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GRADUATION SPEECH AT THE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING OF U.F.R.J. – 1970

Writer's picture: Miguel Fernández Miguel Fernández

01 Ladies and Gentlemen Professors, to you who transmitted to us what you knew, who were our second parents, from the day we entered kindergarten and endured us for the first time, who taught us to read, to write, to add, to multiply, through secondary school, may the Portuguese teacher forgive us for the errors we will make, or the physics teacher for the laws we forget during our careers, and even those who passed on their professional experience to us, of whom we are now colleagues and competitors: we are grateful and appreciative.

02 To our relatives and friends with whom we have lived all these years and who always encouraged us to succeed: our friendship.

03 To our wives, fiancées, and girlfriends, who managed to endure our “turnarounds” while studying for exams, always helping and encouraging us: our love.

04 To our parents, who gave us life and the will to succeed, making all of this possible, often at the cost of their well-being or even their health, we would simply say: we are your children, and we have said it all.

pause

05 It is to you who are here that we will recount what five years of engineering school were: from 1966 to 1970, and make an assessment of it.

06 Over five years, we won, we lost, we fought.

07 Today, we should be ready to participate in Brazil's development. But we do not know if we will be able to do so, although many believe we can. At most, we will be able to make it continue to march in place, keeping pace with its population growth, maintaining distance from other nations, because


THEY INFORMED US, BUT THEY DID NOT FORM US (pause)


08 They taught us to integrate this or that equation, to calculate this or that slab, to specify this or that engine, to study in foreign books, to execute, even to improvise, but not to create, not to invent. Why?

09 Most of our industries and engineering firms are controlled by foreign groups. It is argued that they make an important contribution to our economic progress, which would take much longer to accelerate the industrialization process.

10 What troubles us is the relationship between these groups, the profession of engineer and researcher, and even our position as a NATION. The pure and applied research of these organizations is conducted in their countries of origin.

11 Consequently, here, these companies are not very interested in local teaching and research institutes, unless they can find those of more privileged minds to take them to their headquarters, so that everything new emerges there while we remain dependent on the payment of royalties, profit remittances, technical assistance, etc., etc.

12 They may also be interested in our educational system to obtain technicians and engineers to operate their local factories. Hence the fears of some when the courses of “operational engineering” were created and when there was talk of transforming public schools into foundations.

13 It is important to pay attention to this aspect of programs to bring in technology and foreign capital in large quantities, because even national groups, with the existing facilities, prefer to buy imported knowledge and technology. Ready! Instead of investing in teams of engineers and researchers to obtain greater profits in the shortest time possible.

14 Brazilian engineers resent this, and the colleagues here present know very well the salaries offered to us to adapt or develop foreign projects, which are indeed very well paid.

15 We are, to be honest, facing a new type of COLONIAL DEPENDENCE.

16 The arguments that foreign firms have already tried, and that we are not going to reinvent the wheel, etc., do not hold, as they would deny the principles of scientific research, the basis of the prosperity of now more developed peoples, which are the headquarters of these firms.

17 In response to the campaign defending national engineering, promoted by the Engineering Club, the consortia of foreign firms with national ones responded, and other legal forms of fronts that pop up by the dozens, allowed by legislation that only considers what comes in, forgetting what goes out and what does not emerge here.

18 We are being thrown into a rigged game, innocently, many of us thinking that all of this does not exist, many of us not even caring if it exists or not, since the stilt houses of New Holland have not reached Fundão in these five years, although they have advanced 500 meters out to sea. (pause)


THEY INFORMED US, BUT THEY DID NOT FORM US (pause)


19 We are generally complacent, each wanting to rise individually, without a class consciousness, without trusting one another, without unity. Some, even ashamed that they have succeeded more than others, curiously want or find it easier to level down. To be clear, we hardly know each other.

20 We were guided in such a way that we could not disturb or interfere with the desires of those who hold the truth and the school. A school that never encouraged friendship or camaraderie, neither among students nor among teachers, nor between students and teachers. Most do not even know who the school directors were, although their diploma is signed by them. This makes it easier to run a school: with everyone divided.

