O outro Holocausto

Umas décadas antes do holocausto que constantemente preenche as páginas dos jornais e as telas do cinema, um outro levou à morte de centenas de milhares, senão de milhões, de pessoas. Uma etnia vítima do homicídio industrial e calculado e cuja memória é constantemente esquecida pelo mundo. Inclusivé pelos descendentes dos criminosos que o fizeram, o Império Otomano. Se em alguns países, a negação do holocausto arménio é crime, na moderna Turquia a menção deste crime pode resultar em detenção, como aconteceu ao escritor alemão-turco Dogan Akhanli[1], ou em complicados processos judiciais, como foi o caso do prémio Nobel da literatura Orhan Pamuk[2].

Mas os Arménios são um povo pequeno, pouco influente e sem lóbies poderosos. Deles não dependem eleições das maiores potências do mundo. E a este povo, sobreviventes e descentes do genocídio que em breve será centenário, nunca foram pagas restituições.

A Síria, como o Líbano, a Palestina e outros países do Médio Oriente, receberam involuntariamente muitos dos refugiados durante 1915. Hoje as suas vidas voltam a estar em risco, quando a Síria atravessa uma guerra civil que será lembrada durante muito tempo. Onde as minorias religiosas parecem estar cada vez mais frágeis. E onde estes descendentes de refugiados provavelmente tornar-se-ão refugiados eles próprios.

Deixo aqui mais um artigo de Robert Fisk, no jornal britânico The Independent[3] sobre os Cristãos Arménios Sírios.

Igreja Cristã Arménia de S.Jorge em Allepo, Síria em Outubro 2012 totalmente
queimada depois de combates entre o exército Sírio e forças rebeldes. 

Nearly a century after the Armenian genocide, these people are still being slaughtered in Syria


And now, almost unmentioned in the media, their holy places are also being desecrated

Just over 30 years ago, I dug the bones and skulls of Armenian genocide victims out of a hillside above the Khabur River in Syria. They were young people – the teeth were not decayed – and they were just a few of the million-and-a-half Armenian Christians slaughtered in the first Holocaust of the 20th century, the deliberate, planned mass destruction of a people by the Ottoman Turks in 1915.

It was difficult to find these bones because the Khabur River – north of the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zour – had changed. So many were the bodies heaped in its flow that the waters moved to the east. The very river had altered its course. But Armenian friends who were with me took the remains and placed them in the crypt of the great Armenian church at Deir ez-Zour, which is dedicated to the memory of those Armenians who were killed – and shame upon the “modern” Turkish state which  still denies this Holocaust – in that industrial mass murder.

And now, almost unmentioned in the media, these ghastly killing fields have become the killing fields of a new war. Upon the bones of the dead Armenians, the Syrian conflict is being fought. And the descendants of the Armenian Christian survivors who found sanctuary in the old Syrian lands have been forced to flee again – to Lebanon, to Europe, to America. The very church in which the bones of the murdered Armenians found their supposedly final resting place has been damaged in the new war, although no one knows the culprits.

Yesterday, I called Bishop Armash Nalbandian of Damascus, who told me that while the church at Deir ez-Zour was indeed damaged, the shrine remained untouched. The church itself, he said, was less important than the memory of the Armenian genocide – and it is this memory which might be destroyed. He is right. But the church – not a very beautiful building, I have to say – is nonetheless a witness, a memorial to the Holocaust of Armenians every bit as sacred as the Yad Vashem memorial to the victims of the Jewish Holocaust in Israel. And although the Israeli state, with a shame equal to the Turks, claims that the Armenian genocide was  not a genocide, Israelis themselves use  the word Shoah – Holocaust – for the Armenian killings.

In Aleppo, an Armenian church has been vandalised by the Free Syrian Army, the “good” rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime, funded and armed by the Americans as well as the Gulf Sunni Arabs. But in Raqqa, the only regional capital to be totally captured by the opposition in Syria, Salafist fighters trashed the Armenian Catholic Church of the Martyrs and set fire to its furnishings. And – God spare us the thought – many hundreds of Turkish fighters, descendants of the same Turks who tried to destroy the Armenian race in 1915, have now joined the al-Qa’ida-affiliated fighters who attacked the Armenian church. The cross on top of the clock tower was destroyed, to be replaced by the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Nor is that all. On 11 November, when the world honoured the dead of the Great War, which did not give the Armenians the state they deserved, a mortar shell fell outside the Holy Translators Armenian National School in Damascus and two other shells fell on school buses. Hovhannes Atokanian and Vanessa Bedros, both Armenian schoolchildren, died. A day later, a bus load of Armenians travelling from Beirut to Aleppo were robbed at gunpoint. Two days later, Kevork Bogasian was killed by a mortar shell in Aleppo. The Armenian death toll in Syria is a mere 65; but I suppose we might make that 1,500,065. More than a hundred Armenians have been kidnapped. The Armenians, of course, like many other Christians in Syria, do not support the revolution against the Assad regime – although they could hardly be called Assad supporters.

