A Tasca

Este post é extraordinariamente grande, mas leiam-no. Por favor. Não farei nenhum comentário, mas espero que reflitam sobre a opinião aqui expressa (nomeadamente quando o autor fala especificamente sobre a situação sócio-económica-cultural do nosso país), e que, quer concordem ou não com o que está escrito, que sirva para pensarmos no rumo que queremos dar a este país, pois somos nós que o podemos mudar... ou deixá-lo como está.

Não tenho a certeza de quem escreveu esta carta, penso que se chama Jon Joston.

An Open Letter to the Press of Portugal Regarding Ethics, Independence,
Freedom and the function of journalism in a Democracy (June 19, 2002)

In the Journal de Noticias today, an article was published regarding the
criticism of a director of Publico, Jose Manuel Fernandes, by the
Conselho de Redacção of the same paper, requesting he withdraw from
participation in a government commission dealing with RTP (printed
below). In this notice concern is expressed regarding "the image of
independence of the journal."

The problem of Publico, and of other journals in Portugal is not simply
that of the "image of independence" but of the fact. And the fact is
that none of the newspapers of Portugal is "independent," nor in any
meaningful sense do they constitute a "free press," despite a letter
sent to me by the office of the President of Portugal, Jorge Sampaio, in
which the assertion is made that there are no governmental controls over
the press, and the press of Portugal is free to print what it wishes.

First, this is false in a legal sense: there exists in the legal codes
of Portugal a statute - I am unclear of its history, whether it dates
from Salazar, before, or after - which makes "insulting" a State
Institution a criminal offense, worth 5 years imprisonment. In the
instance, "insulting" can easily include "criticizing." So long as
this law remains in the codes any claims by the Portuguese press to be
"independent" or "free" are false, hypocritical, and in effect
constitute collusion with the State to produce "the image of
independence" when in fact the reality is that there is no
"independence."

The effect on those employed in journalism, as I have now experienced 4
times - most recently this past week - is to produce a profound sense of
false consciousness in those who work as journalists. In the last week
I was contacted by a reporter for the weekly journal O Independente, who
spoke with me following the publication in The News of an article on the
kidnapping of my daughter Clara by her mother, film director Teresa
Villaverde, and the subsequent trail of corruption which has included
Juvenile Court Judge Rui Machado e Moura, a 3 judge Appeals Court, the
Conselho Superior de Magistratura, Procurador Geral Adriano Machado
Souto de Moura, and leads directly to the door of President Jorge
Sampaio, who, when given direct evidence of the false statements and
claims made by Machado Souto de Moura and asked to take disciplinary
measures, did nothing.

The Independente reporter indicated that an article would be appearing
in this week's issue, covering these matters, if only in brief, just as
had reporters for Publico, Corriere Amanha, Expresso, and 24 Hours, and
a TV journalist for SIC. And, just as in the previous cases, the
promised article did not appear, and the reporters - with the exception
of Pedro Castro, formerly with the internet journal Diario Portugal, and
now with 24 Hours - declined to speak with Mr. Jost again, or others who
inquired about the matter. In Pedro Castro's case he has said the
reason for non-publication was "because there would be no public
interest." I note that Ms. Villaverde is often quoted in the Portuguese
press, most recently this past week in an item in Jornal de Noticias on
the dismal Portuguese attendence at Portuguese made and directed films
(an 80% drop in such attendance in the past 5 years), and that a many
paged interview was published with her in the EXPRESSO magazine, DNA
(January 2002). However when the same party is involved in a kidnapping
directly reflecting her most recent film, in demonstrable perjury and
the corruption of the judiciary, in a governmental wide conspiracy of
corruption and attempt to cover up this corruption, etc., strangely,
there would "be no interest."

The kind of false consciousness shown in these reporters was a common
phenomenon, much remarked upon some years ago, among those who did such
work in the Eastern Europe of the former Soviet bloc, as well as those
in the former USSR itself. It is also a common phenomenon in other
totalitarian/dictatorial systems. The same psychological phenomenon may
be found in other professions, such as lawyers confronted, as are the
lawyers of Portugal, with a totally corrupted system. Issued
transparently illegal rulings by corrupted courts, the lawyers of
Portugal grovel and utter rhetorical obeisance's, while in the back
rooms saying what they know, that this ruling or that is corrupt,
illegal, and that, alas, they can do nothing about it. Out of such
false consciousness are dictatorships and holocausts constructed, when
ordinary people lack the courage or will to speak the truth in the face
of the obvious. While I am sure most Portuguese would be loathe to
perceive themselves as still mired in the Salazar regime, the simple
fact is that such is the case: Portugal is NOT a democracy; it lacks
the most basic elements of such a system. Portugal is a corrupted,
small-time variant of a dictatorial regime, in which as happens
elsewhere, for a false sense of self-respect and dignity, the populace -
including the professionals of the media and the legal system - mutually
plays along and pretends all is well and correct, for fear of losing
their job, or having the obscene statute regarding "insulting State
Institutions" directed towards them. As happened in the former East
Bloc, or in any such system, the psychological degradation, the
spiritual damage in those who bow to such a system is deep and lasting.
It expresses itself in Portugal in the deeper traditional sense of
resignation before the harsh fate issued by the sea, by history. You
wait for S. Sebastiao still, mythologizing, clutching this peculiar
pathology to the Portuguese breast as an identity, still enthralled with
the fado.

