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 In November 1889, the young army officer Felicíssimo do Espírito Santo Cardoso handed a dismissal letter to Dom Pedro II and conducted the Emperor to the ship that would carry him into exile.
That act was more symbolic of the change from monarchy to republic than Field Marshal Deodoro's cry of "Long live the Republic!"
The change was, however, limited to the departure of the Emperor and the inauguration of a field marshal as president.
The new regime did not transform the aristocracy into a republican society, and Brazil continued divided between a privileged minority and the scorned masses. We proclaimed the Republic but did not construct it.
The elected presidents were members of a republican aristocracy, and they continued governing for it. They were not elected from the people and for the people.
Our Republic was more unequal than the empire had been, more unequal than any monarchy. Royal families resemble their people more than our governing officials and their families resembled the Brazilian people.
The election of the metalworker Lula, a worker coming from the poorest strata of the northeastern peasant class, signified the first rupture in the Brazilian republican empire.
Each president, even those of poor origin, had paid a toll to the elite before arriving in power, becoming part of it by means of a diploma, a fortune or services rendered to the wealthy.
In January 2003, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the great-grandson of the officer who handed the Emperor his expulsion notification, passed the presidential sash to the metalworker Lula.
One hundred thirteen years had elapsed between the great-grandfather's walk, taking the Emperor through the corridors of the Imperial Palace, and the great-grandson's walk on the ramp of the Congress with the sash for the metalworker president.
More than a century had to pass before the Brazilian elite would accept a man of the people as the head of the nation that calls itself a republic. They feared that a president coming from the people would not act like one of the elite, would not govern for them.
The presidential inauguration at the hands of the great-grandson was more important to the Brazilian Republic than the expulsion of the Emperor by the great-grandfather.
Two years later, the elite aristocracy is relieved, just as the nobles were relieved two years after the proclamation of the Republic. The representative of the people knows how to govern even better than the educated doctors and generals of yesterday.
But, as the worried people of 2004 are discovering, the empire has still not ended. The presidency is still shaped by Excellencies who carry out their duties in palaces, a congress of nobles, budgets that do not change the lives of the people, an educational system that increases inequality in the population, a tax system that concentrates income.
And after 115 years of the Republic, we are still not seeing actions to build the Republic, abolish the social separation between the elite and the people, better distribute income, install an egalitarian justice system, reduce the regional inequality, give all the people a quality education, defend the nation against external threats, guarantee peace in the streets, protect the natural and cultural patrimonies, promote scientific and technological development, make the economy grow in a sustainable form.
With 115 years of republican regime, we have still not dedicated ourselves to the construction of a republican society, where all citizens would have equal rights and opportunities.
We accept and commemorate an incomplete republic. We have a metalworker statesman, but we do not have a Republic. We have a metalworker emperor. Fortunately, there are still two years left for him to assume the leadership of constructing the Brazilian Republic.
(Written in honor of the Proclamation of the First Brazilian Republic, November 15, 1889)
Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is a PT 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 - and write to him at cristovam@senador.gov.br.
Translated from the Portuguese by Linda Jerome - LinJerome@cs.com.
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