As we all know, thanks to Guimarães Rosa and which has become a chorus by now: Minas are many. But what people do not delineate is what Minas they are talking about when referring to one of our greatest writers.
Truly, if Minas is multi-various, multi-vast are the cultural formations and manifestation of this state. This is because the real Minas sometimes may seem to remain in its mineral state, inert, hardened, doing justice to the origin of its name. While others, the essential, is untouched as if befit to a sacred map. Minas is what you see and what you hear. What you feel with an open heart and mind.
It seems, just as well, because both inside and outside of the bureaucratic structures created over three hundred years of history to “administer the culture of Minas”, pulsates a multitude of voices, some popular and others not, but all in search of space and expression within their communities. Today this is of course thanks to the Internet, in the world’s imponderable geographies.
Look at, for example, the elections held for the members who will compose the State Cultural Council, whose vote, of course, happened all the way over in the dark and opulent Administrative City a week before the celebrations for the Inconfidência Mineira. I won’t get into the whole merit of the process and for the simple fact that, for the sake of minor importance, I did not follow it closely. I cannot say with certainty whether this process was democratic or bureaucratic. Legitimate or illegitimate, by power struggles, for it being just one more way of keeping the culture of Minas where has always been; beneath the wings, in the hands of a few, the same few. Of which, God knows why, they self-praise and elect themselves as owners of everything even related to Minas.
And speaking of water, Minas can be said to be the great backlands of our waters, the greater wealth, along with its culture, where every ore ever mined is left piled up on the other side of the world. Ore that has already been negotiated and compromised through signed contracts that stand for at least two hundred years to come. In fact, Minas was born sold, degraded and excavated, despite what all the miners’ pride and opinions say to the contrary.
I am not a pessimist, I am actually too much of a dreamer. I know well the infinite geographies of Minas. Its inners and innards of mining. Its conduct and lack of conduct regarding the people’s interests. The insides and outsides of the machine. But sometimes a dark spirit, one of those that come in the penumbra of waiting rooms and offices holds sway over me and I get a little carried away. Is Drummond’s prophecy being fulfilled on the nail? Minas no more? For one, Cauê peak is no more. The Serra do Curral is long gone. The mountains of Conceição do Mato Dentro will cease to exist in the near future. The São Francisco River, the parts that flow through the veins of Minas, as with all its tributaries are being weakened and reduced in a Franciscan kind of way. It is definitely running the risk of disappearing. Even the limestone reserves quarries are being systematically smuggled into the back of trains. So I ask myself: is there democratic liberty in Minas, or just formal democracy? Liberty, it seems, only for the parades and speeches in Ouro Preto on the 21st of April.
ers dedadtracts that las agreed11
Regarding to the Council, which if were any good no one would give it, I only hope that the people who are elected seek to recognize, with heart and sensitivity, with eyes free of vanity, greed, prejudice and without competition, the true extent this territory’s cultural wealth. I hope that they see beyond Liberty Square, the Administrative City’s power games, the Freedom Palace, the Palácio das Artes, the airs of fashion, the academies and all the other stately houses of “Mineira” culture. It is in the voice of the backlands, in the non-domesticated word, in the natural music of the waters, in the small towns and rural communities where the greater wealth blooms. Despite the toiling and the simple life that they lead.
I’m not discarding or devaluing what is done and produced with authenticity and quality in all areas of art and culture here in the capital. The point is that there is much more in Minas than that and of equal strength and importance. And don’t sit there and tell me that because someone’s from the interior, rural areas, for being artisanal, that it means they are conservative or disintegrated, which in the old days was called a vanguard, something that doesn’t even exist anymore but which many still insist on defending. They defend their election campaigns in the same way, their slice of the pie of the already worn out Mineiro latifundium, via the Incentive Laws. Incidentally, after the creation of the Incentive Laws and the infamous Cultural Marketing discovered by large corporations, most of the artists turned into producers and subsequently they became common enemies. Today, one rarely sees collaboration between groups of artists, unless they are mediated by a good paycheck, via incentive. Not to mention the lobbies and the inevitable bargaining processes to guarantee the obtainment of approved projects.
What’s worse is that after this legal paperwork, the works produced are already born stigmatized and conditioned by cultural policies created by the marketing departments of the company supporter. In other words, those who do not agree or do not comply with this policy will be automatically cast overboard. With very few exceptions are entertainment productions unprincipled and uncommitted with the real society life, with its dreams and contradictions.
Well, if only Minas could truly value and defend its waters and its cultures. It wouldn’t even need to destroy its mountains to increase resources. In the future, and which has practically become a reality now, water and culture will be worth more than gold powder. Just look! Who would have guessed? Minas without miners. Miners without mountains. Who doesn’t remember the beautiful poem, Sad Horizons, published in the largest Mineiro newspaper in the 80 ‘s. Minas without water and without culture.
Minas without a soul. Without a future. Minas without an aura. Without glory, without Glaura. Goodbye to the Minas of so many wanderers, Marílias without Dirceu. Godgiven Minas.
And the Gerais? Ah yes, the Gerais! Look and see, you will know from a deeper knowing, imagine! The Gerais rest, plummet, decant, disappear, sing in fields and cerrados far beyond Minas, much farther than many. There are parts with men of blood in their eyes. There are parts with those who I like for knowing how to look one in the eyes. And if they don’t, may one day it be so!
“But from the West, a wind lifted and carried an array of cockscomb flowers, as if with them they would make white nest. Far away in the Gerais wilderness on the banks of the dark forests and waters of the Urucúia, in this blue-green country sky, yonder there began to undergo streaks of hot iron and bloods. I say, because to this day I have this entire moment engraved into me, as the mind watches from behind the eyes.” But all this, however, is a part of everything. It is a unique verse of water and sun, of iron in a sophistry and bountiful time. A diverse and united Minas, arts of the universe!
Related Articles
