Often, throughout history, intellectuals have assumed the duty, at the same time meant as a right, to launch a cry of alert.
The present moment calls for a vehement appeal to the conscience of the peoples. We are facing a spiral of brutal irrationality, whose main root does not lie, as expressed by the dominating ideology, in the innate violence of backward and fanaticized human groups, but in the globalized system of exploitation, domination and oppression which spreads violence, aggression, backwardness and misery throughout the globe.
It was in a similar atmosphere that, less than a century ago, fascist and Nazi-fascist ideologies and regimes, protagonists of the greatest tragedies suffered by mankind up to now, sprouted. It is in this atmosphere that new expressions of the same scourge are reborn and flourish.
Today, as before, they advance under the guise of anti-communism. They cry for the criminalization, the persecution, the prohibition of the existence and the action of the communists. But their aim is, in fact, to criminalize, persecute and repress freedom, democracy, the right of the workers, the citizens, the peoples to resistance and struggle for human rights, the simple right to just dream that a different society is possible.
Today, the spokesmen of this dark programme do not dress in black or brown shirts. They wear a suit and tie and have seats in important international bodies.
They tried to approve in the European Council an anti-communist resolution that, if applied, would bring about an implacable persecutory escalade, of repression and of violence, not only against the communists but all those who resist and fight against the intolerable dominating state of affairs. It was long ago that, in a European institution, and so clearly, there was the century-old voice of oppression, of hate against the very difficult march for human emancipation.
We know, from a painful historic memory, the meaning of these signs.
That is why, this is the time to exercise the duty and the right to launch a vigorous and urgent cry of alert.
Independently of the different individual appreciations on the different matters at stake, we will not, through our silence, allow the repetition of acts and tragedies that etched in horror and in fire the face of the peoples.
We will not, through our silence, allow history to repeat itself.
First signatures:
Alberto Vilaça - Advogado, Investigador de História
Alcino Soutinho - Arquitecto
Álvaro Magalhães – Escritor
Álvaro Siza Vieira - arquitecto
António Avelãs Nunes - Professor Universitário
Armando Alves - Pintor
Domingos Tavares – Professor Universitário
Eduardo Souto Moura – Arquitecto
Filipe Diniz – Arquitecto
Fausto Neves - Músico
Francisco Allen Gomes - Médico Psiquiatra
Frederico Carvalho – Investigador
Hélder Costa – Autor, Encenador
Isabel Allegro de Magalhães – Professora Universitária
João Arsénio Nunes - Historiador
João Ferreira – Bolseiro de Investigação
José António Gomes – Escritor
José Barata Moura – Reitor da Universidade de Lisboa
José Luís Borges Coelho – Músico
José Rodrigues – Artista Plástico
José Saramago - Escritor, Prémio Nobel da Literatura
Manuel Gusmão – Jornalista, Escritor
Manuel Louzã Henriques - Médico Psiquiatra
Maria Helena Serôdio - Professora Universitária.
Miguel Urbano Rodrigues – Escritor
Óscar Lopes – Escritor
Rogério Ribeiro – Artista Plástico
Rui Namorado Rosa – Professor Universitário
Urbano Tavares Rodrigues – Escritor
