The Ax and the Penis: Mineral Neo Colonization,
the myths and interests of the State of Pará
saturday, 10/04/08 - 12:30 pm
by Jorge Calderaro
With an average unsuitable title for juveniles
and, at certain moments, good dose of mood and irony in the
line spaces, this book brings a collection of articles published
in several sites in the Web and in specialized magazines and
technical reports in the environmental theme, always looking
for the understanding of these questions of cross and analytical
form. The book was released in the ‘XII Pan –
Amazonian Book Market’, in the Hangar, in the city of
Belém in the State of Pará, Amazon region, Brazil.
The collection brings to the reflection circumstances under
which, before absence of public politics, or public defective
politics and badly driven, they remain like 'tools' for the
most Amazonian poor person the ax, to knock down the forest
and to sell it at 'price of banana', and the penis to multiply
social problems.
'The Ax and the Penis' it brings quotations of the First
Book 'Genesis', which, according to the author, contains the
first historical registers known on environment, politics,
land reform, the creation of the laws and on the slavery in
varied forms.
The book suffers the process of colonization of Brazil, explaining
historical reasons of the exhaustion of the Atlantic Forest
and its literal exchange for 'trinkets', for the indians themselves,
alerting for the danger of the repetition of mistakes committed
in the past on the future of the Amazon region. Also it brings
quotations on the history of the press in the State, showing
that the political and economical interests always walked
side by side with the press in Pará.
One of the most important points lifted in this work brings
revelations on the heart of problems that have been published
in the press, with more frequency, on acts of protests of
traditional populations and social movements, as consequence
of the introduction and operation of high impacts projects.
The book brings an analysis of the environmental Brazilian
legislation, devoted to an educational real example of the
area of mining, and shows that the environmental licensing
would not be intended only to monitor surrounding - physicist,
biotic, socioeconomic - in the areas of influence of the projects.
For the author, the environmental allowance should serve like
technical instrument, and not politically, of contract between
the state and the entrepreneur, in the establishment of just
compensations of environmental impacts.
For last, the book brings an approach on the stocks or environmental
Brazilian assets, when the natural renewable and non-renewable
resources were there included. It is the conclusion that there
is a great distortion in the structure of calculation of the
internal Gross Brazilian Product, since the monetary value
of the loss or reduction of the environmental stocks is written
up like 'profit' and it finishes built in the income of the
mining, when they should not to be made by part of his income.
And shut in with an article of Luciano Martins Costa, for
the Observatory of the Press, with publication properly authorized,
where it is noticed that "the questions wrapped in the
expressions 'social corporative responsibility', 'social private
investment', 'environmental responsibility' and 'sustainability'
they are still treated in the Brazilian press in very superficial
level - and in very irresponsible way, it is possible to affirm.”
It would not be enough to say, like justification, that the
changes of paradigms always delay to come true and composing
tendencies, that we would be surviving a moment of transition
and that, so, it is natural to wait that the thinking heads
of the press position themselves in the new context".
Jorge Calderaro is writer and historian
