Collective Manifesto – Professor and Students – Anthropology Department – Federal University of Santa Catarina – Brazil
We, the faculty and students of the Anthropology Department at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, deeply concerned with the current state of our nation, join our voices to the protest coming from many universities and research centers in defense of the restoration of legal due processes and the democratic state in Brazil.
We reject a government that seized power through a strategy whose pernicious intentions are becoming more clear day by day. The coup was perpetrated by the conjoined forces of a parliament mired in corruption and whose representativeness is weakened by an already skewed electoral system, and a corrupting economic elite, upset by the few social advancements of the historically underprivileged sectors of our population. The outcome of the coup has been an alarmingly quick withdrawal of several of the social rights secured through long struggles in recent years. The government in power, nominally described as interim, has been acting as if it had been elected, initiating a process of ‘reform’ that severely attacks the areas of education, science, arts, culture and a broad range of social rights, fundamental pillars of a truly democratic society. In solidarity with other movements in Brazil, we do not recognize the legitimacy of this government, not least for its imposition of a program of changes which has been rejected by the population in all recent elections.
We are assailed everyday by horrible news from Brasília: the extinction of Ministries and governmental offices essential to the social advancement, development and sovereignty of our nation; cuts to public investments in health care and education; the undermining of environmental concerns in favor of immediate economic interests; the dismantling of already precarious minority rights; and, above all, the implementation of government policies absolutely contrary to the will of the people as expressed through their votes.
We are organizing a series of activities to make public our demand for an immediate end to this reversal of social improvements obtained under the last governments, and to foment a critical debate about the present reality of our nation, the future that is being currently designed and the alternatives we can devise from our recent experiences. We consider of the utmost importance that academics and society in general stand together against the imposed setbacks, and in favor of popular sovereignty, the principles of the Republic, social rights and equality within diversity, so that we can together build a truly democratic, just and plural Brazilian nation.
The internationally recognized scientific knowledge produced in Brazil is extremely important for the social advancement and sovereignty of the nation, but it is being systematically undermined by the actions of the interim government. We thus urge all scientific associations who collectively represent our colleagues from other fields, to express their commitment to the advancement of our nation and to join us in our protest against the unacceptable rejection of the people’s will by such acts of government and to stand in defense of the people’s legitimate power to choose its government and policies.
