Brazil's emergence as an economically and socially lucrative nation should inspire Boston University students to learn more about the South American country, a speaker said Tuesday night.
About 60 members of the BU community attended "Getting to Know Brazil," the first lecture in a series of informational sessions about the country in the International Education Center, presented by Brazilian Deputy Consul to Boston Fernando Igreja.
Igreja discussed the economic and social revolutions that have spurred Brazil's growth in the past two decades, placing it after China and India in terms of greatest growth.
He argued that Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Brazil's president from 1995 to 2003, led an "economic revolution" by stabilizing the rampant inflation that crippled the nation, and was then succeeded by current president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose reforms have initiated a "social revolution."
These stabilizing measures have enabled Brazil to stake its claim on the international scene and tackle problems on its home front, he said.
"Most of Brazil's wealth comes from agriculture," he said. "Today, Brazil is the greatest producer of soy beans and the second greatest soy bean exporter after the U.S., in the world."
Brazil is taking tentative steps to becoming self-sufficient in an energy capacity, he said.
"Brazil now produces more oil than it consumes, which is another big revolution," Igreja
He said that economic stability and growth allowed Brazil to take steps to eradicate its greatest social ill.
"The most important thing that can come out of all these revolutions is to control poverty," he said.
Brazilian society is enormously stratified in terms of wealth and class, with "10 percent of the richest people own[ing] 45.4
1 percent of the country's wealth," according to Igreja's slideshow presentation.
One measure President Lula has adopted to correct the ill is the Bolsa Familia, Igreja said.
"The idea was to give money to families to send children to school and give families the minimum amount of money to live," he said. "Today, 11 million families are under Bolsa Familia."
Families that receive the program's benefits live in abject poverty, receiving less than $50 a month, he said.
"It's a kind of paternalistic policy, but with this program, we could get rid of poverty. It has worked for the past eight years."
Additionally, poverty has stricken education, Igreja said.
"The biggest problem that must be tackled is education," he said. "There is a 10 percent total illiteracy rate in Brazil."
After his lecture, Igreja accepted questions from attendees.
One attendee asked how the recession has affected Brazil.
Igreja said the country's social and economic measures helped it withstand the worst of the economic slowdown.
"Social policies which created a consumer market in Brazil helped it with the economic slowdown," he said, referring to families' ability to buy things with the aid of Bolsa Familia. "So by 2009, Brazil's economy was growing again."
Many audience members said they went to the lecture for their classes, ranging from Spanish to International Relations courses.
"I really didn't know that much about Brazilian history and culture, so it's a good thing to add to my knowledge of Latin America," said School of Education junior Ellen Belinksy.
College of Arts and Sciences junior Florian Dhondt said he attended the lecture because he was writing a paper on Brazil for his class on Latin American politics.
"It was pretty basic information, but at the same time the man has a lot of insight, so I'd like to talk to him," he said.
"I came because recently I've developed an interest in Brazil and am taking an intro class to Latin American politics," said
CAS junior Alexandra Quiñones. "It was very informative and I thought the consul was very knowledgeable."</p>
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
