Brazil has just become yet another nation to fully embrace one of the most oppressed peoples of world history - womankind. Congratulations. Today, women constitute a sizable percentage of political leaders in many nations around the globe - and their numbers will rightly continue to grow as the twenty-first century -the century of the woman - progresses..
While she might look like a sweet grandmotherly type, Dilma Rousseff, the 62 year-old Brazilian president-elect (she will take office on 1 January 2011), is a former Marxist and armed guerilla leader. During the dark days of Brazilian dictatorship (1964-85), Rousseff joined a militant socialist group bent on the overthrow of the government. After the dictatorship collapsed, Rousseff moderated her politics and served in several government posts.
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In her victory speech, she vowed to reduce poverty. Hopefully, her words will prove to be more than rhetoric. Approximately one-third of Brazil's population of 191 million is impoverished, and twenty million people of that one-third live in 'extreme' poverty.
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For the more than 60 million Brazilians living 'in want', the dictatorship did not end in 1985. In the absence of food, clothing and health care, there are no rights, and there is no democracy.
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Will Ms. Rousseff succeed in liberating her people from the tyranny of poverty? Only time will tell. She is to be commended for at least making the redemption of the poor her first stated priority - a priority that continues to elude the leaders of the world's first democracy.
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(Photo: Brazilian President-Elect Dilma Rousseff)
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J Roquen