quarta-feira, 11 de dezembro de 2013

O que diria Jesus Hoje?

 
Apesar de há muito tempo (mesmo muito) não ter feito aqui mais nenhuma crítica a nenhum livro que tenha lido, ou do qual tenha tido conhecimento, achei por bem fazer uma referência a este, a começar pelo título.
De facto, para crentes ou não crentes, que conheçam a História (pelo menos a quem é oficialmente apresentada pelas Igrejas Cristãs) e a pessoa de Jesus, ficariam certamente intrigados por saber quala  opinião que Jesus teria sobre o nosso mundo actual.
Bem, partindo daquilo que a Igreja ensina de que Jesus é Omnipotente, certamente que já estaria à espera de que a Humanidade no século XXI estivesse a viver neste planeta de uma maneira pelo menos parecida a esta. Mas, acreditando que o Homem tem capacidade para escolher o seu destino e de usar da melhor maneira que as suas capacidades o entendam, aquilo de que tem ao seu dispor, certamente que muitas coisas devem deixar Jesus estupefacto.
O livro, ao contrário do que se poderia pensar, não se baseia em conjecturas infundamentadas, mas parte antes daquilo que se encontra na Bíblia, por vezes baseado em relados de Historiadores da época, para argumentar sobre qual seria a opinião de Jesus sobre inúmeros assuntos, dando exemplos de como o Homem tem procedido erradamente ao ter interpretado mal o que de facto Jesus queria dizer com os seus gestos, as suas palavaras e os seus comportamentos.
Desde o eterno dualismo riqueza/pobreza, passando pela política e pela forma como as nossas sociedades vivem actualmente, os progressos feitos nos campos das ciências e a forma como eles são usados, incluindo assuntos mais internos à Igreja (aqui o autor tem como ponto de referência a Igreja Católica) como o casamento dos padres, o divórcio, o papel das mulheres dentro da instituição bem como o respeito pelas minorias e pelos perseguidos/refugiados.
A ideia com que eu fiquei, foi de que de facto a mensagem que Jesus queria transmitir não era tão conservadora, nem tão injusta, nem tão afastada do dia-a-dia das pessoas e sobretudo nem era uma justificação para todos os crimes e atrocidades que se têm cometido ao longo dos séculos em seu nome, e que ainda hoje se cometem.
O autor alerta para o facto de que muitos cristãos têm actuado ao longo dos séculos como os fariseus que Jesus tanto criticava: têm dado importância à letra e não ao seu conteúdo nem aplicabilidade na prática. O que muitas vezes era apresentado como regras e normas são apenas sinais daquilo que se deve fazer na prática. A purificação do corpo que os judeus faziam com inúmeros rituais de higiene e de abstinência de certos alimentos, na verdade deveria ser entendida no ponto de vista de Jesus, como a purificação da alma de maus pensamentos e de más obras.
Segundo o autor, a base do ensinamento de Jesus é a de colocar o ser humano como centro e ponto culminante do funcionamento da nossa sociedade, da nossa economia e da nossa política, e não utilizá-lo como mero meio para satisfazer as necessidades destas áeras. E entenda-se aqui o ser humano, como todas as pessoas do mundo, sem qualquer excepção, porque todas elas são importantes para o funcionamento e existência da civilização humana.
De facto Jesus teria muito a dizer hoje sobre a actual sociedade humana. Mas seria apenas dizer mal do que fizémos até hoje? Não devemos também pensar em todos os esforços que têm sido feitos para um desenvolvimento mais harmonioso de todos os países e na oferta de oportunidades a todas as pessoas independemente da raça, cor, sexo ou crença religiosa? No entanto, há ainda um longo caminho a percorrer, e os dados que o autor apresenta ao longo do livro, sobretudo das provações que as crianças e mulheres apresentam hoje em muitos países do mundo, são exemplo do enorme trabalho que ainda falta fazer, e de que talvez Jesus Hoje nos diria que ainda falta muito para o nosso mundo viver na sociedade justa e equílibrada que ele tantas vezes defendeu. Sejamos crentes ou não, os planos e a mensagem de Jesus para este mundo, ainda está muito além do que nós vivemos hoje. Será que lá chegaremos de facto um dia?

segunda-feira, 9 de dezembro de 2013

Italy: one country, many homelands?

