Tostão and Dorrit, the Earth is a ball – 12/10/2023 – Juca Kfouri

On Sunday (10) Tostāo wrote another remarkable column in this Folha: “I don’t believe it”, the title.
One of the greatest stars in history, the best football columnist in the world press, Doctor Eduardo Gonçalves de Andrade is, above all, a humanist.

As such, he is more skeptical than usual. Worrying and worthy of turning on all the yellow lights, although the red ones are flashing is not new today.

On the same day, in “O Globo”, Dorrit Harazim, the best Brazilian journalist for decades, wrote “Dores do Mundo”, where she recommends that you watch the video below, 90 terrible seconds about the genocide in the Gaza Strip. “Not to do so would be to silence the horror”, writes the also extraordinary humanist, from head to toe.

The table between Dorrit and Eduardo reveals how much human beings have lost contact with humanity: “I don’t believe in countries with so much increasing urban violence, which leaves citizens in panic. I don’t believe in countries that, for decades , do not really try to solve the very serious problems of education and the lack of basic sanitation. I do not believe in the promiscuous exchanges of favors that have always occurred in football and in Brazilian politics”, he wrote, who also does not believe in referees, in synthetic pitches or potholed, in the exaggeration of long balls, in the calendar that tramples on the quality of the games.

And she wrote: “At the end of 2023, these are times of bewilderment and pain — a pain, sometimes individual, sometimes collective, that does not wear a mask. From whatever angle you look at, what you see is a vacuum — a vacuum of compassion , an excess of empty certainties. Taking care of this world takes work and requires patience, Clarice Lispector already knew.”

This is an amazing mania, that of humanists wanting to take care of the world that was silenced by the Inquisition; in wars for money and power; in harassment in Hollywood and pedophilia in the Church; in rampant corruption; in crimes committed in the name of social justice or the defense of false democracy, just as, these days, the denunciation of genocide is called anti-Semitism.

Never despair, preach Vitor Martins and Ivan Lins.

Yes always! But how?

Tostāo’s disbelief, who calls for the formation in Brazil of “an ace midfielder, at the level of the best in the world, who stands out from one midfield player to another”, is far from giving up, just as Dorrit keeps the flame of hope by recommending Australian Nick Cave’s website to keep resilience and empathy alive.

The Earth is a glowing ball waiting for the voice of common sense to prevail.

Having hope is not waiting, it is hoping as Paulo Freire taught, “joining with others to do otherwise” — and forgive the rare reader for so many quotes, because the help of the wisest is needed.

With 308 goals and 514 games in ten years of successful career, Tostāo continues to pursue excellence in each column and surpasses his millionth goal.

Dorrit has achieved holiness, she does the impossible every Sunday by overcoming the insurmountable — because if there is one thing she doesn’t know, it is exactly the existence of impossibilities.

Dorrit Harazim could well assume the presidency of the world, with Tostāo as vice president.

Or vice versa.

It would be a great achievement for humanity.

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In the background, Imagine, by John Lennon.

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