Dissemination of dictatorial practices in the meeting conduction process among political and social organizations in Brazil

Ailton Benedito de Sousa

Introduction Let us accept here that one of the aims of analysis, a term which may attain a more acute precision by the joining of the adjective critical, it is to show disparities among a priori concepts like form and function, continent and content, essence and appearance , in a whole, the distance between what is imagined and what is received or obtained concerning a datum, fact, process or phenomenon: critical analysis the fragmentation according to principles or method of the parts of a whole, generally in a field of debate, aiming at its comprehension and transformation, such a process being conducted by the analysts activity of reasoning or reflection in rapport to a set of validating parameters concerning to an admitted notion of truth the praxis in the last instance. In the analytical activity process, too, the community of researchers may test or keep under question the possibility of someone through speech and/or language, while open systems of signs, understood not as the thing, but as nearly its representation, come to reach truth, that is, whether a chain of signs, structured in concepts and propositions issued of mental and inter-subjective phenomena of perception-hypothesis-belief, can actually express and anticipate facts, basis for individual and collective action inside the field of the admitted reality. Why keeping these practices under analysis? In this line of reasoning, let us accept as well that each day for lack of critical analysis, deformed practices related to the process of taking decision collectively are more generalized in conducting meetings among social organizations militants, particularly in ongs belonging to the so called social movement. Such deformations, it seems, do not grow freely only here in Brazil, but for all the world as well, aspect that makes it surprising the fact of existing so few a number of texts about the subject. Let us assume consequently that the lack of usage respond for the oblivion or obsolescence of cultural goods whose acquisition and existence depend upon the collective memory, the repeated praxis in specific social interchange directly linked to the function that these goods may play in the processes of social production and reproduction. No matter the fact that a half or more than three-quarters of the population in this or that ancient social formation were constituted of slaves, some practices of direct democracy, we must admit, were obliged to have factual existence among their few free citizens, under the threat of collapsing the social experience in cause. From this fact, we see in these ancient social formations the institutionalization of fields of studies linked to the philosophies in general, the rhetoric, logics and argumentation in particular. Personalities like Aristotle,

Socrates and Platon are our acquaintances today more in function of the system of government and public administration prevailing in the region they were born that is, public consultation among equals, than to the hegemony of the Greek genes (an absurd and racist hypothesis). Obviously such an affirmation does implies that inside previous or contemporary reigns and empires like those in Africa, Asia and Oceania, the human genes, naturally conditioned by specific social circumstances (among which the manipulation of information by power) actually came to produce pieces of art and philosophies in general, or equivalent and even superior technical innovations, in particular. The ethnocentric management of the memory of such inventions and discoveries may respond for their apparent invisibility in the recorded past. The city-state which chose a pattern of government based on the audience to equal citizens had to share some kinds of knowledge and learning. Not only rhetoric was studied and practiced at Ciceros time but also mnemonics, this latter if not institutionally, for sure individually. Through these techniques of memorization not only Cicero knew by heart his orationis, but also everyone who wished to make a living as a lawyer. Or rather, for a Roman or Greek lawyer, as well for an equivalent professional in the medieval cities of Florence or Lisbon, not only the corpus of law belonging to this or that legal branch had to be taken by heart but also their complicated application formula and jurisprudence. Given that the so called post-modernity tends to dispense in a definitive way the natural human memory, whether individually or collectively, as tools of any importance in the societal processes of production and reproduction, it is valid to ask as to what kind of set of cultural goods may the individuals in the future have access when confronted by social needs eminently human, not yet derogated by the technology as religious and laic events to confirm pertinence, vicinal sociability or even patterns of organization to oppose or support this or that kind of power. Democracy requires the living memory of its tools. It did actually belong to the memory of the Brazilian people the whole set of instrumental concepts and procedures inherent to taking active part in a meeting or assembly in a typical ong. In this way, during the period of the 1946s Constitution, derogated by the 1964 coup detat, both in the sphere of worker unions and other cultural associations like soccer (or futebol) clubs and schools of samba, the first item to stir up the members of a simple meeting or assembly was the election of the chairman. He who was to be elected chairman by the meeting members knew that they all were there in function of an agenda in accordance with the established rules in the Statutes of the entity they belonged to. The agenda had to be published in a daily paper, specially in the case of registered associations, and it necessarily established the aims of the meeting: its conformity in relation to the rules, its nature, time to initiate and to await until quorum was reached, its main motions, so as to fix for the members the limits of their own sovereignty. And yet more: it rested understood that in case that the members would surpass their sovereignty, they previously had to close up this meeting calling upon another in accordance with Statute procedures and bylaws.

