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.
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.
