High authority to regenerate Rio Grande do Sul

Image: Pille Kirsi
Whatsapp
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Telegram

By TARSUS GENUS*

To the men and women who reject fascism and reject a life besieged by fear, let us offer a pact in defense of the nation, against eco-environmental destruction and in defense of a good life with nature

The idea of ​​having a High State Authority to promote the physical and productive reconstruction of Rio Grande do Sul, combined with the project of establishing – from the National State – the construction program of a conception of eco-environmental economic development, with high rates of Growth and productive inclusion are not only convergent, but necessary to design the future of the State and the country.

Just as the progress of a country is not measured by the fortunes of the richest, but by the standard of living and happiness of its poorest, the concrete greatness of a head of state is not measured by the well-being of the people. of his nation in the normal moments of national life. It is measured by its ability to organically react to tragedies that threaten the survival of its nation, besieged by its enemies or by unpredictable natural disasters.

And it is measured by understanding the advances that historical or natural tragedies also generate in the nation he leads. On June 22, 1941, German troops, with 73 divisions – more than three million soldiers from Germany, plus 650 thousand Romanians and many others from Finland, Italy and Croatia – put an end to the “Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact”. It was an attempt to overthrow the Soviet regime and occupy its vast and rich territory, taking another step towards establishing the Reich of barbarism, which was supposed to last a thousand years.

Stalin's epic speech resounded across the planet, calling for both guerrilla warfare against the occupying enemy and the cohesion of the USSR Armies to defend the nation: “Our people must not know fear in battle and must join our war patriotic liberation against the fascist slaveholders”, said Josef Stalin.

Hunger, in the American crisis of 1929, brought thousands of people to their knees in the streets, in squares, in the fields, in the vast and small cities of the American territory, where despair and disorder raged. It was the motivation for a major scare in the “American dream” (one in four people in the workforce was unemployed) when 4.305 large and small banks went bankrupt and thousands of factories closed their doors.

President Roosevelt's epic speech proposes an “anti-crisis pact”, defending a “strong” State to respond to the dramatic situation that was going through the country: “I ask Congress for the only weapon that remains to combat the crisis, a broad decision-making power to combat the war against danger, a power as broad as that which would be granted to me if our nation were invaded by an enemy army”, says the President. Here we do not need these exceptional powers, but a political pact within social democracy.

The epic speeches of the two heads of state referred to different situations – in length and drama – to what is happening here in Rio Grande do Sul, but they constitute speeches about an analogous situation. It is a call for responsibilities to be assumed by the people and political leaders of a nation – with the same responsibilities to be demanded of the people and political leaders of a region, in times of disaster and crisis.

The hecatomb of Porto Alegre and Rio Grande do Sul does not have the same extent as the American situation in the 1929 Crisis, nor the same situation as the Soviet Union attacked by the Nazis, but for the people affected in their way of life and in their material existence However, it has the same destructive and deadly potential as a war.

Here it is nature taking the bill for the global climate crisis, in a territory unprepared to resist, although the region has not been attacked by any military or paramilitary force, of a fascist nature. Here the military was and is fundamental in resisting the events closest to the tragedy and the climate and health deniers, although they interfered, worsened the situation in the territory with their administrative inertia and their satanic waves of fake news. And they were hidden by the preliminary absolution that the mainstream press offered them – and continues to offer – in the toughest moments of the crisis.

We have two paths in front of us. The first would be to conform to the reconstruction of the state with the development model that hegemonized the political elites of the right and conservatism here in the State and that naturalized – both in the popular layers and in the most elite groups in the city – the destruction of the public functions of the state. State, climate and health denialism, as well as the culture of consumerist and gentrifying individualism in our public space. It is the culture that a mayor is a “syndicator” who facilitates private business.

The second is the most complex and most difficult to lead and execute, but it is the only one capable of reversing – from Rio Grande do Sul – the demolition of Brazil. It is about offering the country, its workers, entrepreneurs interested in development with income generation, the most open sectors of civil society, those disinherited by poverty and exclusion, those who think about a shared future, including the cognitively disabled of all areas, a new bloc of national political power that is born from the difficulties that we must overcome to return to being better than we are.

To the men and women who reject fascism and reject a life besieged by fear – within a renewed democracy – let us offer a pact in defense of the nation, against eco-environmental destruction and a pact in defense of a good life with nature, for the future of our children and grandchildren.

A project like this can only be instituted with the authority of the President of the Republic, to be supported by those national and global political institutions, public and private, that link – to a greater or lesser degree – their profits and their lives, to the regeneration of the life on the planet. It is the culture in which a mayor and a governor are not mere “syndics” of privatism, but articulators of the public and the private to raise the reason of State to the level of the needs of society, especially the most unequal.

We need an epic normative speech whose narrative is the idea of ​​the nation: a speech that encourages, next year – starting in Rio Grande do Sul – the organization of a public entity that reports directly to the President, to create solutions compatible with the size of our tragedy, as can be expected from the leaders of great nations.

Both Roosevelt and Stalin, in those specific moments, defended the future of their country and its people, to overcome the world of improbable generosity and the offensive of the thousand-headed fascist hydra. So that we can save ourselves together by building a new Brazil!

*Tarsus in law he was governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, mayor of Porto Alegre, Minister of Justice, Minister of Education and Minister of Institutional Relations in Brazil. Author, among other books, of possible utopia (Arts & Crafts). [https://amzn.to/3ReRb6I]


the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE

See all articles by

10 MOST READ IN THE LAST 7 DAYS

See all articles by

SEARCH

Search

TOPICS

NEW PUBLICATIONS