By FRANCISCO FOOT HARDMAN
The comparison with the 1984 Diretas-Já, in the case of “We are together” is presumptuous and out of context. It reminds more of a nostalgic waltz of those who don't want to take responsibility for the mishaps committed
He is well. We are all together. Let's unify and strengthen a movement to remove Bolsonaro's neo-fascist militia government as soon as possible. It is not an ideology that postulates this way. It is a life imperative. Lives that the current mismanagement in its death paths, helped and helps to reap every day and hour, putting us at the top of the inglorious world ranking of deaths. A large portion of them that could have been avoided is evidenced by all serious scientific studies. And, in that, there is no need to quibble, because it is a health emergency that every citizen and every public agent must have as an unavoidable priority.
Lives that the neoliberal fundamentalism of “Posto Ipiranga” and its empty rhetoric played and still plays in the wake of record-breaking unemployment and the depression that already announces itself to be the most abysmal. We are together, yes, those who bet on other possible ways of organizing economic life, with total prioritization, not money but common people on whose work everything we are depends, and facing, with face and courage, the socio-environmental collapse that is planetary, but it is Brazilian, Amazonian, and whose destiny is in the hands of this generation.
Let's defend what's left of the 1988 Constitution, before it's all torn up. And the growing demonstrations by popular sectors of organized football fans, anti-fascists and anti-racists, are nothing of a riot, Mr. Vice President Gal. Mourão, because the core of the turmoil is in the president who disgracefully heads his government, with his outbursts of coup plotters and provocateurs, with the angels of evil that surround him with guns and make uproars threatening the powers of the Republic. With the hate cabinet mounted wide open since the 2018 campaign, housed in the Planalto, distilling the disorder of irrationality and violence against all and all who do not swear allegiance to the “family”. Who is the central star of the national riot right now? Who makes Brazil's international image skyrocket? The heart of the turmoil is in the infamous ministerial meeting of April 22, in which the arming of the “people” (read: militias) was openly preached to defend a violent president and his family. In the beards of the military who held office there. Does “freedom of expression” harbor the clear incitement to attack governors, mayors, STF, Congress? Is openly preaching the scam an act of “free speech”?
Against these aberrations of typical fascist affiliation, we stand together. It is necessary to join forces in the streets, from popular, social and union movements, to the concrete actions that are seen in the STF, Congress, TSE. It is necessary to face this fight with the urgency that the destructive character of the current mismanagement against the Nation shows, to the country and to the world, every single day. Yes, who knows, maybe the inspiration of the current street fights in the main North American cities, and already in Europe, against the atavistic racism of the police there (any resemblance with the blacks killed daily in Brazil is not a mere coincidence) is the link of solidarity that was missing from the resumption of massive mobilizations in our country.
The air that was missing in the murderous asphyxiation of George Floyd is the spark of the scream of millions, including in Brazil. This is the democracy that is made in struggle. This struggle shows how precarious such democratic institutions are in the two largest slave-owning countries in modern history, the USA and Brazil. As the much vaunted “checks and balances” have had their scales wormy for a long time, and hanging, who knows, which way.
We are together, yes. But it is imperative to remind the hollow-wood democrats, and their insinuating big media, that there is no democracy worthy of the name in a country that has lived, for more than two years, with the peremptory non-clarification about those who ordered the death of black councilor Marielle Franco. That has coexisted for years with the brazen partisanship and politicization of the Untouchables of Curitiba, headed by Eliot Ness from Maringá, Sérgio Moro, more oriented, in his unrestrained opportunistic career, to be Bolsonaro's assistant, in various measures of an authoritarian nature, until his appetite for power led him to be dismounted by the boss. That postpones, as a minor issue, the annulment of former President Lula's convictions, as well as the return of his revoked political rights. That elides the clear coup d'état in the orchestrated action – FHC, Aécio, Serra and Aloísio at the head, among others – that led to the impeachment of President Dilma, annulling the manifest will of 54 million voters. That corroborated, in 2018, the resounding illegal manipulation and financing of the fake-news machine largely responsible for Bolsonaro's victory against Haddad.
What democracy is this? The one that goes from Barão de Limeira to Higienópolis? From Marginal do Limão, at most Lapa, to Consolação? From Jardim Botânico, in Rio, to Avenida Berrini, in São Paulo, flying overhead? What drones of bad journalism make this whipped cream coverage, honeyed with Huck and Moro, and prejudiced, more or less disguised, with those not born in a splendid cradle?
The comparison with the 1984 Diretas-Já, in the case of “We are together” is presumptuous and out of context. It reminds one more of a nostalgic waltz of those who do not want to take responsibility for the mishaps committed, starting with the veto of the use of the expression “extreme right” to characterize the profile of Bolsonaro, who thus ascended towards his articulation of a fascist type, posing as a yet another half-crazed right-winger. It seems that this error in analysis, which is costing us dearly, was generally accepted by the military who surround it as faithful servants.
Because, no matter how many signatures and petitions are opened, the tragic moment, in Brazil and in the world, demands: if a new democratic pact is to be built, it cannot again be an agreement of the elites - as well remembered, in those days, among others, Roberto Requião and Roberto Amaral[1] — and, for that, the Brazilian people, in their absolute majority (certainly greater than 70%), from all regions of the country, must be summoned, with the care that the moment demands, to participate effectively in this reconstruction of the country.
I freely use images of the already anthological Peripheral Anthropophagy Manifesto, by the Minas Gerais-Paulista poet Sérgio Vaz, to remember that there can only be hope for a Brazil reborn from the ashes if one assumes the centrality of all peripheries in this process, this indeed is the true unity that is built “by love, by pain, by color". It is only from this league that one can reaffirm what has been repeatedly hijacked in Brazilian history. And, here, with the poet, what can actually make the difference: “From the alleys and alleys there will come a voice that cries out against the silence that punishes us. Behold, a beautiful and intelligent people appears from the slopes galloping against the past. In favor of a clean future for all Brazilians”.
*Francisco Foot Hardman He is professor of theory and literary history at IEL at Unicamp and is currently a visiting professor at the School of Foreign Languages at Peking University (PKU).
[1] Roberto Requião, “Always the same thing, the same shit, always”, 2-6-2020, Brasil247 website; Roberto Amaral, “The big house already fears chaos”, 2-6-2020, website www.ramaral.org.
