Haiti [English translation]

When you're invited to go on the balcony

Of the House of Jorge Amado Foundation1

To see from above a line of soldiers, almost all of them black

Beating the necks of black thugs

Of birracial thieves and others almost white

And treated like blacks

Just to show to other almost black people

(And almost all of them are almost black)

And to almost white people who are poor like black people

How is it that black, poor and birracial people

And white people who are almost black for being so poor must be treated

And it doesn't matter if the eyes of the whole world

Are looking at the square just across the Foundation

Where slaves used to be punished

And today Black Brazilian music is played

With the purity of boys wearing high school uniforms

In a parade day

And the epic greatness of a people in formation

Attracts us, amazes us and excites us

Nothing matters:

Not the lines of the houses

Not the lenses of Fantástico2

Not the album of Paul Simon

No one, no one is a citizen

If you go to the party of Pelourinho3, and if you don't go

Think of Haiti, pray for Haiti

Haiti is here

Haiti isn't here

And if on TV you see a congressman in a poorly dissimulated panic

In face of any, I mean any, any, any

National education plan that seem easy

That seem easy and fast

And that poses a threat of democratization

Of basic education

And if this same congressman defends the implementation of death penalty

And the venerable cardinal say that he sees so much soul in a fetus

And no soul in a criminal

And if, when you're running your usual red light

You notice a man pissing in the corner on a sparkling

Trash bag in Leblon4

And if you hear São Paulo's smiling silence

In face of the massacre

Of 111 helpless inmates5, but inmates are black most of the times

Or almost black, or almos white almost black for being so poor

And as poor, they are as rotten, and everyone know how blacks are treated

And when you take a trip around the Caribbean

And when you fuck without a condom

And present your clever participation in the embargo against Cuba

Think of Haiti, pray for Haiti

Haiti is here

Haiti isn't here

1. In Pelourinho, and just across from it is the Church of the Third Order of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Black People2. A popular Sunday night TV show3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_Center_of_Salvador4. An upper-middle class/high class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro5. Carandiru prison massacre by the police in São Paulo in 1992