SHARED KNOWLEDGE WILL NEVER BE A DIVISION, BUT, ON THE CONTRARY, A MULTIPLICATION OF WISDOM
Late in the afternoon of Sunday, August 31st, at the ICBIE there was a great opportunity for an authentic exchange of ideas during the encounter and debate regarding the Alagados and the Novos Alagados. On the shore of the Tainheiros Inlet, everyone was able to drink the liquid of knowledge.
The first phase of the event was a time voyage, where all the visitors, invited guests and speakers were able to delve into the subject through the open doors of the ME.PE – Peninsula Memories – going back over history through the photographs.
After that, everyone was invited to watch a video produced by the Italian students involved in a project realized in the Alagados by the Italian film maker Stefano Barbi Cinti, which then led to the official opening of the seminar on the Alagados and Novos Alagados, followed by an open discussion.
Besides our speakers: Vera Lazzarotto, Idelson Moura de Almeida, both from the First of May Society, and Stefano Barbi Cinti, among the visitors were a few local activists, including: Maria de Lourdes (general coordinator of the Residents’ Association of the Santa Luzia Conjunto), Jamira Muniz (coordinator the Alagados Cultural Space) and many other members of the Alagados community, ex-residents and students of history and sociology.
The discussion was enthusiastic and exciting, with divergent points of view, but as Nelson Rodrigues said, “unanimity is stupid,” and in fact, these diverse opinions served to construct new concepts and improvements for the Alagados community.
Among the topics that were discussed, the transition from Alagados to Novo Alagados took center stage, because the change has not consolidated itself and there are still obstacles to be overcome, for example, the integration of the Alagados as a district of the city of Salvador, not only from a legislative point of view, as a delimitation of the territory, but above all, in the conscience of the people and their social recognition.
The solution lies not only in education and living quarters; there exists a situation with fragmented families, where the lack of a family foundation and a lack of societal stake holding transforms young people, and even children, into victims who are consigned to the jurisdiction of the police. Individuals grow up, form families, but do not have the minimum conditions to survive. “Our children need to be redeemed from their condition of marginality, because they are being killed and buried without even being recorded as statistics of mortality. Like indigents without dignity,” Jamira affirmed with vehemence.
Nonetheless, it must be said that the Alagados no longer fits the former image that was broadcast by sensationalist media outlets. Instead, contrary to common belief, the inhabitants of the peripheries do not identify with these programs, always ready to distort poor communities. It is normal to imitate the obvious, and so if the community has no visibility when it manages to do something good, how can it get into the limelight? As a result, in order to get on television, residents have to break the law.
I think that everyone who participated in our debate will become agents of change, even if they weren’t active beforehand, all in the name of changing a concept, a prejudice, regarding the interaction between individuals in the communities of the periphery. I hope that this discussion will break out beyond the walls of the institutes of culture, so that it can be present in the streets of our city and our country. We need to do something so that these communities stop being objects of study for the upper classes and become, instead, an integral part of one unified society.
