Back
in
the
Middle
Ages
On
returning
from
Salvador,
my
daughter
Wladenia,
anxiously
delivers
me,
as
a
gift
from
my
dear
friend,
Ângelo
Soares
Neto,
a
large,
bulky
bundle
of
newspapers
from
old
Bahia
state,
with
which
I
hopefully
could
catch
up
on
a
varied
number
of
interests
that
were
currently
spinning
within
the
orbit
of
my
attention.
Knowing
me
well
enough,
Angelo
knew
how
to
locate
in
the
northeastern
and
“Baiano”
press,
much
news
of
topics
that
fall
under
our
common
interests
and
which,
of
course,
pleased
me
immensely.
A
treasure
of
rich
reading
that
would
fill
in
the
few
tight
moments
of
leisure
left
to
me
during
my
endless
days
of
study.
I
reminisced
about
those
fascinating
days
during
the
decade
of
the
fifties,
when
the
short
story
writer
Haroldo
Livio
and
I
would
meet
every
afternoon
at
the
public
county
library,
to
read…in
the
fleeting
moments
of
our
modest
coffee
breaks.
But,
however
few
and
quick
they
were,
we
learned
much
during
those
short
magical
intervals,
especially
about
literature.
Well
then,
dear
reader,
I
won´t
allow
myself
to
stray
too
far
from
the
main
theme.
Now,
Angelo
and
Haroldo
had
a
fascinating
common
interest;
their
great
passion
for
the
Middle
Ages,
a
subject
that
I
chose
for
today´s
topic.
I
really
only
brought
it
up
to
start
conversation
going
but
it
was
just
great,
because
when
you
stop
to
think
about
it,
both
of
them,
Angelo
and
Harold,
have
a
lot
of
the
medieval
in
their
different
ways
of
being
and
acting…And
why
the
middle
ages?
Well,
are
we,
or
are
we
not
citizens
of
the
twenty-first
century?
Do
we
not
live
in
the
breathtaking
new
age,
when
modernity
invades
our
everyday
lives,
when
the
young
want
at
any
price,
to
shake
off
the
heavy
dust,
manacles
of
the
past?
It
is
the
“to
be
or
not
to
be”.
That
is
the
question
that
we
found
in
the
newspapers
that
Angelo
sent
me:
The
world
is
really
receding
back
to
the
middle
ages!
Who
affirms
that
the
world
is
once
again
approaching
the
middle
ages,
crawling
back
sideways,
like
a
crab,
is
the
professor
Cid
Teixeira,
in
an
interview
to
the
“Jornal
da
Bahia”.
He
says
that
the
state
in
its
cabinet
can
no
longer
protect
the
citizen
on
the
street,
and
basically
for
this
reason
alone,
we
are
living
in
an
age
almost
feudal,
when
the
basic,
physical
protection
of
individuals
hardly
exists.
In
truth,
the
individual
either
protects
himself,
by
himself,
or
faces
the
consequences,
modernly
putting
up
bars
and
walls
around
himself
as
substitutes
for
castle,
armor,
shield
and
moat…Myriad
laws,
unending
legal
red
tape,
too
many
statistics,
an
enormous
universe
of
initials,
with
all
essential
planning
planned
backwards
and
a
gigantic
non-functional
security
system
network
which
provokes
an
insecurity
even
greater.
The
individual
then
commences
building
sturdy,
high
walls
with
shards
of
glass
cemented
in
on
top,
electric
fences
and
closed
condominiums,
hiding
themselves
behind
electronic
shields,
hiring
private,
security
guards,
putting
up
closed
circuit
cameras
everywhere,
always
putting
more
and
more
locks
on
doors
and
windows,
rarely
going
out
in
the
evening
and
nevermore
strolling
about
casually,
in
the
relaxed
and
unworried
fashion
as
in
yesteryear.
Rich
or
plebian,
miserable
or
middle
class,
the
individual
no
longer
trusts
government
protection,
coming
to
the
point
of
it
appearing
to
be
that
the
government
has
just
simply
disencumbered
itself
from
this
sticky
and
difficult
obligation.
To
the
contrary
of
what
we
have
always
visualized
about
the
modernizing
of
the
world,
with
real
protection
for
the
rights
of
every
person,
with
liberty
of
thought
and
speech,
the
institution
of
good,
respect
and
security,
the
opposite
is
seen.
The
state
impersonally
creates
a
caste
of
insensitive
technocrats,
living
robots
whose
greatest
desire,
it
seems
to
me,
is
to
become
powerful,
sort
of
like
latter-day
Egyptian
pharaohs.
At
the
very
bottom
of
this,
says
Sid
Teixeira
is
the
secret
wish
of
every
technocrat
to
be
a
high-priest
of
the
Egyptian
god
Amom,
a
keeper
of
hermetic
sciences
and
retainer
of
divine
right
and
the
power
that
it
accompanies.
Having
the
necessary
commands,
programs
and
pawns
of
potent
computers
at
their
disposal,
speaking
the
steely
coded
language
of
the
economist,
accessible
only
to
themselves,
they
permanently
enclose
themselves
in
carpeted
air
conditioned
cabinets,
in
plush
first
class
seats
on
gleaming
streamlined
jets
and
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