadas em conta sugestões e críticas publicadas na imprensa nos últimos dias."
Ribeiro resorts to a hysterical and fallacious slippery slope argument that also employs an extended analogy, to wit: "For now, they can just be opinions, but nothing prevents, in the hardly disguised dictatorship in which we live, that a Temporary Measure be signed by the President. It happened before when they confiscated our savings and bank accounts, during the Fernando Collor de Mello administration. They might also confiscate our language and our habits, even though they might be considered unacceptable by the majority." Woah there João. Are you not overstating the case a tad?
On the other hand, I sympathize with Robeiro. The booklet apparently is not written in a style designed to create debate or to educate, but rather indicates that certain words and expressions should be "avoided." At least there is truth in advertising, the booklet being entitled "Politicamente Correto." What did the author expect? What the hell was he thinking? Then avoid my middle finger, I say.
Yes, the idea of the government regulating speech is odious. It's great that people, including Ribeiro, lashed out against the stink of fascism that permeates a governmental proclamation of public morality and threatens free expression. But I think he needed to impose the 24 hour rule on this rant (write it out and wait 24 hours, then read it again and edit).
Não é nada demais. But I do have a soft spot for anyone with the balls to stand up and say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." And in that spirit I'll stand with anyone who wants to tell the Human Rights Secretariat to f**k off.