The proper action of the press in Portugal would be to openly challenge
the existence in the codes of Portugal fobidding "insulting" of the
corrupt organs of the government and judiciary. The proper action of
the press, in defense of the people of Portugal - which is the
responsibility and duty of the press in a genuinely democratic system,
which assumes that power corrupts, and requires the check and balance of
the extra-governmental branch of society to expose such inevitable
corruption of government - is to speak the truth, to print it, and to
bring it to the public. It is something one can see in Italy, Britain,
France, Spain, Germany, the USA, and many other places everyday, on the
front page of the biggest newspapers of those countries. It is
"normal." (Here in Italy, where I live, one sees Berlusconi depicted as
a banana republic autocrat almost everyday; one reads of the corruption
at the highest levels of politics, everyday.) And it is an integral
part of the democratic process, a necessity for it, which - however
slowly and impeded by the powers of those in government - acts as a
check on the worst abuses of governmental power.

One however, cannot see this in Portugal, because the press - which
means each reporter, and each editor inside it - fails its
responsibility, its social, political, ethical and moral duties.
Reporters prepare stories which are quashed, and knowing well the real
story of it, they then sit silent, fearful for their jobs, should they
complain about transparent censorship. And in so doing, they become
part of the censoring apparatus, just as did those in the former Soviet
bloc, who after the collapse of the Soviet Union came forward to tell
the world of the compromised lives which they lived, and the damage it
inflicted on them personally and upon the society at large. Those who
resisted - the Vaclav Havel's, the Sakharovs, the Solzhenitzens were
deemed heroes; the rest were what they were: compromised person,
cowards, or collaborators, seeking their own little advantage inside a
transparently sick system.

Beneath its slightly quaint folkloric veneer, its sunny beaches, its
pathology of pimba and football (bread and circuses) - so much more
important than the plague of addiction and AIDS transparent on the
streets of Lisbon and Porto; so much more important than the heavy
traffic in drugs; so much more important than the endemic corruption of
the judiciary and government; so much more important than the frozen
lethargy of a cynical public sector which can scarcely rouse itself out
of its torpor - Portugal is a very sick social culture, mirroring all
too accurately those of the former East bloc, where small little
privileged couteries, getting the best of a bad system, carry on the
charade, grabbing what they can as the rest falls into terminal decay.
In such a culture properly a press should rouse itself in criticism, it
should attack the sources of corruption, it should expose each and every
sign of it. But, in systems in which the corruption is thorough and
complete - in which not only are organs of government and business
corrupt, but the entire system, then the press is itself a part and
party to such corruption, just as were Pravda, and the other journals of
the East bloc. Part of an insidious corruption which enters each
person, and takes hold like a cancer, so that a lawyer confronted with a
blatantly illegal ruling, knowing it to be corrupt, then resigns them
self, goes to appeal knowing full well that too will be corrupt. As
does the reporter who turns in the story which is then not published,
and after a while learns not to even submit such stories. The
corruption eats into the soul. There are plenty of books, diaries,
journals from such cultures to inspect.

The conceit of the Conselho de Redacção do Público is a hypocritical
one, one which - as the masthead of O Independente also does - raises
the banner of alleged independence over an institution of servility to
governmental and other interests. To cite a specific example, modest
but indicative, of the editorial twistedness of Público, I note this:

On the release of Teresa Villaverde's most recent film, Agua e Sal, her
sad self-portrait as a distraught artist/child abductor, in February of
this year, Publico
published no review of this film, though normally it would review any
Portuguese film on release. Nor did it re-publish the devastatingly
negative review of the film from the Venice festival written by its
regular critic, Vasco Camara (previously a very strong supporter of
Villaverde's films), which it would normally do if not having a new
review done. It did however, strangely list the same film on its cinema
pages as a film "not to be missed." What political machinations lay
behind this editorial contortion act I do not know, though one can
readily suspect the same arm twisting which suppressed thus far the
story of Teresa Villaverde's kidnapping of our daughter Clara, her
perjury to the courts, her and her family's corruption of the Judiciary
(surely via elements of the PCP, and surely via Domingos Lopes - an
alleged "renovator" of the Party given to criminal invasion of private
homes and threats of physical violence to intimidate witnesses), was
applied to try to help the release of this dismal film. Perhaps as well
a major advertiser in the same paper, Paolo Branco, Madragoa Filmes, the
producer, saw to it that the bad review was not re-printed, and that the
happy little announcement of a film "not to be missed" was put in
place. In the case the film did dreadful business - the numbers of
which are not available, but given other evidence at hand, likely under
a few thousand tickets sold. Meaning that the government of Portugal
subsidized each spectator to the sum of around 750 to 1000 Euros per
person. Ms. Villaverde, in her comments on the drastic collapse of the
Portuguese audience for films such as hers (or Joao Cesar Monteiro's
Snow White, and the other products of ICAM/Branco), simply says she and
the others of the small circle of Portuguese filmmakers must keep on
making films (at the cost of the Portuguese taxpayer) without a word of
reflection on why perhaps the Portuguese audience has little interest in
the films lavishly funded by the Portuguese government, which are then
by statute required to be purchased (and presumably broadcast) by the
bankrupt RTP.

Again, the press fails in its duties, its own role clearly corrupted to
do the bidding of a producer, to suppress unhappy stories of a director
with good (at least once) political connections, whose uncle, Manuel
Villaverde Cabral, just happens to have close ties to the editors of
most of the major papers of Portugal.

For the members of the Conselho de Redacção do "Público" to make
utterances about ethics and the appearances of independence in light of
such things, casts them in the most dubious light.

>From Jornal de Noticias, June 19, 2002:

Director do "Público" criticado

Antes de se conhecer a decisão do Governo sobre à Lei da Televisão, os
membros eleitos do Conselho de Redacção do "Público" pediram ao director
do jornal, José Manuel Fernandes, para abandonar a comissão de trabalho,
nomeada por Morais Sarmento para discutir o
serviço público de televisão. "A aceitação do lugar configura uma
incompatibilidade ética que coloca em causa a imagem de independência do
jornal", concluiram em comunicado.