While the year began with messages of hope, little can be achieved this year without the adoption of public policies aimed at universal access to human rights for all. Brazil has always had access to abundant natural resources and has never adopted effective government policies regarding the use of our natural resources and the development of national industries.

The country of abundance lacks everything: there is no milk for young people in school, there is a lack of suitable housing in areas not considered to be at risk, and there is no strategy to tackle victimization at the micro and macro levels. -political dimensions. The socio-economic and cultural axis must be worked out in all its aspects in order to qualify for being considered a minimally developed nation.

Instead, we have backward institutions in which men tend to stick to any board of directors instead of recognizing the rights of women, blacks, seniors, children, people with disabilities and LGBTQ + people to the vital minimum. Those who dare to accept those most in need at the expense of political and economic power are given a stern reprimand, which changes the values ​​for which democratic institutions were created.

The time has come to pursue a humanitarian public policy in the fields of law, economics, health and social assistance with an effective exchange of information and responsibilities. Institutional transversality should be encouraged and improved, starting with legislative improvements to the need to recognize minimum human rights for victims of natural disasters, pandemics and crime. For example, in Bahia, there are currently over 17,000 homeless people, 19,500 homeless people and hundreds of people killed and injured. Many were ready to help, but no coordinated and comprehensive action to meet the real needs of victims in the short, medium and long term was developed at the federal, state and municipal levels. Nor can we speak of the thousands of lives lost to COVID-19 without officially acknowledging their losses, except for the initiative of the City of São Paulo in partnership with the Higia Mente Healthy Health Project in Parque do Carmo.

On the eve of the centenary of Contemporary Art Week, which revolutionized the country’s artistic and literary vision by providing social justice to Brazil’s indigenous peoples with a focus on respect for ancestry, nothing has been promoted to improve sustainability. transformative in Brazil, one that is capable of generating opportunities for social and personal growth. Individual initiatives have been undertaken by artists led by art curator Vera Simões in the Paulista region, but still far from what one would expect from a celebration of a century that broke colonial paradigms by presenting Brazilian origins as the predominant incentive in artistic creation. sector, economic, social and cultural.

The decolonization of Brazil on the eve of celebrating the bicentennial of its independence is still in its infancy. We believe that the adoption in 2022 of the Statute of Victim (PL 3890/2020), authored by MP Rui Falcao, can become an important factor in civilization in our country. Strategic planning of goals and actions to be carried out in various interconnected social segments is not futile, but a matter of national survival – if we intend to one day truly become a nation with equality and social justice.

* Celeste Leite dos Santos, Ph.D. from USP, MSc from PUC / SP, Avarc Project Manager, Higia Mente Healthy and Memorial Avarc to Covid-19 Victims, MPD Member

This text reflects the opinion of the author

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