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 There is no better indication that the ruling Workers Party (PT) in Brazil has now reached the same level as the other parties than the idea that all it need do for its refoundation is recover its ethics. As if ethics were not an obligation of all parties, without any differentiating merit.
Some think that the refounding of the PT consists of expelling some leaders. Others consider that, besides recovering ethics, it is necessary to break with the government's economic policy. As if a new party would arise by simply eliminating some of its members and reducing the interest rate.
For a long time now, many have signaled the need for change in the PT. Any change must therefore be a profound one. The PT needs to understand that its mistakes arise from a disaccord between the present reality and the one at the time of its foundation in 1980.
In these 25 years, the world economy changed radically but the social reality did not. The so-called refoundation must begin with a new attitude: the PT must accept the reality of the economy, which the Lula government is correctly doing; it must also dedicate itself to changing the social reality, which the Lula government has unfortunately not done.
In 1980, national economies were closed to international trade. Everyone believed in the miracle of state planning, everyone was betting upon state industries, production demanded employment, and fiscal irresponsibility was rewarded.
Today, the economy has to be open, the free market has to be respected, fiscal responsibility must be assured, privatization needs to be maintained and increased production demands no additional workforce. And the PT has still not adopted this doctrine.
Meanwhile, income distribution got worse, inequality in education and healthcare increased and our advances occurred more slowly than in the rest of the world. And the PT did not perceive that it needs a proposal to change the social reality, while conserving the realistic economic policy.
The refoundation of the PT demands much more than simple rearrangements of the party's internal power structure. Changing hands is useless without a simultaneous change of mentality.
In 1980, the injustice of social inequality was thought to come from the polarization between capital and labor, profit and salary. In 2005, it is known that it is the distribution of knowledge, and not the distribution of property, that produces inequality. And that national consolidation consists less in closing off of the borders to international trade and more in forming a scientific and technological base.
A party of the Left acts less in its capacity to influence economic policy and more in its execution of social policies, especially in the education of the population. And the area of the ideological dispute is less the economy and more the distribution of budgetary resources.
It will be difficult for this true PT refoundation to occur in the next few years for two reasons of principles and two of culture. The PT is a party created under the logic of the workers' dispute against the bosses and the logic that the social problems will be resolved to the extent that the workers can appropriate for themselves a greater portion of the national revenue.
From the cultural point of view, the PT was born and grew under the domination of the struggle for power, as much internally, between its groups, as externally, against all the other parties. And it was formed more to support workers' demands than to formulate an alternative project for the entire country.
For these reasons, the PT's refoundation requires a reformation that will demand a new generation of militants. The Brazilian social reality cannot wait for the PT. It is necessary to remodel the Left.
Recover the dreams; unite the dreamers. While this will be difficult without the PT, it will be impossible through the PT. The PT must assume that it is no longer the eldest brother of the Left. It is merely a part of it and it has been weakened.
The change in the economic reality did not change the social reality and Brazil continues dreaming the same dreams: revolution in education; deconcentration of income; reduction of regional inequality; environmental protection; an efficient healthcare system; peaceful cities; sovereignty; sustained development and abolition of social apartation.
The millions of Brazilians who voted for Lula continue dreaming, believing that all this is possible. But they feel frustrated with the lack of desire and with the inoperative PT government. It is necessary to recompose the group of those who still dream, independently of the party.
No social transformation was achieved in Brazil by a party. Independence, abolition, the establishment of the Republic, democracy, amnesty, the Constitutional Assembly - each of these resulted from a movement.
It will not be a party that takes back the dream, but it will be a movement for the reenchantment of Brazil, for the recomposition of the dream. Although it appears dead, the dream is still as necessary as ever.
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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First they deserve it...but they do more harm than good...with their old ideologies !!!!!!
As you said the world has changed...but not the generation of Brazil politicians !!!!!
New thoughts, new bloods, non corrupted people with a commitment to serve the country after being elected.......and not taking the country as their farms and citizens as their slaves !!!!!!
Nobody in this world has already been able to transform an old black/white TV into a digital crisp colored flat screen TV !!!!
To do that, new models, new technologies and new tools are necessary !!!!!!
Brazilians politicians are old models, old technologies and old tools ! And that is the reason that nothing has truly changed yet...in your old laws, social injustice, inequalities, low education....etc etc !!!!! They want to preserve...the rights and powers they acquired...for them !!!!
And whoever wins in the next elections should come from a new mould !!!!!