By LUIZ EDUARDO SOARES*
Note of tribute to the recently deceased sociologist from Rio
Friends, we lost, yesterday, February 21st, a giant: Luiz Jorge Werneck Vianna, at 86 years old. A lifetime dedicated to thinking about Brazil and changing this unequal and violent country. He was the one who welcomed me into the Brazilian communist party in the 1970s, in hiding. He was the one who taught me to analyze the situation, distinguish between tactics and strategy, reread Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci with my eyes on the present, without dogmatism.
His courage, his independence, his critical spirit, his devotion to the collective cause – dreaming of a renewed, open and Brazilian socialism – were and are examples for my generation and those that follow. In everything he did he put all his passion. It was lucidity, intelligence, commitment and passion.
A discreet but transgressive scholar, an exuberant factory of affection and generosity, sometimes disguised by the harshness of his outbursts. I don't know anyone more ethical in carrying out their academic role, no one more averse to careerist calculations and pusillanimous accommodations, no one more honest.
I had the extraordinary privilege of being his student, friend and companion, and of learning from him, even when we differed. In recent times, when health problems limited him, he remained optimistic, absolutely confident in a radically democratic and socialist future despite everything. Luiz Jorge Werneck Werneck leaves, leaving us desolate and much poorer, but, as he might have said: he leaves full of hope in the work of history.
All the tributes we pay to his memory will be insufficient to repay what we owe him. He leaves us as a legacy, which we have the duty not to renounce, his moving secular faith in the popular classes and in the creative potential of politics, combined with critical thinking. Dear Werneck, the huge contingent of your students, colleagues, comrades and friends, as long as we have strength, we will be in the fight and, standing, hearing his name, we will say, together: present!
* Luiz Eduardo Soares is an anthropologist, political scientist and writer. Former national secretary of public security. Author, among other books, of Demilitarize: public security and human rights (boitempo) [https://amzn.to/4754KdV]
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