Os Doze Trabalhos de Mónika. 8.Heroes of the World | Heloisa Pait | Digestivo Cultural

busca | avançada
52275 visitas/dia
1,7 milhão/mês
Mais Recentes
>>> Começa o Cerrado Cup, o maior circuito itinerante de e-sports do DF
>>> “Malina” é o primeiro e único romance de uma trilogia inacabada da austríaca Ingeborg Bachmann
>>> Kitchen, de Banana Yoshimoto
>>> Galeria de Arte São Luís: 1959-1966
>>> Um ano no Japão: Descubra o Japão que vai além dos roteiros turísticos
* clique para encaminhar
Mais Recentes
>>> A dobra do sentido, a poesia de Montserrat Rodés
>>> Literatura e caricatura promovendo encontros
>>> Stalking monetizado
>>> A eutanásia do sentido, a poesia de Ronald Polito
>>> Folia de Reis
>>> Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025)
>>> A vida, a morte e a burocracia
>>> O nome da Roza
>>> Dinamite Pura, vinil de Bernardo Pellegrini
>>> Do lumpemproletariado ao jet set almofadinha...
Colunistas
Últimos Posts
>>> O coach de Sam Altman, da OpenAI
>>> Andrej Karpathy na AI Startup School (2025)
>>> Uma história da OpenAI (2025)
>>> Sallouti e a história do BTG (2025)
>>> Ilya Sutskever na Universidade de Toronto
>>> Vibe Coding, um guia da Y Combinator
>>> Microsoft Build 2025
>>> Claude Code by Boris Cherny
>>> Behind the Tech com Sam Altman (2019)
>>> Sergey Brin, do Google, no All-In
Últimos Posts
>>> Política, soft power e jazz
>>> O Drama
>>> Encontro em Ipanema (e outras histórias)
>>> Jurado número 2, quando a incerteza é a lei
>>> Nosferatu, a sombra que não esconde mais
>>> Teatro: Jacó Timbau no Redemunho da Terra
>>> Teatro: O Pequeno Senhor do Tempo, em Campinas
>>> PoloAC lança campanha da Visibilidade Trans
>>> O Poeta do Cordel: comédia chega a Campinas
>>> Estágios da Solidão estreia em Campinas
Blogueiros
Mais Recentes
>>> Um rio dez vezes maior que o segundo maior rio
>>> O centenário de Contos Gauchescos
>>> Revista Jukebox em São Paulo
>>> Susan Sontag em carne e osso
>>> Literatura e caricatura promovendo encontros
>>> Literatura e caricatura promovendo encontros
>>> Literatura e caricatura promovendo encontros
>>> Literatura e caricatura promovendo encontros
>>> Literatura e caricatura promovendo encontros
>>> Literatura e caricatura promovendo encontros
Mais Recentes
>>> Estudos de Literatura Brasileira de Douglas Tufano pela Moderna (1983)
>>> Por Onde Anda A Virtude? (coleção Letras Italianas) de Fernanda Pivano pela Berlendis E Vertecchia (2002)
>>> Mãos em Evolução de Mauricio Moscovici pela Med Line (2014)
>>> Fundamentos de Matemática Elementar 4 de Gelson Iezzi e Samuel Hazzan pela Atual (2013)
>>> Fundamentos de Matemática Elementar 7 de Gelson Iezzi pela Atual (2013)
>>> A Assustadora História Da Medicina de Richard Gordon pela Ediouro (1995)
>>> Curso de Vinhos de Jancis Robinson pela Cotovia (1999)
>>> Chave da provisão infinita de Masaharu Taniguchi pela Seicho no Ie (2007)
>>> As Uvas E O Vento de Pablo Neruda pela L&pm (2010)
>>> Hq Marvel 99 - 4 revistas: 1,2,3,8 de Vários Autores pela Abril (1998)
>>> O Castelo Animado de Diana Wynne Jones pela Record (2007)
>>> As Melhores Histórias De Sherlock Holmes de Arthur Conan Doyle pela L&pm (2010)
>>> Toda Sua de Sylvia Day pela Paralela (2012)
>>> Chok Leyisrael - Bereshit (Edição Bilíngue) de Rav Yoseph Milstein pela Rdx (2017)
>>> Manifesto Do Partido Comunista de Karl Marx pela Martin Claret (2009)
>>> Um Longo Domingo De Noivado de Sébastien Japrisot pela Asa (1991)
>>> Memórias de Sherlock Holmes de Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pela Martin Claret (2007)
>>> Felicidade não tem cor (2º ed. - 37º impressão) de Julio Emílio Braz - Odilon Moraes pela Moderna (2009)
>>> A Abadia De Northanger de Jane Austen pela L&pm (2014)
>>> Um Estudo Em Vermelho de Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pela L&pm (2008)
>>> Fiz O Que Pude (2º edição - 56º impressão) de Lucilia Junqueira De Almeida Prado pela Moderna (2011)
>>> Regras de Futebol Interpretação Das Leis do Jogo de Leopoldo Sant'Ana pela Cia Brasil
>>> O Príncipe de Maquiavel pela L&pm (2025)
>>> O Signo Dos Quatro de Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pela Martin Claret (2009)
>>> The Luxe Food Lovers Companion de Sharon Tyler Herbst e Ron Herbst pela Barrons (2009)
COLUNAS