As a sacred principle, everybody kept in mind: the participant members are sovereign. Without any doubt, the meeting members must elect the chairman. Why? Because the chair in itself is a center of great power. Upon its election, it is suspended the power of the elected board in the period, since in such a kind of meeting there can happen all, except a truism, that incongruence in logics by which at the same time a + b = c, and a + b = d, being c d. That is: the participant members are sovereign and the elected board, too. From this, the great importance for the participants to choose the chairman and his secretaries charged of drawing up the minutes of the meeting to be read and signed at the end of it or eventually at the beginning of the following. The issue or point of order Elements of a philosophical basis collectively accepted convinced all participants that if we are rational beings, acting not according to a binary system Stimulus Answer, like the great majority of the animal reign, but through at least a ternary system Stimulus Reflection Answer, then we are able to comfortably give origin to social organs fitted to beings that are at the same time free and socially bonded, since: a) by the use of our symbolic capacity, basis for the act of reflection, we can create the virtual world; more yet, with these symbolic data we can manage the process of reasoning so as to convince ourselves we are right or in the hypothesis of being in error, we will soon reach correction. Though these presuppositions we arrived to the axiom that true affirmation without necessity of being demonstrated: conscious and rational beings could not gather themselves to deliberate unless being accepted among them the existence of a protocol, a pact, a regiment to fix the minimum rules concerning the decision taking process: how to decide (simple or qualified majority), who votes (individuals, order, genre)?, who speaks, order for the debate, proposition of motions, inscriptions of participants, motion formulation, its defendants, closure of debates and period for voting. Then, the second sacred principle: issued passed through the process of voting does not return to discussion. A point of order!, used to shout the majority herald. By mistaken, the participants voted against theirs interest! We are going to a point of stalemate. The chairman, if an expert, would explain: Since we cannot hurt the sacred principle, there is only a way to get rid of this: we open up the period of voting so that each participant can confirm his option And then he warns: But the chair will only consider this procedure if it is approved by 2/3ds of the members. Nowadays the perfect understanding of the so repeatedly spoken point of order would require an adjective, procedural, which in the past was omitted in function of being so obvious. People today repeat such an expression as a parrot would, it must be accepted, once disappeared the referred and latent term procedure. It was the set of non written rules or bylaws present in everybodys soul thanks to the artifices of the collective process of memorization, that is, the set of dos and donts presiding over a meeting among rational beings. By the way, for the Romans Barbarian it was he who could not through language discover and enjoy the logus. The coining of the expression point of order aimed at providing any participant member with an efficient tool for intervention as soon as he perceives a default in relation to the

right procedure: Mr. Chairman, a point of order. At this, the Chairman asks for him to explain his point of order and if justified, he is given the word so that a motion may be proposed. It was a common practice to suspend the session to avoid an impasse. Without trouble the Chairman would declare that following what was established in our procedures, he was suspending the session for half an hour so that participants leaderships may come to accord as to the issues in debate. The session may be suspended for a not fixed period and it is in this question too that the participant members are sovereign. Now all this belong to oblivion or subsists under deformation There is no more decision collectively taken, regular meeting as assemblies are eminently formal practices to enforce decisions that must be hidden from the police. For example, what a kind of meeting may approve or homologate the buying and selling of ballots? What kind of minutes may register such a discussion and approving arguments? A bit of what we have today Considering needless expressing any comment about entities without lucrative ends, equally needless any comment about a group of individuals in the origin of most of our ongs, let us fix ourselves only in some aspects of their decision making process. Sacred principle: to be assured of having the casuistic social representations of democracy as a north for every action to be taken by the entity not only as far as the decision making process is concerned but also in every aspect of the association life. Philosophical basis: In politics it is more worth to have the appearance of being than the essence. No matter whether in a simple ong, a union, a soccer club or school of samba, once begun the meeting whose agenda may or may not be explained in its course, the chairman, among us called the president, assumes the direction of all. Casually he may even shout that for him the participant members are sovereign Nobody says a wordThe leaders of groups of fans clap and get followers. There is no line of meaningful divergence among the members. There is fear and complicity instead. The political militancy whether from a party or even from ongs in the social movement as a whole are co-opted. The posts of direction in many of these entities pay equivalent or even higher salaries than those in the public service or big enterprises. If it deals of a meeting among teachers and student parents, for sure it will be a particular and fake meeting since 70% of these parents were called upon as a task determined by the political party, to which belong the principal of the school. By the way it is the party in charge of the education secretary or education ministry. As an illuminated focus of a scandalous truism in its insane absurdity, the unions board director, the school principal, the president of the ong then opens the session giving the solution to the problems the members were supposed to discuss and cast ballots. At the end of the meeting, if it happens, he or she asks: Any doubt? Accomplices, everybody keeps in silence. I hope everybody is in accord with me and I consider the meeting overNow lets go to what matter.