21 When we united to request the change of a teacher for a better one, or the adoption of a textbook due to the obsolescence of the handouts, many of them from the 1930s, we were met with an iron fist, and we even had the opportunity to be called punks. The formation of some groups within the classes arose more as a necessity for survival than for camaraderie. What we sense is that we are going into the market wanting to bring each other down, and to deny this would be hypocrisy.

22 In short, we were formed without formation, and who will suffer the most, once again, will be Brazil, since dispersed and without unity, we will be easily at the mercy of anyone.

23 Our school is not an isolated case. All the others, whether their students and teachers admit it or not, are perhaps even worse, and ours, we can affirm with certainty, is still the one that provides the best technical foundation.

24 One can try to justify the adopted guideline, claiming that there were certain groups acting in our midst, but it is precisely there that the great lesson lay. The ideas and actions of these elements should have been fought by us, who were the harmed ones, or else we would not be worthy of complaint. It was they who would awaken us from this complacency, this fear, this let-it-be...

25 We cannot say that we had a democratic school formation, as what characterizes democracy is not the absence of conflicts, but the solution of conflicts within rational and human values.

26 Democracy is order without the need for authority, a regime that displeases both the extremists on one side and the other.

27 If each one defines democracy as it suits them, and in its name all possible progress and crimes are carried out, and if democracy cannot be clearly defined, at least its essential elements can be identified.

28 These elements are the representativeness of power, freedom of expression and press, freedom of artistic creation, and respect for more or less permanent laws, on which people base their actions.

29 And the common man is so sensitive to these simple truths that if he does not know what democracy is, he knows very well what it is not. That is why they find it amusing when newspapers announce pompous declarations from the Kremlin, mentioning the word “democracy”.

30 Why do they find it amusing? Because no one can consider a democrat regimes that imprison without defense, that censor even scientific production, that condition artistic creation to the dubious taste of half a dozen bureaucrats. It is true that the Soviets acted this way in the name of economic progress and development.

31 Since we are not communists, we prefer poverty in a democracy to the touted prosperity under oppression, just as freedom is preferable to slavery. It takes being a democrat to understand and accept this.

32 But, as we said, if we did not have a democratic education, how can we be its defenders? If we do not know its weak points, how can we help it survive? Something is wrong.

33 Parodying the National Agency, we would say that “security depends on the trust that each one has in others and IN THEMSELVES.” Perhaps those who call themselves democrats lack a little confidence in democracy, or else, they are not.

34 And there are many who really are not, who take advantage of any fact or action of desperate minorities to prove by A + B that it is necessary to harden the regime.

35 But the State cannot behave like those it intends to destroy or control in the name of democracy. The terrorist cause is condemned because it finds no receptivity in the people. There is no reason that justifies indiscriminate repression of Greeks and Trojans, nor even the brutality of terrorist acts.

36 It should not be the madness and despair of a bunch of fanatics, outside of reason, the pretext for moving Brazil away from the path of democracy, and alienating the people even more from the process of choosing and forming its destiny.

37 Brazil needs to restore confidence in its institutions and in itself. We belong to the same people, those below and those above, the governed and the governors.

38 Authorities that are eventually in command must understand their duty to inspire confidence, rather than fear, and never forget that they are also part of the people. They should consider their legitimate demands and not reject them for any cause.

39 But let us not be naive; a country without solidarity will never achieve democracy. Each man who goes hungry is one less for Brazil, and when more men are taken from it, its voice is silenced in the face of its requirements.

40 The engineering career requires and will always require solidarity, as it is not possible to grow individually without the growth of others. We cannot create bridges, roads, or dams alone; we need each other to move forward.

41 This is the role of the engineer: to reconcile and unite. The engineer must also be a diplomat and bring people together.

42 And to bring people together, it is necessary to build a culture of cooperation. There is no room for elitism or individualism, as we will be regarded as a foreign element. We must seek mutual help and support.

43 Engineering cannot be disconnected from its social function: to satisfy the needs of society as a whole, or it will lose meaning and motivation.

44 We need to work together to change our society so that we can produce more and better while respecting the environment.

45 We have the potential to create, innovate, and generate wealth. But we need to ensure that we work in the interest of all.

