Why Russian? Why Ape? A note to my comrades in Siberia.

Why Russian? Why ape? A note to my comrades in Siberia.

     Probably you must be thinking: Who's this guy, who calls himself "the Russian ape"? And probably you do not like it one bit! I wouldn’t also... And this is exactly the point.

Why Russian?
     Well, although born in the south tropics, I'm a very white skin person, blond and round, for some genetic reason that is due to my mother's Italian side...

     Therefore, in kid times, my nicknames would start with “chubby” added of something like “little Russian”, “gringo”, “soviet”, “little German”, “little nazi”, “whitey”, “Galician” (in reference to white-skinned Portuguese), etc.
     It may look funny. And, because of the idolatry of Brazilians to foreigners, even be seen as an honor.
     But, nothing is as innocent as it looks... The fact is that, regarding to my European rotund aspect, I was the type of what can be considered a "segregated", since I represented a difference to the children of the public school where I studied.
     Quite normal. For lots of different reasons, this happens in the whole world... I was not chosen for the soccer teams, the girls didn’t like me, etc. (like those cheap movies about high school on TV).
     It doesn’t mean that I didn’t have friends. In matter of fact I still hang around with some of them… And to conquer a little bit of attention of others, I had my strategies. Besides my “exuberance”, I was considered one of the best cartoonists of my class as well as a talented comedian. Even teachers laughed with me, before send me to disciplinary sector to be punished. More than this, sometimes I could use violence to be noted and make a new friend (usually also a misfit)…
     That explains, in part, the “Russian” adjective.

Now, why ape?

     Well, although a very white skin person, blond and round, I was born in the south tropics...

     Therefore, while growing up, I realized easily how prejudice can be constructed against a group of people.
       These findings began in my initial History classes in elementary school.

     Since colony times, from April 22, 1500 to September 7, 1822 a.D., the land that would became Brazil played an economic role of exporter of raw materials and importer of finished products. This position, that didn’t change much substantially until the present days, would be sustained by the exploitation of slaves. In the beginning an attempt was made with native people, the "Indians", but soon they would be relegated to abandonment, or simply decimated to make way for a workforce stronger and more profitable: the African slaves that would be badly mistreated by Portuguese and their descendants, for almost four centuries, mostly in the wood and mineral extraction and in cultures of sugar cane, cotton and coffee.

     Thus, the country in which I live has the “great” title of being the last in the world to end with slavery, at 1888 a.D., already the independent “beloved homeland idolized” Brazil.

     And this didn’t happen because the heirs of Portuguese Royal Family, here settled since 1808, escaping from Napoleon, suddenly developed a humanitarian concern, but because was no more advantageous for the economy interests of England and, by extension, of Portugal and kingship from Brazil, since the British Empire had created capitalism with the Industrial Revolution and had to have a consumer market of “free salaried men” inside their own country and abroad to buy their “exclusive products”.

      After all, England, a historical creditor from Portugal (and, by extension, from Brazil), was, for a long period, one of the greatest powers of the world in the lucrative “business” of slave trade… Why this would change so fast in the Nineteenth Century?

     From this point on, slaves from the entire world would be converted in exploited proletarian. And in Brazil this exploitation would become increasingly unfair, even under capitalist “liberal” terms, since Brazilian barons have never considered workers as persons.

     Historical facts like these, besides others that could be understood as an unfolding, led to several prejudiced concepts about Brazil and its people, from foreigners and, worse, from Brazilians themselves.

     In first place, since I was a child, I listen that Brazil is an underdeveloped country (in a quite different sense than the “BRIC” nomenclature signifies today).

     In the last half of the twenty century, the “third world” (how places as my country were nominated) was considered a region of inborn deficiencies that would not be cured if the governments didn’t spend all the efforts possible to transform their people in the wonderful "w.a.s.p" from North America and Western Europe.

     By other hand we had the "second world", composed by the nations of the communist bloc, leaded by the Soviet Union, the named “enemy of the free world”.

