ALL TOGETHER FOR UFBA AGAINST BUDGET REDUCTION AND POLITICAL PERSECUTION!
ABONG Bahia and Sergipe hereby manifests its repudiation of MEC’s (Education Ministry) announcement of financial cuts in UFBA budget upon allegation of not being satisfying good academic performance. It’s no coincidence that universities like UNB and UFF, quite active in their relationship of university extension courses organized together with social movements, were both also target of this decision.
Minister Abraham Weintraub’s threatening sounds like scorn and insanity, that universities “which would make shambles, will get their fundings reduced”. That is the way he refers to presence of Sem-Terra (Without-Land) on campus. Does he ignore the existence of Without Land Movement multiples agreements maintained since years with tens of universities all around the country?
It’s almost needless to express our solidarity and acknowledge for the role of UFBA in developing culture, arts and technological innovation in Bahia, as well as with its social compromise with diverse activities and movements, with highlight for hosting and participating actively to the World Social Forum (WSF) realized in march last year in Salvador. An attitude that only a democratic management, compromised with public, free and inclusive university, dedicated to creation, investigation and critical thinking anchored in excellency and social involvement, would be able to realize.
For UFBA, the WSF was a unique opportunity of direct creative interaction from universities with communities and society, in its own spaces and for us, organized civil society, by mean of the WSF Facilitator Group, the observation that we can count with active and solidarity support from Federal University of Bahia, since the very first moment.
We knew that the reactionary siege would increasingly reach the academy – space of free thinking and knowledge. In the middle of School without party diffusion and expansion of correspondence course for intermediate education, soon arrived the bad news of human sciences courses destructuring, specially Philosophy and Sociology – immediate threshold to outrage the principle which ensure freedom of learning, teaching, researching and diffusing thinking, art and knowledge – the freedom of cathedra. To depreciate humanities is a classic symptom of fascist bias.
It isn’t an isolated fact, but a component of a insane deconstruction of democracy and rights in Brazil, its sovereignty and the execution of a massive campaign to detract the free and quality Superior Education, to justify education privatization.
UFBA is a living body in which more than 50 thousands people circulate, and it communicates intensely with Bahian people, it made a qualitative jump from 40 to 96% of the graduation courses which are rated with 4 or 5 by MEC (Ministry of Education); between 2014 and 2016, it stood out as pioneer in a lot of research fields, as for example the bone regeneration with use of trunk-cells and discovered the Zika-virus. In nothing justifies funds cuts unless political retaliation!
“With tyrants, don’t match Brazilians (nor Bahian) hearts”
#ALLforUFBA
Salvador, May the 2nd, 2019
ABONG Bahia / Sergipe