EDUCACIÓN ETICO CÍVICA:

Isle of flowers (Ilha das Flores) by Jorge Furtado

(1989)
This film is not fiction.

We are in Belem Novo, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Soul, southern Brazil,
more precisely we are at latitude 30º, 12 min. south and longitude 51º, 11
min. west. Right now, we are walking through a tomato field and standing in
front of us we can see a human being, in this case, a Japanese.

Japanese differ from other human beings in their eyes´frame, their dark
hair and characteristic names. This particular Japanese is called….. Suzuki.

Human beings are biped mammals and differ from mammals like whales or
bipeds like chickens, in two main characteristics: their highly developed
telencephalon and opposing thumbs. The highly developed telencephalon
enable human beings to store, process and understand information, their
opposing thumbs allow them a pincer movement, which in time allows
precision manipulation.

Their highly developed telencephalon together with a pincer movement of

their fingers allowed humans to make improvements of their planet, among
them…. The grown of tomatoes. Tomato, contrary to whales, chickens and
Japanese is a vegetable: the fruit of the tomato tree, it has been cultivated
since 1800 for their nutritional value. Planet earth produces around 61
million tons of tomatoes per year. Mr. Suzuki even works 12hours a day is
responsible for a very small part of this production. The main use of
tomatoes is being used to feed human beings. Mr. Suzuki is a Japanese,
therefore he is a human being. However Mr. Suzuki does not grown
tomatoes with intend to eat them, most of Suzuki´s tomatoes are sent to a
supermarket in exchange for money.

Money was created, as far as is known, by Giges, king of Lydia, a kingdom

in Asia Minor, seven centuries before Christ. Christ was a Jew, the Jews
have highly developed telencephalon and opposing thumbs, therefore they
are human beings. Before money was created, the economy was based in
direct exchange. The difficulty in evaluation tomato for chicken, but mostly
of exchanging whales for chicken, were the main reason for the invention of
the money. Nowadays and since the 3rd. century B. C., any objet produced

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by human beings as a consequence of the combined effect of their highly
developed telencephalon, and opposing thumbs, as well as everything alive,
not alive, above or below ground, tomatoes, chickens and wales, can be
exchange for money. To facilitate the exchange tomatoes for money human
beings created the supermarket.

Mrs. Anita is a roman, catholic, biped mammal. She has highly developed
telencephalon and opposing thumbs. She is therefore a human being. She
came to the supermarket to, among other things, exchange her money for
tomatoes. Mrs. Anita earns her money whit the work she does. She uses
her highly developed telencephalon and her opposing thumbs to in
exchanging perfumes for money. Perfumes are liquid normally extracted
from flowers, to give humans a more pleasant smell. Mrs Anita does not
extract the perfume from flowers; she exchanges a certain amount of
money for perfumes, after that Mrs. Anita goes from door to door
exchanging the perfumes for a slightly large amount of money. The
difference between this two amount is called “profit”. Profit was once
forbidden to Catholics, but today all human beings are free… to make it.
Mrs. Anita´s profit is smaller than the manufacture’s, but enough to be
exchanged for one kg. of tomatoes and two kg. of pork meat.

Pigs, like humans and whales, are mammals, but there are four-footed. It
can be used as food by Japanese, Catholics and another human beings, but
not by Jews. The food that Mrs. Anita exchanged for her money will be
consumed by her family in the course of one day. One day is the period of
time the earth takes to rotate around its axis. The middle of the time is
lunch time. A family is a community formed by two human beings, male and
female, joined by matrimony and the children born from that marriage.

Some of the tomatoes exchanged by Mr. Suzuki for money, and

exchanged once again with the profit that Mrs. Anita made from the
exchange of perfumes taken from flowers, had been made into a sauce for
the pork. One of these tomatoes, that in Mrs. Anita judgment was not feet
to be made into sauce, was thrown in the garbage.

