By TARSUS GENUS*
Fernando Haddad stopped the coup anomie and put politics in its rightful place
“The great project of destructuring the commons that is undertaken as new governance gains advantage and justification from the fact that it is carried out on fluid terrains, on which governance professes to optimize the flow of streams, counter bureaucratic inertia, and fragment rigid decision-making structures…”
(Emilios Christodoulidis).
Despite any reservations one may have about the “Haddad framework,” the most important political fact of President Lula’s current government, it is the aforementioned framework that, woven entirely by Fernando Haddad and his high-level technical group, has remade domestic politics as national politics. The framework has so far traveled a narrow path, which has allowed democracy and the rule of law to transition from a state of near anomie – brought about by an attempted coup d’état – to a space of relative rest, within which we have parked ourselves to help the country move towards an idea of nationhood, one that is also prepared to set an example in the climate transition.
Let me explain: by denying the State the possibility of a Federal Agency outside the narrow local political dispute, the possibility of preparing a project for the eco-environmental (re)construction of RS, based on new parameters of national integration, was blocked. These could start with some investments designed to establish a new type of corridor, of energy and production sustainability. It could begin with the planned reconstruction of the Wall, projecting itself with investments for the production of clean energy towards the Taim, which after encompassing the Taquari Valley, would head towards the Pantanal of Mato Grosso, until reaching the Amazon.
I don't know if this impression is just typical of a former PT leader in a state that has had almost no political influence on the Federation's destiny for many years. The PT itself in Rio Grande do Sul has little influence on the Federal Government's decisions for this Rio Grande do Sul, where Bolsonarism has co-opted most of the businesspeople and a good part of the middle classes. Or perhaps it is simply the opinion of a citizen who governed the state and Porto Alegre, who is strongly influenced by the climate tragedy that has befallen us.
The federal government – helpful and supportive – offered the necessary humanitarian and reparatory support, plus billions of dollars in the hands of the state government, without, however, showing the capacity to transform the misfortune into an epic project of building a new idea of nation. I have witnessed decisions of this magnitude, which the President has taken, for example, in relation to the transfer of waters from the São Francisco River.
Based on the analysis explained by Eric Hobsbawm, in How to change the world,[I] It is possible to draw a parallel between current Brazilian society, in terms of the confrontations with the “democratic question”, comparing it with Italy after 1917, in terms of the conditions for facing the “question of social revolution”, which was spreading throughout Europe in the first post-war period.
I seek this parallel based on what I call the narrow margins of maneuver that any popular government in the world, supervised by the movements of financial capital, has to sustainably reduce levels of inequality, promote culture, food and education for the people, in a democratic and social model, based on a way of life consciously oriented towards the common good. Not knowing how to use the narrow margins to meet the demands of the poor and excluded, within the system of capital, has already led us to Jair Bolsonaro here; in Italy, to Benito Mussolini.
Fraternal and authoritative voices on the left may claim that only a revolution will bring about this new era, although everything that is happening today is going in the opposite direction to what was imagined in the last century as a revolution. In fact, the Lula government is a moderate government, not a government that proposed to open a new revolutionary phase on the continent. Thanks to this, he was certainly able to do a lot, even with a supporting party that has not renewed itself and with the lack of an active social base to defend him in the streets. He also faces threats from a parliamentary majority, as a group that is weak in its duties to the country and strong in its regionalist oligarchic patronage.
The destruction of naturalness, as a partner of social evolution, adds yet another brutal difficulty to the best intentions of change in the country, since the disarticulation between the “good” and the “common” in the current class society – has destroyed the meaning of what the two terms meant together,[ii] already at the beginning of the 21st century. The labor reform without workers' resistance, the imprisonment of Lula without popular rebellion, the criminal equation of blackmail by the majority of the National Congress and the coup-like impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, speak volumes about the dystopias in our deadened political liberalism.
Lula's third term is the most difficult of the series of governments that began in 2002, much more difficult than Dilma's second term until her incredible impeachment "within the law" in August 2016; and certainly less difficult than a possible "center-left" government, if that were to happen after 2026. I understand, in fact, that this should be the starting point for a strategic reflection that could unite a new political and social Front, so that we can move in a better direction after 2026.
Networked crime, organized globally to hijack the free formation of opinion, will not give in or stop, as it will increasingly be combined with new informational intelligence and with the flow of money, pirated or legal, circulating without control. The vast majority of the people are tired of the rituals of democracy and bureaucracy, indicating that we will have even harder times to reverse this fatigue, now geometrically increased by the tragic climate, which can only be overcome by the epic of politics.
The extreme separation between the represented and the representatives, the result of a democracy that has not been renewed, as well as the spontaneous or provoked emergence of neo-fascist and right-wing extremist political movements throughout the Western world, in addition to the normalization of the genocide in Gaza, add to the impotence of the left in general to renew itself as a generation and discursively. A thick political fog has already been erected to visualize “what to do” in the future.
I think the President is right to carry out a profound ministerial reform, but if it is not profound, it is better to leave things as they are. It is no longer time to train staff, but rather to obtain concrete governance results in key ministries, to also forge a new ministerial structure, reinforcing identity struggles in an integrated manner with fundamental rights, above all by streamlining the fulfillment of government missions.
One question that arises, for example, is why not give the Ministry of Justice more power in the defense of rights, by placing strong secretariats for human rights, women's rights, and racial equality under its structure, coordinated directly by the Minister of Justice? Why not separate Justice from Public Security, building a strong Ministry of Security to confront global organized crime and “domestic” crimes, through national and international projects that integrate the fight against crime, starting from information, communication, and financial flows that encompass the entire planet? It is for the immediate defense of concrete democracy!
It was Sigmund Freud who said that “dreams are the guardians of sleep, not its disturbers.” I don’t know if this is an analytical truth well revealed by the Freudian genius, but I understand that it is transposed to certain historical conditions, where we forget about real life to look only at the uncertain future of a revolution. Freud’s phrase makes us think, strategically, about the following: if we are surrounded by advancing fascism and we need to be free and energetic to defend the utopia of the democratic dream, let us not let dreams disturb our sleep, but let them be its permanent guardians. I repeat: it is for the immediate defense of concrete democracy!
*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/3DfPdhF]
Notes
[I] HOBSBAWN, Eric. How to Change the World. Buenos Aires, ed. Criticism, 2011, p. 323.
[ii] CHRISTODOULIDIS, Emilios. Constitutionalism and the threat of the total market. New York, 2023, p. 146.
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