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 Throughout the 19th century Brazil evolved more slowly than the countries that, thanks to social reforms, grew stronger socially and economically. While we were prohibiting the trafficking of slaves, the USA had already abolished slavery. We retained slavery for 40 more years, ignoring the deaths and the violence that the system represented for millions of slaves and for Brazil itself.
In the second half of the 20th century, Brazil had greater economic growth than many other countries, but it did not make any of the agrarian, social and urban reforms that it should have. When we compare Brazil in two eras, we see that we advanced in all sectors but less than many other countries. Our speed is slower. We entered the 21st century with the worst income distribution, a shameful educational system, one of the world's highest panoramas of urban violence. We grew and evolved with "apartation," with two separate economies and societies - one swift and enriching for 20% of the population; the other paralyzed and poor for almost all the rest. And we continue to commemorate the small advances that each day leave us further behind in relation to the rest of the world. In 1970, Brazil was the most promising of the developing countries. Despite the fact that we are continuing to evolve, we have been left behind by at least 10 of the countries that we then surpassed. The reasons are many, ranging from protectionism to inefficiency; to the lack of investments in the social area; to the shortage of efforts in education, science and technology; to the underinvestment in infrastructure. These reasons are correct but insufficient. What they have in common is the lack of a national project transcending administrations, defining our goal and what we must do to reach it, a common national will, independent of the political party in power. We lack a national project going beyond the demands of each social group. All the countries that surpassed us have constructed that project. They had a unifying social force, while our forces are breaking us apart. They established a sentiment of nation; we are dividing ourself up into corporative interests. Interests that represent merely the segment of Brazilians included in modernity, the segment that advances by quarreling over the cake to be divided up while either ignoring the excluded masses or simply giving them alms. That difference in internal social evolution is the cause of the difference between Brazil's speed of evolution and those of the other countries. We are a country divided, and because of this, one without a national project. Organized into corporations, i.e., interest groups, those that have benefited from the advances of the past do not want to share the privileges of their high income in a country of low income. The result is the impossibility to unite ourselves, to unite the whole of Brazil socially. Investment in the social integration of the Brazilian population is, therefore, the way for us to speed up our advance in the international scene. Without this integration, which is an objective as well as an instrument of change, we still have no national project and are headed towards "apartation." As we advance while benefiting one part of the population and leaving the other part behind, we will continue creating an explicitly divided society. This division will come about with no need for special laws, because the difference in access to goods and services will ultimately differentiate the two populations so much that they will stop recognizing each other as similar. Just as in the epoch of slavery. And we will continue to lag behind the other countries, despite our year-by-year advance. In the 19th century, we advanced in spite of the separation between blacks and whites; in the 21st century, we will continue advancing for the few while at the same time lagging behind. Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is a PDT 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
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. Translated from the Portuguese by Linda Jerome -
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Why are you saying that slavery has been eliminated in Brazil a long time ago ?????
You perfectly know that Brazil still has slaves....TODAY !
Slavery has been eliminated, just on paper.....in your constitution...but still is alive!
So many good laws are in your Constitution....but they are NOT applied and you know it !
Examples could be : not even trials for the hnundreds of poors without land that have been killed by large landowners, corruption is illegal too, red tape too, police killings of thousand of innocents too, just to name a few !
Brazilians politicians (and you are one) should stop just talking but start to apply the rules of laws !