remake the country

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By MARILENA CHAUÍ*

The new government's task will be enormous, difficult, and requires the left to find common ground.

 

The task on the left

There is an ideological view, and therefore illusory, that the plurality of the left represents a crisis. I think that, on the contrary, multiplicity enriches the left's conception. Without erasing the differences, nor claiming a false unity, the periodic meeting of the left, under certain circumstances, is essential. There are times when one sector paralyzes and others proceed. From time to time the PT is paralyzed, but this is compensated by PSOL innovations.

I have been insisting that, at least in the first year of the government, there has to be a meeting, a common perspective, because the government is going to face a huge difficulty. You will have to remake the country.

There are 33 million unemployed in Brazil, 30 million people going hungry. There is no condition to think of an economic and restructuring plan if the left does not operate together. Because the opposition that will be made, both by the right and by the center, will be gigantic.

The task is huge, difficult, slow, and requires the left to find common ground.

 

Five points in common

It will be necessary to recover a proposal against the neoliberal economy. It is necessary to recover the role of the public fund and direct it to meet social rights. The public fund has to once again assume its role in guaranteeing these rights.

A second point is to return to what was a very important characteristic of the first Lula government: the national conferences. PSOL calls it “continuous consultation with the bases”. It is necessary to resume national conferences at a more intense level. The Executive branch and part of the Legislative branch must be in permanent contact with social demands.

A third common point is the idea of ​​a reconfiguration of the Legislative. I don't know if it will succeed, or if it will be possible, but it is necessary to start a political reform right from the start.

A fourth point is the prominent place of education, the resumption of education against the dismantling of what was brought about by the doctrine spread by Olavo de Carvalho. There was not a Minister of Education in this government who was saved. There was no intervention in teaching, but there was research funding, the choice of Deans, a total disruption of technical faculties (an idea very dear to Dilma Rousseff).

A fifth point is the question of gender. I didn't think it was possible, in Brazil, for sexism to be exposed in the most perverse ways as it has been in the last five years. It's not just a question of sexism. It is sexuality, gender, women.

 

the anticommunist agenda

The anticommunist agenda emptied and they hitched a ride on Donald Trump's agenda, which also emptied.

The dismantling of these two perspectives makes the extreme right walk towards totalitarianism (not fascism), through the evangelical churches, which dismantles the working class, takes the precariat for itself and prevents an organization of the social base. This is the project: to prevent the organization of the social base, of the working class. This is the program of the “School without Party” movement and it was Olavo de Carvalho's platform.

At the same time, the political course will be one of the continuous threat of the overthrow of the government, of intervention in the Legislative and of the almost daily threat of a coup. I fear what could happen from October or November until January XNUMXst, when the new government takes office. It's not just the threat of a coup, but also the possibility of Lula's assassination. There are plenty of volunteers to do this.

 

Lula's Victory

This is the only possibility we have to remake the country. On the one hand, it represents a social and political demand to find a barrier to the extreme right and the most perverse forms of neoliberalism.

I see Lula as a statesman. It represents the perception of Brazil in Latin America and the world; of our role, which appeared with the creation of Mercosur and soon developed with our presence in groups such as the G-20 and the G-8, in our foreign policy of affirmation and not of subordination.

In popular terms, it is the hope of the return of social rights, of recomposing the economy and education, which needs to be redone from top to bottom.

He will have to negotiate a lot and it is no coincidence that he chose former governor Geraldo Alckmin as his vice-presidential candidate. I see him able to perceive which are the negotiations that will guarantee rights to his social base. It is not a negotiation to stay in power, it is a negotiation in which certain basic demands will have to be negotiated. He is able to do this.

 

lava Jato

I was against this operation from the first moment, when it still appeared as something honest. I never stopped relating the timing of the appearance of the project with the difficulties of the economy, at the time of the government of Dilma Rousseff. There were difficulties in managing the economy, with the change of ministers and Lava Jato working. Dilma Rousseff is a woman of principles who does not negotiate. The antagonism between her and Michel Temer was not unknown in the country. She tolerated that deputy, but did not let him participate in anything in the government.

Lava Jato reminded me of Carlos Lacerda. At no time did I consider that Operation Lava Jato was serious. I did a little research on the training and work of the main Lava Jato agents. They were not an expression of what was excellent in the Brazilian legal world. They were expressionless figures.

I considered Lava Jato as an emissary of the US State Department. I saw it as a political operation. This soon became huge evidence. The fact that Petrobras was targeted (and we know what that means), indicates that there was something behind it.

 

The Armed Forces

The 1964 coup took place under the umbrella of the Alliance for Progress, US State Department policy, and the Kennedy administration. Brazilian military, educated in the United States, brought the idea that Cuba was a threat, they came up with a project, soon adapted to the Brazilian reality.

At the beginning of the government of Marechal Castelo Branco (1964) and at the end of the military dictatorship, with General Golbery do Couto e Silva, they had an idea of ​​what Brazil was, what Latin America should be and what they should do . The left's armed response to the military government provoked something unforeseen: Institutional Act number 5 (AI-5), in 1968. After that Act it was necessary to re-elaborate the project, and that is what Golbery tried to do. There were well-educated, informed people in the government with projects. It's not what we have now.

Today we have the traditional Armed Forces active, but devoid of a national project. On the Executive side, we simply have an economic appropriation of State resources. Jair Bolsonaro absorbed, in the Executive Power, a sector of the Armed Forces. There are almost ten thousand soldiers in the government. The military found itself in a position of power over the civilian world and, through endless corruption, the possibility of getting rich.

If there is a coup, it will be carried out by this group that has become entrenched in state power and does not want to lose the privileges they have achieved.

*Marilena Chaui is Professor Emeritus at FFLCH at USP. She is the author, among other books, of against voluntary servitude (Authentic).

Text established from an interview given to journalist Gilberto Lopes.

 

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