Author: Nísia Maria de Sousa Cordeiro

Source: O Globo, 21/11/2007

I have been in public service for 27 years and three months. I look back, sideways and feel sad. And it is not a hypocritical sadness about which there is no mature and even profound reflection on the subject. It is first of all an experience, a partnership in which I gave the best years of my life.
"In any instance of the public service there are unwell employees, poorly resolved with their lives"

If a scientist decided to do work on human rights in the day-to-day activities of large cities, he would have enough subsidy to support a relevant monograph, fostered by a very efficient laboratory research. For that, it would be enough to seek the services of public units. In any instance you will find unwell employees, poorly resolved with life, pouring their own pain on the shoulders of those who seek and need their services.

There is a chaotic reality in this network. Any economic analyst will be astonished to find that, despite high investments in the sector, everything falls apart, is fragmented, fragile and, worst of all, built by people who do not even know the importance of their work for the population or, if they do , pretend indifference.

What's up with the public service? It was created to serve the citizen and, mainly, the low-income citizen who cannot afford the costs of the private network. But he is treated on the ground floor, everything changes when, in the face of poor service, you pronounce a name or enter the room with a “godfather”. The treatment received when you try, through normal procedures, to resolve something that, in justice, is your right.
"But there are drops of fresh water in this salty ocean, there are oases of citizen awareness in this desert of social indifference"

We know that we cannot generalize. There are drops of fresh water in this salty ocean, there are oases of citizen awareness in this desert of social indifference, there are remnants of hope in this universe of inconsistencies.

The web of life is broken, there is talk of human rights and quality of life, but everyone is too concerned with people who walk on the margins of “socially correct” to be concerned with ordinary citizens, with their well-being, with your quality of life, with your justice. It is indisputable that for centuries we have lived the era of impunity ...

Settle for it? It's difficult. The time has come to remember, in a crude synthesis, the thought of Rui Barbosa, a Brazilian jurist and politician: “The time will come when the Brazilian will feel ashamed of being honest”.

It's Rui, that time has come ...