Quinta-feira, 11/1/2018
Os Doze Trabalhos de Mónika. 8.Heroes of the World
Heloisa Pait
+ de 6100 Acessos

Leia a primeira aventura de Mónika, À Beira do Abismo.

Sometimes Mónika preferred to think in English, which was a language all Brazilians spoke and none of them spoke at all. She felt comfortable expressing her ideas in the same broken language of the T-shirts, company names and translated pop songs, as if she were part of a large conspiracy no one knew they were part of.

She was thinking about the risks she faced, that her USAID grant, which she announced in various research reports she published in her college web page, became public. That was a big risk. If they connected her whistleblowing to that grant, she was doomed, given all the USAID meant for the Brazilian academia. What was so evil in that particular American agency? No one knew today, as it had been effectively proscribed from all academic discourse.

In the dictatorial period, USAID had signed cooperation agreements with the Brazilian Ministry of Education of Culture to promote educational reforms in Brazil. In higher education, they introduced the credit system, ended the European cathedra system, and massively expanded undergraduate programs which would bring a more flexible, accessible and democratic education. But it was all top-down, which was inadmissible. Academic leaders had it very clear that they should not get distracted with undercover policemen inside classrooms, professors disappearing in the middle of the year, and the general climate of fear that took hold of the campuses in those years. They were not stupid. The danger lay on the MEC-USAID agreements. Faculty, students, knowledge itself, that was all renewable. The agreements however put at risk the university as they knew it, which was not to happen. With decisiveness and no public declaration, they submerged the whole thing in an ocean of inscrutable decrees that kept the foundation of Brazilian university – the privilege of knowledge – intact.

USAID’s support was Mónika’s only concern, because she hadn’t actually written anything secret in his whistleblowing report, no negotiation to mess up with hiring processes, no parallel meeting to pump up evaluations, nothing. Nothing that was not already in official documents. No moral, sexual, physical, spiritual or cosmic harassment. No one could challenge her. Mónika had refrained herself from hyperboles. Yes, she was Brazilian. Yes, she grew up going to bars and street parties. But she kept from her native land the cool attitude that covered her bursting mind.

She merely entered all university public documents in open data format, in which evasion numbers, courses syllabi, job search requirements, alumni anonymized data, and various evaluations could be easily analyzed. Academic calendars. Conferences. Publications. Promotions. Wages. Administrative bonuses. Meetings. Anyone could build neat graphs and tables with the data. And it was all made possible by the American program. Or, better, by the United Statester program. She had the hope someone in Brasília was about the connect the dots and realize that:

The Ambaíba Geology and Metaphysics School was not a school. There were hired faculty, admitted students, and built classrooms, which is fundamentally what a school needs. There was even a quite reasonable library, with important books in reachable shelves, something that couldn’t hurt much, as well as a decent internet connection. But if you look closely at the documents, and that’s the only thing one could do below the Equator, it was not a school at all. Meeting minutes indicated something entirely different. Production and transmission of knowledge, that undying plague, happened mostly in marginal institutional spaces, the long line to get the ticket for the cafeteria meal that formed in the middle of the morning classes, or that strange radioactive dome at the border of the campus, visited earlier by our heroine. The investigation would certainly take a long time: how would officials even start it? What precisely they could look for? Were they trained to look for nothing? And how would they tell a real, functioning college from this one? Mónika dry-swallowed: would she be asked to give a testimony? What could they possibly ask? If they questioned her about Jacques Derrida’s concept of trace, would she be prepared?

