1. BLINDNESS THAT DOMINATES BRAZIL
Fernando Alcoforado *
In O Ensaio sobre a cegueira (Blindness) edited by Companhia das Letras, the
Portuguese writer José Saramago presents a terrifying picture of the dark times in which
we live. The novel begins by showing a stopped driver awaiting the opening of the
semaphore when it discovers suddenly blind and people run to their rescue until they
form a successive chain of blindness, ie, a blinding white as a milky sea never known
that spreads rapidly as epidemic. The government decides to act, and infected persons
are placed in a quarantined with limited resources when it will slowly unravel the
primitive characteristics of the human being.
The force of the epidemic does not diminish with the actions taken by the government
and quickly makes the world blind, where only a woman, mysterious and secretly keep
your vision, experiencing all the horrors that will be caused, visually seeing all the
feelings that unfold in work: power, obedience, greed, love, desire, shame, dominant,
dominated, subjugated and subduers. In this quarantine these feelings will develop in
different ways: fights between groups for the little available food, compassion for the
sick and the needy, such as the elderly or children, embarrassment attitudes that before
would never committed acts of violence and sexual abuse, deaths.
When finally get out of the former hospice where the government placed her in
quarantine, a woman is faced with all the city infected with corpses, trash, debris, all
kinds of dirt and filth. The blind began to follow their animal instincts, and survived as
nomads, settling in unfamiliar stores or homes. Saramago shows, through this work, the
reactions of human needs, the inability, powerlessness, contempt and neglect. Also
leads us to reflect on the moral, mores, ethics and prejudice through the eyes of the main
character, the doctor's wife, who stumbles along the narrative with unacceptable
situations. She kills to preserve her and to others, is faced with the death of bizarre
ways, like corpses scattered in the streets and fires. The work ends when suddenly, just
the order of contagion, the blind world gives way to the filthy and barbaric world.
However, traces and memories do not fade.
The scenario depicted by Saramago in his work draws an analogy with blindness we
live in the world and in particular in Brazil. Face Brazil today at the risk of blindness
(blind world Saramago) dominating rulers and ruled lead the institutional political
backlash (filthy and barbaric world Saramago) that may result as a consequence of the
worsening economic, social and political crisis that contaminate the powers of the
Republic. The blindness that dominates the rulers of Brazil is reflected in the fact to
adopt neoliberal and anti-national economic policy inaugurated in 1994 in the
government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) and maintained in the Lula and
Dilma Rousseff governments that is contributing to the country present dismal
economic growth annual rates of 1.45 % from 1994 to 2012, promoting the accelerated
industrialization of the country and increasing denationalization of the Brazilian
economy and the privatization of ports, airports and highways and also oil from pre -salt
layer due to insufficient public resources for investment.
The blindness of the federal government and its allies is so great that they do not take
any action to counter the deteriorating macroeconomic situation in Brazil that presents
quite vulnerable at the prospect of increasing deficits in trade and balance of payments
on current account that become Brazil increasingly dependent on foreign capital being
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2. that is attracted by the federal government to cover these deficits. To make matters
worse, half of foreign direct investment in Brazil is used by foreign companies to
acquire Brazilian companies weakened by competition in the domestic market and
imported products more competitive. It is this process of deterioration of the balance of
payments that feeds the denationalization of the Brazilian economy that increase every
day. The recent progression of the deficit in the balance of payments current account
causes concern because its evolution in the medium and long term may become
unsustainable financing the current account deficit with external resources, thus
contributing to the reduction of international reserves, which would then be used to
cover this deficit.
The blindness of the federal government is so large that it takes no action to reverse the
deterioration of public accounts intended that each year nearly 50 % of the Union
budget for the payment of interest and amortization of public debt. In 2013, the biggest
expenses are provided by the Brazilian government with interest and amortization of
debt corresponding to 43.98 % of the budget, on social welfare corresponding to 22.47
% of the budget and transfers to states and municipalities that match 10.21 % of the
budget. Given this situation, there isn’t sufficient availability of public resources to
invest in economic infrastructure (energy, transport and communications) and social
(education, health, sanitation and housing). It is this situation that makes the federal
government woefully adopt neoliberal policies of privatization of infrastructure of ports,
airports and highways and oil exploration of pre -salt layer.
While the economic situation deteriorates every day that goes by, the social situation is
also aggravated by the increase in the unemployment rate that was 4.6 % of the
economically active population in December 2012 and reached 5.6% in February 2013
and the income remains highly concentrated despite the income distribution policy with
the “Bolsa Familia” program (20 % of the richest population of Brazil holds 67 % of
national income and the poorest 20 % own only 2 % of national income). To complete
the grave social situation of Brazil notes the existence of high crime in which Brazil had
the highest index worldwide with an annual rate of about 22 homicides per 100,000
inhabitants while the United States and France, considered examples, record 6 and 0.7
murders respectively. The blindness of the rulers of Brazil, the PT and allied parties is
so great that they present the great achievement of the government the social inclusion
promoted by the “Bolsa Familia” program disregarding the obvious failure of public
policies in the economic and social fields.
The blindness of the rulers of Brazil and their supporters reached the heights recently
with the attempt to disqualify the Supreme Court, and particularly its chairman,
Joaquim Barbosa, who made the decision to arrest the "mensaleiros". Proponents of
"mensaleiros" claim that there was exception judgment and that there was no evidence
that the incriminating. Those who followed the judgment of the Supreme Court knows
that this statement is false because criminals relied on the highly paid defense lawyers
and even ministers of the Supreme Court appointed by Lula and Dilma Rousseff
governments. All "mensaleiros" were convicted based on evidence and testimony.
Proponents of "mensaleiros" are blind to the undisputed facts of the "mensalão crime".
The attitude of the advocates of "mensaleiros" is to try to save (blindly) the face of a
party and a government that has lost the confidence of the nation.
The blindness characterized by a lack of attitude of the rulers of Brazil and their
supporters in search of solution to avoid the economic, social and political deterioration
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3. can lead to ongoing institutional political backlash with the advent of filthy and barbaric
world cited by Saramago. We must not forget that the economic crisis of 1929 led to the
end of the Old Republic and the advent of the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas (19301945) and the economic crisis in the early 1960s led to the advent of the military
dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. We must prevent the economic, social and political
deterioration of the contemporary era lead Brazil to a new regime of exception, the
unclean and barbaric world cited by Saramago. It is for the federal government and civil
society to prevent this scenario from happening.
*
Alcoforado, Fernando, engineer and doctor of Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the
University of Barcelona, a university professor and consultant in strategic planning, business planning,
regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo,
1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do
desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,
http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel,
São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era
Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social
Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG,
Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora,
Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global
(Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011) and Os Fatores Condicionantes do
Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), among others.
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