Two years from now, they will commemorate the 100th anniversary of their Holocaust. I have met many survivors, all now dead. But the Turkish state, supporting the present revolution in Syria, will be memorialising its victory at Gallipoli that same year, a heroic battle in which Mustafa Kemal Ataturk saved his country from Allied occupation. Armenians also fought in that battle – in the uniform of the Turkish army, of course – but I will wager as many dollars as you want that they will not be remembered in 2015 by the Turkish state which was so soon to destroy their families.

Hitchhikers’ guide to  bad old Iran

While we all bask in the glow of happy relations with Iran, it might be well to read – in four months’ time, unless their publishers have the common sense to bring it forward – a remarkable book by Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd. 

They – and you may not remember this – were the hitchhikers who “strayed” into Iran in 2009 from Iraqi Kurdistan. Sarah (pictured below with Shane) was released first and she called me on the phone to talk about her fiancé, Shane, and to ask if The Independent could help secure the two men’s release. We published some of Shane’s journalism – I made a point of telling the Iranian ambassador in Beirut to read it – and, with or without The Independent’s help, they were both released. I was delighted.

They had been arrested during the presidency of the lunatic Ahmadinejad, and it’s clear from their book that they were lured over the border by Iranian frontier guards. One of them eventually emailed Sarah that this was the case.

But their incarceration, their vicious solitary confinement – a form of torture if ever there was one – and their relations, not just with their fellow condemned prisoners but with their guards, is a remarkable story.

Sarah quickly worked out, back in freedom, that the US government was not their natural friend; there are some sharp words about the “peacemaker” Dennis Ross.  A good book – which I rarely say – and it’s called A Sliver of Light.  A Fisk read.

US cowardice will let Israel’s isolated right off the hook

Mais uma vez, Robert Fisk e a sua experiência única de Médio Oriente num brilhante artigo de opinião no The Independent.


US cowardice will let Israel’s isolated right off the hook

These are hard times for the Israeli right. Used to bullying the US – and especially its present, shallow leader – the Likudists suddenly find that the whole world wants peace in the Middle East rather than war. Brits and Americans didn’t want to go to war in Syria. Now, with the pleasant smile of President Rouhani gracing their television screens, fully accepting the facts of the Jewish Holocaust – unlike his deranged and infantile predecessor – the Americans (75 per cent, if we are to believe the polls) don’t want to go to war with Iran either.

Having, live on television, forced President Obama to grovel to him on his last trip to the White House – Benjamin Netanyahu brusquely told him to forget UN Security Resolution 242, which calls for a withdrawal of Israeli forces from lands occupied after the 1967 war – the Israeli Prime Minister did a little grovelling himself on Monday. He no longer called for a total end to all Iranian nuclear activities. Now it was only Iran’s “military nuclear programme” which must be shut down.And, of course, like Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction programme” which President George W Bush had to invent when the weapons themselves turned out to be an invention, we still don’t know if Mr Netanyahu’s version of Iran’s “military nuclear programme” actually exists.
What we do know is that when Mr Rouhani started saying all the things we had been demanding that Iran should say for years, Israel went bananas. Mr Netanyahu condemned him before he had even said a word. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Even when Mr Rouhani spoke of peace and an end to nuclear suspicions, Israel’s “Strategic Affairs” Minister – whatever that means – said time had run out for future negotiations. Yuval Steinitz claimed that “if the Iranians continue to run [their nuclear programme], in another half a year they will have bomb capability”.

Mr Netanyahu’s own office joined in the smear campaign.

“One must not be fooled by the Iranian President’s fraudulent words,” one of Mr Netanyahu’s men sneered. “The Iranians are spinning in the media so that the centrifuges can keep on spinning.”The Rouhani speech was “a honey trap”. Mr Netanyahu himself said Mr Rouhani’s address to the UN, a speech of immense importance after 34 years of total divorce between Iran and the US, was “cynical” and “totally hypocritical”.

