By FLAVIO AGUIAR*
We have with us a brand new Lula, brand new, if only to torment the sleep of the unjust
"Humor is the salt, honey and wine of life” (Some ancient philosopher must have thought this phrase).
You, unsuspecting readers, will excuse me, but in the joy of March 8, 2021, I, who am more out of tune than the creak of a monastery door, composed the lyrics of a sambinha, following a melody by the composer Tulio Piva about the conquest of the 58* Cup:
From Oiapoque to Chuí/There's a joy flowing/Like I've never seen/It's just that a judge/From the top of the Planalto/Following his decorum/It ended with Seu Moro's party.
Zanin and Valeska were playing / And now, what will Globo do? / Well, again, the crowd screamed: / We are happy, and Lula is there.
Many kilometers of lines will be written praising, measuring, or execrating the decision of judge Luis Edson Fachin. There are questions that do not want to be silenced: how much does the decision to annul Lula’s processes and convictions in Curitiba favor this one, how much do they favor Moro, reopening the process of the former, trying to clear the account of the latter?
Will this decision by Fachin be sustained, as the PGR will appeal against it?
How will the judge in Brasilia who will be in charge of reopening the case proceed?
As Lula is over 75 years old, will the charges against him soon expire?
The litany of questions, all pertinent, and answers, at this point all groping for the uncertain future, is not going to end anytime soon.
Of course, at least for lay people like me in legal matters, a big question remains.
I grew up in a Catholic environment, celebrating the Joyful Mysteries, such as the Annunciation to the Virgin with whom she was pregnant; the Luminous, like the Eucharist in Holy Supper; the Sorrowful, such as the Flagellation and Crucifixion of Christ; and the Glorious, like that of the Resurrection.
But nothing compares to the Mysterious Mysteries of the Brazilian Judiciary. Not to mention just the tortuous and labyrinthine intricacies of Lava-Jato, I express my total lay perplexity at how, for four years or more, the STF panels and plenary were unable to draw up decisions or indecisions other than those that allowed Lula to be taken to prison and political ostracism, temporizing with the mock justice practiced by the Republic of Curitiba, for everything to end on a Monday, with the penalty of a single judge, and then one of those who used to vote systematically against Lula.
No matter how much I delve into Aristotelian logic, Euclidean geometry, and quantum mathematics, I cannot understand.
There will be the finger of a Demon of Perversity there, since this monocratic decision implies the possibility that the presidential race for 2022, whose track has already been opened, will be accompanied by the monochromatic unraveling of frivolous (as Lula's lawyers say) and false accusations against the former president, owning a triplex that never belonged to him, and benefiting from renovations in a place that also never belonged to him? There was also the crime of buying an aluminum boat for R$XNUMX, audacity that transforms the acquisition of a mansion in Brasília for R$XNUMX million, whose origin is more mysterious than the Mysteries of Eleusis, into a pittance, a nonada.
Although this possibility cannot leave the scope of evaluations, it must be recognized that the decision of Monday, March 8, 2021, threw sand on the plans of the current occupant of the Planalto Palace, of lovers of mouth, in uniform, in pajamas or in civilian clothes, and threw them into the quicksand of uncertainty.
It should also be noted the resounding speed with which the news of the annulment of the sentences against Lula spread through the world media which, already on the night of March 8, broadcast it stridently for those who did not want to hear it.
If the said decision threw sand into the future plans of the militiamen of good men, it also threw sand into the past, staining the clothes of those in the media, in the courts, in the barracks, on the stock exchanges, in the catacombs of power and in the labyrinths of the financial powers, praised and incensed the youth of Curitiba and their legal excesses as the miraculous elixir nec plus ultra of national salvation, in addition to more prescribed by a pastor expert in power point and a judge who let himself be carried away by the ministry that passed in his life.
What will happen from now on? Since my crystal ball is flatter than the Virginia philosopher's flat earth, I'm not going to predict anything.
A psychoanalyst friend of mine says that Brazil is the Land of Triz: everything happens by a hair's breadth. Be it happiness or misfortune, both always come close. So, while the train of disgrace does not come, let's celebrate the happy close that we were given to live while there is still time. We have with us a brand new Lula, brand new, if only to torment the sleep of the unjust.
*Following the 1958 victory, the sambista and bohemian gaucho Túlio Piva composed this tribute to our team, as it was said at the time:
“From Oiapoque to Chuí
Run a joy like I've never seen:
It's just that Brasuik, there in the fields of Europe,
He had a ball, danced the samba and brought the Cup...
Zagallo played with Pelé,
Didi, king with the ball at his feet,
Garrincha, tico-tico in cornmeal,
And the crowd screamed
Goal by Vava
If anyone wants to take a chance, contact me via WhatsApp, and I'll hum the melody, as it seems I'm one of the only coevals of the composition who remembers it; and there was no recording.
* Flavio Aguiar, journalist and writer, is a retired professor of Brazilian literature at USP. Author, among other books, of Chronicles of the World Upside Down (Boitempo).