A Princesa da Communitas e o Irmão da Mãe na África do Sul

A morte da princesa Diana - as circunstâncias que a antecederam, a comoção popular que a recebeu, o espetáculo ritual que suscitou, a iconorragia que desencadeou, as reflexões sentenciosas que permitiu - deverá dar abundante matéria aos antropólogos. Os colegas interessados pelas questões da pós-modernidade e do simulacro não deixarão, certamente, de empregar os instrumentos mais avançados da teoria para extrair todas as lições pertinentes de um acontecimento que mobilizou uma imagística rica, heteróclita e heterocrônica: o conto de fadas e a imprensa de escândalo, a realeza medieval e a globalização fin-de-siècle, a Catedral de Westminster e a Internet, o badalar severo dos sinos e a balada melosa de Elton John.

Antes que se saquem tais instrumentos de ponta para a dissecação do fenômeno, gostaria de chamar brevemente a atenção para um momento dos funerais de Diana que ilustra à maravilha alguns dos artigos de fé mais tradicionais da antropologia social britânica. Refiro-me ao elogio fúnebre proferido pelo conde Charles Spencer, irmão da Princesa de Gales. Ele atesta que as teorias do parentesco de Radcliffe-Brown e Meyer Fortes, mortas e enterradas pela antropologia contemporânea, parecem aplicar-se admiravelmente bem ao parentesco inglês - ou pelo menos à ideologia do parentesco vigente em alguns setores da nobreza daquele país.

Transcrevo abaixo o discurso de Charles Spencer (capturado na Web, após uma rápida procura via Altavista), no interesse dos leitores que porventura desejarem aprofundar, corrigir ou contestar as breves observações que o seguem. Ver-se-á que, embora "The Mother's Brother in South Africa" tenha sido evidamente desconstruído há anos (A. Kuper, "Radcliffe-Brown, Junod, and the Mother's Brother in South Africa", Man, 11/1, 1976), o discurso recente deste "mother's brother from South Africa" - pois Spencer, tio materno dos príncipes William e Harry, reside na Cidade do Cabo - tira da gaveta um velho paradigma analítico da tradição antropológica britânica.

EARL SPENCER'S EULOGY

"I stand before you today, the representative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning, before a world in shock. We are all united not only in our desire to pay our respects to Diana, but rather in our need to do so, for such was her extraordinary appeal, that the tens of millions of people taking part in this service all over the world, via television and radio, who never actually met her, feel that they too lost someone close to them in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is a more remarkable tribute to Diana than I can ever hope to offer her today. Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world, she was a symbol of selfless humanity, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl, who transcended nationality, someone with a natural nobility, who was classless, and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic. Today is our chance to say thank you for the way you brightened our lives, even though God granted you but half a life. We will all feel cheated always, that you were taken from us so young, and yet we must learn to be grateful that you came along at all. Only now you are gone do we truly appreciate what we are now without, and we want you to know that life without you is very, very difficult. We have all despaired at our loss over the past week, and only the strength of the message you gave us through your years of giving, has afforded us the strength to move forward. There is a temptation to rush to canonise your memory. There is no need to do so.

You stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities, not to need to be seen as a saint. Indeed to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very core of your being: Your wonderfully mischievous sense of humour with a laugh that bent you double; your joy for life, transmitted wherever you took your smile; and the sparkle in those unforgettable eyes; your boundless energy, which you could hardly contain. But your greatest gift was your intuition, and it was a gift you used wisely. This is what underpinned all your other wonderful attributes, and if we look to analyse what it was about you that had such a wide appeal, we'd find it in your instinctive feel for what was really important in all our lives. Without your God-given sensitivity, we would be immersed in greater ignorance at the anguish of AIDS and HIV sufferers, the plight of the homeless, the isolation of lepers, the random destruction of landmines. Diana explained to me once that it was her innermost feelings of suffering that made it possible for her to connect with her constituency of the rejected, and here we come to another truth about her: for all the status, the glamour, the applause, Diana remained, throughout, a very insecure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others, so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness, of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom. The world sensed this part of her character, and cherished her for her vulnerability, whilst admiring her for her honesty.

