On the importance of origins: Brazil, land of the future? Alfredo Attié

On the importance of origins: Brazil, land of the future?

Alfredo Attié Jr. (Judge at the Court of Sao Paulo; JD, LLM, PhD University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)

“…life in the temporal existence never becomes quite intelligible, precisely because at no moment can I find complete quiet to take the backward-looking position.” Kierkegaard.

Although repeatedly disregarded, past experiences count for a lot.
Since the beginning of its existence in the 16th century, Brazil has been perceived as a land pregnant with the richest materials, a place of delightful climate, abundantly endowed with the richness of natural resources. The country was just waiting for the entrepreneurs’ efforts to become useful for the needs of successive economic cycles of development.
So the idea of the `land of the future` would be always repeated until it was finally stated in print by Stefan Zweig, in the first part of the 20th century, in his book: ‘Brasilien Land der Zukunft.’ The Austrian writer was certainly thinking about a Utopia, comparing Brazil to the critical moment that his own Europe was experiencing in the between-Wars period, and then elaborating on another myth, the Brazilian tolerance, comparing it to the anger that was increasingly leading up to the Nazi atrocities.
But what if we ponder nowadays on these opinions, when the Brazilian territory and natural resources have already been exploited, when we look at the violence statistics, vis-à-vis the hope for the future Utopia?
Last summer I was surprised into pondering on these thoughts when taking cabs in Washington D.C., I heard very eloquent compliments on the `Brazilian achievements in its fight against poverty and for the narrowing of the gap between classes, and also for not only obtaining results within Brazil itself but also spreading its viewpoints around the world.’ Around the same time I heard repeated complaints about the corruption in our Institutions made by an American scholar during a meeting in which we compared the two legal systems.
This is the point. We cannot disassociate the defence of a mythological paradise, waiting to be discovered or about to be given birth, and the flagrant reality of our profound problems which continue to erupt and which give the lie to our hopes and dreams of a perfect land, to arise sometime in the future…
My argument is that not only will these problems never be solved while we preserve the legend, but also it will remain impossible to face up to our reality until we take the firm decision to rid ourselves of this way of thinking which we have carefully built up to take care of our problems, and we must try to understand their underlying causes and decide how to deal with them.
There are indeed two ways of obtaining information and advice about public policies: public opinion or public choice and the `cloister-experts` ways. They differ in their approach to the relevance of public on public policies opinion in government decision-making, its judgment of policies and choice of measures. Must public opinion be taken into account? If not, decisions must be taken through hearing the experts’ advice, which would provide the knowledge in making the right choice. But they have one very important thing in common: the importance they give to the education process, to better public opinion in general and to prepare high-level experts to give their own opinions.
Brazil, however, has opted for a very different path: it disdains the intellectual ability to understand the problems and give advice. At the same time it deliberately pays no heed to public opinion - it often regards it with absolute distrust and without any respect (the free press and opinion in Brazil have been considered to be unimportant by successive governments, and sometimes even as enemies of the political professional life). Brazil does not like public opinion. Not only does it look on it as something suspect and malignant but also does everything in its power to give its own people one of the worst educational systems in the world.

How can public opinion grow if the public is consistently under-educated, has no access to the means of knowledge and the means of becoming aware of their own lives and the actions of others, and mainly to be able to criticize their own government?

If Brazil does not adopt any of the usual ways of gathering information and creating public opinion how can it make correct decisions? Brazil has, unfortunately, chosen a third way, a very traditional one: the ‘godsons’ or ‘goddaughters’ method. The current process of electing our next President is an example of the latter. Instead of listening to the people themselves, through the parties electoral process, instead of widening the process of choosing a candidate, looking for new skills, new talented politicians, Brazil prefers to accept the same names or the direct appointment of the old politicians (in other times named `barons` or `colonels`; nowadays `nation-savers`) of `godsons` or ` goddaughters.`

Without education the people cannot say `no`. The cycle of our origins is spinning around, over and over, avoiding changes. Paradoxically, the land of the future remains afraid of the new.