Garbage is everything of human beings produce (as a result of the

combined of their highly developed telencephalon and opposing thumbs)
that, which in the judgment of one human being is not feet to be made into
sauce. Porto Alegre, with more than a million human beings, produces
around 500 million tons of garbage per day. Garbage attracts all kind of
germs which in turns cause diseases. Diseases seriously impair the proper
functioning of human beings, even when it doesn´t cause a disease,
garbage looks extremely unpleasant and smells bad, because of this,
garbage is sent to certain places quite faraway where it can be dirty, smell
bad and cause diseases freely. In Porto Alegre, one of these places, chosen
for the garbage to smell bad is called Isle of Flowers.

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An island is a part of land surrounded by water. Water is an odorless,
tasteless and colourless liquid form by two atoms of hydrogen and one atom
of oxygen. Flowers are the reproductive organ of plants , they generally
have sweet smell. From sweet smelling flowers perfumes are extracted,
those that Mrs. Anita exchanged for money.

There are few flowers in the “Isle of Flowers”, there is however a lot of
garbage and the tomato that Mrs. Anita judged unsuitable to feed her family
can became an excellent food for the pigs (in a pig judgment, of course). It
is important to remember that Mrs. Anita has a highly developed
telencephalon and opposing thumbs, while a pig doesn’t have a thumb.

The pigs have however an owner, the pig´s owner is a human being with a
developed telencephalon, opposing thumbs… and money. The pig´s owner
exchanged a small part of his money for a piece of land of the Isla of
Flowers, becoming in this way in his owner. A piece of land is a portion of
earth that has an owner and a fence. This piece of land with garbage was
fenced off to stop pigs from going out and other human beings coming in.
Employees of the pig´s owner separate from the rest of the garbage the
organic materials that are suitable for pig food. “Organic material” is
everything that was once alive, in animal o vegetable form, pigs, flowers
and paper are organic materials. This paper, for example, has been used for
the elaboration of a history test as school. It was taken by the student Ana
Luisa Nunes, a human being. A history test is a test of the human being
capacity to remember dates referring to the study of history, such as: “who
was Gengis Khan?”, or “What were the two rivers of Mesopotamia?”… to live
is to remember.

Some organic materials like tomatoes and history test are given to the pigs
as food, those things that was judged not good for pigs will be used as food
to children and woman. Children and woman are human beings with highly
developed telencephalon, opposing thumbs… and no money. They have no
owner and, what is worse, there are lots of them. Because there are lots of
them they are organized by the pig´s owner employees in groups of ten and
allows to go inside the fence. Inside The fence they can pick up all the food
that the pig´s owner employees found unsuitable for the pigs. The
employees have decided that each group of human beings should have 5
minutes to be inside the fence collecting organic materials. Five minutes are
300 seconds, since 1958 a second was defined as the equivalent of 9 billion,
192 million, 631thousand, 770 radiation cycles of a caesium atom. Caesium
is a non-organic material founded in the garbage of Golânia.

The tomato grown by Mr. Suzuki, exchanged for money with the
supermarket and exchanged for money that Mrs. Anita exchanged for
perfumes extracted from flowers, refused for the pork sauce, thrown into
the garbage an refused by the pigs, is now available for human beings on
the “Isle of flowers”.

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That places human beings after pigs in the priority of chosen food is the fact
that they do have no money or an owner. Human being distinguishes
themselves from other animals by the highly developed telencephalon and
opposing thumbs, and by being free. Being free is the state of one who has
freedom. Freedom is a word that the human dreams feeds on that no one
can explain or feel understand.

ACTIVITIES:

● First of all, you should underline the words whose meaning you
don´t know. We will find out their meaning together.
● Now, answer these questions, according what you watch in the
documentary:
1- What features distinguish the human being from other animals like
whales or chickens? What allows us to do these particular features?
2- Who invented the money? What was the main reason for the
invention of the money?
3- Explain, in your own words, what is “the profit”.
4- Why is Porto Alegre´s garbage stored far away of Porto Alegre´s
human beings?
5- Pigs, in the Isle of Flowers have an owner, have the dwellers of Isle of
Flowers an owner too?, why?
6- Finally, explain what the human dignity is (in your opinion). Perhaps
you´ll order your ideas considering if human dignity has to be with
- High developed telencephalon
- Opposing thumbs
- Money
- Owners
- freedom