Avatar (II) - os Na'vi da Terra

No contexto de alguma da discussão sobre O Avatar - a da inverosimilhança da evolução em Pandora copiar a verificada na Terra - esta notícia até vem a propósito: Aliens visiting Earth will be just like humans, scientist claims | Science | The Guardian.

Mas esta nota - destinada a encerrar o tópico - está subordinada a outro tema da discussão: oa acusação do carácter rosseauiano da imagem criada por Cameron para os extra-terrestres, e a reprodução do mito do "bom selvagem", tudo ideologizado através da visão do mundo ambientalista. A conversa levar-nos-ia muito longe. Por exemplo, Jarred Diamond precisa em The Third Chimpazee, que nalguns momentos, e para algumas populações humanas, foi possível ter sociedades em equilíbrio com o seu meio ambiente [exemplifica algumas dessas situações  no Colapso]. Daí não se retira que essas sociedades fossem idílicas, mas seria curioso perceber como isso se reflectiria na sua percepção que teriam do seu local no mundo. Dando de barato que, em nenhuma altura, houve "o bom selvagem", ficaria a questão de saber é se os "selvagens" em causa se considerariam como "bons selvagens", pelo menos no que respeita a essa questão - se a sua visão do mundo ajuizaria como correcto esse equilibrio. Acontece que pelo menos num caso temos essa informação (ver abaixo)

Uma outro tópico coberto por aquele autor, no primeiro livro citado, foi o do carácter sempre dramático e infeliz dos primeiros contactos entre populações que se desconheciam mutuamente até a um dado momento. A tese é pessimista: nem os seres humanos (nunca foi só o caso das descobertas e da colonização europeias), nem, possivelmente, os seres inteligentes em geral (humanos e extra-terrestres), estariam preparados para gerir, de modo adequado, os primeiros contactos - por isso mesmo, por uma questão de cautela, é que Jared Diamond não acompanha Carl Sagan no seu entusiasmo em nos dar a conhecer ao exterior.

Ora, como George Monbiot recorda, a plausibilidade histórica do que se conta no filme sobre o relacionamento dos terrestres com os na'vi, é mais do que substantivada pelo que se passou com a chegada dos Europeus à América, e em particular, com aquilo que se passava ainda durante o século XIX, nos EUA: Mawkish, maybe. But Avatar is a profound, insightful, important film | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.

E para isso ficar ainda mais claro, nada melhor do que comparar a actuação das personagens do filme, quer dos terrestres, quer dos na'vi, com aquilo que os congéneres terrestres disseram no século XIX, nos EUA (é só uma selecção), num situação similitar de luta, pura e dura, por recursos: 

Os norte-americanos falam dos peles-vermelhas (os na'vi terrestres):

• George Washington " The immediate objectives are the total destruction and devstation of their settlements. It will be essential to ruin their crops in the ground and prevent their planting more"

• Benjamin Franklin " If it be the Design of Providence to Extirpate these Savages in order to make room for Cultivators of the Earth, it seems not improbable that Rum may be the appointed means"

• Thomas Jefferson "This infortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and to civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decisionon their fate"

• Thedore Roosevelt "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages"

• General Philip Sheridan "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead"

Os peles-vermelhas falam do ambiente, da ecologia, e dos brancos (é a ecologia, é o panteísmo, é o anti-capitalismo...é tão puro na'vi).

• Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. 

• When we show our respect for other living things, they respond with respect for us. ~ Arapaho Proverb 

• Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find money cannot be eaten. ~ Cree Prophecy 

• "I love this land and the buffalo and will not part with it. I want you to understand well what I say. Write it on paper...I hear a great deal of good talk from the gentlemen the Great Father sends us, but they never do what they say. I don't want any of the medicine lodges (schools and churches) within the country. I want the children raised as I was. I have heard you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don't want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die. A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers, but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting. Satanta, Kiowa" 

• "I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heapen and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young.And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. . . the nations hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell, and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. Black Elk, Lakota" 

• "We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can't speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees. Qwatsinas, Nuxalk Nation" 

• "In the beginning of all things, wisdom and knowledge were with the animals, for Tirawa, the One Above, did not speak directly to man. He sent certain animals to tell men that he showed himself through the beast, and that from them, and from the stars and the sun and moon should man learn.. all things tell of Tirawa. What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset We know our lands have now become more valuable. The white people think we do not know their value; but we know that the land is everlasting, and the few goods we receive for it are soon worn out and gone. Eagle Chief (Letakos-Lesa) Pawnee"

• "I am poor and naked but I am the chief of a nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love. Red Cloud, Oglala Sioux"

• "Oh, Great Spirit Whose voice I hear in the winds, And whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me, I am small and weak, I need your strength and wisdom. Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things your have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy - myself. Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes. So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my Spirit may come to you without shame. Chief Yellow Lark, Lakota"

• "What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. Our land is more valuable than your money. It will last forever. It will not even perish by the flames of fire. As long as the sun shines and the waters flow, this land will be here to give life to men and animals. We cannot sell the lives of men and animals. It was put here by the Great Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not belong to us. Crowfoot, Blackfoot"

• "Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun.Tecumseh, Shawnee Nation 

• "How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man. [...] So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. [...] For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you the land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. [...] If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers and yours, and you must thathenceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother. We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father's grave behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care. His father's grave, and his children's birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert. I do not know.[...] If we decide to accept, I will make one condition - the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers. I am a savage and do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be made more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive. What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected. [...] This we know; the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. [...] The whites too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. But in your perishing you will shine brightly fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man. That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. The end of living and the beginning of survival. All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. Chief Seattle, chief of the Suquamis"

American Indian Quotes
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PS (28.01.10): Leiam o comentário que recebi a esta nota dos EUA. É publicidade mas é curiosa.