By LISZT VIEIRA*
The new government quickly moves Brazil out of pariah status to once again play an important role in the world community.
In a month and a half, the Lula government took several measures that led to improvements in several areas. Among them, the Provisional Measure that restructures the housing program "My home, my life". The popular housing program increased the limit for the first income bracket to up to R$2.640. People with lower incomes return to the program and with a subsidy. Other work fronts successfully attacked were the salvation of the Yanomami, victims of true genocide, the fight against illegal mining and deforestation in the Amazon.
At the international level, the new government quickly removes Brazil from pariah status to once again play an important role in the world community. One of the main milestones of this journey was Lula's visit to the US. It is on this visit that we focus to make the considerations below.
From the conversation between Lula and Biden, three points deserve to be highlighted. Firstly, the vows of love for democracy and criticism of the extreme right-wing violence that invaded the Capitol there and here invaded and destroyed the headquarters of the three Powers, with the direct support of PMs and the military. This point is common to the US and Brazil, two countries, among many others, where democracy has declined and been threatened.
In the case of Brazil, democracy, however formal it may be, has become the flag of the left, even to the detriment of other strategic points on its agenda, in view of the threat of a fascist dictatorship on the part of the extreme right. The Bolsonarist vandalism that destroyed the headquarters of the Three Powers of the Republic in Brasília on January 8, with the support of PMs and also of the military – until today unpunished – shows the extent to which the degradation of democracy has reached in Brazil, which has become a true State of Exception, bringing together democratic and dictatorial elements in conflict.
Secondly, the point raised by Lula: the environment and the protection of the Amazon, with the invitation for the US to go beyond the rhetoric and start contributing to the Amazon Fund, which currently receives donations mainly from Norway and, to a lesser extent, from Germany.
For environmentalists, it has a special flavor to hear Lula say today what ecologists used to say before the 1980s and were stigmatized by all party leaders, from the right, from the center and from the left who, out of ignorance, considered the environmental issue to be non-existent in the Brazil. And the media mocked, calling the environmentalists alfacinha, queers and other jokes.
Now, in the meeting with Joe Biden, Lula went straight to the point, highlighting the need for global governance (not to be confused with world government): “The climate issue, if there is not strong global governance, that makes decisions that all countries are obliged to comply, it will not work…But we have to do something to force countries, congresses and businessmen to accept decisions that we make at global levels”, he insisted. “We have to have global governance, with more authority, and that other countries can participate in the Security Council so that some climate decisions are taken at the international level”.
Third, Joe Biden's priority was for Brazil to participate directly in the current war in Europe by supporting Ukraine. The proposal for the Brazilian government to send weapons to help Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invasion would run into enormous political, diplomatic and even ethical difficulties. After all, why not also send weapons to the opposition to the religious dictatorship in Iran, the opposition to the dictatorial Taliban regime in Afghanistan, to the repressed Muslim minorities of the Chechens in Russia or the Uighurs in China? Or weapons to help ethnic Kurds repressed by Turkey or non-Muslim minority repressed by Myanmar? Or Nigeria's repressed Shiite Muslim minority? Or even to help the opposition to the regime in Saudi Arabia, considered the most bloodthirsty dictatorship in the world?
Repressed ethnic minorities are not lacking on the planet. Right here, in Brazil, we had until recently the genocide of the Yanomami that seems to be coming to an end. Why send weapons only to Ukrainians? It's probably not just because they're blond and European. Perhaps because Joe Biden and the western media consider the West under North American hegemony the center of the world, which, however, seems to be moving slowly but steadily towards multipolarity.
In addition, this proposal ignores the reasons for the indefensible invasion of Ukraine by a Russia feeling militarily surrounded by NATO controlled by the USA, which, until now, are the big winners: this war strengthened the power of the American military, increased the profits of businessmen of the arms-exporting war industry, guaranteed jobs for the workers and not a single American died.
The big loser is Europe: the USA sabotaged the gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 that would take natural gas from Russia to Germany and to the rest of Europe, which is currently suffering from food and energy price inflation. The invasion destroyed much of Ukraine, led to the deaths of thousands of people, Ukrainians, Russians and the civilian population, and ended up strengthening NATO and the US.
The fascist position of the Ukrainian military, which even hung a portrait of Adolf Hitler on the wall of the Azov barracks, the most important in Ukraine, the corruption of Walodymyr Zelensky, who was already on the list of Panama Papers and now he has been accused of selling part of the weapons donated by the Americans on the black market, NATO pressure against Russia, nothing justifies the invasion that Vladimir Putin imagined would be lightning and has lasted almost a year. The longer the war lasts, the better for the US, the worse for Russia.
The US bombed dozens of countries after World War II. According to Chinese diplomatic sources on February 27, 2022, “of the 248 armed conflicts that took place between 1945 and 2001 in 153 regions of the world, 201 were initiated by the US, which represents 81% of the total number”. The American military industrial complex does not go without war for long. This time, they make war by proxy. You should thank Vladimir Putin.
Remembering Talleyrand, the Machiavellian Chancellor and Prime Minister of France in 1815 under Louis XVIII, the invasion of Ukraine, more than a crime, was a mistake. Error that Lula denounced. He only had hits on his visit to the US, with important meetings with Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And he even suggested to Joe Biden to change the policy towards Cuba and Venezuela.
The visit to the US was a success and Lula stood out as a world leader by proposing the creation of a G20 for peace and placing himself as a possible mediator between Russia and Ukraine, with the sympathy of Germany and France. It is too early to know whether this will work or not, but Lula's invitation to participate in the G7 is an indicator of Brazil's resurrection as an important player on the international stage. What can already be said is that, in one month, Brazil, under Lula's leadership, went from a pariah to a prominent position in the world community of nations.
*Liszt scallop is a retired professor of sociology at PUC-Rio. He was a deputy (PT-RJ) and coordinator of the Global Forum of the Rio 92 Conference. Author, among other books, of Democracy reactsGaramond).
The A Terra é Redonda website exists thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
Click here and find how