We are a unique people in several
aspects. Some popular observations are correct. Among us there are "laws that
diffuse" and "laws that don't diffuse", it depends on to whom will it be
applied. The rigidity of the law shocks with the
“Brazilian way o life", based on favor, in the troubleshooter.
Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda
aims some characteristics of our social formation in the classic "Raízes do
Brasil ". We are a cordial people, very informal in many ways. However other
nations treat each other formally, in Brazil people are know by nickname
diminutive, instead of the honorary, for instance: "Seu Luizinho", "Dona
Candinha"...
Even saints amongst us deserve
this treatment, like Santa Terezinha, for example.
The transplantation of an
Iberian society to Latin America brought some peculiarities and singularities.
After more than 700 years of Islamic dominance, male domination over women still
reigns today in societies of Iberian origin like ours.
The need of the implantation
of slave labor made such a mess with the value of the manual work. The decadent
nobility or the emergent lusitanian bourgeoisie didn't want to dirty their hands
with rude labor and so they have dedicated themselves into activities of the
spirit or even the dolce far niente.
In comparison with the people
of the North - specially Canadian and North-Americans – we are "sowers", while
those people are the "builders". We Sowed the earth, we sowed cities, but our
care with details of the finish and maintenance is far away distant... In our
favor the fact of the sowing produce full fruits, providing work close to for a
long time in the crop. In comparison, "builder", after concluding the
construction work, his only duty is to leave it for the neighbor.
The Brazilian is cordial,
affectionate, frank and friend, to the point of European, Japanese managers and
North Americans are always astonished because they need, before doing business,
to firm companionship liaisons, the Brazilian manager's friends be turned as
conditio sine qua non, for the accomplishment in the business. It is
that the Brazilian doesn't get to separate the public's dimensions and that of
the private dimension. The manager is the citizen and the company all the
same and to be friend of the company speeds up the negotiations. Such thing
doesn't occur in the First World. The dimension of the friendship, of the
companionship, finally, is completely different from that of the world of the
business. For there it is correct to affirm, differently of our practice: "
Friends, friends, business to the part..."
Beside that we have regional
differences. In Rio de Janeiro, for example, the beach simplifies the intimacy
among the people (it is complicated to be formal in summary clothes, like bath
suits!) and that invites permanently not to forget the ludic dimension. In São
Paulo, to the opposite, the distance of the sea and the crowded noise of the
city invites to the accomplishment of business even in elegant dinners, with
people appropriately dressed and things as such.
In the whole way the study of
the characteristics of the Brazilian fascinates so much that no one would dare
to propose an alteration of our peculiarities. We are like this. Intimists,
respectful to the law since it is known with who are we speaking to, boisterous
in our relationships, lacks us discretion and even the sense of ridiculous
morality that arrives to a process of impeachment of a president for a small
married infidelity. Such is not important to us, on the contrary! In terra
brasilis, Bill Clinton would receive applauses and praises, for his
performance in this dimension! Not for the economic politics that he captains
and FHC obeyed like a dog, but for the ability in defending his parents'
national interests between a marriage infidelity and another.
I am proud of being Brazilian.
Here we are everybody’s friends and the Hindu adage informs that we are
everybody as branches of the same tree or waves of the same ocean. No one could
find more fertile and favorable echo to that in other places.
It lacks us, naturally, an
only one and solidificating massive movement, a solid faith in patriotic values,
for example. In this sense the government FHC have got right when he intended to
revive the cultural rootses of our civism, raped by the regimen of exception
from 1964-1982. If in that period, "the plumbean years", civism was synonymous
of repression or agreement no critical with the regimen implanted bye force,
today we still seeking the restoration of the most genuine patriotic values...
Politically, under José Sarney we
lived years historically known as "Lost Age". Under FCH it was a "Evil Age".
Under Lula da Silva we live a "Treason Age".
I cry for my people.
Versão em português aqui.