     And, of course, there was the almighty “FIRST WORLD”, headed by greedy Yankees.

    Actually, we might have become a part of the second world in the 1960's, if our militaries had not made the “revolution” of 1964, that had whole support from United States and installed a capitalist dictatorship that lasted twenty one years and killed thousands of idealists youngsters. Indeed, this happened in the whole Latin America, almost in the same period and shape. Many of these military officers became filthy rich and never faced a criminal prosecution.

     The northern eagle was not worried with these small details, but afraid of progress made by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro in Cuban’s “Sierra Maestra”, what could spread communism through the south, ending up with all commercial agreements that United States had as creditor of Southern Latinos.

     So what? What does the term “ape” has to do with it?!

     Keep reading…

A very crooked mentality
     The saddest thing about all this is that most of the representatives of middle and upper classes from Brazil adopted the same way of thinking and acting of our “developed” influencers. And they would never consider their kind as the root of underdevelopment (Although we were paying for centuries, with our participation in the world economy, the comfortable life of the first world). Cruelly, assuming the historical place of the Portuguese, wealthy would throw the guilty of our delay over the poor and, particularly, over black people…

     Under the “values” of these social climbers, the color of the skin would be one of the principal causes of inferior life condition and other solution would not exist to the country's poverty, than let colored people and all the rest of “riffraff” survive in slums.

     The crime that has been committed against millions of free Africans brought to Brazil to be slaves would never be considered as such. Much more alarming than that, to the dominants, would be the criminality that was increasing fast in those slums in the last decades of twenty century and was effectively menacing the rich.

     What do you think would be the speech of these ladies and gentlemen about native people?

     Exactly. For wealthy submissive Brazilians and for the foreigners who sponsored them, "Indians", "niggers" and crossbreds were just extravagant monkeys impairing the course of capitalist exploitation of the riches of Brazil...

     Though, since these races were the majority of population, they would have a participation in the exploitation scheme: elect corrupt politicians, in exchange for any trifle, so that the public men could maintain the political and economical facilities for the external and internal already-billionaires “investors” of our country. Therefore, contradictorily, illiteracy, hunger and homelessness of the native, imported and mongrel poor have always been a good business in Brazil. In fact, these social indicators still are the true deep root of our underdevelopment.

     In present days, none would have the courage to express the prejudice against the base of Brazilian population as clearly as the Argentinians, which declared once on their main sports newspaper, criticizing our soccer national team before a match: “Que vengan los macaquitos!” (“Bring on the little monkeys”, in English). But, in a past not so far as the first decades of twenty century, this bizarre “concept” would be found as a scientific truth even in works of some notorious Brazilian writers.

     I always considered slavery a big shame in our History. The images of torture that were made still let me very sad. And I never understood how a human being can consider another as a thing and not as a person. Specially, if this is not a result of war or some confrontation, but only caused by a merely commercial reason…

     Well, this seems to explain why my school colleagues had cultural reasons to not trust in my blond hair (although not my fault). Indeed, until today, a person that is not trustworthy is called “German” or “X9” (in reference to Cold War's double spies) in the poorest places of Brazilian southeast. And this certainly happened because of the stigma that Germans would let the world throw over them, when embraced Nazism. Or due to frightening legends about the KGB that used to be told by CIA and Interpol agents.

     The artificial and biased movies of the period after Second World War, made by the thousands by the top notch cineastes from North America and United Kingdom, would repeat strategically these negative titles against all the economical enemies of the powerful alliance among the main countries of the first world, reinforcing some war tales that were as cruel as any other in the World History.

     Thus, long after WW2, the chosen villains would still be Eastern German, Russian and Asiatic (traditional war enemies). More recently, Arabian terrorists and South American drug dealers would be admitted in the cast. While, in Brazil, w.a.s.p. is that so should be considered. After all, they were the heads of our harsh creditors, proud maintainers of our poverty and stupidity and sponsors of the capitalist dictatorship.