Israel Hayom, the Likudist freesheet, dredged up – yet again – the old pre-Second World War appeasement argument that the Israeli right have been reheating for well over 30 years. “A Munich wind blows in the west,” the paper said.Perhaps it had its effect. If he was not so frightened of Israel – as most US administrations are – President Obama might actually have shaken hands with Mr Rouhani last week; though Mr Rouhani himself might have preferred not to touch the hand of the “Great Satan” too soon. Instead, President Obama settled for a miserable phone call and proved that he knew how to say goodbye in Farsi. Pathetic is the word for it.
In the past, Arab delegates would storm out of the UN General Assembly when Israelis took the stand. When the crazed President Ahmadinejad spoke, Western nations and the Israelis stormed out. But when Mr Rouhani came to speak, Western nations crowded into the chamber to hear him. But Israel stormed out.
“A stupid gesture,” according to that wise old Israeli sage, writer and philosopher Uri Avnery. “As rational and effective as a little boy’s tantrum when his favourite toy is taken away. Stupid because it painted Israel as a spoiler, at a time when the entire world is seized by an attack of optimism after the recent events in Damascus and Tehran. Stupid, because it proclaims the fact that Israel is at present totally isolated.”

Mr Avnery’s contention is Israel wanted two wars, the first against Syria, the second against Iran.

As he wrote last week, when Congress hesitated to strike Damascus, “the hounds of hell were let loose. Aipac (the largest Likudist pro-Israeli lobby group in the US) sent its parliamentary rottweillers to Capitol Hill to tear to pieces any senator or congressman who objected”.

Yet at the White House on Monday, the Israeli Prime Minister had calmed down. I doubt if it will last. Israel, I suspect, will do everything it can to cut down Mr Rouhani’s overtures, whatever American public opinion might say.

For there was President Obama at Monday’s meeting, praising Mr Netanyahu for his support for a two-state solution. And what did President Obama actually say? That there was “a limited amount of time to achieve that goal”.

So why was there only a “limited amount of time”? Not a single scribe asked the poor fellow.

There is, of course, only a “limited amount of time” – in my view, no time at all – to achieve this illusory goal because the Netanyahu government is thieving, against all international law, yet more Palestinian Arab land for Jews and Jews only, at a faster rate than ever, to prevent just such a Palestinian state ever existing.The Israeli right are well aware of this. And when President Obama can’t even explain this weird “limited amount of time”, the Israelis know that he is still a groveller. This is what real “appeasement” is all about. Fear.

And even if President Obama had the courage to say boo to a goose in his final term in office, you can be sure that Madame Clinton – to quote Sir Thomas More – doesn’t have the spittle for it. For she wants to be the next appeaser-president.

The Likudists have isolated Israel from the world just now but be sure American cowardice will let them off the hook.

The Syrian army would like to appear squeaky clean. It isn't

Mais um artigo de Robert Fisk na sua coluna do The Independent sobre a guerra civil Síria. As atrocidades sucedem-se de ambos os lados mostrando o lado verdadeiramente sujo de todas as guerras. Numa altura em que o conflito se arrasta e começa a atravessar fronteiras, com escaramuças no Iraque, Líbano e Turquia, todas as partes procuram mostrar que são o "lado limpo", mas o que a realidade é que na guerra, ninguém é limpo. Nunca ninguém é limpo. E quando não podem sujar as mãos, arranjam outros que os façam em seu nome.

The Syrian army would like to appear squeaky clean. It isn't.

"Our own beloved Free Syria Army has actually advertised its own murders on YouTube"
 
Every day, a new massacre is reported in Syria. Yesterday, it was Daraya. Slaughter by Syrian troops, according to those opposed to Bashar al-Assad. Slaughter by Bashar's "terrorist" opponents, the Syrian army said, producing the wife of a soldier whom they said had been shot and left for dead in a Daraya graveyard.

Of course, all armies want to stay clean. All that gold braid, all those battle honours, all that parade-ground semper fi. Thank God for Our Boys. Trouble is that when they go to war, armies ally themselves to the most unsavoury militias, gunmen, reservists, killers and mass murderers, often local vigilante groups who invariably contaminate the men in smart uniforms and high falutin' traditions, until the generals and colonels have to re-invent themselves and their history.
Take the Syrian army. It kills civilians but claims to take every care to avoid "collateral damage". The Israelis say the same. The Brits say the same, the Americans and French. And of course, when an insurgent group – the Free Syrian Army or Salafists – set up positions in the cities and towns of Syria, government forces open fire on them, kill civilians, thousands of refugees cross the border and CNN reports – as it did on Friday night – that refugees cursed Bashar al-Assad as they fled their homes.

