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 At the worst times of repression during the military regime, in the 70s, "tudo bem" (all right) was greeting, salutation, slogan, comma, ellipsis. A one-size-fits-all expression, spontaneous answer of a cordial society to the moment's ordeal.
Now, in the other side of the Atlantic we finally discover the source of such benevolence - or resignation - when President Lula in his visit to Ghana was received by the "Tabom".
They are not a tribe, but our fellow citizens, descendant of the slaves who were enfranchised or liberated by the Abolition, who at the end of the 19th century returned to the fatherland.
As they only spoke Portuguese and were intrinsically happy despite having left a merciless prison, they used the 'tá-bom? (are you OK?) as "how do you do?" or "tá-bom" to express their conformity with life and the world.
One "tabom" here, another "tabom" there and the name caught: it turned into a group identification, a Brazilian contribution to the African civilization.
Our "cordial society" was not invented by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, but by a friend, melancholic poet generally angry, Ribeiro Couto. The historian-philosopher ended up resigned not without before yelling to death the explanation that such cordiality was not personal behavior, but characteristic of a social relation that occurs afar from laws, codes, institutions.
From his brief contact with the Tabom, President Lula brought, besides the valuable and colorful manta, an undisguisable baggage of happiness. He felt like a king, he declared that politics is done in the "tête-à-tête," he hugged and was hugged, he considered himself a legitimate member of the Tabom nation and the highest exponent of the Tudo Bem community.
The so-called self-esteem produced in the laboratories of conceitedness is extraordinary, contagious. Thanks to it we are immune to defeatism, we disguise anguishes and hide indignations.
We distract ourselves with the blah-blah-blah of nepotism and forget that employing relatives without submitting them to a test is not only a functional aberration but also injustice, immorality and truculence.
Nepotism thwarts the principle of isonomy that should govern the rule of law, it represents embezzlement of public resources and can be seen as gang formation.
A few more speeches in an empty Congress and a few more headlines and we will be all persuaded that we definitively extirpated this kind of corruption from public life.
Built-in Offense
In another sleight-of-hand trick our equalitarian and libertarian sense of dignity was instantly satisfied by the arrest of Argentinean back Leandro Desábato, who offended the Brazilian striker Grafite (Graffito). And we do not realize that we abandon ourselves consciously to a xenophobe impulse as serious as the impulsive racist offense.
The Argentinean insulted and committed unbailable crime, contemplated in the Constitution, an inquiry was initiated. A fine or alternative punishment should be handed out, the athlete might be suspended for a few games and we even might get offended and offender together in a world campaign against racism in sports.
This arrest personally ordered by São Paulo state's Public Security Secretary and endorsed by a media thirsty for a lynching is a mockery in a country where people responsible for vile crimes walk free in the streets and judges are imprisoned as thieves and murderers.
President Lula acted correctly apologizing to the African peoples who were here enslaved and humiliated for four centuries. But in this great circus mounted ironically because of the Libertadores (Liberators) Cup, nobody thought about something so simple: as criminal as the Argentinean player was the person who rebaptized the player Edinaldo Batista Libânio, of the São Paulo team, as Grafite.
It is not an affectionate nickname, it is an offense embedded in the name, something perennial, indelible, a pejorative tattoo: synonymous with graffito, black mark, dirty stigma.
All right, Tabom, we are a society so sweet and so cordial that Stefan Zweig, the Austrian writer who wrote a book-hymn called Brazil, Country of the Future killed himself here six months after the book's release.
This article was originally published in Último Segundo.
Alberto Dines, the author, is a journalist, founder and researcher at LABJOR - Laboratório de Estudos Avançados em Jornalismo (Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism) at UNICAMP (University of Campinas) and editor of the Observatório da Imprensa. You can reach him by email at obsimp@ig.com-br.
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It was a stupid thing to arrest a soccer player for racism. Brazilians are the most racist country that I know. My mother fed 3 children working in Argentina. I grew up there; I got many values from Argentina. I love Argentina as my mother and Brazil as my father. When my mother sent me to school in Brazil, I saw discrimination in all levels in the society. In the street that we moved in, the black families did not have food to put over the table. I saw my black neighbours died form tuberculosis. When I saw such misery, I started to say to everybody that I will be a doctor and then I will try to relief the pain. It was a big joke; they used to laugh of my ideas. Perhaps such laugh hurt my mother because she never allowed me to socialise so much with other kids and she gave me a tutor. I was busy with my studies during all year.
During my undergraduate program at Federal University Santa Catarina, I saw so many racists’ comments. It is amazing that some people have courage to say to you that you are a hard work, smart guy but you are not German and you are not Lutheran. When I was a graduated student at Federal University of Parana many professors used to call me by nick names such as, Indian, Catarina. Argentine and so on. Later, when I started to work in Brazil people used to comment that I was not what they hear about me.
When people realized that I was a different person, I had my luggage done and I was in my way to airport. This was more than 10 years ago. Did Brazil change? I do not think so. I married with a lady from Indonesia more than 5 years ago. Since there, we are trying to register or marriage and then we were thinking to live in Brazil. However, after many contacts with our Diplomatic Service, my wife told me she will never move to Brazil. Of course, her sister went to Jakarta and saw a Brazilian Diplomat yelling at the natives that work in the Embassy in Jakarta. And such behaviour to make things so difficult that to recognize a marriage with a citizen that married a foreign person is not an act of racism or treating the personal which works in an Embassy in front of their own national in a bad way what is that? For what we support the Rio Branco Institute?
Brazil is a nepotism Country. Jobs are for friends and no for people with capacity. Once I returned from the USA, I worked in biomedical research in two American Universities. The Federal University of Parana has an open for a Temporary Professor in Organic Chemistry. I applied for such position. I had a good number of papers, a PhD in Biochemistry done in the Carbohydrate Chemistry. I was fresh and willing to work hard and make my way.
It was a big surprise that the position was giving to a blond lady that had finished an undergraduate program in this University in that year. She was very gorgeous, blond, blue eyes, beautiful body. So, far I ask to myself. “If there is no racism in Brazil, if there is no nepotism in Brazil, the dick of what man she used to suck?
In Brazil, before you register in a public job open for a position such as professor in a Federal University, you must be sure that somebody is going to help you to pass all the examination or otherwise forget it.
Today, I saw clouds of Brazilian on the streets of North America, everybody wants to leave Brazil. Young Brazilians dream with Europe, Australia and North America. Recently the Americans arrested 232 illegal Brazilians immigrant trying to get inside the USA. Many sexual workers in London are our youths dreaming to make thousand of pounds and then come back to Brazil as winners in this capitalist race. Brazil are losing brains and the best of their youths, certainly Brazil will never be a Country with a bright future.
• Pharmaceutical R&D Technology Post Diploma 2003 - 2004
Toronto Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology – Canada
• Industrial Pharmaceutical Technology Post Diploma 2001 - 2002
Faculty of Technology, Seneca College, Toronto
• Chemical Technology Diploma 1998 - 2001
Faculty of Technology, Seneca College, Toronto
• PhD.Sc. Biochemistry Program 1988 - 1993
Centre Polytechnique, Parana University, Brazil
• B.S. in Pharmacy 1983 - 1986
University of Santa Catarina, Brazil.