A Breach in the Stifling Room – Folha de S. Paulo, May 31, 1983

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Layered one on top of the other, I hold in my mind two entirely recent impressions… and as different as possible.

However, one of them, deeply intriguing, is far from pleasant. It highlights the ideological suffocation, nervous overload, and chronic instability—more psychological and moral than socioeconomic—of our major urban centers. Specifically, that of São Paulo during those psychologically polluted days when “hungry” people raided jewelry stores, mid- to low-end “upscale” shops, photography supply stores, and even a few grocery stores.

That impression—which, like the twelve million residents of São Paulo, I personally experienced during the tragic and chaotic days of April 4–8—rushed back to me when, a few days ago, I saw in the TFP auditorium a slideshow showing some of the most characteristic aspects of revolutionary psychological warfare that could be observed amid those turbulent events.

This feeling doesn’t come only from memories of those events—so carefully planned yet so dangerous. I feel something similar whenever I read certain demagogic speeches (sometimes even well-written) where figures from the country’s secular left or from the Church’s progressive wing discuss our socioeconomic crisis. It’s like I am trapped inside a small, dark, foul-smelling room—airless, cramped, and constantly filled with electrical discharges in every direction.

The endless chatter about urban hardship, unemployment, and the much-touted illusion that redistributing wealth—wealth that even the left admits is insufficient—would somehow solve everything; the constant stream of social hatred that these discourses try to vent into the population—this is the reality I can only describe through the metaphor of that fetid little room.

How often has this anguished, indignant cry risen to my lips: “After all, Brazil is not reducible to this tangle of intractable problems, each one knotted into the next!” Where are public authorities able to dispel this impression by presenting us with a comprehensive portrait of the country—one that includes a serious, well-documented account of our urban and rural hardships, as well as the essential complementary image of our boundless possibilities? A portrait that clearly and soberly outlines the simple, fundamental path through which our needs can be fully met by realizing our own potential.

Of course, unemployment exists, but let’s be clear. Private homes, for example, still offer many job opportunities for drivers, cooks, housekeepers, and laundresses, yet no one applies. Why?

Moreover—and far more importantly—we still have an entire hinterland waiting to be developed. Why don’t the public authorities send there, without delay, the genuinely hungry, as well as all the labor that industrial stagnation threatens to cast aside… or that agriculture—ravaged by the government’s disastrous policies—could employ much more fruitfully in other regions?

Instead of resolving issues amicably the Brazilian way, the ecclesiastical and secular left (to what extent does this distinction still hold?) continue to demand legislative measures that divide scarcity rather than increase abundance.

Amid the general stagnation, I felt something fresh and energizing when I read the open letter published by the Association of Amazonian Businessmen in the April 8 issue of Folha de S. Paulo. In it, addressing the federal government, state governments, and the Brazilian people, the association’s president, Mr. Geremia Lunardelli, stated that “a nation with a territory as vast as Brazil’s—much of which remains economically untapped—cannot experience food crises or unemployment.” He suggested, “as an immediate solution, the expansion of job opportunities in these (unexplored) regions and the relocation of the workforce to the interior as a way to foster the integration of national development and prevent the concentration of workers in large urban centers.”

The Amazon Business Association statement added that thousands of agro-industrial, agricultural, and settlement projects are currently underway in the region, “constantly requiring new labor forces,” and concluded that the Amazon “offers not only jobs, but vast areas to be occupied by small and medium-sized producers, with the promise of wealth and progress for both the worker and the country.”

This powerful declaration was like tearing open a breach in that suffocating, foul-smelling, frantic little room that symbolized the socio-political debates of the moment—and, through it, the clear, unpolluted air of the Amazon rushed in. Here, at last, I thought, was something that resembled the long-sought bridge between our needs and our possibilities.

After some research, I found a wealth of clear, detailed information in an issue of the magazine Legenda (No. 38, January/March 1983), which dedicates eleven pages to this important subject. The article ends with straightforward, serious, and brave statements from Mr. Lunardelli himself, signatory of the refreshing communiqué. (Today, it takes a lot of courage to be clear and serious about socioeconomic issues.)

Additionally, I noticed that this article, which covers the Western Amazon and Mato Grosso do Sul, was preceded in the same magazine by another one about the Eastern Amazon. I plan to find it, to clear my head even more. What else can I do? Clearly, I should share this with Folha de S. Paulo readers. But not without a little grumbling.

How much the Association could do to curb demagoguery if it mobilized television and the press to bring its Legenda publication to the attention of the entire country. Of course, that alone would not resolve everything. With admirable good sense, Mr. Lunardelli himself notes that the Brazilian crisis has moral—and, I would add, implicitly religious—dimensions that cannot be addressed solely on the economic level. Yet the ideological left never tires of repeating its biased economic generalizations. Why not deprive them of this favorite tool of subversion by properly disseminating it nationwide?

My complaint thus becomes a friendly invitation: let Amazon’s business leaders tell all of Brazil what they are doing so the nation can regain confidence in itself.

And this, too, so that its resonance abroad may finally erase the shameful and slanderous image of Brazil as a nation of poor people living among untapped resources, ruled by a small group of lazy and tyrannical plutocrats. It is against this false image that the TFP’s representative offices in major Western countries are already working, wherever their influence reaches.