Now we are used to see Italy as a single unified nation, the true is that this reality is very recent. This south-European country has actually many differences among its territory. And these differences are so strong and deep that is impossible to talk and see Italy as a single reality.
Usually it’s normal to divide Italy in two different realities: The North rich as more developed, and the South less rich and less developed. However, with a more thorough economic analysis is possible to divide Italy into 3 different realities.
As I said before, the reasons for this division are very strong and some of them older than we can imagine. Basically we can find historical, political, economic and social differences.

Historical Differences:

Until de 1860’s Italy wasn’t an unified country, but divided into several states that have been changed over the centuries. Since the Roman Empire to the Risorgimento in the 1860’s many independent States were created and eliminated in this peninsula. The political unity was lost by the invasions of the Barbarian people in the end of the Roman Empire (476 a. C.). Since them Italy was the place of many small states, principalities and kingdoms where the political and religious (the Pope) powers fought to obtain a bigger part of territory. In the end of the Middle-Age some cities in the Italian peninsula started to prosper and were the birth place of a big cultural movement: The renaissance. However this prosperity was concentrated almost only in the Center and North of the Peninsula. This has consequences in the tourism. The North has much more historical attractions than in the South. It's possible to see in the North monuments that attest the historical richness of this region: the Renaissance, the influences from the Austrian Empire, the richness of Vatican and other catholic monuments.
The historians have found in the Renaissance movement an attempt to unify the country.

Map of the Italian peninsula in 1860

Before the unification, the Italian peninsula was composed by:
-        The Kingdom of Sardinia;
-        The kingdom of two Sicilies;
-        The Papal States;
-        One part of the Austrian Empire;
-        Habsburg sicons;

These independent states had their own laws, culture and social habits. So, before the unification, the divisions remained. Many people refer to the Italy unification more to a colonial level than to a really unification.

Economic differences:

In this field we can see not two but three different regions in Italy.

The economic differences are a consequence of the economic past. First, it’s a consequence of the entrance of the northern regions in the two Industrial Revolutions. In the North we can find the Industrial Triangle (Turin, Milan and Genoa) that focused their industrialization on specialization and small products, taking advantage of the geographical proximity to the most developed European countries (Switzerland, Austria, Germany and France), which benefits from a lower distance costs. Also since the population density is bigger in the North, is has been also a benefit for the domestic and foreign companies to install their affiliates in the North, where the workforce is more abundant, than in the South.
Since the more technologically advanced industries are almost all in the North, this also means that the North contributed more for the economic italian performance.
On the other side... the South - the so called Mezzogiorno, economically charecterized by an retarded agriculture and a big absense of manufacturing industries.
There have been many attempts to develope the south and to reduce the lack between the North and South, but the results are very far away from the intended.
And here it comes the "Third Italy" a purely economic concept. Between the very industrialized North based on leading industries and the South with many problems on its industrialization, there's the so called "Middle Italy" - a region that experienced a rapid growth in the lighter industries, caractherized by a small and medium sized family firms - . This region is also caratherized by an active role of the women, that started to replace the men in the agricultural work and next in the industries. These small firms are the cuore of suche division, and are assuming an important role in the importance of the "Third Italy" in the national and international context, because these firms are benefiting for the labour specialization, the production decentralization from the biggest industries in the North for these smaller.

