The first chapter of FREIRE and the beans

I continue to read Freire — in parallel with another book on spirituality.

Freire is more dangerous for the oppressed than the oppressor (a not so well used terminology in daily life).

Freire frames the perspective to make sense of dynamics that I read except as psychological processes. The oppressors must challenge themselves and, therefore, change if the oppressor sheds light on some processes he generated, such as the ancestral summing up in posture, gestures, and language. Or they become an accomplice of the oppressed.

I was surprised to find in the book the reference to the « doctor » as a way to address one educated person.

In southern Italy, the tradition of calling people “doctors” is still widespread. The farmer, the gas station attendant, the merchant still gives the appellation today to all those who in one way or another “know more” in their social role (worker in the town’s municipality; teacher and, of course, doctor!). An appellation that seems innocent and banal. However, it settled within itself after years of foreign domination of the land of southern Italy.

Writing these lines bring me to the memory of the tales of « true life » made by grandparents while I was lost in the afternoons spent in the sun, waiting for meals.

My mind quickly goes to the beauty of the smells of the forest and the woods of the Murgia. My grandfather was a worker in the woods. Yet the picture of workers as « bean eaters » is full of political and social issues.

As a child, I had the perception that access to information is the real “fountain” to be conquered: going to the source of knowledge, which those who control dominate.