As one of the only Brazilians at Vassar, I felt I had to write my first article to explain why my home country that I hold close to my heart – for lack of a better expression – is a complete mess. Now, I can hear you thinking to yourself: “Wait, the Brazil of Pelé, samba and beautiful girls as far as the eye can see? That Brazil?” Yes, that’s the one! And it’s not a total mess because of the humiliating 7-1 loss against Germany in the World Cup (which we won’t be discussing any further, thank you very much).
Now don’t get me wrong; like all Brazilians, I love my country. I love the memories I created there over more than 15 years — the people, the weird sense of patriotism, the obsession with soccer, all of it. Even though all those things are still true, images of samba and beaches have been replaced in my mind by corruption, recession, poverty, and crime. I’m not one of those people who insult the country he’s from, but even my most patriotic friends have to admit that it’s not a good time to live in Brazil. I’ve always wanted to go back to Brazil after college, but every day I question that decision more and more. Funnily enough, all of the reasons why I don’t want to go back are the exact same reasons why I have to go back.
I don’t want to go back because I don’t want to live in a country where you have to bulletproof your car to feel safe. I don’t want to be afraid to leave my house, knowing that getting mugged is an almost certainty. This unfortunate reality is even more disturbing when you see that a substantial amount of these criminals are, no joke, ten to sixteen year olds. Contrary to popular belief, though, lowering the minimum age you can be tried as an adult, a decision that passed as law in Brazil, won’t make crime go away (I’m looking at you, Andrew Cuomo). It’s like taking painkillers and expecting them to cure a broken leg, a temporary solution to a much deeper problem. That’s why I have to go back with a solution to these problems, aggressive reform of the educational system and prison system, both of which have been broken for too long.
I don’t want to go back home because I want to live in a country where corruption isn’t such an everyday occurrence that no one is even surprised when our Creature from the Black Lagoon of a president, Dilma Rousseff, or her ruling Workers’ Party (PT), does something ridiculous like calling cassava “one of Brazil’s greatest conquests,” (yeah, that happened) or using 250 million dollars in taxpayer money to build a soccer stadium in the middle of the Amazon. If I were to talk in depth about all the stupid stuff Dilma says, it would fill up a 300-something page book. So, I decided to create a top five list of her stupidest quotes to save time. These are all true; I’m not making any of this up:
5. “Thirteen minus four equals seven, right?”
4. (When asked why she didn’t keep her campaign promises) “The Brazilian people need to accept that there are certain things that are beyond my control.”
3. “The way I see it, we need to sit in a room with the leaders of ISIS and talk it out.”
2. “It is without a doubt that the environment poses a threat to sustainable development.”
1. “I told President Obama that, when toothpaste comes out of the dispenser, it’s really hard for it to go back in.”
It’s a sad reality that Brazil is in the quagmire that it’s in. Honestly, the Brazilian people deserve better. That’s the biggest reason why I don’t want to and, consequently, have to go back home. Brazil deserves better than politicians like Dilma, who almost single handedly bankrupted the country and ruined Brazil’s most important “too big to fail” company, oil giant Petrobras, with the biggest corruption scandal in the country’s history. Brazil deserves better than a Congress that ends meetings with prayer, where “because the Bible says so” is considered a legit political argument. Brazil deserves better than public figures like Silas Malafaia and Jair Bolsonaro, who both think that there is a gay conspiracy going on that they have to stop. Brazilians deserves a country without politicians with their heads so far up their own butts that they want to illegalize gay pride parades, as they see it as disrespectful to Christianity. They deserve to not have to reelect politicians they hate out of fear that the government will take their benefits away. In short, they deserve leaders that treat them with at least a little bit of human decency.
By the time I graduate, I hope to be the leader that Brazil not only needs, but also deserves. I hope to make an impact in the country I love and help get it out of this rut it’s in. Despite its problems, I see the hope in the eyes of Brazilian men, women, and children that makes me want to come back. With that, I’ll just end by saying: see you soon, Brazil!
