Corta-fitas

Diz-se que a China entrou no século XX ainda mergulhada no seu esquema e mentalidade feudais. Esta circunstância, a falta de uma Idade Moderna, «renascentista», humanista, iluminista, explicaria a aterradora desumanidade revelada nas mudanças políticas e sociais que depois empreendeu.

Mas nem tudo por ali entroncava na mesma linha de instinto.

Não sendo eu uma acabada feminista, sinto-me particularmente solidária com o espírito feminino, desde sempre incompreendido pelos protagonistas culturais maioritários de cada momento. Por isso me impressionaram tanto a discreta história de sofrimento e o legado escrito de Kai-hui, a segunda mulher de Mao, abandonada por este aos vinte e seis anos - com três crianças nos braços - e executada aos vinte e nove às mãos das forças governamentais, pelo crime de ser ex-mulher do «bandido» comunista:

“I was born extremely weak, and would faint when I started crying … At the time, I sympathised with animals … Every night going to bed, horrible shadows such as the killing of chickens, of pigs, people dying, churned up and down in my head. That was so painful! I can still remember that taste vividly. My brother, not only my brother but many other children, I just couldn’t understand them at all. How was it they could bring themselves to catch little mice, or dragonflies, and play with them, treating them entirely as creatures foreign to pain?

If it were not to spare my mother the pain—the pain of seeing me die—if it were not for this powerful hold, then I simply would not have lived on.

I really wanted to have a faith!…”

Sobre as suas convicções políticas, de início concordantes com as de Mao, escreve:

“Now my inclination has shifted into a new phase. I want to get some nourishment by seeking knowledge, to water and give  sustenance to my dried-up life … Perhaps one day I will cry out: my ideas in the past were wrong!"

E termina com este grito desesperado:

"Ah! Kill, kill, kill! All I hear is this sound in my ears! Why are human beings so evil? Why so cruel? Why?! I cannot think on! I must have a faith! I must have a faith! Let me have a faith!!”