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.