The minutes of the session will be an act of conspiracy between its editor and the president, in case it happens to do it. But let us suppose that in the course of the meeting someone wants to say something. Then he will squeak frightening to everybody: A point of order! (for him equivalent to: I want to speak, shit.) and immediately he drops the terms of his complaints. Since the ball has just left the table and came to the plenary, a series of cries point of order appear in succession until the president takes the decision to hunt and abate it as a wild animal. If he fails to do so, it is certain that issues already voted returns to discussion, to have a different course, to the general enjoyment, or better, to please the roots and grass, an example of the latters sovereignty. A moment of joy stirs up the plenary. The better of these gatherings is when a fierce drubbing occurs among the guys of the other side and the president, one says. A few of us knows where these practices, generalized among soccer clubs and schools of samba may take to: these ongs become fortress of the organized crime. In this situation, there is no particular complaint, no condemnation to this or that practice, since there is no more a parameter. There is no more a clear notion between right and wrong, no model to which the decision process in a non lucrative organization should conform. What everybody feels, is pre-sentient of and knows is that there is no logic rapport between words and things, it is mishmash, bossiness, tyranny, robbery. Everything is under dominion. In an actual context of a tyrant in front of his circus, at every moment one protests to defend the sacred principle that the participants members are the only sovereign. From this decision making process, there follows the rest: the posts in every direction board of these entities are formal, except that of the owner or president. If the ong deals with money (government social projects), the president and its book-keeper are the true sovereign. No accountability forever . The audit organ or counsel at the moment of the fake entitys creation had its member hunted and lassoed among the friends of the unions, soccer club (mainly in the first league) or school of sambas owners, under such excuses as: no worry, there is nothing to do, it is eminently pro-form. In this way we frequently see our centenary carnival entities, some of them with a great number of adherents and huge apparent patrimony, simply disappear without any manifestation from the different levels of our Public Ministry related to the local, stately or federal spheres. And worse: so that the sovereign people do not go without their beloved association, the power in place in any of the spheres gives to the directors in bankruptcy a new headquarter (in what terms nobody knows). This, too, is under dominion, say the people. Shameful for us Brazilians it is to hear that this situation, here meaning or anticipating barbarianism is contrasted by members of our self-assumed elites (who in this way try to get free from any responsibility), with the existence in different parts of the world (not in Africa, it is clear) of countries where people still praise and practice direct democracy institutions and the level of public security is so high that one can sleep in his own home without closing the doors Then it is valid to ask: Is there a solution for this? Presumptions to an analysis aiming at a solution necessarily open to contestation. 1. Contemporary learning (or discourse in its most extensive meaning) assumes itself as derived from the so called Greek-Roman-Judeo-Christian civilization, basis or source for the unilateral horizontalization of History under the undisguised leadership

(mainly from the 16th Century on) of peoples from North Europe, peoples who unquestionably never were at the head of whatever kind of ecumenical civilization process, that is, one geographically expressive. Without any exaggeration, we must admit, all of them European white barbarian folks. History, whatever its nature, does not know any example of sophisticated civilized life in ancient North Europe, since most of it was nobodys land open to the transit of Barbarians demanding civilization, in a word, sellers of fish and furs in the route EgyptBaltic See, known for more than 2000 years. 2. Although the instauration of the present calendar after Christ should anticipate such a horizontalization process, this latter did not occur during the first millennium, dependent upon historic phenomena yet to come to light in the following centuries, through periods nominated by this same pattern of history as Fall of the Roman Empire (Occident and Orient), Renascence, Discoveries, Reformation and Counter Reformation, Enlightenment, Commercial Capitalism and Industrial Revolution among others. 3. The unilateral horizontalization of History, no matter whether in direction to the Mediterranean Basin, Africa, Middle East, Far East, Australia and Oceania in one hand, or in direction to the Occident (Maya, Aztec, Inca, Chimu etc.), implied (perversely, let us admit) the effacement of millenary contributions pertaining to the precedent civilization experiences in Africa, China, India, Indonesia, Oceania and the Americas, justifying as well inside these continents that the respective elites came to act in regard to their people in the same way they were and continued to be treated by the invaders. Africa rests a separate case since the Egyptian civilization, a Black and African product, was turned white, and at the same time the river Nile was displaced to the proximity of the Middle East. Unilaterally horizontalized the History, tabula rasa it was and has been made of the subjugated peoples cultural heritage from inside. The richest and most powerful slave traders in Africa were Black, by the way one of them was a Brazilian Black man. 4. Much more than the effacement or mutilation of historic monuments belonging to several civilization experiences in niches of vertical history Egyptian, Mayan, Inca, or even Zimbabwean, for example, the unilateral action implied the complete destruction of entire material and spiritual patrimonies of a great number of peoples in march to civilization special mention for Africa and the Americas. It implied also the authorships falsification and/or mutilation of cultural pieces belonging to the universal cultural patrimony (mention to the up to now without question called the Sphinx of Giza, left without explanation the invention of powder). Implied also the museological trophization (excuses for the neologism) of pieces belonging other nations cultural patrimony (in this way transformed into booty, until today symbols of the White mans hegemony), actions which were concomitant or precedent to the enslavement or pure genocide of those who created such cultural patrimonies, their sub-classification as sub-man, in this way elected, in different social systems, for the lowest kinds of job, verbi gratia, the Black Diaspora and American Indian enslavement. 5. Such secular process of horizontalization has also implied the registration, in the memory repertoire of those peoples whose history was effaced (now referred to as the international community), of only those attributes which immediately served to classify them as native, selvage, brute, colonized, enslaved BarbariansIn a word, this