And I cannot forget how Al Jazeera, loathed by Bashar now as it was once hated by Saddam, came back from Basra in 2003 with terrifying footage of dead and wounded Iraqi women and children who had been shredded by British artillery firing at the Iraqi army. And we don't need to mention all those Afghan wedding parties and innocent tribal villages pulverised by US gunfire and jets and drones.

The Syrian military, whether it admits it or not – and I'm not happy with the replies I got from Syrian officers on the subject last week – work with the shabiha (or "village defenders" as one soldier called them), who are a murderous, largely Alawite rabble who have slaughtered hundreds of Sunni civilians. Maybe the International Court in the Hague will one day name Syrian soldiers responsible for such crimes – be sure they won't touch the West's warriors – but it will be impossible for the Syrian army to write the shabiha out of the history of their war against the "terrorists", "armed groups", Free Syria Army and al-Qa'ida.

The attempted disconnect has already begun. Syrian troops are fighting at the request of their people to defend their country. The shabiha have nothing to do with them. And I have to say – and no, yet again, I am not comparing Bashar with Hitler or the Syrian conflict with the Second World War – that the German Wehrmacht tried to play the same narrative game in 1944 and 1945 and, then, in a much bigger way, in post-war Europe. The disciplined lads of the Wehrmacht never indulged in war crimes or genocide against the Jews in Russia, Ukraine or the Baltic states or Poland or Yugoslavia. No, it was those damned SS criminals or the Einsatzgruppen or the Ukrainian militia or the Lithuanian paramilitary police or the proto-Nazi Ustashe who besmirched the good name of Germany. Bulls***, of course, though German historians who set out to prove the criminality of the Wehrmacht still face abuse.

The Vichy French army tried to clean its claws by claiming that all atrocities were committed by the "Milice", while the Italians blamed it all on the Germans. The Americans used the vilest criminal gangs in Vietnam, the French used colonial troops to massacre insurgents in Algeria. The Brits tolerated the B Specials in Northern Ireland until they invented the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), which got contaminated by sectarian killings and was disbanded. No, the UDR was squeaky clean compared to the Germans. But at the height of their Iraqi occupation war, the Americans were paying Sunni "neighbourhood guards" to liquidate their Shia enemies, and paying thug-like reservists – along with quite a few professionals – to torture their prisoners in Abu Ghraib. And then there is Israel – forced to grovel when their own Lebanese Phalangist militia slaughtered 1,700 Palestinians in 1982. Their equally vicious South Lebanon Army militia tortured prisoners with electricity in the Khiam prison inside Israel's occupied zone in southern Lebanon.

Of course, war stains all who take part in it. Wellington's men in the Peninsula Wars could no more prevent their Spanish guerrilla allies committing atrocities than the Brits and Americans could prevent their Soviet allies raping five million German women in 1945. Didn't the Turkish army use its own version of the SS – along with Kurdish militia – to help in the genocide of the Armenians in 1915?

The Allies of the Second World War did their share of extrajudicial executions – though on nothing like the scale of their enemies – and, thanks to YouTube, our very own beloved Free Syria Army has actually advertised its own murders in Syria. Chucking policemen off roofs and shooting shabiha to death after torturing them doesn't burnish the reputations of La Clinton or the messieurs Fabius and Hague. Keeping clean is a dirty business. 

(Fonte: The Independent)

Syrian war of lies and hypocrisy

Artigo de Robert Fisk, no "The Independent" sobre a hipocrisia e as mentiras que rodeiam a guerra civil síria. Simplesmente brilhante.

Robert Fisk: Syrian war of lies and hypocrisy

The West's real target here is not Assad's brutal regime but his ally, Iran, and its chemical weapons

Robert Fisk - The Independent

Has there ever been a Middle Eastern war of such hypocrisy? A war of such cowardice and such mean morality, of such false rhetoric and such public humiliation? I'm not talking about the physical victims of the Syrian tragedy. I'm referring to the utter lies and mendacity of our masters and our own public opinion – eastern as well as western – in response to the slaughter, a vicious pantomime more worthy of Swiftian satire than Tolstoy or Shakespeare.

While Qatar and Saudi Arabia arm and fund the rebels of Syria to overthrow Bashar al-Assad's Alawite/Shia-Baathist dictatorship, Washington mutters not a word of criticism against them. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, say they want a democracy in Syria. But Qatar is an autocracy and Saudi Arabia is among the most pernicious of caliphate-kingly-dictatorships in the Arab world. Rulers of both states inherit power from their families – just as Bashar has done – and Saudi Arabia is an ally of the Salafist-Wahabi rebels in Syria, just as it was the most fervent supporter of the medieval Taliban during Afghanistan's dark ages.

