By LISZT VIEIRA*
Author introduction to newly released book
1.
This book seeks to analyze the main issues that characterized the first half of the current government. The texts are presented in chronological order, but it is not a journalistic narration, but rather a political reflection on the crossroads at which the Lula government finds itself today. Following the evolution of events with an analytical vision was the objective of this book, inspired by the wisdom of Guimarães Rosa in Great Sertão: Veredas, when he states that “the real is not in the departure or in the arrival: it is available to us in the middle of the journey”.
We consider that the first half of the Lula 3 government ends with the first round of municipal elections on October 6, 2024. From the second round onwards, we enter the second half. The first part of this book is dedicated to political issues per se. The second part addresses the main environmental issues that, in Brazil and worldwide, threaten the survival of humanity on the planet due to the destruction of natural resources and biodiversity due to the impact of economic activity, as well as the generation of greenhouse gases that are the source of the climate crisis.
By a small margin, civilization won over barbarism in Brazil in the 2022 presidential election with Lula's victory over the far-right candidate who won almost half of the electorate's votes. With a broad front defending democracy and social justice, President Lula began his government by forging an alliance with the market, the military and the parliamentary right, improperly called Centrão.
He made important concessions to the market with a conservative economic policy, with a fiscalist approach and by cutting funding for health, education, the environment and other social areas. Squeezed between a Central Bank that maintains high interest rates, considered the highest in the world, to serve the interests of bankers and investors in the financial market, and a reactionary Congress, with a right-wing majority, Lula adopted the neoliberal policy of fiscal austerity that cuts government investment and appointed right-wing parliamentarians to several ministries and high-ranking government positions.
At the same time, it tried to gain the support of the military by prohibiting the “decommemoration” of the 60th anniversary of the 1964 coup and blocked the reconstitution of the Memory and Justice Commission to investigate and punish the crimes of the military dictatorship. At the same time, it promotes a progressive social policy and, in July 2024, recreated the Commission for Political Deaths and Disappearances.
All this in the name of governability. However, almost halfway through the term, it is already clear that the policy of concessions and alliances with the right has failed. It has not achieved its objectives, as the government has been losing successive votes in Congress and has been suffering strong attacks from the market.
The Lula government is under strong pressure to adopt neoliberal measures, such as, for example, ending the constitutional minimum wages for health and education, decoupling adjustments to pensions and social security benefits from the minimum wage, accepting high interest rates without pushing for gradual reductions, etc.
This leads to conflicts with the government's support base, such as university professors, employees of federal universities and the environmental sector (IBAMA and ICMBio), who were forced to go on strike, MST, scientists, environmentalists and the entire progressive electorate that defends democracy against the authoritarian and neoliberal onslaught of the right.
The Lula government is at a crossroads. Either it allows itself to be absorbed by the right in the name of a failing governability, based on a failed policy of concessions, or it decides to advance the progressive agenda of its immediate support base. To do so, it will have to mobilize the organized sectors of civil society, address the people directly and face the opposition of the major commercial media in the service of the financial market.
The far-right project has popular support and is growing in Brazil and around the world, as seen in Europe, the United States and Latin America. In Brazil, an important factor, in addition to the market, is the support of the evangelical movement and its parliamentary weight in Congress. The neo-fascist discourse of the far-right, preaching violence and dictatorship, has been effective in winning over a large part of the electorate.
2.
In the second part, we present, with a critical view, the causes and consequences of extreme climate events that impact Brazil and the world, threatening to cause the collapse of our civilization if an energy transition to abandon fossil fuels and, mainly, a new way of life and production that guarantees the sustainability of life on Earth is not undertaken urgently.
Deforestation in the Amazon and, mainly, in the Cerrado, fires everywhere, especially in the Pantanal, murder of rural leaders, such as peasants, indigenous people, quilombolas, environmentalists, scientists, are part of the daily lives of Brazilians who fight for the protection of nature against the actions of predatory agribusiness in the expansion of the agricultural frontier.
The environmental issue, previously considered by businesspeople, the media and politicians, from both the right and the left, as non-existent in Brazil, a fad imported from Europe, has today become, after years of denunciations by environmentalists and scientists linked to international organizations, a matter of life or death for humanity.
Democracy, with social justice, and development, with socio-environmental sustainability, are the two main themes of this book, which joins all those who fight for civilization against barbarism.
*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). [https://amzn.to/3sQ7Qn3]
Reference
Liszt Vieira. Democracy at the crossroads: Brazil under the Lula government. Rio de Janeiro, Garamond, 2024, 328 pages. [https://amzn.to/3PhxE3c]
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