Introduction
People are always looking for that "great new thing" that is going to make their life better. It's a manifestation of our survival instinct, just like curiosity and getting bored easily. That attitude has brought us civilization, the arts, culture... It is present in beautiful music, the printing press and the polio vaccine. Down here for us average individuals, it could mean having a nice meal, watching the latest episode of our favorite tv series, changing your hairstyle or getting that new cell phone.
We also function that way as a society, itself an outgrowth of that instinct; and if society has brought us the idea of fraternity and the concept of justice, it also had horrid side effects, like slavery and religious wars. We are always, always looking for that "great new thing", for better and for worse. A little over a hundred years ago, many thought it was communism. A couple of decades later, it seemed that fascism could be it. The years of revolution, be it 1789, 1848 or 1968, are also about that unfulfillable promise. And here we go again...
"Brazil is not for beginners", and we Brazilians are the first to admit it, whether amid laughter or painful disappointment. We have only 500 years of recorded history, and although every single nation can boast dramatic, heroic, tragic and inspiring events, Brazil does seem to be prone to "deus ex machina" developments, and to have a knack for hard-to-swallow plot twists. More than our fair share. Who knows, perhaps that explains why novelas - that's "soap operas", for the uninitiated - are our national pastime. I myself have lived through, and personally witnessed a handful of those plot twists.
And yet...
Although I can come up with explanations for the Bolsonaro phenomenon, some of them very reasonable and well thought-out - that is what this article is about, after all - I admit I did not see this coming. Not in Brazil. It is so - for lack of a better word - foreign... We are not like this. This is not us. And I'm not talking about an all-too-common, silly idea of how wonderful your own people are; This really isn't at all like us. The only time I felt similarly about a turn of events was when I was considering the military dictatorship installed in 1964. So perhaps they're connected. Bolsonaro says they are...
A Little Background
I grew up in the 1980's, during redemocratization. I was surrounded by and bathed in that mood, and it has certainly helped shape the person I've become. I wasn't old enough to vote, but I was there, watching, in 1989, when we elected our president for the first time in 30 years.
Remember when I talked about people always restlessly looking for new things? Well you see, in times of crisis, that anxiety grows exponentially. And boy, were we in trouble in the late 1980's... Not only did we have to come to grips with democracy, we also had to deal with an economy in shreds - hyperinflation meant we had gone through 3 different currencies in four years. Freedom of the press meant we now had the option of "corruption scandals" added to the menu of our newspapers and nightly news broadcasts, and were we fed up with those! So whom did we choose? Cue the suspense drum roll: Fernando Collor...
Now, I don't want to be shallow and hastily pass judgment on someone, so I will keep it at "he was not the right man for the job". Brazil is huge, continental. Some 200 million people live here. We have been an oligarchy for 5 centuries, and our extreme economic inequality is medieval and pornographic. We are a melting pot, and in this country you can see for yourself that, indeed, "everything moves in all directions".
And who was Collor, the man we chose for the job? An unknown politician who suddenly became the superhero who could fix all our problems overnight. He never said much about his plans and didn't take part in debates, and yet he led the polls throughout the campaign. He spoke a language of slogans and truisms. But he looked good on our 12" screens while riding that glamorous jet ski and displaying his karate skills, and so we went along...
One day after he took office, he launched a plan which involved a new currency and - cue that drum roll again - freezing virtually all bank accounts. I kid you not. It happened. I was there.
To make a long story short, the plan didn't work, hyperinflation came back with a vengeance and he was impeached in 1992 on corruption charges. We were a pile of debris and had to start over from scratch.
In 1994, yet another economic plan, yet another currency. At first, the new "Real" currency curtailed inflation. Then it managed to do it for one more month. Then another, then another... and then it seemed like it might have actually worked. And it has pulled that trick for 25 years now. No wonder the Minister of Economy who oversaw its implementation was elected president that year, and re-elected in 1998. Then, in 2002, a real novelty act got its turn;
Lula looked like an ordinary man, like someone you might buy your bread from. He was short and had a beard, and got his start in politics as a union leader. He didn't have much in terms of formal education, which meant he made grammar mistakes when he spoke, and he made them with a lisp; and yet, he had that intangible quality that made you listen to him speak, and remember him after he was done speaking.
Lula was the one Collor defeated in 1989 - how could he match the tall, well-educated athlete? He was also defeated in 1994 and 1998. But in 2002, Brazilians were unhappy. When the time came to choose between the comfort of familiarity or the hope in that "great new thing", Brazilians took the leap, and Lula got his ticket to the Palácio do Planalto in Brasilia.
Was it going to be disastrous? Were we on our way to communism? The elites in Brazil still worry about that a lot, you know? I guess it has to do with the fact we were so busy with all that was going on during redemocratization that we never took the time to sit and talk about what the dictatorship had really meant, including the fact people were tortured and killed for no real reason. We never got around to try and punish those torturers. The 1979 Amnesty Law was all-inclusive, and basically meant we would leave things at that and get on with our lives.
Getting back to Lula, he actually managed to run the country. Amazingly, the sun kept rising morning after morning. I think all of that went to his head, because - and I don't know how he got the nerve... - he dared tackle Brazil's social inequality - one of our time-honored traditions, diligently passed on from generation to generation. In a country where, even today, the six richest people - not the richest 6%; I'm talking about six individuals - own as much wealth as the poorest half - one hundred million citizens? Lula actually took the trouble to try and do something. He didn't have to, you know? It's not like it's expected from Brazilian presidents...
Say what you will, accuse him of doing it merely for electoral purposes, but that man actually put food on the table of people who did not have it, and for that I wholeheartedly thank him; I probably do not have to tell you about it. If you're reading this, chances are you have heard a thing or two about Lula.
