Down with the inferiority complex!

The inferiority complex exists and often disguises itself. For example, it's crucial not to confuse change with retreat or withdrawal. Advancing social policy is change, weakening Petrobras is retreat; modernizing infrastructure is change, reducing state investment plans is retreat; expanding channels for political participation is change; curbing minimum wage increases is retreat. Everything is movement, but there's a difference in nature between forward movement and backward movement. The opposition is selling a pig in a poke by insisting on abstract changes without clarifying their direction. Essentially, they are all backward changes, withdrawals, retreats, a kind of inferiority complex in the face of challenges.

The underdog complex manifests itself in panic when faced with historic victories. To the responsibilities assumed by the victors, these underdogs prefer the glory of heroic defeats. This was the case, I respectfully note, with Mexico against the Netherlands, Nigeria against France, Algeria against Germany, and even with Chile against Brazil, since that shot against the post by Julio Cesar in the final minute of extra time and the two penalties missed by the Chileans owe much to the influence of this complex, invoked to aid the competence of the Brazilian goalkeeper.

All these teams were welcomed back home as heroes, like the three hundred Spartans, heroically defeated. Unlike the Spartans, however, if they were to return, these underdogs fear equality and crucify themselves as perpetual subordinates. It's not that they lack value and honor, but they lack something when it comes to big decisions. It seems like a prediction after the fact, but it's the recurring chronicle of championships.

In football, winning countries are those that take to the field with the conviction that they deserve victory, regardless of the weather, time of day, or the opponent's jersey color. Until the very last second of the referee's final whistle, they refuse to accept the idea that defeat is inevitable or that it's fair to lose to their current opponent. It's no coincidence that thrilling victories in extra time, final minutes, and penalty shootouts have only benefited recognized winners. This complex transcends economic differences. I'm even inclined to list Switzerland as a circumstantial victim of footballing inferiority complex, a relapse into the traditional role of leaving early.

Both on and off the field, there are nations capable of overcoming their civilizational periods of economic and cultural subordination to foreign powers. But there are moments of rupture in which inferiority complexes must be overcome so that peoples acquire autonomy of judgment and conduct. By any unbiased analysis, Brazil has faced precisely such a challenge in recent years. Faced with the opportunity to enter a higher level of international coexistence, it is fundamental that it forges the conviction of being a winning country, powerful in its economy, culture, and society, and in pursuit of equality in all arenas. And this is not strictly about football, because winners occasionally also lose a match. They lose, but not dejectedly, resigned; they merely postpone the decision for future encounters.

The same applies to life outside the country. We must ignore the opportunists who give up the game before it even begins. We must always move forward, because time doesn't stop; what matters is knowing where it's heading and guiding it in our favor. The distracted, or those acting in bad faith, may not realize that, deep down, they have joined the "there will be no country" movement, a faction that the Brazilian community has dealt with, and overcome, throughout its history. It's the party of "there will be no industry" from the 1950s, of "there will be no oil and iron" from the 1970s, of "there will be no democracy" from the 1980s, of the 1988 Constitution. This has been the case in the 21st century: a government led by a metalworker would be a failure, and that's what we saw: the beginning of the greatest social transformation in Brazilian history, which, incidentally, cannot be reduced to the opposition's drivel that will maintain what is right in the government's social policies. There is no "government social policy" dissociated from its core ideology of governing for the most needy, whether in social, economic, or international policy decisions. A magnificent transformation of the Brazilian pyramid is underway, and this is the direction of the change that must continue.

Those who govern in pursuit of victory accept glory with humanity and admit to some missteps along the way. The politics of the underdog prefer to retreat, propose "heroic remedies," and when they win a small battle here or there, "it's by miracle." A miracle is the hope of survival for the underdogs. Brazil should not win its future by miracle, but by conviction.

Article originally published on the portal Major Card