Besides the industry, there's another economic sector that has an huge importance on the Italian economy: the tourism. And even here we can see many differences between the North and the South.
As I said before, the Historical Background of the North, made of it one of the best tourist destinations in the World: cities as Rome, Florence and Venice atracts every year many tourists all over the world. And also the natural resources in the north contrubute for it.
From the Cathedrals, to the museums, the Palaces, the Opera's Theaters, the cosmopolitan cities to the beauty of the nature, everything makes of the North, a important tourist destination.
However, in the recent years the South has focused on the specifics of its region, in order to attract tourists, by the agritourism and inside it, the Wine-tourism.
Using the small size of the big part of the cities in the South, the region has focused on presenting the relation between tourism and rural life as an attraction. The recent importance given to the environment and the biological food (the so called green-environment) is helping the south to attract many tourists. Many tourist units and hotels have been oppened in the recent years to give the possibility to the foreigners to feel the particularities of this unknow side of Italy, together to the possibility to live in a more rural environment.
The wine is maybe the most famous product that attracts many tourists to this region, to see where it is produced, attracting many wine producers to the region and increasing the procution of those that are already installed.
surprisingly, the tourist actitvity and profits are increasing in the South, while in the North are facing a problem of decreasing.
However, the South stills attracting tourists almost only from the rest of Italy.

Social differences:

There are some big social differences between the South and the North that have been increasing in the recent years because the South is still following the old traditions meanwhile the North have been broke them and is moving toward the modernity.
The socio-economic backwardness together with the weight of corruption, caractherized nowadays the South of Italy that persistes in not following the modernization of the North and the rest of the Western Europe. The south still follows the same traditions of a patriarchal society based on the family. The importance of the family as the central unit of the society has consequences in the social relations and also in the economic activity. In the South is usual to have a huge lunch time (for example) where teh big part of the economic activities stop in order to give to the people the opportunity to go home to have a big lunch and have some sleep.
The importance of family is also caractherized by the existence of a big size families living together in the same or adjacent houses. While in the North is normal the youngers leave the parent's home to go to the University or when they marry (which occurs generally in a younger age than in the North), in the South is normal to stay at parent's home, at least until the youngers have a solid career or marriage.
On the other side, the North, where the youngers leave their parent's home to study and to marriage, and despite the fact that the family has also an important role in the society, it's given much more importance to the individual and the family's size is quite different from the South. The average age for marry is also later and it's not common to stop the economic activities ao long in the lunch time (it's even more common not close at all).
The importance given to the individual development is the social cause of the development of the North.

Political differences:


As I said in the previous point, the corruption has a deep penetration in the South. But the corruption is also very common in the North as we have been seeing over the years with the discovery of many corruption scandals, some of them involving members of the local, regional and also central governments.
Relate to the corruption, is the big national inbestigation called Mani Pulite that revealed many scandals related to the vote system and others. This investigation led to the fragmentation of two major political parties: the Christian Democrats and the Communists.
One of the consequences was the ceration of the Lega Nord in 1990 that proposed the creation of Padania: an independent State, agregating some of the regions in the North, and making an independent State with them, basing their oppinion in the fact that the North is suffering of the corruption caused by the Central Government. Unlike other party forces, the Lega Nord has a big importance, specially in the North. They also joined forces with Forza Italia the Berlusconi's party. However, they became opponents quickly. After this break, Lega Nord returned to the regionalism defence, arguing that the North souldn't share its big economic sucess with the South, and shouldn't  be harmed by the bad economic and development performance of the South. So, as we can see the reason for the creation of Padania doesn't have a Historical or cultural reason, but the similar soci-economic values and background. But of course the different economic performance can use as a social difference between the North and South, in ways of level of living and access to goods and services.




As we can see in this article, there are many differences between the North and the South. And they don't tend to disappear, but to increase. North has been always richer than the South thanks to its strategic position and to the Historical Background. Currently the break with tradition in the North is aggravating the differences on both regions.
And in the political and tourist fields, the differences are more than obvious.
The Third Italy is contributing to the existence of more competition between the regions among the Italian territory.
Are all theses differences enough to a future division of Italy in two or more independent territories?