The last time I saw Diana was on July the first, her birthday, in London, when typically, she was not taking time to celebrate her special day with friends, but was guest of honour at a fundraising charity evening, She sparkled, of course, but I would rather cherish the days I spent with her in March, when she came to visit me and my children in our home in South Africa. I am proud of the fact that, apart from when she was on public display meeting President Mandela, we managed to contrive to stop the ever present paparazzi from getting a single picture of her. That meant a lot to her. These were days I will always treasure. It was as if we'd been transported back to our childhood, when we spent such an enormous amount of time together, the two youngest in the family. Fundamentally, she hadn't changed at all from the big sister who mothered me as a baby, fought with me at school, and endured those long train journeys between our parents homes with me at weekends. It is a tribute to her level-headedness and strength, that despite the most bizarre life imaginable after her childhood, she remained intact, true to herself. There is no doubt that she was looking for a new direction in her life at this time. She talked endlessly of getting away from England, mainly because of the treatment she received at the hands of the newspapers. I don't think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media - why there appeared to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. It is baffling. My own, and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this - a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting, was in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age. She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys, William and Harry, from a similar fate, and I do this here, Diana, on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair. and beyond that on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men. so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned. We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born, and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role, but we, like you, recognise the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible, to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead. I know you would have expected nothing less from us. William and Harry, we all care desperately for you today. We are all chewed up with sadness at the loss of a woman who wasn't even our mother. How great your suffering is, we cannot even imagine. I would like to end by thanking God for the small mercies he has shown us at this dreadful time. For taking Diana at her most beautiful and radiant, and when she had joy in her private life. Above all, we give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister: the unique, the complex, the extraordinary, and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds."

O discurso é claríssimo. Temos aqui um caso exemplar de reivindicação agressiva de um tio materno sobre seus sobrinhos uterinos, frente aos parentes paternos. Além de avançar sutis insinuações contra a real família de seu cunhado que evocam as acusações de bruxaria em estilo africano ("her desire to do good for others, so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness, of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom"), opondo a "magia branca" de Diana à "magia cinza" de seus afins reais ("she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic"), o discurso de Spencer tematiza uma série de variações sobre a clássica dicotomia "direito versus afeto", tão cara à antropologia britânica (ver E. Viveiros de Castro & R. Benzaquem de Araújo, "Romeu & Julieta e a origem do Estado", in G. Velho org., Arte e Sociedade, Zahar,1977).

Assim, Spencer, tio materno dos filhos de Diana, afirma seu controle sobre os aspectos emocionais, espirituais e individuais dos sobrinhos William e Harry, em contraposição à transmissão "jural", normativa, pública e social de suas funções reais, a serem herdadas patrilinearmente do Principe de Gales - "I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men, so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned". Notar a particular ênfase na sua qualidade de "parente de sangue" de seus sobrinhos, e como isto dá a ele direitos de zelar por sua formação psicológica, protegê-los contra a bruxaria da mídia (e dos parentes paternos), formar os aspectos complementares de seu caráter - "we fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born, and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role, but we, like you, recognise the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible, to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead." Um perfeito exemplo da "filiação complementar" de Meyer Fortes: de um lado, a descent e seu arcabouço jural-público-social; do outro, a complementary filiation, que recorre a uma linguagem afetivo-doméstico-natural para fazer valer direitos de outra ordem.

Além de Radcliffe-Brown e Fortes, Victor Turner. O conde Spencer evoca a nobreza natural da irmã, contra a artificialidade convencional da nobreza de seus afins. Diana, princesa da "communitas", transcende barreiras de classe e de nacionalidade (ao mesmo tempo em que é dita ser uma "very British girl", expressão dos valores da terra), comunicando-se diretamente com a condição humana universal, em contraste com os Windsor, que seriam assim como reis da "estrutura". Ouçamos novamente o trecho mais contundente do elogio: "All over the world, she was a symbol of selfless humanity, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl, who transcended nationality, someone with a natural nobility, who was classless, and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic."

No momento da morte da irmã, portanto, Spencer não apenas reivindica a morta para sua família e terra, como faz valer seus direitos avunculares místicos sobre os sobrinhos, os quais se tornam, neste contexto ritual, "mais" membros da linhagem da mãe que da linhagem do pai, em uma demonstração daquele "pouvoir des maternels" (mas neste caso, um típico "poder dos fracos") analisado por Lévi-Strauss. Em suma: o enterro de Diana Spencer sugere que outro enterro, o das teorias clássicas do parentesco, talvez tenha sido um pouco prematuro, e que o irmão da mãe continua desempenhando seu papel arquetípico de representante do grupo que cedeu a mulher", para evocarmos a conhecida fórmula do pai do estruturalismo. Mas o grupo, a parte representada pelo conde Spencer, coincide neste caso com o todo. Pois o grupo que cedeu Diana é ninguém menos que o povo inglês (a quem devem servir os soberanos desde o final do século XVII), senão mesmo o "povo" virtual da mídia, a platéia planetária dos funerais televisados. O ínfimo átomo de parentesco primitivo e a macrocosmologia pós-moderna do glamour global se encontram, assim, na "princesa do povo" que morreu e virou estrela.

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro

Boletim da ABA # 28