By: KENNETH MAXWELL

Folha de São Paulo - Op-ed section - page A2   

President Lula said the discovery of the Tupi offshore petroleum reserve "provou que Deus é brasileiro," e afirmou que "foi uma benção de Deus para o Brasil de ter uma empresa ... como a Petrobrás". That is true. By the end of the next decade Brazil will have added a powerful new source of energy to its already rich list of natural resources. Oil industry experts are privately predicting that production will begin in 2013, with an initial target of 100,000 barrels of light crude per day.

But Brazil has been lucky before. The early textile industries of Europe were voracious for the dye from Brazilwood trees in the 16th century. Várzeas, so rich that no one before had seen sugarcane grow so fast – or so profitable – so that in the 17th century Brazil dominated the world's sugar. Gold and diamonds in the 18th century, so plentiful that they helped rebuild Rome and capitalized the London stock market. Then came the rubber boom of the early 20th century and the discovery of Carajás in 1967.

The problem was how the financial resources generated by these booms were used. When I first arrived in Rio in the 1960s, for example, there was a decrepit aircraft carrier moored by the Ilha das Cobras. It never moved, and it never seemed to have any aircraft. Bought used from Britain in 1956, it was only in 1998 that the dispute between the Navy and the Air Force over the use of fixed wing aircraft on it was resolved. Fifty years before, Brazil had bought two of the world's then largest dreadnaughts, massive state-of-the-art battleships.

Soon after they arrived in the Baía da Guanabara, their largely Afro Brazilian crews revolted against their white officers in the infamous 1910 Revolt of the Chibata and turned their huge guns on the capital city. The Navy has long wanted a nuclear submarine. Now the Minister of Defense has found a justification: to defend the new Tupi field. But Lula had a better idea when he was first elected: that all Brazilians should have three good meals a day. With Brazil's latest good fortune, to these could now be added a good education, a good public health service, and yes, good public security. That would indeed be a celebration. Good fortune followed by good judgment.

KENNETH MAXWELL is a weekly op-ed columnist (every Thursday) for Folha de São Paulo, Brazil's leading newspaper.