By SANDRA BITENCOURT*
The expulsion of the bizarre and the criminal from democracy occurs through the resistance and organization of humanism, through honesty and the good application of the law.
Edson was 4 years old and Janaina was 9. They were taken to watch their parents Amelinha Teles and César Teles being brutally tortured. The young couple was unable to “tell” what the torturers wanted to hear, even though they were subjected to the despair of knowing the terror of their children upon seeing their parents so hurt. A childhood murdered without mercy.
This dark story led to the first conviction in 2008, confirming the torturer of the head of the Doi-Codi and Bolsonaro hero Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra. Ustra cruelly and sadistically ordered the torture of hundreds of people. The Truth Commission counted 434 deaths and disappearances in the country.
A candidate for city councilor in Porto Alegre convinced 2.669 souls to be inspired by the most abject cruelty. A distant cousin of the first torturer convicted in Brazil, Army Lieutenant Colonel Marcelo Ustra da Silva Soares managed to get elected, with the support of Bolsonaro and on the back of two significant votes for the Liberal Party. He used the slogan “Pra cima eles” (For them) and showed pride in the torturer, Dilma’s terror, as paid tribute by Jair Bolsonaro in the National Congress.
What does it mean to say that they are being praised for a torturer? Does this fit into a democracy? To my astonishment, someone (I prefer not to mention their name) told me that there was a balance, since two transvestites had been elected to the Porto Alegre City Council. I found the argument that equates a supporter of criminal torture by the state to a person with a different sexual orientation extremely curious.
Is this what they mean when they teach us that we are in a regime of polarization? On one side, praise for violence and on the other, a little voice in those who suffer from it? What does this election teach us? Which headline should we prioritize?
Beyond the clichéd idea of a democracy party, especially because in this party the city owners, who pay the band, increasingly define the music. There are also those who lie and deceive as a method, distorting the process. But, come on. What do we want to achieve with the defense of democracy? What are the basic principles that we need to aim for, especially in this moment of democratic stress, of fraying boundaries, of violent symptoms in the face of the crisis of capitalist accumulation? So dangerous that nuclear wars and the extinction of the planet are on the horizon.
Equality is a basic principle of democracies. And what does that mean? Equality has many manifestations, including those enshrined in laws and those we want to see in practice and in our daily lives. The guarantee that all people can enjoy the same rights under the law, without exception, must be combined with the practice of including the great diversity of human beings who make up society and taking their particular realities into account.
We can call it static equality, contemplated in the laws, which does not always take into account individualities, generating injustices. And dynamic equality is that which takes into account the specific needs of various social groups and adapts this equality to transform it into a method of equity. It may be that the election of a subject who worships the torture fetish is legal, if he were up to date with the formal requirements for a candidacy. But in dynamic equality, it generates injustice and repulsion.
I am personally ashamed to belong to a community that votes for the lowest expression of human conduct. In any case, it is important (and not balanced) to have representation from Natasha and Atena, PT and PSOL, respectively, considering that these are vulnerable LGBTQI+ groups oppressed by extreme violence.
We are far, miserably far, from equality that ensures and recognizes rights for all. And this gap is immense. The distance between the elegant neighborhoods and the poor outskirts, which suffered most from the mud and sewage during the floods, is unacceptable. We live in an environmentally bankrupt city that does not even have the means to measure air quality or up-to-date meters to measure the advance of the waters.
Its trees have been devastated for the benefit of real estate speculation, a city whose public transport has been reduced in comfort and scope, education is in the shameful position of penultimate place, and the queues for public health care are the only indicator that has grown dramatically.
And the examples are endless. Journalism in the city, however, operates in a false symmetry. It uses arithmetic to justify its critical inaction in defense of citizenship: it claims equal time and arguments on both “sides.” And so we continue to witness an extremist and segregating hegemony, with the power of money that defines our mediocre features.
To answer the question in the title: no, not everyone fits. But the expulsion of the bizarre and the criminal is achieved through resistance and the organization of humanism, through honesty and the good application of the law. This is the beauty of democracy. In other systems, elimination is done by agonizing parents before the terrified eyes of their children.
This is the time to once again gather forces, call on the progressives, and talk to the decent. It is tiring, but it is necessary.
Of all the inspiring images I have seen during these days of campaigning, the one that has left a lasting impression on me is that of a staircase. On Santa Maria Street, in Murialdo, in the city’s East Zone. Tarso Genro showed me the work that made him most proud of his administration in that radiant Porto Alegre, a beacon of participation, tolerance and a new world possible. The staircase united the formal and informal city, provided gardens and dignity and seems like a dream come true in a creative engineering project to overcome the drainage problem and build the most generous project we have ever had here.
I really hope that we have political engineering capable of gaining solid steps in democracy and equality, where children have daycare and school and no more terror sessions.
* Sandra Bitencourt is a journalist, PhD in communication and information from UFRGS, director of communication at Instituto Novos Paradigmas (INP).
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