Publisher: Lipset and a litter chocolate for Brazilian democracy

For some time now, out of duty, identification and conviction, I have read a lot about democratic regimes. I note that there are many more convergences than differences among scholars, especially when the stability or ruin of this system of government is under discussion. Among the variables pointed out, which could guarantee its stability, of course, the so-called substantive or economic democracy, related to the distribution of income in a given society; the framework and health of the institutions that support the democratic regime, which provide the balance and distribution of power, thus avoiding tyranny; the pattern of harassment or impairment of individual and collective rights and guarantees, governed by the Constitution; regular and clean elections (without the use of fake news, preferably with the participation of competitive actors, without the use of legal devices to remove them from the lawsuit); a less corrupt political system and, indeed, identified with the yearnings of the average population. What we have today, in reality, when we reason in terms of the Brazilian political system, are lobbyists, financed and identified with corporate interests of the dark, of no republican nature; and last but not least, the so-called educational opportunities, which is highlighted by the political scientist Martin Lipset, a thesis with which I have a great deal of affinity. Naturally, our Lipset is that of childhood in the slums of New York, of working life, of deprivations of youth, of flirting with Marxism.

Notice that all the variables pointed above diverge deeply from the current capitalist logic, translated in some way into the nefarious ultraliberal policies, whose adoption would only be feasible in a regime of force, therefore authoritarian, hence this conservative wave that sweeps the world, with reflexes here in Brazil. Never could the proposals of this indecent agenda be discussed in public square. But, let's get back to Lipset and its educational opportunities. By the year 2013, when sectors of the economic and political elite - with the support of the crazy middle class and international banking - joined forces for the skirmishes that would undermine the still fragile experience of country democracy - we had made significant strides in this area, promoting the largest enrollment program for impoverished black youth in the Brazilian university system.

In addition to the fact that it represented in itself a broad program of educational opportunities, it faced the brunt of the structural racism of Brazilian society, the only indicator in which we have progressed in relation to the black race in these more than five centuries of the existence of a country simulacrum called Brazil. Hence we can also understand the anger of conservative sectors of our slave elite ever since they played on the cushion to prevent the advances and achievements obtained by the bottom floor of the social pyramid. During this period of openness and educational opportunities, there was a real revolution in the country, since 83% of the parents of these young people did not have access to higher education, as surveyed by a research institution linked to the Ministry of Education itself. There are, in fact, many strokes of mercy in the fragile Brazilian democracy, but certainly the recent cuts in masters and doctoral scholarships, as well as in the funding of public universities, is one of those bitter chocolates that gradually lead to the collapse of our democratic institutions.

Nor do I come here to the merit of university autonomy, as well as to the issue of academic freedom - constitutional principles that accredit the IFES as natural districts as a counterpoint to authoritarian advances - but also because, by virtue of public policies of an inclusive nature, these academic spaces become spaces of diversity, of plurality of opinions, non-segregationist. Apparently, some symptoms of schizophrenia may be observed in the conduct of a government that wishes to place the country in the select OECD club, while reducing funding costs, cutting scholarship and master's research grants, reducing our participation in the rankings academic excellence, as well as in the university education of its population. A strategic sector that, as Professor Wilson Gomes has observed, nor the military in 1964 dared to move, despite idiosyncrasies with teachers.