BANZO

Banzo (of unknown African origin) is also similar to saudade formely used in Brazil but it refers to the morbid feeling felt by a black slave towards his culture. In common use, banzo means saudade for one's own culture and homeland, as opposed to a loved one, a family member, a moment in time, etc. Unlike saudade, whose only negative effects can be an eternal melancholy, banzo is dangerous. The Houaiss Portuguese dictionary defines banzo as "the psychological process caused by the removal from culture that put black slaves from Africa, transported to distant lands, into an initial state of arousal followed by impulses of rage and destruction and then a deep nostalgia that induced apathy, starving and, quite often, madness or death." Banzo happens when one is uprooted from one's culture, a consequence of disconnection from religion, beliefs, caste system, customs, family, and friends, without hope of ever coming back to them. As a result, the subject will either die, become mad or turn into a "hardened" person whose emotional self is completely disrupted. (Wikipedia)

Onde estão aqueles deuses que na tarde,

já esquecida da terra dos tambores,

me falavam da riqueza sem alarde

da cultura de meus pais e meus maiores?

Meu amor ficou detrás do muro de ondas,

E com ela, meu futuro e minha vida,

e meu nome que morreu nas naus hediondas

que me furtaram da pátria conhecida.

Eu não vou virar jamais besta de carga,

mais prefiro me afogar na fel amarga

da saudade insuportável que me cheia.

Liberar o meu espírito do ferro,

pra que possa assim voar livre do encerro,

até a mulher que chora em minha aldeia.

Para todas as vítimas do genocídio negro.

Ricardo Rabinovich-Berkman

25-6-2008
 

Obrigado, caro pastor Claudio Pires, por ter-me feito saber do banzo