Indeed, 15 of the 19 hijacker-mass murderers of 11 September, 2001, came from Saudi Arabia – after which, of course, we bombed Afghanistan. The Saudis are repressing their own Shia minority just as they now wish to destroy the Alawite-Shia minority of Syria. And we believe Saudi Arabia wants to set up a democracy in Syria?

Then we have the Shia Hezbollah party/militia in Lebanon, right hand of Shia Iran and supporter of Bashar al-Assad's regime. For 30 years, Hezbollah has defended the oppressed Shias of southern Lebanon against Israeli aggression. They have presented themselves as the defenders of Palestinian rights in the West Bank and Gaza. But faced with the slow collapse of their ruthless ally in Syria, they have lost their tongue. Not a word have they uttered – nor their princely Sayed Hassan Nasrallah – about the rape and mass murder of Syrian civilians by Bashar's soldiers and "Shabiha" militia.

Then we have the heroes of America – La Clinton, the Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, and Obama himself. Clinton issues a "stern warning" to Assad. Panetta – the same man who repeated to the last US forces in Iraq that old lie about Saddam's connection to 9/11 – announces that things are "spiralling out of control" in Syria. They have been doing that for at least six months. Has he just realised? And then Obama told us last week that "given the regime's stockpile of chemical weapons, we will continue to make it clear to Assad … that the world is watching". Now, was it not a County Cork newspaper called the Skibbereen Eagle, fearful of Russia's designs on China, which declared that it was "keeping an eye … on the Tsar of Russia"? Now it is Obama's turn to emphasise how little clout he has in the mighty conflicts of the world. How Bashar must be shaking in his boots.

But what US administration would really want to see Bashar's atrocious archives of torture opened to our gaze? Why, only a few years ago, the Bush administration was sending Muslims to Damascus for Bashar's torturers to tear their fingernails out for information, imprisoned at the US government's request in the very hell-hole which Syrian rebels blew to bits last week. Western embassies dutifully supplied the prisoners' tormentors with questions for the victims. Bashar, you see, was our baby.

Then there's that neighbouring country which owes us so much gratitude: Iraq. Last week, it suffered in one day 29 bombing attacks in 19 cities, killing 111 civilian and wounding another 235. The same day, Syria's bloodbath consumed about the same number of innocents. But Iraq was "down the page" from Syria, buried "below the fold", as we journalists say; because, of course, we gave freedom to Iraq, Jeffersonian democracy, etc, etc, didn't we? So this slaughter to the east of Syria didn't have quite the same impact, did it? Nothing we did in 2003 led to Iraq's suffering today. Right?

And talking of journalism, who in BBC World News decided that even the preparations for the Olympics should take precedence all last week over Syrian outrages? British newspapers and the BBC in Britain will naturally lead with the Olympics as a local story. But in a lamentable decision, the BBC – broadcasting "world" news to the world – also decided that the passage of the Olympic flame was more important than dying Syrian children, even when it has its own courageous reporter sending his despatches directly from Aleppo.

Then, of course, there's us, our dear liberal selves who are so quick to fill the streets of London in protest at the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians. Rightly so, of course. When our political leaders are happy to condemn Arabs for their savagery but too timid to utter a word of the mildest criticism when the Israeli army commits crimes against humanity – or watches its allies do it in Lebanon – ordinary people have to remind the world that they are not as timid as the politicians. But when the scorecard of death in Syria reaches 15,000 or 19,000 – perhaps 14 times as many fatalities as in Israel's savage 2008-2009 onslaught on Gaza – scarcely a single protester, save for Syrian expatriates abroad, walks the streets to condemn these crimes against humanity. Israel's crimes have not been on this scale since 1948. Rightly or wrongly, the message that goes out is simple: we demand justice and the right to life for Arabs if they are butchered by the West and its Israeli allies; but not when they are being butchered by their fellow Arabs.

And all the while, we forget the "big" truth. That this is an attempt to crush the Syrian dictatorship not because of our love for Syrians or our hatred of our former friend Bashar al-Assad, or because of our outrage at Russia, whose place in the pantheon of hypocrites is clear when we watch its reaction to all the little Stalingrads across Syria. No, this is all about Iran and our desire to crush the Islamic Republic and its infernal nuclear plans – if they exist – and has nothing to do with human rights or the right to life or the death of Syrian babies. Quelle horreur!

