The Cape Verde Falcon

No, it is not that I have discovered a new species. What I have found is a kind that nowadays is almost extinct. The Sokol (Falcon) association of Cape Verde came into existence with the Czech model in mind. The association went down in history of the archipelago, yet today no more is left after its existence than hardly legible tracks in the sand…

It is half past four in the afternoon and the orange tropical sun starts to soften. Laginha, a municipal beach, is gradually becoming depopulated.Mindelo, the biggest natural harbor in the Atlantic, is preparing for its carnival night shift. The sun slowly sets behind the Monte Cara, a mountain with human face, in order to restore its strength for another hot day. The semicircular mountain mass, which forms the harbor and embraces the ocean, closes up and hands it over to the twilight.

Before I can brush off the now cooling sand from my feet and set out slowly along the marina on my way to the burning epicenter of masks, travesty and merriment, my attention is attracted by a part of the beach where every pipe and piece of iron, which I walked past unnoticed in the burning sun, gets into motion. What I see is the local sport center under the open Cape Verde sky, where the local youth train to harden themselves ─ using everything from gymnastic rings and constructions hastily welded together to western-type bodybuilding machines.

I observe these movements, gymnastic exercises, as well as children being taught capoeira, a Brazilian dance/martial art, as they are trained by the master. The wind, sand, horizon and the silver glittering ocean surface lend the whole scenery a spirit of freedom that is difficult to capture.

I will violate it now. I am going to set out after a notice of a Portuguese historian who said that in 1935 Sokol presented their exercises on the island. It is a mention so unbelievable that I could only consider it a joke, a play on words, or a canard. Sokol on the islands of Cape Verde.

I cannot think of anything better than to turn from the written sources to the living reality by asking the gymnasts if they know the term Sokol (Falcao in Portuguese) and whether their varied exercise happens to be a modern variety of the Sokol themes.

The first of the gymnasts, 25-year-old Carlos Jorge, does not know anything about the Falcon. Yet, loaded with 50 kilograms, he is strutting like a peacock in front of my camera. Francisco A. Brito grins in an uncomprehending reply, still in front of my camera he ruffles like a pigeon.

My “investigative” effort does not last long. It turns out that the gymnasts exercise for their delight of the movement, to keep fit and also to attain a “bodybuilding ideal” which is presented to the young Cape Verdians in imported social magazines. I do not seem to find a continuation of the Sokol “in a healthy body there is a healthy spirit”, or the general ethos of the Sokol organization.

A bit disappointed I return, upon the goldish shine of the lamps, along the harbor into the Golden Key lodging house. My tiredness and the first setback is then healthily washed down by the first wave of the carnival and in my sleep a name I read about as well as caught in speech is pulsating in my temples – Néna. The morning is sharply divided from the dawn by the sound of klaxon horns. I set forth to the lifeless streets of Mindelo as they are waiting, along with the sediments of garbage, for the second shift of women street-sweepers. Yet the streets are empty as if swept already. It is “festa”, a holiday, and nobody wants to get up after a night spent awake.Only after about a half hour I can see a silhouette of a person in the morning haze.I set forth to meet the hazy figure which I then recognize to be an older man wearing a tweed jacket and moss-green knit waistcoat. “Néna, you say”…he thinks aloud after I ask my question. „Pharmacy Néna…” He apparently goes through his mental map of the city center as he takes me unmistakably back to the lodging house. After several steps I can see the sign of the Néna Pharmacy with my own eyes. It is located only two streets from my temporary home. I thank the man, who then disappears as ghostly as he first emerged from the mist.

I then walk to and fro for a while, unable to come to a resolution. I know I cannot wait for too long. So I enter into the pharmacy, greet the staff in white who then listen attentively to my well-founded wish to see Manuel N. Ramos as I speak in shaky Portuguese. I can soon see that they have understood, as they call the son of Mr. Ramos. He then explains to me that “papá” went for a walk, but he should be back around nine o’clock ─ so if I want, I can wait for him.

I lean on a lamp-post in front of the pharmacy. I feel joy at the partial success of my mission, along with tension as I ponder whether I will attain my goal without letting the opportunity slip away. How can this senhor Ramos, whose nome da casa is Néna, actually look like anyway? How old is he? Does he have a beard? The fact that I can ─ if lucky enough ─ find him in his pharmacy, along with the information that in the time of the Sokol movement he was a young boy, is my only knowledge about the matter.

It is after 8 o’clock in the morning and the streets are starting to fill up with people who are attracting my attention. After a while my stream of thought is broken by a sound of a cane strikingly tapping on the sidewalk. I look up to see a smartly dressed man with his swagger stick, as he heads to the pharmacy.

A key word ─ Sokol ─ suffices and senhor Manuel Nascimento Ramos invites me to the hinterland of his business. His unfeigned openness, helpfulness and hospitality to a foreigner must be a manifestation of the Cape Verde morabeza, which emerged by broadening the traditional African bond of mutual help among people connected by neighborhood or friendship.

