Diário da Bica

 I know my coffee, my mother’s coffee, and the coffee of my friends. I can tell them from afar and I know the differences among them. No coffee is like another, and my defense of coffee is a plea for difference itself. There’s no flavor we might label “the flavor of coffee” because coffee is not a concept, or even a single substance. And it’s not an absolute. Everyone’s coffee is special, so special that I can tell one’s taste and elegance of spirit by the flavor of the coffee. Coffee with the flavor of coriander means the woman’s kitchen is not organized. Coffee with the flavor of carob juice means the host is stingy. Coffee with the aroma of perfume means the lady is too concerned with appearances. Coffee that feels like moss in the mouth means its maker is an infantile leftist. Coffee that tastes stale from too much turning over in the hot water means its maker is an extreme rightist. And coffee with the overwhelming flavor of cardamom means the lady is newly rich.

No coffee is like another. Every house has its coffee, and every hand too, because no soul is like another. I can tell coffee from far away: it moves in a straight line at first, then zigzags, winds, bends, sighs, and turns on flat, rocky surfaces and slopes; it wraps itself around an oak, then loosens and drops into a wadi, looks back, and melts with longing to go up the mountain. It does go up the mountain as it disperses in the gossamer of a shepherd’s pipe taking it back to its first home.

The aroma of coffee is a return to and a bringing back of first things because it is the offspring of the primordial. It’s a journey, begun thousands of years ago, that still goes on. Coffee is a place. Coffee is pores that let the inside seep through to the outside. A separation that unites what can’t be united except through its aroma. Coffee is not for weaning. On the contrary, coffee is a breast that nourishes men deeply. A morning born of a bitter taste. The milk of manhood. Coffee is geography.

 Mahmoud Darwish,  Memory for Forgetfulness

August, Beirut, 1982

Segredos Oficiais - 2019

 

O filme de 2019 relata a história verídica de uma agente dos serviços de informação ingleses que em 2002 percebe que os EUA preparam a guerra no Iraque através da intimidação e assédio de outros países de forma a receberem destes apoio à sua iniciativa. Sozinha e colocando o seu trabalho e vida em risco (ainda não tinha acontecido a morte do cientista inglês que fez parte da equipa internacional que foi ao Iraque pesquisar as armas de destruição maciça, e denunciou a mentira dos EUA), vai denunciar o que considera que o Reino Unido devia recusar fazer, acreditando que isso pode evitar ou ajudar a evitar a guerra. Não evitou porque nessa altura como agora, os nossos (Europa e EUA) governos não estavam preocupados com a oposição maioritária das suas populações, que se manifestaram de forma expressiva nas ruas. 

Se uma ação corajosa não impediu a guerra pôs-nos a todos do lado do conhecimento. A verdade não vem sempre ao de cima, ela existe porque há seres humanos que dão consequência e significado à sua humanidade. 

"Porque os outros calam / mas tu não"