(Fonte: The Independent)

A Grande Guerra pela Civilização

Book Review

Para alguém que queira comprender o imbróglio em que o Médio Oriente se encontra, não há um livro melhor do que esta obra prima de Robert Fisk. Não é um livro de história, mas também não é um livro de notícias. Fisk escreve na primeira pessoa, descreve o que sente e não se amedronta de confrontar Presidentes, Reis e Sheikhs com os seus actos. Se há conclusão que se tira deste livro, é que não devemos ter o mais pequeno respeito pelos líderes que conduziram toda a esta região a um constante estado de guerra. Desde Blair, Bush, Bin Laden, Arafat, Sharon e Hussein (os vários com este nome...) até aos arquitectos "originais" do Médio Oriente, os grandes diplomatas que dividiram esta região depois da primeira guerra mundial, Fisk não poupa um.

Iniciou a sua carreira de correspondente internacional (ou de guerra, embora ele não goste do título) na revolução portuguesa do 25 de Abril. O seu trabalho levou-o depois a Belfast, capital da Irlanda do Norte, durante uns anos (e sobre o qual escreveu dois livros) e finalmente ao Médio Oriente. 

A viver há mais de três décadas na sua adorada Beirut, este inglês viveu todos os momentos históricos recentes da região (num sentido mais lato que vai desde Marrocos às fronteiras da Índia). Atravessou o Afeganistão numa coluna militar russa durante a invasão soviética. Conversou com Bin Laden nas grutas controladas pelos Mujahedeen, assim como no Sudão. Entrevistou o Ayatollah Khomeni a seguir à revolução islâmica no Irão. Assistiu a inúmeras batalhas da guerra Irão-Iraque dos dois lados do conflito. E naturalmente cobriu a interminável guerra civil libanesa e as várias intervenções sírias e israelitas nesse país.

Umas notas sobre as poucas vezes em que o nome do nosso país aparece nas páginas dos seus livros: achei particularmente interessante a forma como confrontou Ayatollah Khomeni sobre as atrocidades que estavam a ser cometidas imediatamente a seguir à sua chegada ao poder, perguntando-lhe por que motivo a revolução iraniana não poderia seguir o caminho pacífico da revolução portuguesa. Khomeni ter-lhe-á respondido simplesmente "O Irão não é Portugal". Olhando para os últimos 30 anos, e mesmo sabendo as dificuldades porque passámos, não tenho dúvidas que seguimos o caminho certo. Khomeni não.

Numa ocasião menos feliz, Portugal fica associado aos massacres do governo argelino sobre o seu povo através do chamado "Soares Report" de 1998, a missão das Nações Unidas responsável por procurar informação sobre a situação e liderada pelo antigo Presidente português Mário Soares. Sobre esta análise (mais informação no site das Nações Unidas), Fisk é extremamente crítico já que permitiu ao governo argelino continuar a sua actuação criminosa debaixo de uma aprovação implícita da ONU disfarçada de uma guerra ao terrorismo. Fisk não poupa no entanto os grupos islâmicos que lutavam contra o governo e que têm as suas mãos igualmente manchadas de sangue.

É um daqueles livros que quando o compramos parece grande e quando acabamos parece pequeno. Robert Fisk é viciante: depois do primeiro livro, é inevitável que fiquemos todas as semanas à espera do seu próximo artigo no The Independent. E é uma questão de tempo até termos na prateleira o "Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War". Sobre este livro espero ter oportunidade de escrever também um book review em breve.

Voltando ao "A Grande Guerra pela Civilização, A Conquista do Médio Oriente" o resumo é muito simples: leiam. Se julgam que não terão tempo para o ler, experimentem ler as primeiras trinta páginas. A partir daí vai ser muito fácil inventar o tempo necessário para o ler até à última página.

AK-47

Decidi escrever sobre esta espingarda de assalto quando estava a olhar para as minhas prateleiras e reparei na quantidade de capas que as incluem. Tenho bastantes livros sobre o Médio Oriente e o mundo Árabe fruto de intensas viagens durante os últimos 6 anos e embora alguns sejam sobre cultura e artes, a maioria são sobre história e guerra.

Esta arma de fogo, criada em 1947 na antiga União Soviética por Mikhail Kalashnikov (daí o nome AK-47), tornou-se no símbolo de todas as revoluções desde os anos 50. É conhecida por ser uma arma de enorme potência e tão simples de usar que pode ser transportada e disparada por uma criança, o que infelizmente aconteceu e continua a acontecer em grande escala em tantos conflitos da África, Médio Oriente, Ásia e América Latina.

