Extract from ContExploration.net
|
extract document nr |
8011 |
|
local link |
http://contexploration.net/extracts/8011.htm |
|
remote link |
http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/9524/78/
|
|
title |
Inequality Is As
Brazilian As the Weather and the Beaches |
|
date published |
13.02.2006 |
|
author |
Cristovam Buarque |
|
source |
Brazzil |
|
further reading from
author |
Inequality Is As Brazilian As the Weather and the Beaches
Written by Cristovam Buarque
Monday, 13 February 2006
On Sunday, February 5, the Brazilian TV program Fantástico presented three
shocking reports. One of them showed Brazilian workers dying from excessive
work. To augment their minimum salary by a few reais, these cane cutters worked
so hard that they died for their efforts.
Another report showed children waiting for adoption in orphanages because they
are Afro-Brazilian or more than three years old. A third report showed women
and children with their hands out, begging for alms along a major Brazilian
federal highway.
The reports were prepared with competence and sensibility. They pointed out the
number of machete strokes a worker is obliged to make per day and that they
cause his death.
The journalists interviewed the women and child beggars, who said that a few
months ago a child died during the risky act of begging among speeding cars.
The reality shown on the program should make Brazilian society ask itself why
the country is like this.
A nation circulating so much wealth on a highway is incapable of eradicating
the poverty alongside the road. One of the world's greatest producers of sugar
and alcohol is not furnishing its workers with a sustainable standard of
living.
Brazil, in fact, has always been seen as a divided country. In the mind of
Brazilians - no matter if they are rich or poor - a sense of identity, of
social unity, does not exist. Considered a national characteristic, inequality
is a natural phenomenon, like the climate and the beaches. It is part of the
landscape.
Brazil became a country but not a nation. It is more like a territory that
produces than an aggregate of human beings who are nationally identified by a
common project. To this day we have not had a national social integration
project.
We experienced four centuries of slavery and, after eliminating it, we did not
integrate the ex-slaves. We had strong economic growth for four decades but did
not distribute its product. We have had two decades of political democracy but
without social democracy.
We are a country, not a nation.
For this reason, there is a brutal difference between the wealth circulating on
the highway and the poverty begging alongside it. This is why some people die
for lack of income because they have no work; and why others die, due to
insufficient pay, from working too hard.
In 2006 we will have another presidential election and will probably watch the
same old debate: we will hear promises and proposals about how to grow, create
more jobs, construct more highways, factories, hydroelectric projects. But
quite possibly we will not have a serious debate about how to integrate
Brazilian society.
With inequality but without exclusion.
Brazil built the highways, creating territorial integration, but did not follow
the same steps towards creating social integration.
In its contemporary history, Brazil proclaimed the Republic, abolished slavery,
expanded its economy, brought back democracy, and attained monetary stability.
But it left all these processes incomplete since it did not integrate its
society, which continues to be divided between a rich, privileged minority and
a poor, excluded mass of people.
Brazil is a country incomplete in all it attempted. Unlike countries that have
not yet made the attempt, and unlike others that have already succeeded,
Brazil, attempts, achieves, but does not complete the effort.
Because it did not decide to go beyond being a country to become a nation. It
did not perceive that its territorial integration and its economic wealth would
remain incomplete if we do not make the necessary efforts to achieve social
integration.
Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is a PDT senator for the
Federal District and was Governor of the Federal District (1995-98) and
Minister of Education (2003-04). You can visit his homepage - www.cristovam.com.br
--
Return to ContExploration.net