Edward Said Um Intelectual Crítico e Cosmopolita

Edward Said, palestiniano cidadão do mundo, historiador crítico da literatura e da cultura preocupa-se em analisar e desmistificar as representações ideológicas que afirmam a superioridade de uma cultura sobre as outras. Em Orientalismo , publicado originalmente em 1978, demonstra como o colonialismo europeu constrói uma representação do mundo oriental, especialmente do mundo árabe e muçulmano, em que os representados surgem como seres incapazes de autonomia, racionalidade e autogoverno. Como contraponto a esta concepção, desenvolve-se, no período da emancipação e das independências coloniais, uma nova visão em que os povos colonizados de mero objecto de representação se transformam em sujeitos da sua própria história. Em Cultura e Imperialismo , publicado em 1993, Said analisa como os intelectuais e os criadores dos povos dominados elaboram uma nova representação de si próprios e do Outro no âmbito do processo de luta e emancipação colonial. Mas apenas a livre interacção e interdependência das culturas poderá constituir uma síntese superadora do imperialismo e do nacionalismo anticolonial. Dimensão libertadora que se tornará a verdadeira missão e vocação do intelectual sem fronteiras de que Said foi um dos maiores expoentes contemporâneos.

Panchayati Raj em Goa

Goa commemorated in 2011 the golden jubilee of the end of colonialism (19 December 1961) and the beginning of its participation in the democratic institutions of India. The administrative decentralization known as Panchayati Raj is an ancient tradition in India, but it suffered dilution and breaks during centuries of Muslim and British domination. During the early years of Independence, the Union government was more worried about security concerns, and hence the policies of centralization. However, the second five-year plan and during the decades of 50 and 60 one could notice greater openness towards decentralization. This was done through Constitution Amendment Act nº 73 (1992) and the inclusion of article 243 in Part IX of the Constitution. The present essay seeks to clarify how the Panchayati Raj is the key to the success of the Indian democracy in the context of its demographic magnitude and ethnic, religious and linguistic diversities. Obviously, the challenges persist, but a country like India would be ungovernable without a democratic functionality at its bottom. It would be interesting to reflect and discover if Portugal has anything to benefit from the democratic experience of India and one of the fast growing emergent economies of the world.

Fifty Years After Angicos : Paulo Freire, Popular Education and the Struggle for a Better World that is Possible

The main thesis of this paper is that Freire’s original experience in Angicos anticipated a grand design for social transformation of educational systems. As such it brought together two key concepts that formulated the basis of his educational system: popular culture as an counter-hegemonic project and popular education, more particularly what was later called citizen schools or public popular education as keystone of his new educational system. I use the term Paulo Freire System to show that his original attempts were not only to challenge pedagogical the prevailing banking education system that was so pervasive in Brazil and Latin American at the time. In challenging the hegemony of banking education, its narrative, theoretical foundations, epistemology and methodology, Freire and his team sought to create a new system that could replace the old one. They saw banking education not only as obsolete in terms of modernization of systems but also oppressive in gnoseological, epistemological and political terms. In the conclusion of this paper I will discuss the twins obsessions of Freire, already present in the Angicos experience and that will stay with him throughout his life: the relationship between democracy, citizenship and education, and education as a postcolonial ethical act of social transformation. I would like to emphasize therefore that the Paulo Freire system, as conceived in the Angicos experience and its aftermath was a much larger and comprehensive system that originally considered, even by his critics.