By EUGENIO BUCCI*
Those nostalgic for free will have become seasoned musketeers
During the dictatorship, signals from exotic broadcasters reached the corners of the armed and uniformed homeland freely. On shortwave, Moscow Radio resonated with its fluent Portuguese throughout the country, from the Amazonian floodplains to the fields of Nuporanga. And it wasn't just Moscow Radio. Along with it, there were also broadcasts from Radio Peking, Radio Tirana and Radio Bulgaria. Communism in the carotid artery, chills in the barracks. The authorities were worried: how could they block the radio frequency of the Iron Curtain?
There was no way. Broadcasting veterans still remember that the military tried to use gadgets to disrupt the sound of the invaders, at least in the so-called strategic regions, but the maneuver did not work. They banned plays, protest songs, magazines of nude women, assorted films, racy soap operas and left-wing novels, but they failed miserably in the project of silencing the alien stations. It was not a lack of will.
Now, the world is different, as we know. You hardly find shortwave radios anymore, and when you do, you don't see anyone with their ear glued to the contraption. Everything is different. Only one thing hasn't changed: defying the law of natural evolution of species, the supporters of the 1964 coup are still out there, perfectly preserved, and they don't hide from anyone their nostalgia for the dictatorship, torture and censorship – ridiculous, but stubborn.
This group has been in an uproar all week. Upon learning that the platform called “X,” formerly known as Twitter, was banned from cell phones and computers by a court order, they began to see ghosts again. The ghosts are the same as before, but the supernatural apparitions have changed their meaning. Before, the specter of communism was external, coming from the outside in. Now, it is internal, coming from the headquarters of the Supreme Federal Court and radiating out into the world. Before, the protection of freedom marched in combat boots on the white marble of the Alvorada Palace. Now, it lives far away and goes by the name of Elon Musk. Reincarnated and reworked ectoplasms.
Reverse Phantasmagorias
In their miasmatic hallucinations, the widows of AI-5 are swallowed up by terrifying visions. They see the judiciary of our times perpetrating in broad daylight the evil that the judiciary of half a century ago was unable to perpetrate in the dark: blocking the communication of the exogenous adversary with a stroke of the pen. But how is that? The nostalgic ones cannot accept it and writhe with envy: “How is it that the powers of democracy are more effective than ours in the tyranny of 1970?” They cannot swallow the historical outrage: “They made X disappear the way we were unable to make Radio Moscow disappear!”
In order to avoid giving the impression that it is all just sour grapes, the late supporters of the extinct dictatorship invented the idea that their problem is not jealousy, but the furious commitment they had to “freedom of expression.” That’s right: we are seeing the flag of “freedom” being unfurled by the forces that have always defiled it. It’s not that the supporters of arbitrary decisions have changed – they have simply revamped their own vanity. They, who yesterday only accepted criticism if it was “constructive,” today declare themselves in favor of the expression of thought and even of non-thought. Especially the latter.
It's curious, anthropologically curious. You'll never see these people supporting the freedom of expression of homeless people, pro-abortion women, trans people, poor workers, quilombolas and indigenous people, because, as they vigorously denounce, these sectors, in addition to being prejudiced and intolerant, are NGOs in cahoots with the powers that be who only want to steal our niobium and graphene.
No, the nostalgic ones do not allow themselves to be fooled. They have a side. They defend the freedom of unprotected people, of the defenseless victims of brutality in the robes. Combative, they offer their poignant solidarity to the crippled martyr of democracy: Elon Musk, who is indeed an injustice.
Those nostalgic for free will have become fierce musketeers. They are all for Elon Musk, and they are convinced, down to their pockets, that Elon Musk will always be for all of them. Lulled by the nightmares of the Arabian Nights of global warming, they have forgotten to wake up to the facts and to reality.
Facts: The former Twitter account went offline because it refused to comply with a court order – a decision ratified unanimously by the First Chamber of the Supreme Federal Court. Reality: No Judiciary Branch, in any known or unknown country, could have taken any other action. It was necessary to protect the judicial authority of a sovereign country. Fact and reality: this had nothing to do with an attack on “freedom of expression.”
Furthermore, you can – and should – criticize the Supreme Court. There is much to question in court. The only thing that cannot be said is that what happened with Twitter was a gag. No one is being censored there, not even the poor persecuted Elon Musk, who continues to speak freely. More than speaking, he continues to abuse his economic power, but that is another conversation.
* Eugene Bucci He is a professor at the School of Communications and Arts at USP. Author, among other books, of Uncertainty, an essay: how we think about the idea that disorients us (and orients the digital world) (authentic). [https://amzn.to/3SytDKl]
Originally published in the newspaper The State of S. Paul.
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