Ephemeral nationalism
01/10/2005Since the beginning of the year, the Brazilian government decided to start filing Americans who disembarked in Brazil. The consequences of this determination, as well as its motivations, attracted special attention from Brazilian society and with each new event, spirits intensified and showed interesting issues such as the emergence of ephemeral and uncritical nationalism.
Soon on the day 08 of January, Secretary of State Colin Powell had telephoned Chancellor Celso Amorin to ask about the record of Americans in Brazil, algo que ele classificava como "discriminatório". The conversation was apparently conducted in a friendly tone even though the Brazilian chancellor reaffirmed his request for suspension by the US government of the US-Visit, practice similar to that adopted by the Brazilian government, or better, for justice as he tried to explain the chancellor.
Apart from the rhetorical exercises on each side, certainly this issue goes beyond the mere legal formalities of the Brazilian government. This can be easily perceived when the interministerial decree was published in an extra edition of the Official Gazette of the Union that annulled the position contrary to the record presented by the judge Catão Alves, president of the Federal Regional Court (TRF) da 1ª region. Like this, identification was again required according to the principle of reciprocity.
The city hall of the city of Rio de Janeiro, apparently concerned with the discomfort of American tourists in the face of records, she hurried to recover the same climate experienced during the arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil and started to distribute the most varied trinkets at Tom Jobim International Airport.
In a beautiful demonstration of subordination and ignorance of the issues really involved in this imbroglio, o subsecretário estadual de Turismo Nilo Sérgio Félix afirmou que essa "é uma forma carinhosa de dar boas-vindas. Queremos mostrar ao turista americano que sabemos recebê-lo".
The warm welcome to which the Under-Secretary refers, in addition to involving the trinkets it also has a samba performance, well to the tourist style of little clothes and very shaky. It seems, seems to have been a good reception as it pleased most tourists, who have now declared to know a little more about Brazil: um Brasil caraicato, who has no respect for himself and who turns his own disgrace into a source of national pride.
The position taken by American Airlines commander Dale Robbin Hersh and his crew (who refused to go through the identification process and had their entry prohibited in Brazil) are facts that hinder even more serious analysis of what is happening. The most common version we hear about all this is the revenge type: "se eles podem fazer isso conosco, nós também vamos fazer com eles". If we take this thought to the extreme, we will take the liberty of killing murderers or doing anything that others have already done, regardless of the merits of the issue.
The principle of reciprocity must be much more linked to mutual respect than the justification for doing what we want. Certainly, the attitude of the pilot and other Americans is not the right one and the Brazilian authorities acted correctly in making the law respected and prohibiting the entry of these people in Brazil.. However, as long as we insist on seeing such actions with a taste of revenge and satisfaction for finally having responded, we will continue with this ephemeral and mushy nationalism.
Brazil and Brazilians should be valued for their qualities – what, ali & aacute; s, are many – and not by answers. The greatness of a people is in the wisdom it accumulates to solve its problems and in the help it offers to the progress of Humanity. To think that today we are a better country because we had the courage to respond to Americans in kind is to lose ourselves in the little facts that will be forgotten next season.
Daily: while the press and pseudo-elites are proud of the response we gave to the Americans and the carioca government demonstrates its subordination, Brazil continues to wait for a country project.
Moral of the Hist & oacute; ria: It seems, real Brazil is not yet up to touristic Brazil.
Council Liter & aacute; rio:
Most administrations have been shut down, and even by what seems sometimes enemies of each other, and doing each one as you please, and according to momentary whims, or individual interests: from here it comes that all the provisions and desires of our august sovereigns have failed; that the huge consigned leather has been dilapidated many, many times, serving as hereditary prebends and simple benefits to many useless and incapable men.
Memory of the need and usefulness of planting new forests in Portugal- José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva
Memory of the need and usefulness of planting new forests in Portugal- José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva
Originally published in:
magazine Author (www.revistaautor.com.br)
Pol & iacute; tica
Yes IV – nº 32 / February 2004