What world is this where a pack of cigarettes costs less than a book?

Luís Munguambe Júnior"

This question did not arise from a sophisticated article or an inspiring lecture. It was born from an absurd contrast, experienced firsthand. One afternoon, at the Main Campus of Eduardo Mondlane University. I went into the library to do what is expected of a student: research, investigate, and explore ideas. However, I came across a book that took me by surprise: Marketing do Valha-me Deus — a strange title, but accurate content. A book that made me reflect, laugh desperately, and frown angrily. But it was past time to close the library. I couldn't take the book with me. The loan form refused to cooperate with me, as if to say: “Come back tomorrow, if you still remember to think about it.” I left there feeling downcast. Sad. Hungry for ideas. Thirsty for pages. Angry that I couldn't continue to devour that banquet of thoughts. On the way home, still digesting the last lines of the book, I heard a guy on the corner of a corrugated iron bar, leaning against the drinks stand: — I'll ask for two GT cigarettes... and one Indica. How much is it?— One Indica is sixty meticais and one GT cigarette is five meticais, boss. Sixty meticais. For the combo of destruction. The complete package: burned lungs and burst liver, at street-market prices. Meanwhile, the book I read, the one that gave me a headache and lit up things that were dormant... was priceless. Literally. They wouldn't even sell it. They wouldn't lend it. They wouldn't even photocopy it. Knowledge, in this country, is not promoted. It's hidden. It's kept under lock and key. As for addiction? Addiction is always at hand, always in the change. That's when I realized: destroying yourself is easy. And cheap. But feeding your mind? That's expensive. It costs silence, time, courage — and an entire system that doesn't care about anyone who wants to think. Meanwhile, I look at my empty pockets and realize: I don't have money for a good lunch, but I can buy a cigarette and maybe an Indica. That's the menu the system offers me - an anesthetic, a quick relief for an emptiness it itself dug inside me. Books? I can't even remember the last time I touched one. Not because I don't want to, but because a good book costs more than my peace of mind. Thinking has become a luxury. Smoking is affordable. Don't come to me with stories about inflation, editorial costs or imported paper. What's expensive isn't the book - it's the freedom to think. Because those who think, bother. And this world doesn't want people who think. It wants people who obey, who consume, who accept in silence. I see all this and I say, without fear: society is criminal. It is society that pushes me towards addiction with one hand, and then points the finger with the other. They made me smoke before I was old enough to understand what anxiety was. They gave me the bottle as a consolation, and now they call me crazy. Demented. Weak. But they forget that it was they who closed the doors of the school and opened the bars in the neighborhood. It was they who turned off the libraries and illuminated the alcohol labels. They who silenced the poets and exalted the influencers of emptiness. Today, I drink to cope. I smoke so I don't have to scream. But even so, they judge me. They say I've become a marginal. That I'm lazy, aggressive, useless. But where were they when I wanted a book and all I could find was beer? Where were they when they taught me to keep quiet, to accept, to not dream? Addiction is profitable. Thought is not. That's why they want me to be mindless. Because if I start connecting the dots, I'll realize that everything was planned: my lack of future, the school that didn't arrive, the hospital that doesn't work, the job that doesn't appear. And a conscious mind is a threat — because it can decide to stop smoking their promises. I know I’m not alone. I know many like me—young people with burned-out dreams, with talent drowned in alcohol, with questions stifled by a lack of books. We are not weak. We are wounded. We are products of a society, a system that would rather see us sick than awake. They say we are free. But what kind of freedom is this that pushes us into addiction and then punishes us for falling into it? What kind of freedom is this that sells cigarettes on every corner but hides books behind impossible prices? It is not freedom - it is manipulation. It is control disguised as choice. Still, I insist on thinking. Even when it's hard. Even when it hurts. Because I know that those who think, get up. And those who get up, one day, change everything.

2025/12/3