Dynamics of testimony and mythical violence in “Sou eu mais livre, então: diário de um preso político angolano”, by Luaty Beirão

Abstract

In 2015 the Angolan rapper and political activist Luaty Beirão was arrested for participating in a debate session on a text of Domingos da Cruz, based on the work of Gene Sharp From Dictatorship to Democracy: The Road to Liberation. Throughout his arrest, Beirão wrote three diaries describing his prison experiences, thoughts about the Angolan political situation and lyrics for songs expressing his experiences. Tinta da China published these diaries as a book in 2017. The objectives of this article are structured in two main axes. First, from the lyrics of songs in the Luaty Beirão prison diaries, it aims to contemplate the inversion of Theodor Adorno's maxim - "Writing poetry after Auschwitz is an act of barbarism" (ADORNO, 2003) - proposed by Slavoj Zizek (2014, 19) in Violence: "Realistic prose fails there where the poetic evocation of the unbearable atmosphere of the concentration camp succeeds". Second, it aims to discuss the concept of "mythic violence" as the foundation of a new right, as proposed by Walter Benjamin in the essay "For a Critique of Violence". Thus, the article intends to approach the relationship between authoritarian regimes and the poetic writing of the Beirão jail journals as representative of the dynamics of the testimony of extreme events, highlighting the influences of political persecution on the act of writing.