Brazil's fight for right to happiness

IT IS a nation known for its high-spirits, relentless partying and carnival capering. But now Brazil is set to amend its constitution to enshrine the pursuit of happiness.

Several Brazilian parliamentarians argue that the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right, and have asked the ruling senate to include it in the country's written constitution. The bill would then go to the lower house for ratification.

The debate comes a month before Carnival - which marks the start of Lent - a raucous festival replete with tens of thousands half-naked men and women that Rio de Janeiro officials call the largest party on Earth. But supporters say the happiness bill is a serious undertaking despite the revelry, meant to address Brazil's economic and social inequalities.

"In Brazil, we've had economic growth without the social growth hoped for," said Mauro Motoryn, the director of the Happier Movement, a non-governmental organisation backing the bill. "With the constitutional amendment, we want to provoke discussion, to seek approval for the creation of conditions in which social rights are upheld."

Similar explorations of officially finding happiness have been pushed by other governments. Both Japan and South Korea include the right to happiness in their constitutions.

In the early 1970s, the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan pioneered the idea of maintaining a "happiness index." Well before that, the 1776 US Declaration of Independence made its often-noted stand for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".

The bill before Brazil's Congress would insert the phrase "pursuit of happiness" into Article 6 of the constitution, which states that education, health, food, work, housing, leisure and security - among other factors - are the rights of all citizens.

Cristovam Buarque, a senator and former minister of education who is the bill's sponsor in the senate, said adding the "pursuit of happiness" was essential to helping ordinary people begin holding to account a government that has long been accused of not providing basic services to the poor.

While Brazil is set to be the world's fifth largest economy by the time it hosts the 2016 Olympics, its education system, poor roads and railways and crime-ridden slums threaten further advances. Cristiano Paixao, a constitutional law expert and professor at the University of Brasilia, said he thought the amendment was pointless tinkering that would end up being "legal folklore" as Brazil's democracy has moved beyond the need for such gimmicks since the end of the 1964-85 dictatorship.

"It would make sense if we were in the moment of redemocratisation, of the movement for direct elections," he said."Now, it just won't be of use."

At a senate hearing before the bill was passed by a committee last November, Daniel Seidel of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops criticised the "pursuit of happiness" movement as little more than a marketing campaign.

"Wouldn't it be better to speak clearly about social welfare, about the reduction of inequality?" he asked senators.

But Luciano Borges, president of the National Association of Public Defenders, said the movement could breathe life into a push for stronger social rights.

"This great proposal would establish tools that would permit, in the pursuit of happiness, the rescue of social rights," he said.

Mr Motoryn, of the Happier Movement, said he is simply hoping society will take a serious look at the proposed amendment, and perhaps change its expectations.

"Happiness isn't a game, people confuse it with something that is superfluous and it isn't," he said. "We need quality health care, quality education, which we don't have.

"It's about creating conditions for people to pursue happiness, but with training, with knowledge, preparing us to be a more advanced society in the future."