Após o texto de Mia Couto onde ele citava uma parte de uma carta escrita por Chinua Achebe a Agostinho Neto que dizia “O riso sinistro dos reis idiotas de África que, da varanda dos seus palácios de ouro, contemplam a chacina dos seus próprios povos”, que eu achei pertinente e “”postei” no meu mural do Fabebook, levantou-se a questão, e bem, pelo meu amigo Abílio, qual a origem desta citação.
Agora ele encontrou, encontou a origem, e aqui fica:
Agostinho, were you no more
Than the middle one favored by fortune
In children’s riddle; Kwame
Striding ahead to accost
Demons; behind you a laggard third
As yet unnamed, of twisted fingers?
No! Your secure strides
Were hard earned. Your feet
Learned their fierce balance
In violent slopes of humiliation;
Your delicate hands, patiently
Groomed for finest incisions,
Were commandeered brusquely to kill,
Your gentle voice to battle-cry.
Perhaps your family and friends
Knew a merry flash cracking the gloom
We see in pictures but I prefer
And will keep that sorrowful legend.
For I have seen how
Half a millennium of alien rape
And murder can stamp a smile
On the vacant face of the fool,
The sinister grin of Africa’s idiot-kings
Who oversee in obscene palaces of gold
The butchery of their own people.
Neto, I sing your passing, I,
Timid requisitioner of your vast
Armory’s most congenial supply.
What shall I sing? A dirge answering
The gloom? No, I will sing tearful songs
Of joy; I will celebrate
The man who rode a trinity
Of awesome fates to the cause
Of our trampled race!
Thou Healer, Soldier and Poet!
Começou dia 5 de Agosto e já ganhamos mas com luta (falhamos muitos triplos) por 79-74 frente ao Mali.