secular process has justified racism no matter its forms. More yet, considering the opposition between the skin color of those occasionally hegemonic (now for ever) such a process of horizontalization has justified the specific racism against the Black. Two thousand years after the zero point in our unilaterally horizontalized history under the sway of half a dozen peoples, nothing prevents those who assume themselves as sons of Lucy, the Black ancestor Mother of man, from striving to open the discussion of that process aiming at the correction of its route and neutralization of cruelties committed by present humanity that shows itself under the disguise of a punitive, arrogant, authoritative and imperialist international community. The critical analysis to the presently disseminated practices in the decision making process among our civil societys entities, if by this analysis a solution is intended, must necessarily require on the part of the analyzer the assumption of a clear position concerning the basis of the presumption above discussed. The discourse presiding over the process of horizontalization of History for more than 2000 years in course, tends to close any exit to those who identifies its contradictions and absurdities, making logical what is essentially illogical, turning vice into virtue. For example, what is wrong in terms of evilness or illogicalness in the fact that those peoples culturally in delay in relation to the militarily hegemonic cultures be massacred and enslaved? The world has always been so, one is led to conclude, in this way justifying and clapping the present social Darwinism. Never would F. Cortez make himself such a question just because one cannot ask for a question whose answer has already been given. How to see the paradoxes and aberrations hidden behind innocently praised events, the discovery, for instance, if one has any criteria, means, to question the moral aims, the legitimacy of the project carried on by the peoples (races, cultures) who have horizontalized History, in the process giving origin to racism and ethnocentrism as structural pillars to the new civilization experience? In the XIXth century we had an example of genocide campaigns justified by the prevailing learning. According to the classical Anthropology those being who could not make fire or did not have rules establishing parenthood relations should not be considered humans, but animals, a valid principle for many academic circles, no matter its rigidity as far a human being are concerned. Taking for granted the general acceptation of the principle, European colonists in successive razzia during the century completely murdered the whole population of Tasmania, a people with forty thousand years of cultural transmission. Now anthropologists know that like many others, Tasmanians did not make fire on account of a religious taboo; as a divine being they kept it alighted forever. No matter the purity of their belief, they were exterminated as animals, their genocide being ethically and scientifically justified, or not? This is the social and historic function of learning or discourse in the acceptation the author uses. When we do accept the horizontalized history as it is presented today a far-western cartoon movie where the protagonists in the good side are always White men and the bad guys the Black, for a question of necessity we have to accept too:

a) the concept of humanity derived from this unilaterally fabricated horizontal history as an absolute, never as a contingency to be surpassed, or worse, we have to accept the international community articulated by the Nato as the true Mankind to be defended at all costs from those diabolized people of Islam; b) the bad actions coming from the hegemonic nations as good ones since derived from men who can properly represent every and all men, because Nordic and White, here being remembered that ethics as a set of moral attributes inherent to mankind disappear in the moment when it is effaced the distinction (even sometimes provisory) between Good and Evil consequently, if the attribute disappears, the same occurs with their subjects; c) we have to accept without any criticism or complaint the universal exhibition or parade of monuments and other pieces of the cultural patrimony belonging to subjugated peoples as war trophies or finance papers in the money market of the universal and destructive capitalism, the principal creation of the hegemonic at the head of the process of unilateral horizontalization of history. Taking into account the series of crimes, robbery and genocide behind the most praised events of the History presented to us, it rests impossible to tell what is more humiliating and shameful to mankind: whether any of these huge zoological gardens made by men who enjoys safaris in Africa, or the LouvreA provisory point must be made here so that the reader may stop and think. Critical analysis is for this.