By LEONARDO BOFF*
We live in a militarized and exceptional regime, in a time of post-democracy. We have to get back on top, not consider the current situation as an irremediable tragedy.
As if the horror of the Covid-19 pandemic that killed more than 615 thousand people and the generalized crisis at all levels of our country were not enough, we now have to watch the launch of the candidacy for the presidency of none other than former judge Sérgio Moro, declared partial by the STF.
He represents the right-wing strain of the Captain who brought the greatest disgrace and shame to our country, for his criminal incompetence in dealing with the pandemic, for lacking any evidence of a national project, for establishing lies as a State policy, for his absolute inability to govern and by clear signs of deviant behavior. He lies so perfectly that it seems true, the lie he is aware of.
The Captain's victory is the result of an immense and well-crafted fraud, raising anti-PTism, placing endemic corruption in the country, as if it were something exclusive to the PT, when we know that the market (tax evasion by companies) is dozens of times greater that politics, defending some values of our traditionalist culture, linked to a type of moralist family and a distorted understanding of the gender issue, fueling prejudices against indigenous people, afro-descendants, quilombolas, the poor, homoaffective people, LGBTI and spreading millions of fake news, slandering candidate Fernando Haddad with perverse defamation. Reliable information found that about 80% of people who received such false news believed them.
Behind the triumph of this extreme right, there were forces of the Empire, particularly the CIA and the US Secretary of State, as several analysts in the international field have revealed. There also acted the wealthy classes, notoriously corrupt for evading billions in taxes annually, part of the Public Ministry, the Lava-Jato operations, riddled with political intention, in defiance of the law and the necessary exemption, part of the STF and with expressive force the media oligopoly and the conservative business press that has always supported coups and feels bad about democracy.
The consequence is the current health, political, legal and institutional breakdown. It is fallacious to say that institutions work. They work selectively for some. Most of them were and are contaminated by conservative political motivations and by the desire to remove Lula and the PT from the political scene because they represent the claims of the great exploited and impoverished majorities, historically always placed on the sidelines.
Justice was shamefully partial, especially by the vigilante former federal judge of first instance, now a candidate, who did everything to put Lula in prison, even without criminal materiality to do so. He always moved, not from the sense of right, but from the law fare (distortion of the law to condemn the accused), by the impulse of resentment and by subjective conviction. It is said that he studied at Harvard. He only spent four weeks there, basically to cover up the training he received from US security agencies in the use of law fare.
He managed to prevent Lula from being a candidate for the presidency since he had the majority of voting intentions and even kidnapped his right to vote. Now Moro presents himself as a candidate for the presidency, snatching the flag of combating corruption from the Captain when he excelled in corrupt acts and in collusion with large construction companies to make forced accusations that incriminate Lula and members of the PT.
Captain's fraudulent victory (mainly because of the millions of fake news) legitimized a culture of violence. It already existed in the country at unbearable levels (more than 30 to 40 thousand murders annually). But now she feels legitimized by the hate speech that the candidate and now president continues to feed. Such a sinister reality brought, as a consequence, a strong helplessness and a painful void of hope.
This scenario adverse to law and everything that is just and right, affected our minds and hearts in a profound way. We live in a militarized and exceptional regime, in a time of post-democracy (RR Casara). Now it is important to rescue the political-transforming character of hope and resilience, the only ones that will be able to sustain us in the context of an unprecedented crisis in our history.
We have to get back on top, not considering the current situation as an irremediable tragedy, but as a fundamental crisis that obliges us to resist, to learn from this scabrous situation and to come out more mature, experienced and safe, also from the pandemic, to define a new, more just, democratic and popular path.
It is urgent to activate the “principle of hope”, which is that inner impulse that leads us to always move and project dreams and viable projects. They are the ones that allow us to draw wise lessons from difficulties and possible failures and make us stronger in resistance and struggle. Let us remember the advice of Don Quixote: “we must not accept defeat before giving all the battles”. We will give and we will win.
It is important to avoid, within democracy, the continuity of the current and worst project for the country, woven with hatred, persecution, denial of science and the lethal gravity of Covid-19. It is currently operated by the Captain and his henchmen and, we suppose, extended by the former judge, candidate for the presidency, whose characteristics, it seems, are confused with those of the Unnamable. This time we are not allowed to make mistakes.
*Leonardo Boff he is a theologian. Author, among other books, of Brazil: complete refoundation or extend dependency (Voices).