     For instance, why no one have made yet a millionaire feature film about the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

     We could also have a devastating drama about the condition of Palestinian civilians under the routine of Gaza’s Israeli policy. But none award-winning filmmaker, of western intelligentsia, would do it.

     As in other parts of the world, under a global brain wash, most of Brazilian would be led to believe that our offenders were the same that used to interfere in the overseas interests of the first world’s countries and not these last ones, the real exploiters of our riches and workforce, through their beloved multinational enterprises and their political puppets.

     So, a blond person like me could also inspire prosperity and happiness. But in these cases, usually an old lady would say: “You are as handsome as a North American actor!”

     Again, this wouldn't bring me any benefit. Poor people would see me as a rich gringo, asking me money or trying to take some advantage, and rich people also would consider me a wealthy individual, fully self-sufficient, that would never need anyone's help.

One choose

     Despite these racist misconceptions, in school times, as any other kid, all that I wanted was to be accepted and make friends.

     Although, at first, always received with suspicion, I really admired my schoolmates. They could be the true seeds of Brazilian social victory, for so long dreamed. A heterogeneous group made of very smart child, all them with some connection with national roots.

     Inheritors of the native people who appeared to have an ancient wisdom that always led them to the best choices. Black kids with fast mathematical reasoning, great sense of humor and various athletic talents. Grandsons of Portuguese with strong personality and a lot of endurance. Sons of northeastern labors that came to south to do their best. And descendants of immigrants from Europe, Asia and other parts of the world that landed in this ground to try a new life after the horrors of war, adopting it as their homeland.

     All of them sons of workers. All of them promising children. All of them good people.

     If my folks would be considered a bunch of little monkeys by the dominant bourgeois, although a blond kid, I sure would rather be an ape, free of those dirty concepts and proud of my origins.

     Besides this, in my adolescence, with the growth of muscles and body hair, in the mid 90’s, again my friends would give me noble surnames such as “Polar Bear”, “Albino Gorilla”, “Giant Teddy Bear”, “Blond Monkey”, “Curly Hair Bear”, “Albino Accordion Player”, etc.

     And since I had to choose among the American actor, the German nazi and the Russian comrade, I would have no doubt to honor this last character.

     I became the “Russian Ape”, a living contradiction, because not fully accepted anywhere. A double displaced, inside and abroad. And a supporter of counter-propaganda, reverse engineering and restlessness of thought to try to transform all these worlds pre-designed and meaningless in something better.

Last words (for now...)
     By the time I write this text, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, the factory worker, is no longer the President of my nation, and Barack Obama, the first black president of United States, is close to end his mandate. I wonder if these gentlemen really changed something, when they had a unique oportunity to do it. How many concessions they have made to govern? How far their popular features really have influenced their decisions? How much did they do of their promises?
     Is told that changes take time in History... But I hope that the first woman president of Brazil, Dilma Roussef, can actually reach, with her government, the fair situation that this country needs. I don't want to see anymore iliteracy, anymore hunger, anymore homelessness. I'm sick of all the false advertising about our greatness with the only purpose of profit. I don't want to testify anymore schools, streets or public facilities wrecked. I don't want to be a hostage of violence, promoted by bandits, policemen and politicians. It shall have a better future for our poor kids rather than drug dealing! I want to see a Brazilian happy people, healthy, educated and with lots of perspective for its great creativity.
     I try to do my best: in my job, with my family and friends. And, moreover, I write about my impressions.
    I hope things change for better, but this doesn't look to be the destiny of world economy.
      Isn't it time to change our mentality? Is money really the most important thing?
    At least, is ironical that, with the new world economic crisis, the traditional rich countries are asking for Brazil's help... I wonder for how long will we surf on the wave of prosperity? I hope for long time, but in a more realistic way. Producing real richness, which, in my point of view, is the welfare of people.
     It is ironical that something is changing. But not necessarily for better... And after all the considerations here exposed, if a economical minister of a first world country ask a help for the Brazilian Government what do you think should be the right answer?
     What?! Hahaha... I don't know either...

Bruno Moreira Lima
January, 21, 2012