Maubere

I remember… and I feel…

I remember when I first contacted the people… freedom is an expression we will never know fully here in the “westernized nations”, until we meet and live among those as great as the Maubere… in Timor Lorosae.

I learned with them… about my half life, about the half choices my land seemed to offer me.
With them I learned what it seems to be truthful, honorable, whole...

I learned what’s peace… because – when a Timorese in Oe-Cusse approaches - you will feel tender, curiosity maybe, kindness, silence… peace…

You will feel an ocean around and inside… as much as the deep routes of the land… and the echoes of ancestral sounds.
Tradition, culture, truthfulness.
Something we started to forget among all these rituals from other places…

I have nothing against meeting people (I love this) and other cultures.
But I feel – loosing the routes to the land we are is loosing the routes to the soul we belong.

Then I knew Díli.
In there I coordinated a Mission in an NGO that was part of a vast web of interests concerning more with echonomical foreign benefits than with people’s identity and capability to self-determination.

There was always the thought – Timorese can’t do it by themselves.
There was always the look from top to down.
There was the virtual feeling our so called politeness and developed technology were greater than their simple ways and humble appearance.

In this I saw the budgets of projects born from dust – never from demands or needs expressed by Timoreses themselves.
Saw how reports were not read or simply ignored, since Lisbon had the idea of what they intended before the intention came from the field.

I saw the donors – IPAD, ECHO.
Then I heard the international community in personal talks.
Portugal is a non neutral supporter.
National Bank, (re)Construction Contracts and Oil interests…

I saw the money USAID and other entities flushed down the toilet of draining people from their independent kind of life so they became prisoners of external founding and foreign contracts.

I saw how tribal traditions were hardly tried to be washed away by the so called “Universal” new church of democracy…

I saw how international interests used everything at hand to bring mayhem and chaos as an excuse to stronger inner interference and rulership.

When I came back from Timor, barbed wire was on the main streets of Dili and brother against brother in ignorance fighting – seemingly under the excuse of Religion – truly under the money and advice from external potencies.

AlKatiri was the target then.

AlKatiri is the target now.

Not supporting him or other – I must say it is such coincidence with similar actors behind this I simply feel stranged…

The need for hurried U.N end of assistance.
The oil contracts definition ending right now and then… this.

From foreign military bases denied in Timorese Soil, to oil contracts frustrated by the government’s decisions…

There are so many influences…

I would dream a nation in which Maubere could simply live their own way.
No need for Portuguese as official language, no need for democracy instead of tribal traditions, no need for foreign judges or laws instead of local family clan rule…

Wise and strong as the routes of very old trees… which endure dry season and rejoice with the first rains.
This “children” people, this deeply human land would be – more than a “under aid” land – a “teacher of nations”…


I give them my most profound recognition.

I tell them how I admire, how I recognize their freedom and their character.

How I do know Maubere have no war inside… the weapons that entered there always came from different far countries, from far and not so far people.

In this world of alliances that are dark and grey they need support to endure.

Hope they may endure as free as I knew them.

I do not wish for their smiles the ones I saw in Bali, in the streets.
I do not wish for their freedom the bondage of a taxi cab as a way to serve the “Malae”... us.

Guerra “la hia” no coração Maubere.
There was never war in the Maubere’s heart…

Quem a leva consigo para além mar – que volte para sua casa…
Those who bring war in their hearts – may return home…

Ontem as desculpas para armas nas ruas são as mesmas que hoje…
Yesterday – the excuses to put guns on the streets were the same we have now…

Não parece que aprendemos da história.
We seem to learn nothing from history.

There we do again those “help” missions that endure years of weapons walking the streets…
Repetem-se as ajudas para manter a paz que duram anos passeando armas nas ruas…

Missing my little village on the woods…
Saudades da minha aldeia no mato.

There was no weapon on the streets… never would be…
Onde não havia armas nas ruas… nem nunca houve.