O Papa em Camarões (1): A controvérsia da faxina em Yaundé
O papa Bento XVI visita Camarões entre 17 e 20 de Março de 2009. Este fato fez com que o governo tomasse medidas radicais de limpeza, como descrito pelo blog de Griet,Thorsten, Jara e Lisa [en]:
1 All small shops, houses, vendor's stalls that don't look nice enough are being destroyed with a large caterpillar. The truck comes by, looks at your stall/house/whatever and if the driver doesn't like, he just destroys it with all its content. It all started about a week ago in the city centre. Suddenly the streets did not house streetvendors anymore, all the local shops at the post office disappeared etc. Now it's been extended all the way to the airport.
2 The road to the airport has brand new streetlights. But then ONLY the way from the airport to the town centre.
3 Tuesday (for sure, other days to be confirmed) the road between airport and town centre will be blocked. Note: the pope arrives in the evening, but the road needs to be blocked from EARLY MORNING. Hence nobody can get to/from work, school etc.
2 A estrada até o aeroporto ganhou nova iluminação. Mas APENAS o trajeto do aeroporto até o centro da cidade.
3 Na terça (com certeza, os outros dias há de se confirmar), a estrada entre o aeroporto e o centro da cidade será interditada. Nota: o papa chega na tarde, mas a estrada precisa ser interditada desde cedo na manhã. Assim ninguém pode ir/voltar do trabalho, escola, etc.
Esta publicação também está vinculada a outro blog de uma família expatriada, Sander Elke en Milan, que tem fotos da destruição das lojas à beira da estrada nas ruas de Yaundé.
Esta demolição iniciou a discussão nos blogs de dois expatriados em Camarões. Συγκακοπαθησον é um blog mantido por um missionário em Camarões, que publicou as mudanças no visual de Yaundé como resultado da chegada do Papa.
So what’s my take on the whole thing? It’s nice that the city is getting a face-lift – it sure makes things look a lot nicer, and the big street lights make driving at night or trying to get a taxi along the main route so much easier and safer – but it’s sad that this clean-up has to mean the destruction of people’s way of life. Unfortunately, these people were simply ignorant of the “rules,” some willfully so, and are now facing the consequences. The sad part is that it seems the government was content to just let things be (possibly for as long as 10 years or longer) until something big came up, like the Pope’s arrival. If they had taken these structures down as soon as they went up, there wouldn’t be this kind of destruction of people’s livelihood now. Then again, I guess the law is still the law even when it’s not enforced.
Este ponto de vista não era o mesmo do voluntário VSO [Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), uma entidade internacional] nascido na Grã Bretanha, que bloga em Our Man em Camarões. Sua reação numa publicação intitulada Impossible Missionary foi simples:
Street stalls are a way of life here. They are everywhere. It’s easy just to say they are illegal but they can be pretty solid structures. What’s more, if they are illegal I’d imagine that they have only been allowed to remain because someone, somewhere is taking a regular few thousands Francs in bribes.
People here struggle. You can bet these structures don’t turn over much and in a country where enterprise and entrepreneurship is so minimal…well what a way to reward it.I ask you, if you are in general agreement with what I have written and also find the missionary’s take as ignorant as I do, to leave a comment. Not below but instead on the missionaries own blog.
Entretanto, leitores ainda comentaram na história no blog Our Man in Cameroon. As reações chegam ao ponto de Karis, esposa do missionário, foi em defesa de seu marido:
Wow! I never knew my husband could cause such a stir. I think sometimes we think that only people that know us read our blogs and those people know how to take what we write instead of tearing it apart line by line without knowing us at all. Trav, thanks for putting in a good word. Dad A, thanks for the humor. You always put a smile on my face. I just wish all of you that commented here and on his blog knew my husband — you wouldn’t be so harsh as you pull apart sentences.
He and I have had many conversations about how horrible it is that people’s livelihood is taken away from them and all for a few days visit from the Pope. When we were in town on Monday and saw stuff being thrown into trucks, it made me sick to my stomach. More than once, we said, “But how are people going to eat tonight? and the next day and the next day?” It goes even beyond that in…
And then today, I saw him helping people move their sewing machines, their tables, their bags of stuff farther down on our road as the government came through with the bulldozer. No, that was not emphasized enough in this post to show all of our conversations and actions, but wow… that doesn’t mean that my husband doesn’t feel for the people here! Maybe I can convince him to write another post, but I’m not sure because it may be best just to leave this rather than getting things torn apart again. I’d better just stop. A wife sticking up for her wonderful husband isn’t much of a mind changer.
Nós tivemos muitas conversas sobre quão terrível é a perda do ganha pão dessas pessoas, tudo por causa de alguns dias de visita do Papa. Quando estivemos na cidade, na segunda-feira, e vimos os escombros sendo jogados em caminhões, me deixou doente, com enjôo. Mais de uma vez nós chegamos a dizer “mas como as pessoas vão comer hoje à noite? E no dia seguinte? E no seguinte?” E vai muito além disso…E hoje, eu o vi ajudando as pessoas a carregar suas máquinas de costura, suas mesas, suas malas de coisas, tudo descendo a estrada, enquanto o governo vinha com a escavadeira. Não, isso não foi enfatizado o bastante nesta publicação para mostrar todas as conversas e ações, mas nossa… isso não significa que meu marido não sinta pelas pessoas daqui! Talvez eu o consiga convencer a escrever outra publicação, mas não tenho certeza, pois pode ser melhor simplesmente abandonar este assunto do que ter tudo distorcido novamente. Melhor parar por aqui. Uma esposa defendendo seu marido maravilhoso não causa mudanças de pensamento.
As discussões não terminam por aí. Esta visita papal tem mais algumas reviravoltas na blogosfera camaronesa!
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