O simbolismo da Kalash é tal que é a única arma de fogo que aparece numa bandeira de um país (Moçambique). Existem mais uns poucos com armas, como a Arábia Saudita, Swazilandia ou Sri Lanka mas todos eles são países recentes com armas cerimoniais clássicas na bandeira.

Já me deparei com AKs diversas vezes durante a última década em muitos lugares diferentes. Na televisão, os documentários do Discovery e History Channel sobre esta arma, comparações entre esta e a americana M16 entre muitos outros programas onde a dita, não sendo a protagonista, aparece constantemente nas mãos das figuras centrais em causa. Nos meus livros, saltam à vista as capas de "A High Price" de Daniel Byman, "O Palestiniano" de Antonio Salas, "Meninos Soldados" de Jimmie Brigs e o "The Great War for Civilization" de Robert Fisk. Este último autor descreve num dos seus livros uma entrevista que fez ao criador da arma, procurando entender o que este sente em relação à sua utilização, mas o resultado da conversa é deprimente. Talvez a mais exemplificativa descrição desta assault rifle venha no entanto de Hollywood, no filme "Lord of War" onde um traficante de armas (representado por Nicolas Cage) se refere a uma como sendo a verdadeira arma de destruição massiva.

Nos media escritos, é sempre curioso o fenómeno destas armas receberem um "prefixo" de russian made ou soviet era. É como se os jornalistas nos quisessem relembrar de que existe uma maldade implícita e especial nestas armas que não encontraremos numa M-16 ou numa G3. Não tinha notado estas mensagens subliminares até ver este fenómeno descrito num dos artigos de opinião de Robert Fisk no "The Independent". Desde então tenho mantido um controlo mais apertado e de facto isto acontece com uma regularidade impressionante.

Felizmente nunca tive nenhuma apontada na minha direcção, e talvez por isso consigo olhar para a AK-47 de forma fria, nos seus impactos na história da região em que me habituei a viver e no brilhantismo técnico desta máquina de ceifar vidas. O mesmo não posso dizer de outras armas competidoras, como a M-16 que tive apontada a centímetros do meu peito, mas essa história terá que ficar para outra ocasião.

Salvo erro, encontrei a Kalashnikov pela primeira vez nos desertos do Sahara Ocidental quando numa longa viagem de descoberta por Marrocos resolvemos sair do caminho previsto para espreitar por este território ocupado. Nessa altura, a própria noção de ocupação era-me completamente estranha e se não fosse pela fluência em espanhol dos habitantes mais velhos da região provavelmente teríamos ficado sem saber que muitas das pessoas à nossa volta eram colonos. Enviados pelo governo marroquino em grandes números, estes "novos" Sahrawi vão rapidamente alterando a demografia do país de forma a que quando o inevitável referendo chegue, os votos pró-Marrocos possam sair vencedores. Para garantir este desfecho, o referendo vai sendo adiado vezes sem conta e 20 anos depois ainda não foi feito.

Ao contrário de Marrocos propriamente dita, onde a presença policial não é significativa, no Sahara Ocidental os check points seguem-se uns atrás dos outros, por vezes com distâncias de centenas de metros entre eles e onde as AK-47 são rainhas. Não estive em contacto com os rebeldes da frente Polisario (os independentistas) mas não será difícil de imaginar que terão às costas as mesmíssimas armas russas. Essa viagem tornou-se algo sui generis, e entre as viagens feitas no Sahara Ocidental e o sudeste de Marrocos (algo marcado no nosso guia como disputed territory) os check-points sucediam-se sem que conseguíssemos perceber exactamente quem nos estava a mandar parar. Em pelo menos uma situação o motorista do autocarro pediu para nos escondermos debaixo dos bancos, aparentemente porque a presença de estrangeiros estava a atrasar a viagem a toda a gente. Não é muito claro o que teria acontecido se os guardas notassem, mas por algum motivo estava bastante confiante que não aconteceria nada de especial.

