History is a master of life

Dear professors, the public university is in the hands of flat-earthers! This fact leads to a series of problems for its management at the federal level in the largest and most important ministry of the nation, which is education, the MEC (Ministry of Education). The main problem is that being a flat-earther automatically leads to the denial of science and reason, and for that reason alone it is worthy of condemnation. 

I recall here some former ministers worthy of that title; Darcy Ribeiro (1962 – 1963) removed by the military dictators, who did not like popular education (any resemblance to the present is not a coincidence), I will skip all the ministers of the military dictatorship, I refuse to name those gentlemen who destroyed education in Brazil during their eternal twenty-one (21) years of barbaric dictatorship, continuing with the genuinely educator ministers; Paulo Renato (1995 – 2003), Cristovão Buarque (2003 – 2004), Renato Janine Ribeiro (2005 – 2005), and the philosopher Fernando Haddad (2005 – 2012), the latter was responsible for the creation of the Federal Institutes, the UNEUNI and the expansion of the federal university throughout the country, as well as being responsible for opening thousands of vacancies for competitive examinations and filling our positions and structuring our teaching career.

Returning to the flat-earther. Based on these preliminary considerations and all the statements against the university, his clearly anti-pedagogical positions, his misconduct in blocking funds, and other jokes, pranks, and jests against us professors and our students, and since science is our guiding principle and reason for being in university life, whether teaching or researching, it becomes antithetical to take flat-earthers seriously, let alone follow their dictates.

Given these considerations, what must be done is to defend the public, free, high-quality, and secular university. Faced with this bleak scenario, it is the duty of every minimally politically aware professor and every student to firmly position themselves in favor of it. Thus, it is primarily and above all incumbent upon administrators—rectors, campus directors, and course coordinators—to take a clear and openly contrary position to the abuses and attacks against distance learning, and to publicly request the cancellation of the academic calendar and the annulment of the 2021 ENEM exam, since students from public schools do not always have the same digital quality and technological resources as those from private schools. This could lead to a disproportionate number of students entering public universities in 2021. This applies to a third of Brazilians who do not even have internet access, as is also the case in rural schools.

It is indeed a duty and an obligation for all of us who are part of the university in this so-called "wartime" moment to take up our weapons, scientific knowledge, against the flat-earth and denialist enemy. And if we are indeed at war, let us enter to win, to defeat our greatest enemy: FEAR!

We cannot passively accept the destruction of Brazilian public universities – especially federal ones. Because history will hold us accountable, future generations will question where we were when the Ministry of Education was in the hands of enemies of higher education. Which side were we on in 2020, when, amidst the greatest pandemic of modern times, the Ministry of Education forced universities to offer distance learning at a time when both teachers and students were completely "lost," totally weakened by having to care for their own physical and mental health and that of their loved ones? The answer is obvious: the obligation to offer distance learning is neoliberal ideology and stems from the denial of the pandemic and the destructive force of the COVID-19 virus. Thus, as a consequence of this worldview, they deny the disease in favor of PROFIT, therefore they support death caravans organized and executed by the irresponsible elite, the "elite of backwardness" as the sociologist Jessé Souza says, the same elite that has perpetuated itself in power since slavery and that has now taken over the Planalto Palace and the university, the same elite that promotes the burning of books, the closure of public archives and museums, the same elite that is destroying the university by supporting Constitutional Amendment 55, known as the "PEC of death," which froze investments for twenty years (20), exactly, the current government voted in favor of this PEC and today defends it, it is strangling the public university, especially in the research sector. Note that CAPES is completely in the hands of flat-earthers who have practically ended scientific research in Brazil. The "restructuring" proposal is indecent and criminal with the deception "FUTURE-SE," read "privatize-se." Neoliberalism doesn't rhyme with a public, free, and high-quality university. Which university president doesn't reject that?

Future generations will harshly judge us with words, just as we judge the old German collaborators of Nazism; how could we collaborate with the psychopath Hitler? Future generations will look at us with sadness and ask where we were when a flat-earther forced us to follow his orders; in the same way we judge the old men who staged the military coup. Such is history; merciless to those who ignore it, who let it pass by sleeping, hiding under the bed, or worse, those who collaborate with denialism, with flat-earth theories. Those who will leave their mark on history are those who do not settle, who do not allow themselves to be seduced by small favors or positions; all of that is illusory, selfish, and fleeting. Given that our mission in the present is to protect the university for future generations.

History as magistra vitae This will exact a very high price from those who are currently collaborating with this policy of destroying the University, denying science, and making indecent proposals for distance learning. It is only worthwhile to call oneself a professor when one fights for and politically defends education and in-person classes, when one truly values ​​the teaching and learning method based on what the master Paulo Freire called pedagogy for freedom—a type of education that teaches how to stop being oppressed and alienated. However, to teach for freedom, the professor must be free, and to teach for autonomy, one must be autonomous; but isn't the teaching profession also being co-opted by the neoliberal system, by profit, and by the vile notion of statistics? To what extent are managers in general not slaves to numbers, not treating students as pawns? And if they do so, are they not also complacent as public servants, also called PARASITES by one of the neoliberal and anti-public university ministers?

I conclude my brief reflections on "war" with the patron saint of Brazilian education: "when education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor." How do you, professor, think you will go down in history; as one who resisted, fought, and defended the university against flat-earth theories, or as a collaborator in its destruction and dismantling? Be careful. History still judges and holds accountable the Nazis and the military dictators who destroyed books and universities. 

Fellow members, don't even think about hiding; future generations will know where to find good historians who reveal the truth through science and facts; finally, as Cicero said of her: history is the teacher of life..

Warm regards.