The
Weiser
Center
for
Emerging Democracies hosted a
panel on Wednesday discussing
the
state
of
Brazil
under
President Jair Bolsonaro and
reflecting on how his rule has
impacted higher education in
the country.
About 45 students, faculty and
community members attended
the event, which consisted of
presentations and a question-
and-answer
session
from
three professors and historical
professionals. Benjamin Lessing,
assistant professor of political
science at the University of
Chicago,
highlighted
the
politics of crime and violence
in
Brazil,
while
WCED
Postdoctoral
Fellow
Marília
Corrêa spoke on the history of
Brazilian military dictatorship.
Guilherme Casarões, lecturer
in international relations at the
Fundação Getúlio Vargas São
Paulo Business School, focused
on how Bolsonaro has reshaped
Brazil’s national identity.
Brazilians elected Bolsonaro,
a
far-right
politician,
as
president in October 2018 after
a controversial and polarizing
political race. Since his election
into
office,
Bolsonaro
has
angered many Brazilian citizens
and people across the globe with
his contentious policies. In a
video address, he threatened
jailing
and
banishing
his
political opponents, and in an
executive order, he undermined
the rights of indigenous people
and the LGBTQ community.
Panelists
discussed
the
controversies
surrounding
Bolsonaro
with
his
administration’s
attacks
on the press, loosening of
environmental protections and
cuts to education spending.
Panelist Casarões described
the corruption present in the
Brazillian cabinet, especially
due to Olavo de Carvalho, self-
described Brazilian philosopher,
and his strong influence on
Bolsonaro’s administration.
“The most important feature
of Bolsonaro’s narrative and
Carvalho’s
role
in
shaping
Bolsonaro’s narrative is the fact
that he was able to appoint a
number of different people to
Bolsonaro’s cabinet,” Casarões
said. “So it called people’s
attention when the government
was being formed that Carvalho
was able to appoint at least three
ministers out of 24 ministers
in Bolsonaro’s cabinet, even
though Carvalho had no
vote at all.”
Casarões
described
how one of the positions
Carvalho appointed was
the Minister of Education
Abraham
Weintraub.
Three
of
Carvalho’s
former
students
are
also
in
Bolsonaro’s
administration,
filling crucial roles in
international
affairs
and
foreign
relations.
Bolsonaro’s sons hold two
of these three positions.
Many
have
been
angered by the corruption
within
Bolsonaro’s
administration, especially
in regard to the lack of
focus on higher education.
In May, tens of thousands
of
students,
teachers
and academics stormed
the streets of São Paulo,
protesting the Ministry of
Education’s plan to cut 30
percent of the funds to the
discretionary
expenses
budget
for
universities
in Brazil. This freeze is
equivalent to over $1.8
billion of Brazil’s education
budget.
In April, Bolsonaro tweeted
a
tweet
which
originally
appeared in Portoguese, stating
that the Minister of Education
planned on reducing investment
in sociology and philosophy
courses in order to “focus on
areas that generate immediate
return to the taxpayer,” like
engineering and medicine.
Lessing
described
the
disorder present within the
Brazilian education system and
the issues with Bolsonaro’s lack
of emphasis on the humanities.
“To me, a huge risk that we
haven’t talked about yet is what
I see as an attack on the federal
university system in Brazil,”
Lessing said. “The attack on
higher
education
—
which
(Bolsonaro) sees as infiltrated
by communism and basically in
need of flushing out — it’s really
trying to create chaos within the
federal university system and
it’s kind of a vision of you don’t
need humanities, you don’t need
social sciences, you just need
technical education.”
As a Brazillian herself, Corrêa
described her hesitation with
teaching in Brazil in the midst
of the unsupportive education
system promoted by Bolsonaro.
“So for me particularly, I am
Brazilian and people often ask
me if I want to go back to Brazil
to teach there, but right now, as
one of the speakers spoke just
a little bit ago, the Bolsonaro
government has been kind of
moving against the university
system there,” Corrêa said.
“They have been cutting costs,
so we’re actually seeing brains
leaving Brazil to go elsewhere
in the world that value what
they’re doing... it’s a really hard
time right now for the research,
in the sciences too but especially
in the humanities.”
SCIE NCE IS COOL
2A — Thursday, October 3, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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MICHAEL BAGAZINSKI/Daily
Laura Johnson of Case Western Reserve University discusses the impact of massive spin-2 gravitons on a multitude of spacetimes including de
Sitter, anti-de Sitter and flat space as a part of the HET Brown Bag Seminars in Randall Laboratory Wednesday afternoon.
PARNIA MAZHAR
Daily Staff Reporter
Historians, political scientists examine Jair Bolsonaro’s effect on higher education in country
Panel discussion looks at impact
of Brazil’s right-wing president
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