By JEAN PIERRE CHAUVIN*
Anyone who imagines that defending the inactions and bravado of the mythomaniac is a privilege of “non-literate” or “ignorant” fanatics is mistaken.
“The blame will rest entirely with you. As for us, we will know how to act…” (Jorge Amado, The Harsh Times).
Some lived to beatlemania; others suffer to Mitomania. And the double meaning is, yes, intentional. I would even invite the rulers of this no-man's-land to the debate; but, let's face it, they barely know how to read (and some don't even know how to speak): they only understand confrontation and denialism. By the way, what do you understand about Brazil? Since when does being modern mean clumsily applying the rules of Chicago Boys and turn your back on almost everyone? As for the rest of the clique, the few who seem lucid are just as cynical or more cynical than the necro(co)commander of the immense republic: they use all their expertise for the harm of almost everyone and the safeguard of friends who owe it to the law, morals and the tax authorities.
Since installing the Covid CPI, on April 27, 2021, misgovernment is in an uproar. Even the “good citizen”, exempt who proudly annulled the vote and hates “discussing politics” (as if I had any notion of otherness, geopolitics and social science), needs to recognize: misgovernment has always been in turmoil, in the worst sense of the word. But this time, even if the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry ends up in impenetrable collusion – without blaming or punishing anyone –, what matters most is to shake once and for all the image and speech of these nefarious incompetents, exposing for the umpteenth time their system of mismanagement , anchored in resentment, fallacy, neglect of people and subservience to the United States: dependence or death.
Unhappy is the Brazilian who reads regularly, in a country where the majority of the population does not have access to books or magazines other than self-help manuals, coaching and scoundrels of that ideologue-mentor of the scrotums; who interprets facts critically, among the blind worshipers of the mythomaniac; who, dressed in a mask and carrying gel alcohol, crosses streets taken over by subjects who do not prevent themselves; who insists on being republican, in a territory dominated by shepherds who assault the faithful without any resistance from the STF + loggers who expel the Indians, destroy the bush, fauna and flora + onerous and lazy ministers who, instead of advising the captain, reinforce the genocidal policy, as accomplices of the bullet, agribusiness and the opportunist faith.
Anyone who imagines that defending the inactions and bravado of the mythomaniac is a privilege of “non-literate” or “ignorant” fanatics is mistaken. Yesterday, in a café in the upscale Higienópolis (the name of the neighborhood is very suggestive), I heard two women who were like madams defending the second vote for the subject (in 2022) and questioning, screaming, the effectiveness of wearing a mask… While the Brazilians confuse patriotism with the defense of privileges; relative personal success with absolute disregard for others... As long as he assumes that the CBF shirt symbolizes pro-civic armor, there will be no change in base or structure.
This uneven territory, this land that belongs only to others... This here, whatever it is, hasn't even started and it's over. Let us hope that, at least, the option to autocratic mythomania is a government that is less of an imposter, less of a US doormat, less ultraliberal, less genocidal and less hypocritical. Eventually, if more comes, we will only be compensating for the hardships to which those in power subject us, at least since 2016.
*Jean Pierre Chauvin is a professor at the School of Communications and Arts at USP.