Open letter to José Alberto Tavim concerning the “Dicionário Histórico dos Sefarditas Portugueses. Mercadores e Gente de Trato”(“Historical Dictionary of the Portuguese Sephardim. Merchants and Traders”).

The blind man dreamt that he could see: he dreamt what he liked

Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese Proverbs

On 2 December last year, atext entitled “A Historic Dictionary of the Portuguese Sephardim? ” written by José Alberto Tavim (JAT) was published on the website of the Tropical Research Institute (IICT).

The present letter is not, neither should nor can be an answer to JAT owing to the simple fact that writing of this kind does not (or should not) have any place within the scientific community. The only concern prompting us to write is mainly to break a silence which, if allowed to happen, will lend impunity to an intolerable smear against academic life.

We are referring to a text which makes a pretence of being about the publication of “Dicionário Histórico dos Sefarditas Portugueses. Mercadores e Gente de Trato”(“Historical Dictionary of the Portuguese Sephardim. Merchants and Traders”), and which, in failing to be a critique and much less a review as is customary, is merely an attempt to discredit others’ work; it is a text that loses its credibility because it errs from start to finish.

Asa coarsely satirical, self-consuming text removed from every university ethic and the routine of scientific activity, it brings to mind anoften heard saying by Edgar Morin, one which I have always remembered: “science without a conscience is the poverty of the soul”.

If JAT’s text had at least shown any insight or had resembled a critical view, it would have gained in value and deserved my respect. But no, the author has shown himself to be someone who delights in finding everything badly done, even with things not even there. It may be a question of temperament, given the fact that I am giving his inventory the benefit of not having arisen from any intentionally unsolved problem.

What we have here, therefore, is a rancorous text that is devoid of any serious analytical foundation, one that comes very close to being a denunciation for what reason we do not know, neither to what advantage. Like the blind man who dreamt that he could see, the author of this lampoon also dreamt what he liked. This was why he created a scarecrow for his own amusement, and similar to the metaphor about the Gordian knot, he did not have the seriousness of intent needed to undertake an attentive, careful reading as he should have done; he cut the knot using bitter words and biting style which,for want of a better opinion, only serve to discredit him personally.

It is an egocentric, centrifugal text because it marginalises the entire corpus of the Dictionary which clearly failed to bother him. Starting off on the pretext of a so-called study of the texts he himself had written and whose information we had used, made it so that he was speaking in defence of his personal honour which he felt had been offended. He is mistaken. The authorship of his texts is very clearly safeguarded whether he likes to admit it or not.

In having raised the ethical question and without needing to dwell on it any further, I shall move on.

In first place, it worth his bearing in mind that in any sociology of readership, the author does not own his text after it has been published; it now belongs more to the reader who engages in multiple interpretations, resorting to what Paul Ricoeur called text auditing. If JAT wishes to go deeper into the subject, I would like to remind him that he is surely not unfamiliar with (or he ought not to be): among others, some of Humberto Eco’s pages (which are dedicated to interpretation and its limits and also his work Lector in Fabula (The Role of the Reader)), or some of Paul Ricoeur’s pages that have provided such good service to polysemy and the semantics of texts; or Foucault’s for questions to do with the biunivocal relationshipestablished between the reader and the text on the one hand, and the author and his text on the other. Obviously, Susan Sontag whom JAT quotes is not enough.

The information he providedin his texts, and it is only this that exclusively interests us, was tailored according to a research perspective into the economic and social history of the Portuguese Sephardim, in agreement with the ontological goals of a wider research project than would be natural for compiling a Dictionary. The area the Dictionary is concerned with has nothing to do with studies on Judaism as, by the way, is clearly stated in the Dictionary’s presentation text and which I personally explained[*]

We used available information in our working methodology where we were consistently careful to guide our readers, by means of bibliographical quotes, to the studies that had served as our reference when compiling our Dictionary. Even here, the texts (both JAT’s and ours) were inevitably related with one another as normally happens in an intertextual relationship owing to mutual complicities and off-shoots that are not always explainedin detail although they fully belong to the field of interpretation. It is as if the voice of an absent author, JAT himself, is always rising above the torrent of words, constantly recovering and re-occupying the place which is his due. This why his complaints about the blows dealt against his texts is worth nothing because his absence is always proven to be an active presence in our writing. Most assuredly, we could have done better. As with everything in life, we can always do better. But the intentio textorumof his texts was always respected.

We preserved the authors’ voices in all the Dictionary entriesby means of quoting them, gathering the information that was closest to the aims we had in mind. This means, and we stress the point, that we included what was relevant to the economic and social life of the agents and,in order to help our readers to understand better, eventually their circumstances.

