Letter From Brazil: Brazilian Students Protest Against New Governments Austerity Measures
Written by Mayra Cotta Cardozo De Souza, Ph.D. Student in Politics at NSSR, and TCDS Program Assistant.
Just a little more than a month after Brazilian President Dilma Roussef was ousted by the Congress and the center-right opposition party PMDB took hold of the government, the new President, Michel Temer, sent Congress a proposal aimed at amending the Constitution and freezing public spending. According to the measure, the government is prohibited from increasing spending for the next twenty years. Under worn-out mottos like fiscal responsibility and investment recovery, the country is bowing to an agenda of austerity and cuts in social programs. Another significant change brought by the amendment is the end of mandatory spending with Health and Education defined in terms of a percentile of the government’s revenue.
Professor Laura Carvalho, of the University of São Paulo, who holds a PhD in Economics from the New School for Social Research, wrote in her weekly column in Folha de São Paulo, the most widely read newspaper in Brazil, that this constitutional amendment is not only inadequate to stabilize public debt or reduce inflation, but that it might actually make things worse. According to her expert analysis, the easy-fix contained in the government’s proposal ignores what is actually responsible for the deterioration of Brazil’s fiscal health, i.e. lack of economic growth, decline of tax revenue and visit https://www.topcanadianpharmacy.org/product/cialis/.
The measure has not yet passed, but students, teachers, professors, researchers and health professionals can already foresee its consequences. Combined with the amendment, the government has also sent to Congress a proposal to reform education, which will ultimately impair schools’ infrastructure and reduce the quality of teaching. In Universities, research programs and scholarships will be significantly gutted. The already fragile SUS – Brazilian Public Health System – will perish beyond repair if further investments stop. Health services for people who do not have private health insurance is seriously in danger.
Brazilian students, however, will not silently watch while their country’s un-elected government puts into place an austerity agenda that was refuted at the ballot box. At this moment, more than 1,000 high schools and universities are being occupied to protest against this amendment to the constitution. Holding public lectures and collectively organizing classes and cultural activities, high school students and undergraduates are striking against the government’s lack of investment and serious interest in education. They are occupying buildings and classrooms as a way of not only calling into attention the problem but also opening up the debate to the community, so it can reverberate and penetrate the formal institutions.
So far they have been remarkably successful. At the University of Brasilia, a historical assembly of more than 1,500 students decided to adhere to the wave of protest. Right now, they are at the Dean’s Building organizing and planning to stay put until Congress rejects the government proposal. In 2008, students of the same University were able to overthrow a Dean who was being charged for corruption, and the movement further grew into an occupation of the local Assembly that culminated into the ousting of the state’s Governor who was caught on tape receiving bribes. This new occupation of the University, which is located in the country’s capital and was the focus of resistance during the dictatorship, has a significant importance. The students’ struggle will definitely keep rising and spreading across the country. The fight against austerity is not an easy one, but leave it to the youth to teach us about conquering the impossible.
