By LUIS FELIPE MIGUEL*
Official reparation to Dilma Rousseff bothers the press. Why?
It is reported that the government is thinking about promoting symbolic reparations to Dilma Rousseff, now that the Judiciary has confirmed that the pretext used to overthrow her – the “fiscal abuse” – is not sustainable.
It's the right thing to do. Not just in relation to Dilma Rousseff, although that alone would be enough. It is important, for the history of Brazil, to record this tautology: the coup was a coup. With consequences that went far beyond the illegal removal of an elected president from her position.
The coup marked the rupture of vast sectors of the Brazilian ruling class with the principle of respect for the rules of the game. It inaugurated a period of anything goes in Brazilian politics, with uncertainty regarding the validity of constitutional norms, marked by permanent arm wrestling between the powers. After all, launched by Eduardo Cunha and driven by Lava Jato, the coup could not fail to mark the triumph of political gangsterism.
The breakdown of consensus on basic democratic and egalitarian values, fueled by the traditional right, with the PSDB at the forefront, opened space for the growth of an aberration like Bolsonarism.
The leaders of the 2016 coup and those who rallied around Jair Bolsonaro, who in script initially were intended to be mere supporting actors, they were united, however, in the project of reducing the State and dismantling the protections offered to the working class.
In short: the coup left us with institutional disorganization, political violence and widening inequality.
But Folha de S. Paul yesterday published a furious editorial against the possible redress against Dilma Rousseff.
It is a text full of hate. He says that Lula's idea of offering reparations to Dilma Rousseff is absurd: “the international sinecure she presented her with was not enough”.
A Sheet Do you think that Dilma Rousseff is not competent to be president of the BRICS Bank? Let her present her arguments. Instead, she prefers to throw accusations to the wind.
But the main point, already announced in the title, is that “it was not a coup”.
What the editorial says is that “the law on crimes of responsibility […] is flexible to the point of allowing virtually any government official to fit in”. He then assumes that “It was not the technicality of the tax cycles […] that actually brought down Dilma Rousseff”.
It fell because of its “economic policy” and its “parliamentary ineptitude [sic]”.
(It is true that the bad writing of the editorials of the Sheet It's legendary, but this one outdid itself.)
In short: the newspaper recognizes that the president was removed from office under false pretext. But we can't call it a coup anyway.
The Brazilian corporate media was complicit in the dismantling of the Constitution in Brazil, sponsoring Lava Jato, supporting the coup, applauding the authoritarian practices of Michel Temer's government, normalizing Bolsonarism.
Then, when the neo-fascist stench of the last government started to get too strong, he wanted to act as a champion of democracy. A Sheet even more than its competitors.
Without even a shadow of self-criticism, of course. If he is unable to repent for having collaborated in the torture of opponents of the dictatorship, why would he do so? mea culpa for simple supporting participation in a coup plot?
Yesterday's editorial only confirms that it continues on this path.
* Luis Felipe Miguel He is a professor at the Institute of Political Science at UnB. Author, among other books, of Democracy in the capitalist periphery: impasses in Brazil (authentic).
Originally posted on the author's social media.
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