Portuguese
Como poderiam os oprimidos dar inicio à violência,
se eles são o resultado de uma violência?
Paulo Freire
The Cultural Action Institute (CAI) in Portuguese IDAC, was founded by Paulo Freire, Claudius Ceccon (cartoonist), among other Brazilians who lived in Geneva Switzerland, during the 70s, and that had as objective to do advisories in the educational area, specially in African countries that were struggling for their independence during the 70s and 80s.
IDAC used humor and art to express the reality of the country they were working, or the world reality as well, that they were struggling against. In one of his notebooks “ Le Dessin d’ humour comme instrument d’ éducation politique (Drawings as political educational instrument), the institution gathered a great quantity of cartoons and charges problematizing the world.
“One of the characteristics of the urban-industrial civilization, in which we live in, is that she is constituted as a visual civilization. (…) The ensemble of information transmitted by all these messages [visual] have a choking homogeneity in the models that are given us, the ideas and the way of life. To understand that this is a fact, and why is it like that, it is the first indispensable step in order not to fall in a trap much more dangerous that is veiled under an apparent innocence and gives us, a real aesthetic pleasure”, introduced Claudius Ceccon in the relative notebook.
See below an example of comic, elaborated by Ceccon, that reflects the words of the drawer about innocence, the aesthetic pleasure and the comprehension of the world by means of art.
First Line:
1 – Hi! / 2 – Hi!
1 – Can you give me a piece of cake?/ 2 – No, I can’t.
1 – Why? / 2 – Because if I give you a piece, I’ll be hungry.
Second Line:
1 – But Lili, I’m hungry too.
2 – And? / 1 -And you can give me half of the cake.
2 – But if I give you a half, I will not be totally satisfied, neither will you.
1 – But, at least, I’ll be less hungry than before.
Third Line:
2 – Listen, if we both are hungry, that means that 100% of people are hungry, if I eat it, the hungry cuts in 50%.
1 – It’s true, but the 50% that are still hungry it’s me! That’s a violence!
2 – Sorry, but statistics are neutral and have no feelings.
1 – So if the problem is the statistics, i had a better idea!
2 – Better? What?
Fourth Line:
1 – I’ll eat the cake!
1 – Like this, the neutrality of statistics are by my side…
1 – And remember: violence creates violence!
