BRAZIL-Some light reading

The burden of greatness

A familiar joke from the days of Getúlio Vargas, Brazil’s first “father of the poor”, was that when the Marshall Plan was introduced in 1948 Vargas’ Minister of Foreign Affairs made a tour of Europe to see what it was all about. He came back with his report and suggested to Vargas that one way to quickly develop Brazil would be to declare war against the United States. The US would then come into Brazil at the end of the war and rebuild the Brazilian economy as it was doing in Europe, thus bringing it into the “developed” world. Vargas listened to the suggestion, paused for a moment, then said: “There is a flaw in your plan. What if we win?

A more recent andecdote involves Lula: Upon hearing that a panel of judges had announced that Brazil is the second most corrupt country in the world, Lula, Brazil second father of the poor – i.e. the step-father -  called Dilma and asked how such an ignominious judgment could have occurred. Dilma informed Lula that in fact Brazil was going to be voted the most corrupt country in the world but the administration paid off one of the judges. Lula blew up. “Another mistake, Dilma!” he bellowed into the phone, “Can’t we ever be first in anything?!”