Brazil has not completely finished the process of becoming a
Republic. Nor has it completely abolished slavery.
In 21^st-century Brazil the elite feel as distant from the people
as they did in the 19^th century. The Brazilian elite do not
feel like citizens who pertain to the same people.

Cristovam Buarque

One hundred fifteen years after the Proclamation of the Republic, the Brazilian members of Congress still call each other "Noble Colleague." It is as if the Empire still existed but under the name of Republic. It is not a matter of congressional etiquette, nor is it true only of members of Congress.

In 21^st-century Brazil the elite feel as distant from the people as they did in the 19^th century. The Brazilian elite are not citizens. The inequality between the rich and the poor—be it in income, education, housing, transportation, leisure, food, or customs—is so large that they do not sit at the same table, do not discuss the same affairs, do not feel like citizens who pertain to the same people.

The members of Congress do not call each other "Citizen Deputy" or "Citizen Senator" because Brazil has not completely finished the process of becoming a Republic. Nor has it completely abolished slavery. After Independence, Brazil remained a slave-ocratic empire for 70 years; then, in only 18 months it abolished slavery in 1888 and proclaimed the Republic in 1889; yet everything continued much the same as before. Almost 200 years after Independence, the members of Congress continue to be nobles, forced labor has been replaced by unemployment, the slaves have been transformed into famished poor people, and education continues to be available only to the few.

The regime became republican but Brazil continued divided between a noble elite and a plebeian mass. Just as slavery was abolished, little by little, the Republic expanded the right to vote, permitting liberty of expression and of political party organizing, but it concentrated land in a few hands and education in a few heads. The legacy of Lula's government, therefore, will be to complete the process of the Republic and of abolition.

To do this, we must not repeat 1888 and 1889 by postponing that which everyone hopes for—a complete Republic, without exclusion, one in which everyone would be equal citizens. We were elected not only to administer well, but rather, administering well, to undertake the republican revolution for which Brazil has waited more than a century.

Since the republicans did not connect with the people, the Republic was never completed. As "neo-nobles" they lost their capacity to become indignant about the poverty surrounding them; they enjoyed the privileges of aristocrats; they became used to the customs of power and the demands of the bureaucracy. We in Lula's government cannot run this risk: disconnecting from the poor; losing our capacity for indignation; becoming addicted to the glitter of power; and falling into the clutches of the bureaucracy. We must not become accustomed to the same incomplete Republic while forgetting that our task is to complete it.

The principal way to avoid accommodation is to move forward from the present difficulties, never forgetting the legacy that our government must leave to future generations: Administer the present difficulties without losing sight of the obligations of the dreams for the future; have one foot in arithmetic and the other in utopia. Lula was not elected to establish or change the central structure of the economy; nor was he elected to create equality of income or of consumption. He was elected to make everyone equal as citizens, thus completing the Republic and abolition. This will be Lula's legacy for the future of Brazil.

To complete abolition we must undertake the intensive, total, radical agrarian reform that Brazil desires, using 21^st-century technology with no disruption of production. Job creation is another measure necessary to finish off slavery and interrupt the century-old Brazilian tragedy of transforming the shackled and fed slaves into the free, starving unemployed.

To complete the Republic we must guarantee an egalitarian education to all citizens, which is possible only through free, quality public schools for everyone. A society is not a republic when it invests practically 80 times more upon the private education of middle-class children—R$ 240 thousand (US$ 71 thousand) —than upon the public education of poor children—R$ 3,200 (US$ 949). Middle-class students spend R$ 1,000 (US$ 297) per month and receive educational investments for up to twenty years. The others receive R$ 800 (US$ 237) per year and remain in school an average of four years. This is not merely inequality: It is difference. And as long as this sort of difference exists, the country will not be a Republic.

Lula's legacy is the completion of the Republic and abolition. His role is leading Brazil so that we take the measures necessary to change reality in the four years before the elections of 2006, creating a dynamic in which the republican revolution will continue in the following years. So that, before the end of his administration, all Brazilians will be literate, all children will be attending schools of increasing quality and, before the bicentennial of Independence, all Brazilians will have the equivalent of at least a high-school education.

This is possible. Poor countries with more difficulties than ours have already done this. We have the resources and the know-how. It is possible if the administration has zeal, determination, and the support of society, especially that of the members of Congress when they vote on the next budget. This is the greatest obstacle: convincing the noble heirs of the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889 that the time has come to make a decent investment of the national resources in a republican revolution, one that can be achieved only by providing free, quality public education for all.

But action by the administration and the Congress will not be enough. What are you doing so that we can complete the Republic and abolition?

Cristovam Buarque - cristovambuarque@uol.com.br, 59, Ph.D. in economics, is Brazil's Minister of Education. He was the rector of the University of Brasília (1985-89) and the governor of the Federal District (1995-98).

Translated by Linda Jerome LinJerome@cs.com  

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