Eduardo Stefani

The brazilian people talk a lot about corruption, honesty, seriousness, moratily and all possible philosophic and subjective concepts. Normally with a depressed look, if we were away from the problem. Since my childhood, I have heard the same thing during lunch conversations and in family meetings.

We always use the third person, as if every dificulty was somewhere else. We presume that we are the good men and Brazil is something surreal, which we are not a part of. It is dificult to admit that our biggest enemies are ourselves.

In order to find a way to escape from our responsabilities, we always put the fault on the country. There are a lot of articles quoting de country like a hateful entity, lacking seriousness with no way out. The pessimistic, however beeing citizens of a country with continental dimensions, wish to live under a imperial flag, as a way to escape from responsabilities.

The question I ask now is about the people who live in this rich land, about the society which was formed here. My question is: Where is the brazilian citizen ?

We talk, cry and complain a lot, but we do nothing to change anything. From my perspective, we, the brazilian citizens, the inhabitants who live here, are not are prepared to have a country of our dream, for the simple fact that there is no courrage to face the problems, to take the risks and to admit weaknesses.

As the first act to end inequality here, but not economic which we talk about so much, but judicial inequaliy, which is much more serious. If a citizen with a university degree commits a crime, they go to a different place, the first signal of a judicial inequality.

When a poor man commits a infraction, he is humiliated and incarcerated, without chance of explanation. When a rich man commits something, despite the infraction, we always have some embarassment, a lack of courage to admit that a noble or aristocrat commited an infraction and he must like everybody else, be punished and when necessary, handcuffed.

The biggest scandal I saw recently, were the protests against our Federal Police, for having fulfilled its role and investigated evidences of tax evasion and frauds of importing in the biggest luxury store in Brazil, including the jailing of some executives from a beer company.

We have something like the elite protecting the elite, such as, when I belong to high caste and I see somebody similar in trouble, despite being involved in some crime, very soon a friendship and a personal attachment begin.

It is the proof we are not prepared. We talk a lot, but when we have a police search in a luxury neighborhood, we get amazed, because it can happen in any place with anybody. The fear takes over and we retreat a step and we are in the same situation for some centuries.

This text has the objective to involve a reflection, as an attempt to take the blame from the country and to do something for the society to assume some responsability, each one, inhabitants this blessed land, sunny and rich, in everything.

The people deserve grandeur must face problems with courage. Everybody has been through it, but now our time is coming. I hope it be soon, because it is dificult to have stomach to support the same complaining from those that do nothing to change.

[], Eduardo Stefani – 15/07/2005