The Dictionary’s historiographic discursiveness was thus built up. In other words, the discursiveness is the place in which the information that we deemed significant for our work was described where sucha description was inevitably hermeneutic.

Afterwards, if a few ambiguities were raised in handling the original information, JAT’s information in this case, we accept responsibility for the less successful situations that may have eventually appeared although in no way do they concern the use of his textuality itself. Nevertheless, if he feels that his rights have been threatened or harmed then he should take measure to defend what he believes is lawfully his. He claims there was plagiarism –although if he were more prudent, he would never have dared say so because in reality, no plagiarism exists. But he should not hedge. He should not minify. He should not insinuate. He should not insult.

JAT undermines what merit the Dictionary has because in his opinion not indicating the name of the person making the entry is serious. Something ought to be said about this particular subject. As will have been gleaned from what was mentioned earlier on, this Dictionary was not structured in the normal way, or rather, specialists in the various topics were not called in to up-date knowledge and sign their names against their entries. We followed a different model. An innovating model? Not even that. It was merely that the objective conditions of the research project defined what model of research to adopt. The collected, processed data was published as we went along; during the project’s lifetime, the research group purposely set out to organise Courses open to the public, Meetings and Seminars; it presented papers at Congresses and wrote articles that were published in scientific magazines.

Publishing the Dictionary was thought to be the best way of letting people know about a small part of the information collected during the course of the research project, where most of the information is still inconclusive. Not withstanding, it is being used to prepare PhD and post-graduate theses, thereby fulfilling the aims we had originally set ourselves, or rather, transforming it into a useful work tool for all those studying the economic and social history of the Modern era and the role the Portuguese Sephardim played in it.

The term “research trainees” as used by JAT which, unless it has a better interpretation, seems to me to have depreciative note attached to it, is as we know, a term usually describing those who have received scholarships from the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT). During the period covering the project, three members of the team finished their PhD theses and seven obtained their Masters Degree, four of the latter now working on their PhD. They are young researchers who are gradually consolidating their learning processes and competences and today, they undeniably deserve the tried-and-tested scientific recognition awarded them.

Bound by the condition that is inherent to them, or in other words, in being part of a research team, there is no need to take shelter or hide ambiguities behind anonymity. Inexperience and frailty, if they exist, are mine. But after what JAT has written I do not recognise his ethical, professional or scientific competence that allowed him to say what he did or what he will say in the future.

In order to put a full stop here, I shalltell him that it is difficult to respond to indignity with dignity. Taking sentences out of their original context, using them as weapons is like playing a card trick: cheating so as to deceive the unsuspecting. As for example, when he refers to the use of the concept validating historiographic discursiveness and then distorts its semantics. And this is not to mention his demagogy residing in the underworld where as he understands it, the Science and Technology Foundation spends its public monies and allows funding to go to “a work”, clearly referring to the Dictionary. In arriving at this point, his words are not just a case of a lack of ethics but rather, a lack of shame.

As is said in age-old wisdom, ‘We are slaves to the words we utter and owner of those we withhold’. In his case, I believe that his words have literally and mercilessly shackled him to the pillory. It is the price that the blind man pays for dreaming what he sees when he only dreamt what he liked. It happened to JAT: he only saw what he liked. What is serious is that if he were not so blind, he would have seen a lot more because there was so much more to see.

The chance for a Sérgio-like discussion has passed us by – both of us. Who knows, it could have led to a fruitful Richard Faynman-type of model: “He who thinks he understands is probably wrong”. It is his fault. I am sorry. I was surprised that he had seized upon such an improper artifice. But perhaps it is more worthwhile knowing what, whyor who had blinded him, or had helped to blind him, although I do not want to make a roll call. His writing could not have been more shamelessly dishonest. For everything that has been said, therefore, the matter is now closed.

A. A. Marques de Almeida

Head researcher of the Project (FCT) POCTI/HAR/42393/2001

Full Professor, retired from the University of Lisbon.

Lisbon, 10 January 2011.

[*]* At this point I would like to express my surprise at JAT’s behaviour: when we talked about matters involving the compilation of the Dictionary, all this was explained to him in person in viva voce so that he cannot feign ignorance. And while I am on the subject, because I was particularly careful to offer him a copy of the Dictionary containing a written dedication to him before it had its public launch, did it not seem proper to him – if nothing else – that before publishing his text, to take me into consideration and write me a note or simple call me up to tell me what he intended to do?