- Three images on atavism
Three images on atavismVon Mário Alberto MachadoEin portugiesischer Blick auf Portugal und auch eine kurze Reflexion – Dieser Text entstand aufgrund einer Korrespondenz zwischen einer guten deutschen Freundin und ihrem portugiesischen Freund MárioAbout the non-existence of Portugal, some words. I cannot say if it is sad or comfortable, but it is at least strange this feeling of belonging to a country that consists, I would say, in a permanent subtraction of itself, which naturally brings along “more of the same”, done by others. Not only to be a Portuguese is, as the old film director Joao Cesar Monteiro used to say, “an atavism”, but it is also true that the whole country is a kind of memorial to atavism. We had an empire, but this is both our only joy and our biggest problem, the spot that no magic powder can wash out. And I think that it is all about this: we wake up every morning to wash the same clothes, with old or new detergents, but still we know well that nothing will clean them. It is in this moment that we are: not yet disappeared but at an unreachable distance of existence. We cannot both wash our memory neither clean it. If the world would be a great symphony (Mr. Bush directing, of course), Portugal – and others, because I don’t believe we are alone with this – would be precisely the coffee break, the cigarette break. We would be that moment in which no one would be in the room, though the room would still be prepared for the second part. People say that Brazilians are Portuguese after successful psychoanalysis. The point is that we do try therapy, but it is as if we would be lying on the divan while the psychiatrist is on holidays.Mário Alberto Machado lebt derzeit in Warschau, Polen.Ich danke Antje und Mário (Obrigada!), dass sie mir den Text zur Verfügung gestellt haben.
Von Mário Alberto Machado
Ein portugiesischer Blick auf Portugal und auch eine kurze Reflexion – Dieser Text entstand aufgrund einer Korrespondenz zwischen einer guten deutschen Freundin und ihrem portugiesischen Freund Mário
About the non-existence of Portugal, some words. I cannot say if it is sad or comfortable, but it is at least strange this feeling of belonging to a country that consists, I would say, in a permanent subtraction of itself, which naturally brings along “more of the same”, done by others. Not only to be a Portuguese is, as the old film director Joao Cesar Monteiro used to say, “an atavism”, but it is also true that the whole country is a kind of memorial to atavism. We had an empire, but this is both our only joy and our biggest problem, the spot that no magic powder can wash out. And I think that it is all about this: we wake up every morning to wash the same clothes, with old or new detergents, but still we know well that nothing will clean them. It is in this moment that we are: not yet disappeared but at an unreachable distance of existence. We cannot both wash our memory neither clean it. If the world would be a great symphony (Mr. Bush directing, of course), Portugal – and others, because I don’t believe we are alone with this – would be precisely the coffee break, the cigarette break. We would be that moment in which no one would be in the room, though the room would still be prepared for the second part. People say that Brazilians are Portuguese after successful psychoanalysis. The point is that we do try therapy, but it is as if we would be lying on the divan while the psychiatrist is on holidays.
Mário Alberto Machado lebt derzeit in Warschau, Polen.
Ich danke Antje und Mário (Obrigada!), dass sie mir den Text zur Verfügung gestellt haben.
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