Sick0

Few days ago I was seeing an old documentary that made me conclude some thought that I was having on the past weeks. I am back to Brazil and since I came back I was again surprised with the violence wave of violence that is hitting my country. There were 2 episodes that really shocked me: first, the guy that collects money on a city bus was killed without reacting to anything – the internal camera showed the exactly moment when he was hit on his head. Almost same week, there was a girl in a restaurant that was also murdered without reacting to the robbery that was happening at her place of work.

Those episodes are relatively common in my country but I still have the capability of being completely stunned by it. Maybe it’s just because I came back after a while abroad – not in a much safer country – but away from a constant touch with the news. Anyway, I was wondering, “what could I actually do to change this situation?” Since a long time ago, it was clear for me that the main problem about Brazil was impunity. We don’t keep people in jail, they don’t go to jail, our penitentiaries are terrible, the sentences are smaller even when the crime is horrendous, and so many other factors.

Some years ago, after a huge scandal with the politicians in our country – a huge scheme to control deputies and senators to buy their votes and impose the will of the government under the country – it was released a survey done by an important magazine, asking the population: “if you were in their place, would you do the same to get the money?” more than half said yes.

That’s something that mixes with my mind. I always remember one of my professors saying: “we need to stop with this thing in Brazil of always try to take advantage of any situation.” It doesn’t seem to be something easy to conquer. The conclusion is: even when the politicians are doing bad things, there would be a battalion of many other people, eager to do the same. That’s a non-ending cycle that must go wrong.

So it takes me to the documentary. It’s called “Sicko”. It’s a bit old now and it’s from the acclaimed and also super hated director Michael Moore. I know that some of his things are manipulative – and so are all the other sources of information. The documentary is about the health system in US and a comparison of it with some other countries in the world. There you can learn a lot about how to manipulate the people, how to change their opinion, how to silence some others. Incredible.

But there was one specific sentence that made me reflect for a long while during this documentary – and it came from a person on it and not from the director: “In France government fears the people. In US people fears the government.” It has everything to deal with our reality here in Brazil.

Something that surprises me incredibly about Brazil is the single fact that we NEVER had any general strike in our history. There were some important strikes on important economic centers in São Paulo on the beginning of our democracy and some other important manifestations, but never a general strike. One teacher used to say: “if they increase the price of the bread in France, there is a general strike installed.” A bit exaggerated, but still close to the truth.

And then I was making a parallel. Even in US the democracy is not very strong. If you see, there is a difference between the representativeness of each state, tons of people doesn’t vote, and yes, people fears the government. When you look at countries in Western Europe, they actually had a millenary construction of a strong democracy. Due to that, now, they can have their governments under their control. It’s not perfect. It will never be. But it is still much better than we have in Latin America.

After a reflection, still thinking about what we could actually do, I got to my partial and for-now conclusion that we will need to… wait. It will be very hard to change the country in so many ways that is needed for us to reach a true and inclusiveness democracy. We would need decent politicians, decent pensions, a fair health system, decent educational systems and above all, people thinking more about their society than about themselves.

The steps you take...

Generally it’s not the easiest job in the world for me to find a topic to write here. I really take care of the few people that take their time to come here and see what I am talking about. In this post specifically, I had some troubles defining the title. Now that I have it, I can go ahead.

I was born in a small city, moved for another one and during this period until the time that I got old enough my family lost the resources that could allow me to see the world. I needed to find my own way to do it.

Looking back the most important moment that comes up to my mind in this journey was when I tried to join the Junior Enterprise (if you don’t know what it is, check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_enterprise ) in the engineering school. When I was accepted to the engineering course it was already the 6th call for students. Just I and one more were called that time. I saw the folder about the Junior Enterprise and went there to know how I could participate on their selection process. They told me that I couldn’t apply because they have already closed the applications to the process. I talked to the HR Manager and explained him my situation and they decided to accept me. That small act changed my life.

I joined the Junior Enterprise and got passionate enough to decide to quit the engineering course and join the business management one. It was funny because at that time, I used to spend more time on the enterprise than at the classes.

I was accepted to the business school and there I already knew: I wanted to join the junior enterprise. It’s funny but, the one from the engineering course at that time seemed to be better organized than the one in the business school. Because of that, at the beginning, I wasn’t very excited about it. But afterwards with my plans for that organization I started to dedicate more and more. In the end of my first year there, with one vote of difference I was elected president.

I had a very successful year and due to that I received the invitation to participate in almost every other student organization in our faculty and afterwards in AIESEC – the person that insisted so much for me to join AIESEC was a very special friend that have seen me working on the Junior Enterprise.

From that time on, what I have “conquered” during these years:

- I flighted for the first time in my life – from São Paulo to Porto Alegre;

- I met people from more than 10 states in my own country. I have friends on each of those states right now;

- I learned how to speak better English – even staying in Brazil – by living with foreign people;

- I spent an year working as national director and also have the chance to work closely to the most important conference held in the history of AIESEC in Brazil;

- I worked with people from 6 different countries while in AIESEC in Brazil;

- I left my country for the first time (my dream from the beginning of this post). I not only did that but I visited a total of 7 countries in less than a year;

- I’ve learned Spanish and lived in Mexico a country that stole part of my heart;

- I have friends now from all over the world. Some of them are from countries that I barely knew that they existed, before I joined this last position of regional manager.

Well, I could write here MUCH more. But that’s not the meaning of this post. The idea of it is to make you to think about the importance of that day that I needed to convince the HR manager of the Junior Enterprise of the Engineering School that I should be able to apply for their selection process. And that’s what I am asking for the AIESEC network more often right now. Why all of this people are not stepping ahead? What exactly are you winning and what are you losing just because you’re not trying to do your next steps?

There are hundreds of opportunities in our organization for good people like you and they are being left without anyone, just because nobody is applying. If AIESEC supposed to be an organization to provide you the opportunity to try, why so few ones are taking this risk?

It makes me a bit disappointed with the organization – to see that amazing people are just afraid of themselves. And this unconsciously makes me think if it’s exactly what’s happening – for example – with the politicians worldwide. If the ones that are accepting the challenges, are doing that not because they are good, but because all the others just gave up on their will to do so.

I don’t know the answer for these questions. But I will always remind the few steps ahead that I took in my life that brought me here (and also the many ones that I tried to take, but I just couldn’t).