46 We must be brave in our search for knowledge and responsible in our actions. Let us not settle for mediocrity; let us aim higher.

47 If we do not unite our efforts, we will fail, and our legacy will be nothing. We owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to future generations.

48 Let us act with integrity and work hard to build a better Brazil, a country where we can all thrive, as engineers and as citizens.

49 A convenient question, as it is used against any type of criticism by those who feel responsible or complicit.

50 We can only say that we did not have sufficient training to respond, and that even those from other generations who claim to know everything did not have that training; they just find it hard to acknowledge it.

51 However, we can say that if we do not know exactly what to do, we know very well what not to do.

52 We would also say that we have faith.

53 That we have faith that sooner or later teachers will have decent salaries that allow them real dedication to the school. That we have faith that payments will not be delayed, sometimes by up to ten months. That we have faith that the fees proportional to the time dedicated to the school will cease to be demagogic promises and will become a reality that allows for the formation of a cadre of teachers, because today, what we have are a few idealists who sacrifice their working time to transmit knowledge and who do not need the school at all, as they already have enough renown for the school to be interested in saying they teach here.

54 We also have a majority who are only interested in saying they teach at the “engineering school.”

55 It is necessary for higher education to attract competent individuals who cannot afford to dedicate themselves to something that does not pay, for one reason or another, usually economic reasons.

56 And when a mindset free from personal desires and vanities is created, with independent and autonomous administrative structures, without lifetime positions, hiring of teachers through competitive exams and not through connections or personal sympathies—essentially, a truly honest mindset focused on teaching—then the higher school will be able to say that it is formed, and then it will truly be able to educate.

57 On that day, we will accelerate our pace and will be able to try to achieve a better place among nations. But it will require us to be very honest and very Brazilian to succeed, because undeniably, we live in a world of petty interests, many of which will be contradicted. And things are so confusing that sometimes we confuse our interests with those that are not ours, pressured by propaganda that is not ours.

58 There was much talk about the convenience or not of a political speech, of taking a stand: that there would be no conditions, that it would not be convenient, that it would not be allowed, that it would be reckless.

59 A petty or cowardly argument, from those who distrust anything that is not from their group, or that is not known, safe, unchanging. We do not shy away from the duty to defend our opinion and draw attention to what we consider right or wrong, because, despite everything, we have faith in ourselves.

60 We persevere, we prevail, and we are here.

61 Thank you very much for your attention.



Miguel Fernández y Fernández, speaker

Read on December 27, 1970, at 4 PM, at the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro

(and was the author of the text, written in one night in November 1970)


This class was the first class entirely formed on the Fundão Island, starting in March 1966 with exactly 400 students coming from the entrance exam, distributed into 4 classes of 100 students, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. From the third year, it divided into Civil, Electrical, Electronics, Mechanical, and Naval. The graduation ceremony was not mandatory, and about 280 colleagues participated from around 375 graduates.

Note written in 2010 for the class website EEUFRJ1970:

Because of this text, posted on the notice board about 30 days before graduation for colleagues to comment (there were practically no comments), I was “invited” to “appear” at DOPS (Department of Political and Social Order) for three days, where they tried to dissuade me from reading this speech, suggesting that I write another, more formal text.

The situation was so tense that this text was considered “subversive”!

In the end, they allowed me to read it without modifications, with the information between their teeth: it will not be published in any press outlet. And it really wasn’t, not even a little note.

That year we were also the only class, perhaps in Brazil, to have a graduation “outside the school building.” When they realized it, we were already booked at the Municipal Theater, which was already publicized and approved by the school administration, which helped.

If I’m not mistaken, the chief of DOPS-Rio at that time was called Delegado Gastão Fernandez (originally from Pernambuco), who lost a morning with me over this “important” speech while being interrupted all the time because the American ambassador (or was it the Swiss?) was kidnapped by the “left.”

Since I was a “Lacerdista” (perhaps still am) and Carlos Lacerda had been ousted not long before, with divisions in the government’s ideological area, it was difficult to classify me as a “communist subversive,” which made me think that Gastão was a Lacerdista because we managed to have a somewhat bittersweet dialogue about the differences between military and communist (if there are any) and who the democrats were.

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