There are classical interpretations about the forming of Brazil as a nation, but the one by the political analyst Luiz Gonzaga de Souza Lima is surely unique, and helps us understand Brazil in the present process of world globalization: The Refounding of Brazil: towards a bio-centric society (La refundación de Brasil: rumbo a una sociedad biocentrada (Rima, São Carlos 2011). His starting point is the brutal fact of the invasion and expropriation of Brazilian lands by the «colonizers» based on slavery and the super exploitation of nature. They came here not to found a society, but to create a large international private enterprise, a true agro-industry, in order to supply the world market. It was built by kingdoms, churches and big private companies such as those of the West Indies, the Oriental Indies, the Dutch of Mauritius and Nassau, with navigators, merchants, and bankers, who, without forgetting the modern vanguards, had new dreams, and sought quick wealth.
Once the land was occupied, they brought in sugar cane, then coffee, technologies which were modern for the time, capital, and African slaves. The slaves were considered «things» to be bought in the market, and like coal, to be consumed in the sugar mills. With reason Souza Lima affirms: “the outcome was the appearance of a new social configuration, unknown by humanity until that moment, created solely to serve the economy; in Brazil was born what can be called the «social enterprise formation»”.
Modernity was born in Brazil and in Latin America, in the sense of the utilization of logic of production, of the desire for unlimited accumulation and the systematic exploitation of nature, of the creation of immense towns of marginalized people. In this sense, Brazil has been new and modern, ever since her origins.
Europe could have her revolution, called modernity, with rights and democratic institutions, only because she was sustained by the brutal robbery carried out in the colonies. With Brazil’s political independence, the nature of the social enterprise formation did not change. All the impulses for development that arose did not undermine the dependent and subordinate character that resulted from the business orientation of our social structure. Even now, global world capital tends to try to shape our eventual future into our known past: it would behoove Brazil to be the great provider of raw materials for the world market, with little added value.
Enterprise-Brazil is the key, according to Souza Lima, to understanding the historical formation of Brazil and the place assigned to her in the present process of unequal globalization. The challenge lies in creating a society that suits us, and leads to a different future for us. The inspiration comes from something that is our own: Brazilian culture. Our culture was born of the slaves and their descendants, of the Indigenous that remained, of the mamelucos, the sons and daughters of poverty and crossbreeding. They created something singular, not that desired by the holders of power, who always rejected them and never recognized them as the subjects, and sons and daughters, of God.
What matters now is re-creating Brazil, «to build for the first time a human society in this immense and beautiful territory, something that never happened in all the modern era since Brazil was founded as an enterprise; to create a society with the sole objective of saving our people». It is about moving from Brazil as an economically internationalized state, to Brazil as a biocentric society.
As a biocentric society, the Brazilian people will transcend modernity, corrupted as it is by injustice and greed, that is leading humanity to the abyss. Still, for better or worse, our modernity helped us forge a physical infrastructure that can support building a bio-civilization that loves life in all its forms, where all differences peacefully coexist, and that has the capacity to synthesize the most diverse factors.
In this context, Souza Lima links the refounding of Brazil to the promises of the new world that must succeed this agonizing one, that is incapable of projecting any horizon of hope for humanity. Brazil could be,as others, the niche that generates new dreams, with the real possibility of carrying them out in harmony with Mother Earth, and in a manner open to all peoples.