Parabolicamará brings together the word parabolic, the type of antenna that can be seen everywhere even in the poorest corners of Brazil, and the word camará, the way the players of capoeira, the afro-american ludic martial art, have chosen to name their partners, “camaradas”, while they dance and sing.
With this inspired metaphor, Gilberto Gil illustrated the importance of sharing for the benefit of all people in the age of globalization. His keynote speech was part of the iSummit 2006 event that took place in Rio de Janeiro this past week. While he is best known as a musician, his current role as Minister of Culture and close relationship with the Creative Commons movement is being watched by many with far more interest. A small extract from his speech is sufficient to demonstrate how relevant he is to the shaping of global culture:
These events [such as capoeira] of non-programmed cultural sharing demonstrate that many forces are in action over the culture of the planet, and that speaking merely about homogenization taking place everywhere and always is perhaps simplifying too much the reality. Am I being naïve? I know very well of the other side, the terrible power relations that make original cultures disappear every day and impose consuming standards to the planet envisaging easy profits.
His approach may very well set the pace for future policy makers: embedding himself into the core of popular culture, understanding, first hand, the real needs of those who create, mix and share their culture as a way of living. His position on how our global culture must be shaped is based on a complete disregard for any form of purism and, in its place, advocacy for a wild cannibalism that consumes culture in all its forms possible and experiments, transforms, enhances what it devours.
