Greetings to freedom!
Overcoming our problems depends on purifying our habits and methods. This is not a private matter; it is a matter of great public interest.
Last Thursday afternoon, on my second-to-last day of work at Bahiagás, I received an invitation from Bahia247 to write a weekly column. “Free topic: you write whatever you want, about whatever you want,” reporter Rômulo Faro, the spokesperson for the invitation extended by poet and journalist Eliezer César, told me. For a self-proclaimed free-thinker, it was an offer I couldn't refuse. From now on, then, I will try to transform some of my Sunday reflections into texts, which I will post on Mondays. Out of gratitude and a sense of duty, I salute my colleagues who have given me this privileged space at Bahia247 with reverence for freedom, a fundamental right for any person, but especially fundamental for those who have writing as their profession.
In 1798, the city of Bahia witnessed the remains of four young black men, quartered in the streets for distributing handwritten, seditious leaflets about the Tailors' Revolt. The use of intimidation through brutally exemplary punishment, common in colonial times, resurfaces with a touch of modernity. But it retains the same cruel verve of centuries past. I therefore make this denunciation in the hope of winning the solidarity of each reader for these two colleagues.
Journalist Aguirre Peixoto faces four lawsuits filed by giants in the real estate market. What is his sin? He fulfilled his assignments and reported on the consolidated and ongoing transformations in the city, particularly in the Paralela area. As vice-president, I am proud to say that, in this David versus Goliath struggle, Aguirre has the legal defense of the Bahia Press Association.
Journalist Nadja Vladi is also the target of an even more bizarre lawsuit, filed by the production company of Camarote Salvador. And her sin? Like this columnist and so many others, she questioned the use – or abuse – of a public area for private gain. It could have been anyone else, among the many who have spoken out publicly. But they chose Nadja Vladi, who works professionally as the editor of a Sunday magazine in the cultural field, where the Premium Produções group is the most economically powerful.
Overcoming our ills, whose origin lies in the worst traditions preserved since colonial times, depends on a purification of habits and methods. In both cases, I see violence. Against the full exercise of journalism, in the first case; and against the exercise of democratic freedoms, in the second. In both cases, actions absolutely incompatible with the present day. This is not a private matter, it is a matter of high public interest. Or will we choose to remain in the eternal condition of a province? What do you think?