There is something old-worldly and enchanting in his gestures and his voice tone. Something I cannot name immediately, yet it speaks to me clearly.Senhor Ramos’s son brings to the table some treats and a thick yellow folder. M.N.Ramos begins his narration, although rare historical photographs in the folder and in Mindelo D´Ooutrora’s book, which he opened in front of me, communicate much in themselves.

The view of Mindelo, the big harbour ─ Ponto Grande ─ unfolds in front of my eyes in a way I did not know and have not seen before. The standing fortress of Fortim d´El Rei, landing stage by Cais Velho, ancient Rua da Lisboa or the Salina plain instead of today’s “Star Square”, Praca da Estrela.I turn the pages of the album, knowing that I am touching something very valuable ─ a document on the Cape Verde history gone by. Suddenly senhor Ramos rests his finger on a picture of a young man with the appearance of a naval officer. “Our chief” he said “Comandante dos Sokols”, Júlio Bento Oliveira.

After a short pause he continues: “When at the end of the 20th century he sailed on his boat Siréna to the nearby island of Santo Antao, where he had been born in the Paúl village, he read in English newspapers an article portraying the Prague Sokol association which highlighted the importance of exercise, discipline and self-improvement,“ he recounts with nostalgia in his voice. “At that time we were a poor and dependant nation lost in the map of the world. One that was only searching for its direction…” The islands of Cape Verde were then a poor country afflicted by drought and cholera epidemics and dependant on Portugal. It was merely a dim reflection of the glory and wealth of its golden colonial times of the 16th century, in the humble beginnings of which (1460), according to historical sources, Diogo Gomes and António da Noli found the islands uninhabited. As if the pervasive nhanhida, which in Cape Verde creole means despair and hopelessness, was not enough, in Portugal in 1921, a military dictatorship headed by António de Oliveira Salazar got into power. It is therefore not very surprising that an item of news about a movement which led a European nation to freedom and independence hit J.B. Oliveira like a bolt from the blue.

He was the only one then. He needed to appeal to the nation and make them passionate about the movement. M.N.Ramos remembers that, upon the ceremony on founding Sokol in the hall of Eden Cinema in Mindelo on 25th“electrified the youth”, when, ”using gripping words, he explained to all those present the purpose of founding so useful and healthy an organization.” The movement was meant to create an integrated “Cape Verde family” and elevate a physically, morally and intellectually declining nation. “Power and discipline,” that was our motto, added Ramos proudly. of November 1932, Oliveira

Yet it was not only his narrative passion that glorified Sokol. On a cutting from the Cape Verde newspaper from 1933 I see a report by the journalist M.G. Dos Reis, who wrote on founding Sokol: „It has been several months since the association called „Sokols from S. Vicente”, whose aims we will try to make clear here, was set up. Who are the Sokols from Prague? It is a wonderful organization founded in 1862 with the patriotic intention of overthrowing a germanizing regime that was suffocating the Czech nation.Since the forces were uneven, it seemed vital to prepare the Czechs for a major fight in the future. This is why the leaders of Sokol began training its members in gymnastics in order to make them physically and mentally stronger and so match their forces with those of the Austrians. This is how a charming and useful organization was founded bearing a name symbolizing courage. It is an association whose central federation in Prague bears the name of Czechoslovakian Sokol Community and which includes the whole country of Czechoslovakia without any class differences…”

M.N.Ramos, went on carefully turning pages of his precious photography collection and held an almost ceremonial speech to each of the pictures.Among the photos capturing Sokol shows at various places in Mindelo, there is also a photo showing training of the Sokol youth and of the sub-chiefs in front of a picture of the founder of the Czechoslovakian Sokol organization. For M.N.Ramos “Mirózlav Tyrš”, as he pronounces the name with his charming accent, was a great man who inspired and elevated the people of Cape Verde. “Does Sokol still exist in your country?“ he asks with a keen voice… Hearing a wise, experienced man on the remote Islands of Cape Verde speak in admiration about prominent Czechoslovakians is an experience from the “dream” or at least “incredible” category. Yet I have to believe the words with which M.N. Ramos ended our discussion and our encounter… „ Socol é siempre ao meu coracau“ ,- Sokol will forever be in my heart, he said. There was not a half tone of false pathos in his voice. A strong yet heartfelt handshake with which he parted with me, could not belong to anyone else than a Cape Verde Sokol in his body and soul.

I leave the unmistakable aroma of the pharmacy and set out for a walk in the city. I try to merge the pictures of the historical Sokol photographs with the places I see today. The Star Square ─ the former Salina plain, the Mindelo city hall, Church square…Even though I have seen with my own eyes the documentary photographs and talked to an eyewitness of the Sokol movement on the islands of Cape Verde, I still cannot imagine that the events took place in these places in a way they were documented and described. Is it not possible, after all, that I have become a victim of a peculiar freak of history? Is it really true that Czech Sokol was at the coming into existence of its „offspring“, the “Sokol of Cape Verde“?

