(UNICAMP - 2007 - 2 FASE)A passagem abaixo foi tir

(UNICAMP - 2007 - 2ª FASE)

A passagem abaixo foi tirada do livro Guliver’s Travel, de Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Em tom irônico, o autor satiriza e critica a futilidade e a brutalidade das guerras que ocorriam na Europa em sua época. Leia o texto.

He asked me what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to war with another. I answered they were innumerable, but I should only mention a few of the chief. Sometimes the ambitions of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to govern; sometimes the corruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war in order to stifle the clamour of the subjects against their evil administration. [...] Sometimes the one prince quarrels with another, for fear the other should quarrel with him. Sometimes a war is entered upon because the enemy is too strong, and sometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbours want the things which we have, or have the things which we want, and we both fight, till they take ours or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable cause of war to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves. If a prince sends forces into a nation where the people are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of them to death, and make slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous way of living.

Ainda segundo o narrador da passagem, o que um príncipe pode legitimamente fazer quando envia suas forças contra um povo pobre e ignorante? Quais seriam os objetivos dessas ações?