The relentless fire that hit the National Museum, located at Quinta da Boa Vista, in Rio de Janeiro, on September 2018, deeply hurts and touches our soul. It is impossible not to think that a part of each of us Brazilians goes along with the fire. We regret the loss of years of our history. This is because there is a lack of public policies in the field of preserving our historical heritage and, still, the understanding of the value of art and culture for the constitution of what we are and have become as a people.
But the feeling that grips me of sadness, at this moment, takes me to an objective / subjective place and is related to the idea of past and future, of perennial and ephemeral. I refer to the violence surrounding the number of homicides in our country, which reached 62 thousand a year. Basically, those affected by this tragedy are young men, black, from slums and peripheries. In this case, once again, we are faced with the realization that we do not have policies, in the field of public security, that recognize the right of society as a whole, regardless of the social strata to which it belongs.
We find ourselves, in the country, facing a miserable picture, which shows not only the neglect of government officials with what we call 'public thing', in many spheres, but also the lack of clarity about the necessary involvement that each of us, as citizens, must take on such a construction. In this context, Rio de Janeiro is the synthesis of what is most critical in the current crisis that we are experiencing in Brazil.
The historical choices in the field of public management in Rio de Janeiro and in the country, with some exceptions, have shown our inability as a society to model structuring processes in the political, administrative, financial spheres, among others. We experience, in a systematic way, policies based on a logic of governments that alternate, without considering the urgent demand to strengthen a State that we have not yet experienced in Brazil.
The fire at the National Museum forces us to reaffirm our commitment to everything that allows us to reimagine the present, which is constantly compromised by the daily tragedy that plagues us when we see, for example, the murder of black adolescents and young people in a systematic way. These young people have their lives cut short and can hardly live a reality where the right to exist is guaranteed. However, in addition to recognizing the atrocities of what happened, which shapes the present, the past is a possibility to honor the lives of those who have been silenced.
In the case of the National Museum, in addition to the irreparable loss and the blow that the country's art and culture have suffered, there is the aspect of affection and memories that this museum refers to. As a resident, at a time, of one of the favelas of Maré, Nova Holanda, I used to go to Quinta da Boa Vista for a walk and, in some of these trips, as a teenager, I was taken for the first time to that space, which was marked in me by its fascination and ability to transport us to our roots. I attended the place at many other times, throughout my life. I have memories that undoubtedly also populate the imagination of many people in the city and in our country.
We have a lot of tragedies to deal with right now. We still have, however, the fact that in the next 30 days we will be able to choose new representatives for the legislature and state and federal executive. It is the concrete chance of a perspective that needs to be renewed. Will it be? May Luzia, a human fossil that was found in the National Museum and that was fundamental for understanding how the occupation of the American continent took place, be reborn and preserved in each one of us.
Eliana Sousa Silva
Director and founder of NGO Redes da Maré, researcher in public security and visiting professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies at USP
This article was originally published on September 14 of 2018