Only associate professor Jan Klíma, an expert on the countries of the former Portugal’s colonial empire, could provide me with the right answer:“So far there has been only one mention of the Sokol movement in the Portuguese insular African colony, a marginal comment about a “big show” of Sokol on the island of São Vicente on 16th of July of 1935. It was only after inquiry in the National Historic Archive in Praia, the Cape Verde metropolis, and, more importantly, talks with Sokol contemporaries in the second biggest city of the Mindelo archipelago that the existence of the Sokol movement on the Cape Verde Islands was confirmed and broadened. I found out that the reception of the Sokol movement gained some intensity, and the movement then spread from Mindelo to the islands and made the Cape Verde Islands, for a period of seven years, a country that was probably the most involved in Sokol after Czechoslovakia.

Unlike its model, however, the Sokol of Cape Verde was apolitical and as a civic association it refused to engage in government issues. Petr Roubal, historian and social anthropologist dealing with the phenomenon of mass gymnastics, says: ”Gymnastic movements almost always have very strong political support. Movements such as Sokol or the German Turner movement, emerged as a substitute for a national army and were thought of as such by the population. Also the gymnasts “embodied” an ideal of a national community, a model according to which the existing society was to be transformed. The motto “Every Czech is a Sokol” contains a clear and total demand ─ it aims against all class and regional differences and requires transformation of the society into a community with a strong, united will.Political involvement of Sokol and Turner movements did not remain only on the ideological or symbolical level, it manifested itself in specific political activities of these organizations. Sokol, along with the legionaries supported the government, had a major influence on occupation of the borderland and of Slovakia in the years 1918 to 1920, on suppressing a number of strikes and it paid dearly for its opposition to Nazism. „

On the other hand, Sokols from Sao Vicente emerged, at least according to M.N. Ramos, in order to “elevate the Cape Verde population and prepare them for their Future” and their ethos was simply a patriotic one. Even though Sokol exercises gained some resemblance to army drill, they were not a military training. Rather, Sokol was a symbolic national representation as well as a choreographic response to Salazarian military regime which took power in Portugal in 1926. Jan Klíma exemplifies it by this example:” “During the unrest that took place in 1934, when masses, worn out by famine and poverty, plundered a customs office and appropriated all food supplies that were stored there, the authorities turned to Sokol to help them suppress and quell the unrest. At that time Júlio Bento de Oliveira assembled the council of his organization and after a brief debate he refused to participate in any intervention against Mindelo fellow citizens.He reasoned that Sokol is a civic association and therefore will not meddle with politics. In this way he took the opportunity to revolt against unpopular pressures and show that Sokol has its own views and a high moral standard.

The end of the Cape Verde Falcon overlaps with the emerging and tide of the rival salazarian and totalitarian organization in 1936, which bore the terse name of Portuguese Youth (Mocidade portuguesa). This organization was founded in order to involve youth in their activities, an organization which the Sokol chief Júlio Bento de Oliveira refused to join. The photography collection of M.N. Ramos dates one of the Sokol trainings in the capital city of Praia on the Santiago island as having happened in the year 1939 ─ therefore it can be assumed that the rise of Sokol on the Islands of Cape Verde took almost three more years before the Sokols of Cape Verde got their “wings clipped” once for all. “It seems that political pressure on dissolving the energetic association by the competing official but not very useful Portugal youth organization was enforced on the islands after the visit of the president, marshal Carmony on the 24th of 1939. Even at that time Sokols greeted the highest representative in the Praia capital, and for tactical reasons they did so with their right hand, according to the contemporary totalitarian fashion. Yet they were soon confronted with the displeasure of the regime which did not like the civic, voluntary and humanistic spirit of the Sokol association,“ Jan Klíma concludes the Sokol chapter on the Cape Verde archipelago.

Another waves of drought and famines followed, which, along with the destructive swells of the salazarian dictatorship, further drowned the islands, already lost in the eastern Atlantic. The long process of decolonization and building of national independence, led by the high culture of the Claridosos movement which highlighted the language and culture of the nation, as well as by the direct cabralian resistance movement, cost the Cape Verde population much effort before, on the 5thThe Sokol movement, built on the assimilated Czechoslovakian foundation, allowed for concentration and accumulation of this basic power of survival and self-assertion, and for using it in the right moments for a lifesaving breath as if from a backup oxygen cylinder. of July, they could finally breathe freely.

___________

It is a pleasant evening, the last carnival night and my last day in Mindelo.Instead of the sorrowful Cape Verdian morna, unrestrained Brazilian Samba pulses, roaring youth stream through the streets, cane rum and poncha are poured, girls are wild and dancing: everything is the way it should be. From a side street I suddenly feel a strange surge which freezes me for a moment.The neon sign of the Néna pharmacy shines with a bright light, and yet it exudes a dim and elusive afterglow of nostalgia which pours like hot lava onto the main street. In the end it seems to me that it overpowers and pulls down the people-stream in the street. Senhor Manuel Nascimento Ramos sleeps peacefully in his house. The instant comes when the undiluted power of the history of Cape Verde merges with the present moment as if in a dream …

GEO magazine