For the first time in Brazil, the Marfinense writer Armand Patrick Gbaka-Brédé, better known as Gauz ‘, says his initial impression on the country, before setting his feet here, was a fantasy. But his arrival, he stressed, “was spectacular.”
“For Africans, Brazil’s fantasy is usually football, but for me, that’s not all. For me there is also the black music and culture and the idea of miscegenation. And for a long time, I always thought that Brazil was 50 years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of population mixing,” he told Ao Brazil agency.
Gauz ‘says it is neither naive nor romantic and know that the Brazilian history of miscegenation had a violent beginning and occurred on the basis of force. But he points out that this mixture will continue to occur.
“In 100 years, it will be mandatory that the world is like Brazil because it is natural for people to continue to mix not in strength and violence, but in the will and humanism of being with others and the desire to build a new thing,” he said. “My first impressions of Brazil were confirmed. And I really saw them.”
The Marfinense writer says that the barrier he witnessed more clearly by stepping in Brazil was social inequality. And what was strange was seeing that, here, there are also poor whites living among poor blacks, which highlights a social issue.
Gauz ‘came to Brazil with his wife and daughter to first participate in the Paraty International Literary Party (Flip) in Paraty. And this weekend he is in Salvador to participate in the Pelourinho International Literary Party (Flipelô), where he talked to the report of Brazil agency about your book and also about slavery and immigration.
“The moment slavery began in Brazil, Africa did not yet exist. Africa had Yorubas, Malinques and other peoples. But there was no idea of Africa. The violence of slavery – moral and cultural violence – was that created Africa,” he said. “The first place where these cultures mingled was the slave ship,” he said.
In the interview, Gauz ‘compared slavery to what currently occurs with the Palestinians in Gaza, noting that the victims of these two historical moments suffered from the same cause: colonization. “The problem in Gaza is the displacement of European populations who should not be there. These are people who are victims of European violence,” he said. “Gaza’s solution is not in Israel. It is in Spain, France, the United States, Germany, Poland.”
“Each white person needs to remember that what is happening in Gaza now is what happened here [no Brasil, durante a colonização]. America was Gaza, Brazil was Gaza, Argentina was Gaza. You should all remember this to get an idea of the sense of true justice. The difference from what happened before what is happening now is that today we are aware and are witnesses of what is happening. Never, in my craziest dreams, I figured I could see what is happening and explain what happened in the past with colonization. In France there is still talk of the ‘benefits’ of colonization. And when this is disputed, they say this has passed. But this is not passed. Look at Gaza because this is colonization, ”he said.
The solution to this, defended the writer, goes through a concept that exists in law, called parallelism of forms and states that if a person makes a decision, it is only the one who could withdraw or solve it. “This is the moment when Europe and the West must assume what they did there. It was they who created it in the past, they should solve it now,” he said. “You can’t accept that another people pay today for the sins of Europe.”
The Marfinense writer Gauz ‘talks about his first book standing, is paid on the table with the word the writer in the house motivated during the flipe. Photo: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil
Motivated house
On Saturday morning (9), Gauz ‘participated in a table held at Casa Motiva, in Vale do Dendê, in the Pelourinho region, in Salvador. There he talked to the audience about his book De Pé, Tá Paido, which after eleven years was translated and released in Brazil.
In the book he reflects on the experience of African immigrants in Paris, relegated to cheap labor in professions where the body is more necessary than the brain. The book was based on notes that he scribbled during the six weeks he worked as security of a Sephora store in the French capital. “In Paris, in all stores or almost, all security guards are either almost black men. This shows an almost mathematical relationship between three parameters: skin pigmentation, social situation and geography (PSG),” says an excerpt from the book.
“It’s much easier in France a black man to be a watchman or security than a doctor,” Gauz says’ to the audience. “This is the first time this black man has been in a privileged position, because he sees everyone, but no one sees him. It’s almost like an ethnological study. It is usually whites that get there to look at blacks like small ants and now it is this black man who sees whites like small ants, documenting their consumption delusions.”
In addition to addressing topics such as immigration and racism, the book also discusses capitalism in the world. “What is the idea of security? When you enter a store and do you see a security guard, what comes to your head? This big man in front of you is there to prevent you from stealing? This big man is there to protect you? None. None of this. In fact, the idea of security has been sold to you because the idea of danger was manufactured. said the writer.
For him, this is not enough of an idea of “theater”, which is manufactured by capitalism. “This black man who is ahead of the store is not for security. He has no police power. And no one goes to a store to steal. Crime is an exception. What happens is that you wake up in the morning and tell you about advertisements that you have to go there to know and consume. You work all month and need to spend your money. This is capitalism,” he added.
New structure
To the public, Gauz ‘(who pronounces as Gôs) says that his book was written in a different format and structures to the traditional, which could not be classified as a novel. “I wrote a new literature,” he says.
In this new literature, he uses a lot of ironies and humor, a feature he also used during the Motiva House table. “Every time I make you laugh here this is a time when we share a place of intelligence,” he says, tearing laughs from the audience. “Are you seeing? It worked.”
“One of the characteristics of intelligence is precisely this ability to divide and share with each other. Two people who laugh are two people who understood one concept with each other. This is what is most human in the world. This book makes people laugh at Norway, Croatia, in Brazil. And why do they laugh? Precisely because we share the same intelligence. Our ancestors understood it for a long time.
Flipelô’s schedule ends this Sunday. More information about the event can be obtained from the website https://flipelo.com.br/
* The team of Brazil agency traveled at the invitation of Motiva, sponsor and official mobility partner of Flipelô 2025
