Paula Laboissière Special Correspondent for EBC
Porto Alegre – The Portuguese sociologist, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, 71, professor at Coimbra (Economics), Wisconsin-Madison Law School (Distinguished Legal Scholar) and Warwick (Global Legal Scholar), speaking to a full auditorium during a roundtable discussion at the World Social Forum (that changed its name this year and is known as the FST – 2012), said that president Dilma Rousseff had to open up channels of communication with social movements.
According to Boaventura, the devastating crisis that has struck Europe shows that capitalism is antidemocratic and that the democratic struggle needs to be anti-capitalistic. “Gradual totalitarianism is undermining our strength as well as our democratic aspirations,” he declared. “Representative democracy has turned its back on the people.”
Representing president Dilma Rousseff, the president’s Chief Administrative Aide, Gilberto Carvalho (“ministro da Secretaria-Geral da Presidência da República”), said that there was no absence of dialogue between the government and social movements. He admitted the relationship was tense at times and that there was a delay sometimes in responding to grievances.
“The government cannot hide behind formulas (“estar fechado em suas formulas”). The presence of Dilma and various ministers here [at the Forum] is an exercise in dialogue. We need to listen in order to make fewer mistakes and listen in order to get more things right. That is the democratic process and it is important to us,” said the minister.
Also participating in the roundtable, the Brazilian activist, Chico Whitaker, said the representative democratic model was in crisis.
And the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Tarso Genro, declared that a political reform had to include an end to “the scandalous financing of Brazilian political parties by the private sector.”
Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English
Link - Boaventura pede mais diálogo de Dilma com movimentos sociais em debate do FST sobre democracia
