A good 12 years ago, still in the pre-Internet era, when we had arguments on separatism in Brazil, I published an article in the daily Zero Hora, from Porto Alegre, entitled "The Territory Is Already Divided". In that article, I stated that the Ianomami and other indigenous tribes could have countries for their own use, while other Brazilians could not even think about the subject because it was a crime against national security.

"The idea of independence of the Brazilian southern state is seen as a separatist dream of gaúchos who long for the Piratini Republic," I wrote then. "The Army Ministry states that separatism is barbarism, civic anomaly, breach of the national unit. The deceased USSR has been blown to smithereens, the same happened to good old Yugoslavia as well, and Russia itself has its unity in check: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became free practically without any bloodshed. Czechoslovakia broke up peacefully, Canada wishes to divorce from itself, the same does Italy.

"But this ill-shapen dinosaur of ours, whose green-yellow brain was never able to command its own members on behalf of a national identity that was never set, has to remain one and only. (...) What nobody says - or prefers not to say - is that Brazil is no longer a territorial unit.

"In exchange for a handful of lines in the international press, former President Fernando Collor de Mello handed out to ten thousand aborigines - who after living for millenniums, have not managed to evolve from a culture incapable of putting their thoughts in writing - a territory equal to three Belgiums, one for each three thousand Indians. A recent issue of Geografia magazine brought a headline on the cover mentioning "the Ianomami country".

Nobody should be fooled: the latifundiums given gratuitously to those autochthones who were never able to get the preambles of a grammar, do not belong to Brazil anymore. The Ianomami, who live in idleness and on the devastation of the Amazon forest, can have a country for their own enjoyment. People who were born in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina or São Paulo, that is, people who work and generate riches, cannot even dream about it. It is a crime against national security.

"Before being a territorial problem this was a juridical one. Since then, we already had different laws for whites and aboriginals. Rape was crime, except when committed by Indians. Paulinho Paiakan, the Caiapó chief, greeted by the American press as "the man who can save humankind" raped a girl with his wife's complicity and remained free as a little bird in his fief.

"The legal proceeding has been dragging for close to a year and Paulinho - diminutives are quite endearing! - has already warned: if convicted he is not leaving his reservation. He even threatened to spill whites' blood if he is condemned in the case. And we thought ethnic cleansing was a Serbian strategy".

I wrote this in 1993. Paulinho Paiakan, self-confessed criminal, continues scot free up to this date. Even convicted, there was no power that would dare putting him in jail. The Caiapó "nation," which at that time had already made a small fortune or more precisely US$ 10 million, exporting mahogany to Europe, not only wouldn't heed the judicial system decision as it sheltered and protected the rapist.

Now, to shelter criminals also constitutes a crime. With the exception of the Caiapó country where they have other laws and where rape is not a crime. The worst in this story wasn't really the rape, a common crime defined in the Penal Code. But we had then a Brazilian citizen, presented by some as a humankind savior, who let it be known very clearly that he did not accept the law of the country in which he lived. No authority has condemned this civil rebellion.

The feminists, always aggressive in denouncing sexual harassment, conducted themselves in a complacent way when a "citizen from the forest's peoples", brutally, tucked his hands in the genitals of a girl. The Army Ministry didn't show any concern either for those gentlemen who, on broad daylight, disavow the national legislative and judiciary systems.

Rape aside, Indians were granted the right to kill, invade private properties and federal buildings, obstruct highways, keep state employees under false imprisonment, trade wood illegally, and hunt animals whose killing is forbidden by law.

If it wasn't enough that Indians have territories where a Brazilian cannot even go across, little by little Brazil started to create a special legislation for the brutes alone. instituting in Brazil a special legislation for primitives. (By the way, those who call themselves landless also enjoy a differentiated juridical situation). Now, we cannot admit a state with distinct legislations for different groups of citizens.

Last week's newspapers brought us another approach in this attempt to build two nations in the territory of only one. Amapá's Federal Justice recognized that the three widows of the Indian Parara Waiãpi, dead on October 25, 2000, have the right to the money deposited in the dead Indian's pension plus an extra benefit due to his death. This money is to be shared between the women and their children.

For the author of the legal action that guaranteed the widows' right, the Citizen Rights attorney José Cardoso Lopes, the Federal Justice recognized the marital and family connections among them, in other words, it concluded that the Indians constituted one single family. Based on this conclusion, the widows had their Social Security and labor rights guaranteed. The decision is considered the first of its kind by the Attorney General's office, in Brasília.

That means that polygamy has been recognized judicially in Brazil. Certainly as a sign of respect for the cultural diversity and the indigenous traditions of the tribe Waiãpi. Better yet, of the Waiãpi "nation", as anthropologists and other ologists would rather have it. It's curious to note that polygamy is an ancestral practice among whites, it exists in the world since the world is world and in Brazil since Brazil is Brazil.

But the legislator until today did not bestow on the white man the legal recognition of a quite common practice throughout our western society. Another curious detail is that Parara died at the age of 22. So, we naturally ask: how much - and simply how was that possible - was his Social Security balance. 

What kind of well-paid profession would have this young man, for how long was he working and what contribution had he made in so short a life to warrant this dispute by three widows? This considering that the pension left by a worker, at the end of a lengthy working life, is not enough to provide for a mere single widow.

Let's dare a notch higher, Your Honors. Let's then legalize also murder, the slaughter of unwanted children, rape, invasion of buildings, false imprisonment, wood smuggling, on the condition that they are carried out by the "forest peoples".

As for the whites, they should put up with the limits they created for themselves, as the condition to live in an organized state. Even the European countries would fall for this tale if the respect for cultural diversity is invoked. France, for example, accepted that the Muslim immigrants brought with them their four wives, something Islam allows. And, naturally, the 16, 20 or 25 children.

The social benefits were then proportional to the four women and their respective offsprings. The French citizen, who hardly could afford providing for the lover and a dog, would not admittedly approve that taxes paid with the sweat of his brow be used to sustain thousands of Arab clans.

Though late, Europe is reacting to this absurd introduced in the name of the renowned Human Rights. Ireland - according to Daniel Pipes - is already requiring that those who file for naturalization renounce their polygamy. Brazil, always at the rear end of history, adopted the idea.

The reader would be mistaken if he thinks I am a ferocious defender of monogamy who brandishes a moralist's fist against the polygamous practices. Nothing of the kind. I'm not only a defender of polygamy, as I have been a polygamous my whole life.
 
And so that no one call me a sexist, I'm also am in favor of polyandry. If I'm not mistaken this was one of the battles during the 60s and 70s. Free love, open relationships, does anyone still remember that? Or 30 years is an excessive time to be kept in the memory?

I always saw monogamy as something dictated by Christians, a straight jacket imposed by a race of believers who, since their origins, always abhorred pleasure. From the day I forsook Christianity, as well as the belief in any god, I have always fought against this straight jacket and it wouldn't be now, in an age that you can call advanced, that I would abdicate my youth ideals.

But, I must confess that it never occurred to me that Social Security should pay for my lust's gratification. The Federal Justice decision opens the doors for legal polygamy with official marriage certificate not only for all the aborigines, but also for Muslims living in Brazil.

It would be a disrespect to a millenary religion to not grant to the Mahamuds of the world the right to keep a harem. Who is going to pay for the social welfare costs? The suffered Brazilian citizen, who is already ransacked from all over by the State's fiscal fury.

Janer Cristaldo – he holds a Ph.D. from University of Paris, Sorbonne – is an author, translator, lawyer, philosopher and journalist and lives in São Paulo. His e-mail address is janercr@terra.com.br.

Translated from the Portuguese by Arlindo Silva.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites