By CHICO ALENCAR*
We are a country of people who know their finitude, but do not accept dying of abandonment, hunger, neglect, deforestation, before their time.
We are a country of Marias, of Quincas, of Antônias, of Seraphim. From sissy yes! Even bullies, like Nhô Augusto Matraga, Rosa's character, who liked to take everything for granted, but softened with the blows of life. And he finally learned to love his equal (some, I'm sorry, are hopeless cases of structural inhumanity).
We are a country of Science, of Santos Dumont, of Nise da Silveira, of Carlos Chagas, of Osvaldo Cruz, of Butantan, of Fiocruz. From research at universities, to benefit everyone, with equality. We are a country even of denialists and flat earthers, apart from reality, who dwindle in their mediocrity.
We are a country open to the world, which praises and uses the compass, printing, paper and even gunpowder that the Chinese Civilization bequeathed to Humanity. We do not accept the reverse gear of precariousness.
We want the advances in Health, in Medicine, that help us to exist with quality – from any origin and nationality. We want everything that comes to “relieve the weariness of existence”, as Brecht's Galileo said, who faced the far from holy Inquisition but did not lose consciousness.
We are a country of people who are aware of their finitude, but who do not accept dying of abandonment, hunger, neglect, deforestation, before their time. From people who want, from life, the delight, and not the sinister plot of the militia.
We are a wiser people than the clumsy autocrats who think they rule us. These will pass!
Our dreams don't fit in the urns, but they also go there, rebels, to increase the nightmares of those who think they are eternal.
Yes, we are all going to die one day. Including the truculent and neo-fascists who try to steal vaccines and joy from us.
They will remain, forgotten, in the garbage of History. Our causes – of justice, equality, fraternity – surpass us: they will remain in memory, they will be our perennial standard of glory.
* Chico Alencar Professor of History at UFRJ, writer and former federal deputy (PSOL/RJ).