Uns anos mais tarde, visitei todas as repúblicas da ex-Jugoslávia onde embora esta arma não estivesse particularmente visível, os seus estragos estavam por todo o lado, especialmente nas cidades bósnias de Sarajevo e Mostar. Tinham-se passado poucos anos do fim da guerra civil e do terrível cerco de Sarajevo, e as cicatrizes de balas e explosões de morteiro estavam em todo e qualquer edifício. Embora para a história fique o terror causado pelos atiradores furtivos no que ficou conhecido como o sniper alley, esta guerra foi feita com todas as armas disponíveis pelos três lados do conflito e tendo sido construídas até hoje 100 milhões de AK-47's não é de estranhar que milhares destas tenham sido utilizadas nesta guerra. Terão sido estas as armas utilizadas no ínfame massacre de Srebrenica, onde 8000 homens e rapazes bósnios foram assassinados. Um video que incluí extrema violência no youtube, e do qual naturalmente não posso confirmar a autenticidade, mostra a utilização dessas armas durante o massacre de Julho de 1995 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpJKYQwDcFM).

Continuei a vê-as vezes sem conta até me habituar à sua presença durante os anos que vivi na Palestina. Oficialmente a Palestina não tem exército pelo que percebi, por isso debaixo de uma insígnia de polícia, homens armados com AK-47 e com uniformes de aparência militar guardavam as principais ruas de Ramallah, as residências oficiais dos políticos e os ministérios. Felizmente não passei durante todo esse tempo nenhuma situação digna de nota com estes polícias/militares e as poucas vezes que fui parado em operações stop por estes agentes foram sempre perfeitamente pacíficas.

No entanto, aconteceu um evento relacionado que acho que vale a pena relatar. Aconteceu em 2008 quando o tempo começava a aquecer. Assisti a um jogo de futebol da liga dos campeões do Liverpool com um pequeno grupo que incluia um inglês, um palestiniano e mais uma ou outra pessoa. Devido à diferença horária, os jogos da Champions passam bastante tarde e quando acabou decidimos ir à zona central de Ramallah (Al Manara) para tentar comer alguma coisa. Enquanto nos dirigíamos de carro começavamos a ver carrinhas pick up cheias de gente com os tradicionais Keffiyeh carregados de AK-47 e outras armas de fogo. Faziam imenso barulho e disparavam ocasionalmente para o ar.

Nós - os estrangeiros - olhávamos uns para os outros sem saber muito bem o que dizer dada a total ausência de comentários do palestiniano em relação ao evento que parecia retirado de um filme de guerra do Médio Oriente. A conversa manteve-se ainda durante algum tempo sobre os detalhes do jogo de futebol que acabáramos de assistir durante o percurso de Al Bira para Ramallah (são menos de 5 minutos de viagem).

Quanto mais nos aproximavamos de Al Manara mais carrinhas víamos e mais o tiroteio se tornava audível. Nesta praça, facilmente reconhecível pelas estátuas de leões tipicamente pintadas de forma bastante amadora, encontra-se sempre uma visível presença policial da Autoridade Palestiniana, pelo que achamos que estaria mais calma. Não só era neste local que se encontrava a origem das rajadas que vínhamos ouvindo como isto estava a acontecer em frente dos polícias e militares que mostravam um sorriso descontraído e satisfeito.

É quando o carro fica estacionado que finalmente desbloqueamos a pergunta que exigia resposta urgente. Afinal de contas, e mesmo sendo Ramallah uma cidade bastante mais heterogénea e cosmopolita do que a maior parte da Palestina, ser estrangeiro chama sempre mais a atenção. E não é bom ser o centro das atenções quando está toda a gente munida de AK-47's e em modo trigger happy:

- Queres-nos explicar o que é que se passa?

- São só os universitários que estão todos felizes porque pela primeira vez em muitos anos, as eleições da associação de estudantes foram ganhas pelo grupo próximo da Fatah [partido de Yasser Arafat e Mahmoud Abbas e que controlavam nesta altura a Cisjordânia, onde se encontra Ramallah]

- E não devíamos ter cuidado por causa de todas essas armas aos tiros?

E a resposta final foi feita com um sorriso troçista:

- Se não estão a apontar para ti não precisas de te preocupar.

Com mais algum tempo e bastante mais curiosidade, lá acabamos por perceber que as eleições estudantis são aceites na Palestina como um indicador da sociedade. Depois de Gaza e a Cisjordânia virarem as costas (o primeiro ficando debaixo do controlo do Hamas e o segundo da Fatah), e sabendo que o Hamas era o legítimo vencedor das eleições dois anos antes (Janeiro de 2006), estes resultados deram força a Mahmoud Abbas (presidente da Autoridade Palestiniana) e a Salam Fayyad (primeiro ministro) e seu governo formados na base de "emergência nacional" pelo presidente em 2007.

Suspeito que ainda verei muitas mais AK-47 na minha vida. Que tenha sempre a sorte de estarem apontadas ao céu ou adormecidas...