By MARCELO GUIMARÃES LIMA*
Censorship of the PCO prohibits the political-ideological debate
The fallacious “equalization of extremes” is used by the Minister of the STF, Alexandre de Moraes, for a serious act of censorship against the small and combative, sometimes strident, Workers' Cause Party.[1] After all, the PCO's scathing criticism of the performance of the STF and the aforementioned judge, never preached attacks against people and institutions, never instilled physical violence against judges, as is the case of militancy, paid or not, by Jair Bolsonaro and his allies .
In the case of the PCO, it is a critique of political-ideological argumentation, with which it is possible to agree or disagree both in form and content, but which requires a positive or negative response, in terms of the ideological debate argued, rational, public if we take seriously the values of intelligence in general and freedom of opinion and expression in so-called liberal democracy.
Otherwise, the grandiloquent statements in the current institutions of the weakened Brazilian democracy about the values of freedom, will be, or are in fact, mere words destined to confuse and prevent the understanding of the real facts and processes behind the ideological masks of the “democratic” public discourse. ”. After all, the leader of the national extreme right, Jair Bolsonaro, who, so far unpunished, disrespects the country's laws on a daily basis, whether in traffic violations or in unconstitutional and other initiatives of (mis)government, also says he is a defender of " freedom".
Here we can observe that the degradation of language is characteristic of the neoliberal times that we live worldwide. The minister's action against the PCO can, of course, be seen as a response in terms of de facto power, which is not always equated with legal power, with critical discourse which, in theory, is the right of citizens.
The learned judge Alexandre de Moraes is the author of a book on human rights. Surely he has an idea of the scope of his acts for the political debate in the public sphere of the so-called Brazilian democracy and for the so-called fundamental rights of citizenship, including the right to information and expression of ideas about the current order of society as a whole, its serious imbalances and impasses, and the possible and desirable alternatives to it.
Would it be appropriate here to recall the sad performance of the STF as a whole in the long preparation and participation in the illegal and unfair deposition of President Dilma Rousseff? In support of the ill-fated and illegal Operation Car Wash? In the illegal, unfair, politically motivated arrest of Lula? The convinced and energetic participation of Minister Alexandre de Moraes in the Temer (dis)government?
The Temer government and its allies in institutions and the media, which left the political crisis and the removal of workers' rights as their main legacy, paved the way for the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. The result of the 2016 coup, deepened in 2018, is the current disastrous situation of the Brazilian social order, a situation made up by the hegemonic conservative media, in the context of a serious crisis of the world order, an order sustained by the dominant global power, the USA and its partners of the European Union.
Bolsonaro’s misgovernment greatly aggravates the effects of the global crisis on the daily lives of the Brazilian people. And there is no response to the height of the seriousness and urgency of the problems (pandemic, loss of rights, loss of basic material resources, loss of sovereignty, corruption, unemployment, inflation, etc.) that affect the people and the nation by the so-called democratic institutions.
Minister Alexandre de Moraes can certainly feel personally offended at being called a “skinhead in a toga” by the PCO.[2] The image can be merely illustrative, as they claim, or allude to the ideological extremism of skinheads. It does not fail to have some poetic pertinence in the general economy of the ideological discourse of combat. It can be considered something excessive, in extremely bad taste, by those who cultivate the right stylistic and discursive measure.
What is not pertinent or reasonable is that the minister's response goes beyond the discursive field of personality, so to speak, for which there are specific legal spheres, and the matter is framed as an attack on public office and the institution. In addition, the action of Minister Alexandre de Moraes gives arguments to critics of the current “post-democratic” regime, it is worth the euphemism here, implemented in Brazil with the parliamentary-legal-media coup of 2016: for many, we live in the country in a situation of “fake democracy”.
At this moment, the foreseen electoral defeat of Jair Bolsonaro seems to demand from the Brazilian right wing a reformulation of its power strategy and its public image compromised by militant neo-fascism. The action of Minister Alexandre de Moraes is surprising as inadequate for the intended affirmation of the Brazilian “post-democracy” in the internal and external scenario.
The PCO is a small party in numbers and resources. His fierce political practice and forceful style of criticism, which sometimes, for some, goes beyond reasonableness in form and/or content and ends up losing scope and effectiveness, is disliked by many, and is also valued by others, by people who understand that the lack of radical understanding and action in critical contexts is actually the biggest problem for confronting and contesting the enemies of the people and the Brazilian nation.
In this regard, it is not necessary to be a Trotskyist, neo-Trotskyist, Marxist-Leninist, etc., to understand that the PCO, among others, plays a role in presenting other perspectives on the current situation of the country and the ways to overcome the current crisis . Whether we agree or not, this broadens the necessary debate. And the reach of the PCO in the networks confirms this.
It is also worth remembering that in the modern history of Brazil, the criminalization and legal and even physical elimination of leftist parties has always been the resource that the ruling class used in critical moments with the same result: dictatorship, torture, the murder of opponents, the aggravation of the economic crises, the hunger and the misery of the people.
Dictatorship, censorship, torture weigh heavily on the country's history. The names of politicians, generals, businessmen, journalists, state servants, etc. associated with coups and dictatorships form a gallery of infamy in the national memory. These pass in time, the memory remains.
*Marcelo Guimaraes Lima is an artist, researcher, writer and teacher.
Notes
[1] https://www.brasil247.com/regionais/brasilia/alexandre-de-moraes-inclui-pco-no-inquerito-das-fake-news-e-bloqueia-contas-do-partido-nas-redes -social
[2] https://www.causaoperaria.org.br/rede/dco/politica/pco-convoca-a-esquerda-a-repudiar-ataque-gravissimo-do-stf/