"The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe . . . Strindberg's idea: hell is not something that awaits us, but this life here and now" (Benjamin qtd in Löwy, Fire Alarm 63).
Scene VIII of Utopia da Memória juxtaposes a nightmare had by Mateus, "menino de 15 anos morador do município de Conceição do Mato Dentro, Minas Gerais, cidade atingida pela Mineradora Anglo American," with passages from Benjamin's Thesis IX of "On the Concept of History." As we're told earlier in the play, "O Brasil é um dos maiores produtores de minério de ferro e detém uma das maiores reserves de 'terras raras,' matéria prima para a fabricação de tablets e celulares. A exploração mineral no Brasil é responsável por centenas de crimes ambientais e sociais, como o de Mariana em 2015 e Brumadinho em janeiro deste ano [2019]," which resulted in hundreds of deaths, most of them of black and brown poor people. In the play, we're told that the tailing dam then still in the process of being built by Anglo American in Conceição do Mato Dentro will be seven times larger than the one that collapsed in Mariana and 24 times larger than the one that collapsed in Brumadinho.
In his nightmare, Mateus is running away from death, which appears in the form of "aquela pessoa vestida de preto com aquela foice," but also of "água, água, água" coming in his direction. Mateus is "no meio do caminho." "Na minha frente," he describes, "só via salvação," but keeping him from reaching salvation was a "barreira" with a sign "área restrita" and the logo of Anglo American. "Atrás de mim só tinha destruição," "só via caveira, gente morta, pessoa morta... até familiares meus mesmo sendo mortos..." In Mateus' nightmare, salvation is the property of the mining company (and the "empresas de tecnologia" that depend on the "exploração de minério" for the production of "tablets e celulares") responsible for the destruction he sees behind him. In a way, salvation "na minha frente" and destruction "atrás de mim" are one and the same, since the "barreira" can be understood as yet another barragem, even larger than the one that collapsed, which are presented to the communities they destroy as "salvation" in the form of "progress."
In Benjamin's Thesis, progress is figured as a "storm" meant to evoke "catastrophe and destruction," but also the fact that, "for conformist ideology, Progress is a 'natural, phenomenon, governed by the laws of nature, and as such inevitable and irresistible'" (Löwy 66). In Mateus' nightmare, progress is "aquela lama, aquela água" released by the collapsed dams in Mariana and Brumadinho. This image of progress and the destruction it leaves behind de-naturalizes them. At the same time (and perhaps because of the juxtaposition with Benjamin's Thesis), we're reminded that "conformist ideology" insists on describing such "crimes ambientais e sociais" with terms like "disaster," "tragedy," and even "accident," all of which suggest a sense of inevitability and lack of responsibility. ("Em 2017," we hear later in the play, "a Mineradora Vale," which owned the dams in Mariana and Brumadinho, "lucrou 17 bilhões e seiscentos milhões de reais.)
When death was about to catch him, Mateus heard "tipo um aviso! E eu acordei com o barulho. Um caminhão apitando, dando uma buzina bem forte." This noise "lembra" the noise of the "sirenes de alarme" installed in areas where dams are built to warn inhabitants in case of a collapse. As determined by law, companies like Anglo American also conduct simulations of "rompimento da barragem de rejeitos" with the goal of training the "comunidades que vivem a jusante da barragem para qualquer situação de emergência," evidencing the "situação de emergência" in which these already vulnerable communities are forced to live in the name of progress. In January 2020, shortly after Utopia da Memória was first performed, the "sirenes de alarme" in Conceição do Mato Dentro were irregularly sounded by Anglo American, causing inhabitants to experience "durante várias horas, verdadeira situação de rompimento, rememorando os desastres ocorridos em Mariana e em Brumadinho e sofrendo com intensa dor e sofrimento psíquico pelo temor de perda de vidas humanas e de bens pessoais." Darcília Pires de Sena, an inhabitant of Conceição do Mato Dentro whose recorded account of the effects of Anglo American in the area appears in Utopia da Memória (11:24), describes these sirens as existing "para marcar a minha morte, a hora que eu vou morrer, porque ninguém vai aguentar correr. E se a gente estiver dormindo? Então sirene para nós aqui não vale nada. Eu não assino por sirene nenhuma. Deixa nós morrer em silêncio." The sirens mark the death of those whose lives are deemed to matter less than what can be extracted from their land -- a death that is known in advance, simulated, always lurking behind "vestida de preto com aquela foice," "com aquela lama, aquela água," as in Mateus' nightmare.
According to Löwy, "in a sense, [Benjamin's] whole work," particularly "On the Concept of History" and Thesis IX, which "sums up . . . the whole of the document" (62), "can be regarded as a kind of 'fire alarm'" -- "tipo um aviso!" as Mateus exclaims -- "to his contemporaries, a warning bell attempting to draw attention to the imminent dangers threatening them, to new catastrophes looming on the horizon" (16). This is another way to understand the "barulho" that Mateus heard, and that Utopia da Memória attempts to sound, drawing attention to the "situação de emergência" that is the status quo, "this life here and now." "Eu olhei para trás e só vi destruição," Mateus recalls of his nightmare, but the destruction behind him is not so much a "pile of debris . . . grow[ing] towards the sky," as in Benjamin's image (qtd in Löwy 62), but a trail extending for miles and miles, from the past into the present and future unless we do something to stop it.
This trail of destruction works as "a poignant image of the catastrophes, massacres and other bloody works of history" (64). In scene IX of Utopia da Memória, one of the actors holds in one hand a photograph of the aftermath of the dam collapse in Mariana in 2015 and in the other a photo of the aftermath of the massacre in Carandiru in 1992 (image 11/15). Earlier, in scene IV, fragments of the speech by Ivan Sartori, "relator do processo que absolveu os 74 policiais militares envolvidos no massacre do Carandiru que resultou em 111 presos assassinados" are juxtaposed with fragments of two speeches by Bolsonaro, from 2016 and 2018, in which he advocates for the use of gun violence by "pessoas de bem" (the police and landwoners) against the "marginais vermelhos" of the Landless Workers' Movement (MST). Just as Sartori denied the massacre of 111 incarcerated people in Carandiru -- "Não houve massacre. Houve obediência hierárquica. House legítima defesa. Houve estrito cumprimento legal" -- Bolsonaro implicitly denied the massacre of 21 landless workers in Eldorado do Carajás in 1996. In 2019 Bolsonaro declared his intention to concede pardon to military police officers involved in these two massacres, which, in the case of the Carandiru massacre, he did just eight days before leaving office in 2022. In Benjamin's Thesis, the "storm" of progress "is responsible for an unremitting catastrophe and a pile of ruins rising up to the sky" (63). In Utopia da Memória, the trail of destruction that keeps getting longer and longer (and that includes the destruction of lives in Carandiru, Eldorado dos Carajás, Mariana, and Brumadinho) is inextricable from the "bandeira da 'ordem e progresso.'"
Looking at the trail of destruction, "Ele" (Benjamin's angel, the boy Mateus) "gostaria de deter-se para acordar os mortos e juntar os fragmentos." We recall the words of the "Mensageiro" at the "entrada" of the play -- "Lá dentro apenas fragmentos que vocês vão juntar, na imaginação." Is this what we're called on to do in this "experiência teatral" as we embark on a "percurso" of the "lugar" called "Utopia da Memória"?
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