By TARSUS GENUS*
In Rio Grande do Sul, faced with the advances of the extreme right here and around the world, Lula gave a lesson in democratic institutionality and focused his speech on the danger posed by the hydra of fascism
1.
To situate where I think we find ourselves these days, I recall texts by José Luís Fiori in which he sees “a historical crisis of non-cyclical dimensions: a long process of transition between an already exhausted form of capitalist organization and development and a new cycle which is (still) under construction”; (…) conflicting processes that “obey autonomous, although interconnected, logics (…) of macro and microeconomic mutations and the transformation of political institutions”.[1]
Now, I am looking for a reflection of the historical situation narrated by José Luís Fiori, in the present, remembering Marcio Pochmann: in 2003, following the coup against Dilma, “the barrier to the advancement of deregulation, established since 2003, quickly dismantled, allowing the resumption of neoliberal reforms that destroy social labor rights and privatize the State”. The tenuous space for the Social State to recreate itself gave way to the insane reformism of the radical right, whose aim was to destroy and kill.
The historical crisis of “non-cyclical dimensions” then sought a structural solution. Through it, the Brazilian ruling classes, already giving up on a national project, threw themselves into the hands of definitive global baptism and thus promoted the symbiosis of moral dwarfs: the “ceos,” without a country and without fascination, generated a political dynamic that was interrupted by the difficult Lula's victory, against the entire scheme of global power, political and media, of insatiable rentierism.
In a recent interview given to the newspaper The country (March 10, 2024) Chilean President Gabriel Boric said that “the principles of our government remain completely firm.” And he continues: “the depth of the changes we imagined at a certain moment went against what the majority of the population wanted. This is undeniable. And that implies adjusting, but without – therefore – deviating from our principles: priorities and speed have changed, but not the meaning of our principles.”
Gabriel Boric, young and great ruler, acknowledged in the interview the change in priorities and their speed, without expressing himself, however, about the programmatic weakness of his “coalition”, to face the crisis, which – incidentally – is not a his weakness, but he seems to belong to the left as a whole in planetary terms, all “orphans of utopia” and half lost in a dirty night where the fascist bitch – as Brecht said – won’t come out of her heat.
In the European political space, BBC News (March 11, 2024) recently announced the defeat of the Socialist Party government in Portugal, in the recent parliamentary elections. And he announced the new socialist strategy: “never leave the leadership of the opposition to the extreme right”, stressing – also – that the PS will not be a “key” for the center-right to set up a government, whose victory reduced the resounding victory to dust. socialist movement in January 2022, when Prime Minister António Costa won more than 116 seats in Parliament.
But be careful: it was also the moment when the extreme right became the third political force in the country. It seemed – it was true – that the fascist storm was once again hitting the colonial windows of Lisbon, spreading across the Rocio and reaching the peasants of the north, the green banks of the Douro and the Arco de São Jorge. watchful over the golden waters of the Tagus.
The examples of Portugal and Chile serve to show the discomfort of broad sectors of society, regardless of their class extraction, with liberal-representative democracy, a feeling added to the frustration of the social promises engendered in the last century, which failed to implement coherence in the Welfare State and, at the same time, they lack the creative imagination to renew the modern democratic pact through socialism.
On the one hand, they did not recover something of the utopian-democratic spirit that excited vast sectors of the world of work, youth and the industrial working class, coming from the Carnation Revolution and, on the other, they failed to program in Chile an identity synthesis, for the which have plenty of purposes, but lack strategies for universalizing their fragmentary struggles.
2.
The Federal Government's act at FIERGS, on Friday (March 15th) in the auditorium packed with PT members and many of the best left and center-left cadres and leaders in the State, was a significant event for Rio Grande do Sul .And for the country. The presidential speech, made in a business house from which – before the crisis of January 8th – shyly gestured towards the coup against President Lula's inauguration, dynamically situated the new political space, possible in Rio Grande do Sul, at the Federation concert . It seemed like that was where Rio Grande do Sul could start talking to itself.
In the mutilated Federation, first due to the disgraceful support that most of the traditional media gave to the coup against Dilma, then due to personalism, authoritarianism and fascism, latent in all the attitudes of the pathetic Bolsonarism that devastated the nation, the event not only showed republicanism alive and with principles that mark the Lula Government, as well as its capacity for dialogue and political persuasion.
His speech, made after a tiring presentation of numbers and data – followed by the intelligent transition made by minister Paulo Pimenta – to prepare the ground for the presidential speech, showed what he was coming up with. Without disregarding the importance of numbers and “deeds”, Lula based his speech on an assessment of the Latin American and global situation, given the rise of the extreme right, on all continents.
He highlighted that only the strength of democracy, expressed in the formal institutions of the Republic and the reinforcement of democratic thought in civil society, can ward off the fascist danger. Lula gave a lesson in democratic institutionality and focused his speech on the danger posed by the hydra of fascism, which has a thousand fiery heads and millions of deadly blades hidden in its treacherous nails.
It was the ecumenical space where some businessmen were also present, Governor Eduardo Leite, a center-right figure who accepted and reinforced Lula's invitation to republican dialogue – as well as the mayor of Porto Alegre – a notorious Bolsonarist and denialist, treated by protocol and by Lula's ministers with the institutional respect due to him. The meeting flowed like a wind of reconciliation with political democracy, which our state so desperately needs, cornered between neoliberal Uruguay and half-Nazi Santa Catarina, between Paraguay and Javier Milei's new Argentina: Lula shone like few others.
On March 16, one day after this event, the portal Power 360 released a survey reporting that the governor of São Paulo Tarcísio de Freitas increased his popular support by almost 10 points – from December/23 to March/24 – in the Santos region, when the police operation launched by the São Paulo government had already left the city of Santos 47 dead!
Among the dead and missing in the Gaza Strip, today, there are already more than 30 thousand victims (among these more than 6 thousand children and 7 thousand women) due to Israeli military actions that are supported – with the direct cost only in the State Budget of Israel – which totals no less than 14 billion dollars, in the first two months of 2024. Humanity burns and suffers from the rancid grimaces of the ideology of Nazi-fascist terror.
Lula had already lamented, at the closing of the 46th Summit of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, that the world spends 2,2 trillion dollars on weapons per year, data that only illustrates the great State policies. of a necrophilic nature, who collect the consciences of sociopaths around the world, inclined towards fascism and neo-Nazism.
Lula, after Mandela, is the last great contemporary political figure, whose voice has global reach in defense of the doctrine of peace, which can only prevail universally with the defeat of the ethos fascist that ravages the Planet and has already taken over the Government of Israel. As nothing is entirely perfect, it can be said that on that Friday of democracy in Porto Alegre, ironically in the home of the most Bolsonarian businessmen in our State, Lula won and was moved. All is not lost, as it was “an almost perfect day”.
*Tarsus in law he was governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, mayor of Porto Alegre, Minister of Justice, Minister of Education and Minister of Institutional Relations in Brazil. Author, among other books, of possible utopia (Arts & Crafts). [https://amzn.to/3ReRb6I]
Notes
[1] José Luís Fiori & Maria Conceição Tavares. Global maladjustment and conservative modernization. Paz e Terra, 1993, p. 128, 129.
[2] Marcio Pochmann.The great historic dropout. Ed. Ideias e Letras, p. 33-34.
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