The degradation of politics

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By TARSUS GENUS*

The bonfires of fascism and the blockade of democratic civil disobedience

Our fires are responsible and our deaths in the Pandemic come from the acts and omissions of a criminal with a known address. The ritual of fire and death, in Fascism and Nazism, is not gratuitous. He intends to “clean up” hopes and the past, dry up courage in consciences, kill the spirit of resistance, bury the intelligence exchanged for the instinct acquired in times of barbarism. The burning of books by the Nazis in Berlin, during Nazism, and the massacre of the Trenches of the Adreatines – in Rome – with 335 victims shot in the back of the head, as a reprisal for a military action by the Italian Resistance, are part of this story.

The symbol of death and torture is the announcement of the need for absolute submission of the body to the leader of the State, which becomes the essence of a mask. And it reveals a single truth: the delivery of people, culture and the idea of ​​a nation, to a being that “presents”, not just “represents” the State and sponsors fear. The mask is also hidden in indifference, in the silence of the Justice System and in the annulment of non-conformists. If the atypical fascism – under construction in Brazil – is not destroyed within the State, it could be established in civil society, already annulled by the manipulation of information and the planned degradation of the sphere of politics.

The manifestations that President Trump has been making about the insecurity of the vote to elect the President of the United States, which probably -according to him- allows the "democrats to steal the election", coincide with the "denunciations" -before and after the election of the President Dilma - About the insecurity of the electronic ballot box and about the possibility that we had, here in Brazil, a “fraud” result, either against Aécio Neves or against Bolsonaro. This strategy of planned distrust of democratic elections has been a far-right world policy for the past ten years.

Once the results were proclaimed, Aécio did not “accept” them and, at the very beginning of his mandate, strangely, Bolsonaro continued to insist that – even with his victory already recognized – fraud had occurred in the very election in which he won. Trump and Bolsonaro's procedures on the legitimacy of Governments installed based on popular sovereignty, open spaces for "exceptional" procedures in Governments that align with their political vision, as well as favoring a new type of coup, made possible by parliamentary procedures, that are becoming common in Latin America. And they bring to an end the crisis of representation achieved by traditional democratic procedures.

In the case of Aécio, his stance was certainly the product of an authoritarian folly by someone who already foresaw difficult times in the Federal Police Stations, because if he were to become President, his inquiries would be halted. In the case of Bolsonaro, however, it was the (accurate) prediction that – at some point – it would be necessary to counteract the allegations of the illegitimacy of his electoral victory, which was backed by a “fake news” festival. Such "fakes" were used to bring him the support of millions of voters, who believe in everything that can comfort his prejudices and alienations.

Only those who believe that the earth is flat, in “dick bottles”, in Chinese conspiracy to “create” viruses in captivity (to ruin the world economy), in Jesus Christ in the guava tree, in pastors of money religions interested in saving souls ; only those who believe that Bolsonaro is a believer in God -only those who believe in all of this- would be able to assume that the TSE and the STF would be capable of rigging election results to favor the PT.

The hosts of Trump and Bolsonaro, in fact, believe in the unlimited ignorance of a good part of the population that can be manipulated and bet all their chips on this difference: the absurd can be the victory, the lie can be universalized, who believes that the earth is flat you can believe that it is important to kill suspects by shooting them in the “little head” and that Flordelis goes to heaven. Thoreau, who was arrested for refusing to pay taxes because they were financing the US War against Mexico, in his essay on “Civil Disobedience” (1849) inspired Tolstoy, Gandhi and Luther King, but not only.

“Civil disobedience” is the resistance against the power mechanisms of institutions when these operate in disrespect for freedoms, the rights of individuals and become -in the mechanics of their procedures- a constant threat to the community as a whole that decided to “be free” . In this case, they act with the support of unfair laws or unfair procedures by legal authorities. In his libertarian anarcho-individualist vision Thoreau defended a type of Government that always acted from the conscience of what is true and fair, not necessarily from the will of the majority.

Thoreau's formulations, revolutionary at the time they were put into the formation of the Liberal Democratic State, can -as in all anarchist or semi-anarchist formulas- be read with different lenses. Both with those of Gandhi, in his peaceful mass resistance against murderous colonialism, and with those of Rosa Parks, who single-handedly defies racial segregation, refusing to leave a seat reserved for whites on the Montgomery bus.

They can also be read through the lens of Mussolini, who divided Italy between “politicians and cowards” and Italy “healthy, strong and vigorous, which is preparing to sweep away all the incompetent” (...) “all the infected rabble of Italian society”, so that “Italy becomes fascist”, as he himself said at the Rally of Cremona, in September 1922. in defense of democracy and the republic.

Let's look at Mussolini's vision, set out in his speech in the Amatore Sciesa neighborhood, on October 22, in Milan, to compare his political management tactics -outside and inside the State- with those of Trump and Bolsonaro today. In it, the Duce exposes his vision of the Liberal State, saying and his vision of civil disobedience in the crisis of liberal democracy: “the Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face (…) what separates us from democracy are electoral gimmicks. Do people want to vote? Let them vote! Let's vote until tiredness and imbecility. Nobody wants to suppress universal suffrage. But we will adopt a policy of reaction and severity (…) We will (re)divide the Italians into three categories: the 'indifferent' Italians, who will stay at home waiting; the 'sympathizers' who may circulate; and finally the 'enemy' Italians. And those will not circulate”.

These are all attempts by Trump and Bolsonaro, who mirror the extreme right movements around the world and who need to unify the Judiciary and the Prosecutions to prosper, although -despite everything- these institutions still resist the grossest and most destructive actions , of themselves and of the very idea of ​​the Constitution. The time is alarm time, on the edge of the red light. If our leaders from the left and from the consequent liberal-democratic field do not unite in the call for resistance and struggle -above the immediate interests of the Parties- we could be asphyxiated, not only by the smoke from the fires, but also by the hatred of fascism in course installation in the state bureaucracy.

The ambition and interests of radical ultraliberalism, combined with the worst of national politics, separated Bolsonaro and Moro, luckily for us. Let's not stand by, because they can still prepare a worse one for us: to unify Bolsonaro, Bretas and Trump, in the same boat that will take the country to the current bonfires and to the other bonfires of ultraliberal hell, even more adjusted to fascism and more in solidarity with the deaths by fire, the virus and widespread torture.

*Tarsus-in-law fhi Governor of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Mayor of Porto Alegre, Minister of Justice, Minister of Education and Minister of Institutional Relations of Brazil.

 

 

 

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