Fabio Barreto-Lula, Son of Brazil (2009)
Fabio Barreto-Lula, Son of Brazil (2009)
You have to credit president Luiz Inacio “Lula” Da Silva for modernizing
the left in South America and finally getting the respect due to moderate
socialism, a clue historical moment for Brazil that put them in the spot as one
of the most attractive countries in America to invest, a country that struggled
with its military past and learned to trust in democracy and one that thanks to
Lula`s moderate take on socialism managed to rescue millions of people form
extreme poverty becoming a prime example of how a country can aspire to become
one of the most important countries in the world without leaving behind their
most defenseless citizens.
What happened in Brazil`s Lula should urgently start to be applied in
countries like Argentina and Venezuela in order to rescue them from an imminent
disaster, as dangerous populism is dragging them down in a very scary
descending spiral that might end in an undesired bloody situation already happening in
Venezuela, imaginary enemies start to appear everywhere in this countries
creating a cloud that prevents citizens to see that their disgrace doesn’t come
from the outside, but form the inside, we must not be blind not to see the
thoughtless actions taken by Chavez or Maduro in Venezuela, trying to “rescue”
the poor by simply flooding them with money, dilapidating their oil treasure, sacrificing
quality education without a proper control, and finally controlling prices and
encouraging economy to stagnate, the poor doesn’t need money, the poor needs good education and opportunities, of
course, the upper classes have to help the poor in a proportional way, you need
tax money to build better schools, get better educators and free programs that help
poor people to get them both, you need quality education so the new
professionals are able to return those investments in the form of a quality
work force, one that helps to raise the productivity, with better results, but
it’s not all about the work force, you need strong companies providing good
jobs and decent pay and the empowerment for those new professionals to create
themselves new job opportunities.
I recently saw Lula, Son Of Brasil, a movie that depicted the life of
Inacio, form his humble origins in a family affected by poverty, alcoholism,
lack of education and a lot more of the despicable things affecting the poorer
classes, in the middle of a military regime, we are spectators of Lula`s
involvement with workers union, slowly winning the metallurgic workers trust
and leading him, in a closer way to Poland`s Lech Walesa in a thinking`s man
war against oppression, I must say that the movie has its political
correctness, its moral point, the kid who raises form the poor, the tragic
romance and the leader fallen in disgrace, situations that really happened in
the life of Lula, but an emphasis on that certainly overshadows Lula`s role as
an emerging leader of the workers, a man really interested in getting better
conditions to the working class.
The weak spots on the movie, I must say is the almost superficial take
on Lula`s growth as a leader, the movie almost becomes a soap opera instead of
a biopic of one of America`s most important recent leaders, a man who took a traumatized
country and took it to the top of the world, a couple of years ago, the miracle
of Lula put Brazil in the spotlight as one of the leading countries of the
world, since then, the nation has been struggling under Dilma`s leadership, looking
for a new innovative way to keep up Lula`s fast pace, that middle class that Lula
helped to broaden is now an educated and more professional class that demands
better conditions and better opportunities, one that doesn’t dream of becoming
a football player, but one that dreams of becoming a doctor or an engineer,
Lula, the man without a professional title that managed to achieve a title of
president of the nation, not only achieved this on his own terms, he managed to
help people achieve a professional title on their own.
Lula, Son of Brazil is a flawed movie, but it is a good reminder of a
man who changed the world in his time, one that showed that socialism is not
against progress or upper classes, it can be an intelligent form of government
that well applied and conciliated with the right combination of forces can help
a struggling country become a nation to be reckoned with, we need lots of Lula
to make this a better world, but one day each country will have its own.
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