11 DE JULHO DE 2014

7

The trivialization of violence, desert to our lunch, sitting with us at the dinner table, ends up transforming it

into something normal, a part of our daily lives; it’s all fine, it’s all modern day culture. And there are those who

extract entertainment from it!

It is a corruption of principles. Force outweighing intelligence. And, on its path of destruction, no human

being or material goods are safe, whether it’s children, women, or the elderly.

Be it at home, on the streets or at a football stadium. One shoots a person in the head as easily as setting

fire to a forest. Assaults rage for no particular reason. People are murdered like flowers being stepped on. For

nothing! Just for the pleasure in killing and wrongdoing.

The risk inherent to the matter is that children tend to replicate what they see. As early as 2007, New

Scientist magazine reported that, on enrolling in primary school, the average north-american child had already

visualized around 8000 murders and 100 000 acts of violence.

It is foreseeable that a european child does not wander far off these numbers, so many are the north-

american shows and series taking root in european tv channels. And parents are not always present.

Studies point to an average of 25 acts of violence per hour shown on children’s shows, against only 5 on

remaining shows, and indicate that children who watch too much television become more aggressive than

others. Television is a wicked “electronic babysitter.”

There exist excessively violent animated cartoons. That’s what “Dragon Ball”, “Pokemon” or “Power

Rangers” are, even in a logic of Good versus Evil. Children become tolerant to physical violence, convinced

that aggressivity is rewardable.

They may, on the other hand, acquire the syndrome that they might be robbed, stabbed, assaulted,

mutilated, hence suffering from sleep disturbances.

In saying this, I am aware that violence is a plural phenomenon, and one must not ascribe its causes solely

to the media. One must reject that simplification.

Naturally, I agree with the proposals submitted by Mr. Roger Gale, aiming to fight and control violence in the

media, as well as the need to erect legal frameworks and codes of conduct that involve all the private

stakeholders.

I permit myself to doubt the efficiency of self-regulation regarding this matter on the part of those who think

they only do what they do because the public wants it and consumes it.

The rejection of violence as a behavior or method in solving conflicts is a major civilizational issue and a

question of civility, in which the most vulnerable must be the prioritary focus of our attention.

Violence kills us, inside and outside the skin. Kills both, our bodies and souls.

ANEXO B

Speech by Mr. Mendes Bota on the debate of report ELZINGA (Doc. 13513), about “Challenges for

the Council of Europe Development Bank”

Plenary of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Strasbourg, 26th

June 2014

Dear President.

Dear Colleagues,

Founded on the far year of 1956, under another and long name, the Council of Europe Development Bank is

dealing again with refugees and displaced persons. Not the same of the post II World War, but the victims of

this New War on social and economic crisis, adding to refugees and displaced persons the objectives of job

creation and helping to micro, small and medium enterprises.

Governor Rolf Wenzel, you can count on EPP Group support, but we have some remarks to do.

Let’s start by point 2 of the draft resolution, and I quote: “The Assembly notes the Bank’s continued

commitment to preserving the level of lending to the neediest countries (notably outside the European Union)”.

How does this matches with Table 3 of the Appendix to Mr. Eltzinga’s report, when only 3 countries, all of

them European Union members, and surely not the less developed, Belgium, France and Spain, got 40,2% of

the 2.274 million Euros of CEB loans approved in 2013?