By ANSELMO PESSOA NETO*
Respect is what our consciences will demand from the candidates in the upcoming election for the Rectorship of our institution.
The voting season has opened at the Federal University of Goiás (UFG). What we should hope for ourselves is that candidates respect the public in the university environment, which, in theory, should be much, much more critical than the general public in elections for municipal, state and federal positions. We pride ourselves on having a more refined critical conscience, after all, we have our doctorates, we have done this and that in life, we teach some subjects, we conduct our focused research.
In other words, with the specificity of what we do, we feed our ego in an enormous way, even when we do not follow the city's politics, when we know nothing about what is happening in the world. Even when we do not know how to read a newspaper and identify the entire game of interests behind what is being broadcast. Even if, when we follow politics, our behavior is that of fans, of die-hard supporters.
Well, since everything I said above is not true, we will react: we will not accept demagoguery, blatant lies, or mystifying electoral propaganda commissioned by junior marketers without senior supervision. If we have respect for ourselves, respect is what our consciences will demand from the candidates in the upcoming election for the Rectorship of our institution.
From the future, because until the last elections everything has been corny: from the infamous “collective construction” of the management project, to the propaganda pieces that abuse melodrama in an institution that prides itself on its professorial tone when giving lessons on everything from traffic, to janitorial services, to architecture and urban planning, without looking at its own navel and its internal chaos. We are on the verge of consolidating ourselves as an institution that has chosen jingoism without rhyme or reason as its motto. That preaches to the wicked from an altar with weak legs. And where no one openly stands up against such a state of affairs out of fear.
And there are many who call this corporatism, full of much, much voluntarism, democracy. George Orwell's Newspeak has never been so abused. But they don't even know it, they've never heard of George Orwell. It's just the old survival instinct. Surviving on discourse, that's the motto. Reality is out of the question, says the artificial power.
Those close to power say amen and the majority remain silent. The show must go on. The Trojan horse has entered our universities, opened its doors, the soldiers have descended, are deliberately mistaken for saviors of the nation and advance. It is still relatively comfortable to believe in the fairy tale of the privileged institution, a pretense that does not resemble the Poet.
If the silenced majority were to wake up, it would be to realize that it is too late. The university has neither the funding nor the courageous brains to say enough is enough, to say that we need to discuss a project that, in fact, examines the role of a higher education institution funded with public money. The first step would be to open the accounts and tell the entire surrounding society: the institution is bankrupt!
Of the three items that make up the university budget, namely, personnel (salaries), investment and operating costs, the only item that remains is that of salaries, with the gap that the strike of technicians and teachers in 2024 exposed. Of the three items, operating costs are the most affected, followed by passi passu under the heading of investment. And it is the costing that allows the manager to manage. Without costing, demagoguery is practiced, lies are committed, and lies are exaggerated. Therefore, a true electoral debate should begin by clarifying with what money the promises will be made. With what means will the promise of delivering the other boot be fulfilled? Because the first boot, as we know, will be symbolic, guaranteed by the loudmouth and unbridled marketing.
In the previous government, with a public plan to assassinate public universities, it was easy. All you had to do was blame the government, which was effectively responsible for the financial disaster, but only the financial one, and the matter would be resolved. Now, no, you can't blame President Lula's government. What he promised during his campaign regarding universities was just campaign promises, and campaign promises are just campaign promises...
Those who promote fundraising through public notices and other programs – actions that go beyond the constitutional obligation to guarantee quality standards in education – fail to mention that public notice money is profoundly unsustainable. The maintenance of the spaces or equipment that come from these projects, when the public notice money runs out, or when the project does not provide for maintenance, falls back on the same source: the operating money, which does not exist. And the disaster increases. But when this happens, the magic word that serves to make beautiful speeches disappears from the map: no one, or almost no one, talks about sustainability on these occasions.
Every new campaign is a new opportunity to revive the rites and the faith, the sorcerers' apprentices tell us. What they don't tell us is that it is very difficult to put the devil back in the bottle!
The list of problems deserves a much more in-depth discussion; here I will only point out pressing issues. Will fear win once again, or will we create spaces for a realistic, open discussion about our deep commitments to the development of the country and the majority of the people during and after the university electoral process?
* Anselmo Pessoa Neto is a full professor of literature at UFG. Author of, among other books, Landscapes of neorealism: Graciliano Ramos and Carlos de Oliveira (CEB-UFG Publisher). [https://amzn.to/425QW3n]
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