These were the thoughts that occupied Mónika, whom we know well by now. A foreigner. A woman. A successful professor of paleo-sociology, which can be described as the examination of archaic human efforts to comprehend their own human relations. Mónika studied how men understood, historically, their own group lives. She knew all about the subject. She mastered archeology and sacred texts, and from this she grasped how men saw themselves as social group members in ancient times and pre historic eras. She knew how they produced such knowledge and how they transmitted it. She was simply a great scholar: she knew where to find stuff and she had the imagination of grand interpreters. Her only handicap was that she couldn’t use this knowledge to just make sense of the world around her, here and know. She felt, deep inside, that this was beneath her, trying to understand what was right in front of her eyes. She looked at the window, watched the sugar cane fields going by, followed by the pastures, and at each farm the car left behind, she knew a little less.

The cab driver took her from her daydreaming.

– Você não está me reconhecendo, está?

– O pastor! – Mónika said when she saw his black eyes in the car rearview mirror.

– Não sou pastor.

– Claro. Mas pensou em ser, falamos sobre religião na última corrida. Como vai?

– Como você vai?

Mónika cried. The pastor was very skillful.

– Não é um dia bom para me perguntar isso.

– Você é casada?

– Não.

– Tem filhos?

– Não. – Mónika sobbed.

The pastor told a biblical story. Mónika found it beautiful. His voice, his intonation. The cab driver was really something. He went on:

– Às vezes, na vida, é preciso pôr de lado as pequenas ambições e dedicar-se a algo maior que tudo...

Mónika was making a confession to a pastor who drove a cab in a country road, but that didn’t make her a stupid woman.

– Já tenho minhas lutas – she cut off his preaching.

– Claro que tem! – The pastor retracted. He knew how to guide his sheep, and that one was not going to be the easiest. – Claro que tem.

He told another biblical story. He spoke of David and Goliath, of the little Hebrew who fought the giant. With his own weapons, he insisted.

– Não use armas que não sejam suas, se você me permite o conselho.

Mónika allowed him the advice. Each one in life had a role, and the cab driver had performed well his own today. She would use only her own weapons. Not the others’ ones. That would make her strong. She wouldn’t hurt Goliath, she was pretty sure. But she would tickle him. She thought of the heroes of the world, thought of David and Ulysses. Hercules and Asterix. She thought of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and then of Donald Duck, embarking in adventures in mysterious lands with his three brave nephews.

She had no reason to be afraid. She was in good company. The company of the heroes of the world.

Está no ar a nona aventura de Mónika, Um Cacho de Banana.

Esta é uma obra de ficção; qualquer semelhança com nomes, pessoas, fatos ou situações da vida real terá sido mera coincidência


Heloisa Pait
São Paulo, 11/1/2018

Quem leu este, também leu esse(s):
01. Ed Motta ao vivo de Fabio Silvestre Cardoso


Mais Heloisa Pait
Mais Acessadas de Heloisa Pait em 2018
01. Uma Receita de Bolo de Mel - 25/10/2018
02. O Voto de Meu Pai - 18/10/2018
03. Os Doze Trabalhos de Mónika. 8.Heroes of the World - 11/1/2018
04. Os Doze Trabalhos de Mónika. Epílogo. Ambaíba - 16/2/2018
05. Os Doze Trabalhos de Mónika. 7. Um Senador - 4/1/2018


* esta seção é livre, não refletindo necessariamente a opinião do site



Digestivo Cultural
Histórico
Quem faz

Conteúdo
Quer publicar no site?
Quer sugerir uma pauta?

Comercial
Quer anunciar no site?
Quer vender pelo site?

Newsletter | Disparo
* Twitter e Facebook
LIVROS




Guerra Civil 489
Stuart Moore
Novo Século
(2014)



Os Nacionalismos
Paulo Martinez
Scipione
(1996)



Testemunhos De Amor
Maria Salvador
Lachâtre
(2004)



O Dossiê Pelicano
John Grisham
Rocco
(1993)



Veja Sob Censura 1968-1976 566
Maria Fernanda Lopes Almeida
Jaboticaba
(2009)



A Redação de Trabalhos Acadêmicos - Teoria e Prática
Orgs. Claudio Cezar Henriques, Darcilia Marindir Simoes
Eduerj
(2004)



Vagabond 27
Takehiko Inoue
Conrad
(2003)



Simples e Complexos - Visão Espírita de Temas Diversos
Alessandro Viana Vieira de Paula
Fráter
(2014)



Um Verso a Cada Passo a Poesia na Estrada Real
Angela Leite de Souza
Autentica
(2015)



Como Proust Pode Mudar Sua Vida
Alain De Botton
Rocco
(1999)





busca | avançada
52275 visitas/dia
1,7 milhão/mês