The Descent
All good things must come to an end. It was too good to last. Especially in Brazil, it was...
A major corruption scandal at the end of Lula's first term: his party was buying the votes of congressmen by means of an allowance to participants in the scheme. Lula lost many key advisors and the party lost a chunk of its support as consequence: some people resigned, some got arrested, some failed to win re-election.
Lula himself was granted a second term in 2006. That's the legal limit, but gratitude towards him also got his anointed successor, Dilma Rousseff, the presidency in 2010.
Despite their victory, the country had gone through another "loss of innocence" process. Things were not going so well anymore, and we could never look at the Worker's Party in the same light again. Think Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were"...
On the other hand, in 2006 we had stumbled upon pre-salt oil. That was it! We found "The Golden Ticket"! Brazil is often called "The Country of the Future" ( to which we jokingly add, "and always will remain so" ), but maybe this time... maybe this time...
"No way, José!". Not in Brazil! The dreaded "Curse of Oil" caught up with us faster than you can say "Bob's your uncle"! The country was not going well, Dilma was not doing a good job. The dream had gone sour, and Operation Car Wash had unveiled yet another gargantuan corruption scandal involving Petrobras, Brazil's all-important oil corporation. Sergio Moro, the federal judge who headed Operation Car Wash, became the face of the fight against corruption, the man of the hour, his face slapped on every magazine cover, his public appearances reported on the news... A National Hero!
In 2013, a local bus fare increase in São Paulo sparked protests. Police brutality was reported. That was the tipping point.
Similar demonstrations had already taken place in other cities. It is not an uncommon or hard-to-understand phenomenon. Basically every country experiences it at one point or another. Brazilians are not immune, and any of us could relate to this feeling to some extent. "How dare they?" ( they are to blame for all this, you know? ) "We have so little, and we pay so much in taxes! Public services have always failed us miserably: education, health, sanitation, crime fighting, tansportation... nothing works properly! I think it never has! They have their huge salaries, privileges and luxurious lives paid for with our money! And still they rob us! Corruption is a plague of biblical proportions, and yet they revel in it! And now they want to increase the bus fare? They want yet more money from us? How dare they?". The disillusionment, the indignation, the solidarity... they fueled more and bigger protests, and they spread. Huge crowds. Dissatisfaction. In the instinctive, immortal words of Howard Beale: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take this anymore!". The media covered it. And it kept growing and spreading. Thousands; tens of thousands; but they still couldn't find or express a single voice. It was an outpouring of anger, as yet not directed at any single target. And thus we arrive at the presidential elections of 2014...
By 2014, basically half the country hated the Worker's Party, and blamed them for their problems. After 3 terms, most major issues had not been worked out or visibly improved upon. At least that is how things were perceived. After 12 years in power, even the social strides were, by now, taken for granted, and a whole generation had grown up without any parameter to compare the Worker's Party's government to; it was all they had known, and it was all-too-easy to blame them for what was wrong in the country. The global rise of a New Right and its neoliberal gospel swiftly took hold of this generation, and made it even easier to blame the left-wing Worker's Party and their hopelessly left-wing policies for the country's woes; All of them. Even the historical ones. Even corruption, which somehow became the monopoly of leftist governments. Fascism was reassessed as a left-wing movement. It is all too obvious, really, when you think about it; After all, Hitler's Party was called the National SOCIALIST German Worker's Party, wasn't it? Scholars deny it because they are all left-wing frauds trying to implement Gramsci's cultural hegemony. This is no Conspiracy Theory - that's what they want you to believe ( and I've already told you that they are to blame for all this ). We have read all about it on Facebook and WhatsApp, and have heard it from YouTubers who have the guts to slip through communist censorship to tell us the truth. Kennedy's assassination, Watergate, "The X-Files", "The Matrix", "V for Vendetta" and "Harry Potter" and so many others, over and over, have taught the world not to trust their own government, or anyone for that matter, and that we are merely unaware of just how special we actually are; "the chosen ones", who have the knowledge, mission, special powers and destiny to awaken mankind from its deceitful slumber of ignorance, guide it to Shangri-La, get the girl in the end, and live happily ever after... And don't you dare listen to anyone who tells you it isn't so! They're either blinded by propaganda, or worse - they could be communists themselves! And thus the New Right and their neoliberal agenda became the "next great thing"...
The fact we did not come to terms with our recent foray into dictatorship - Brazil's solution to the Cold War equation - was bound to come back to haunt us.
The Meltdown
Don't ask me how, but Dilma managed to get reelected in 2014. Just barely. A Pyrrhic victory...
That half of Brazil which had learned to hate the Worker's Party went completely berserk. Hysterical, really. How could the other half give them another four years at it? Were they blind, stupid, or both? Weren't they living in the same country? Weren't they being fed their daily ration of Operation Car Wash discoveries? A 4th term? To those people? No way! And you know what I've been hearing? There's talk of Lula running for president in 2018! These morons are gonna elect him yet again, for sure! It just can't be! We gotta do something! It's our country, our mission! We are the chosen ones, so let's get to it! We have to save them from themselves! And here we go again...
Dilma may have won in 2014, but she would never get to bring that trophy home. She would not have a second term.
Technically, she was the president. However, Congress and much of the country declined to view and treat her as such. Each faction, each interest group, each fraction of society had its own reading of the situation, its own interests; and most of them - at least most of those that really matter when it comes to running the country - decided to behave towards her, and did, as if in a romantic relationship which is about to end. There's just nothing the other side can do that's right, that pleases; there's no hope, no compromise, no prisoners...
In a momentous brew of historical injustice, social inequality, rampant corruption and massive media coverage of it, genuine indignation, justified outrage, deep resentment, misguided anger, political propaganda and pent-up disillusionment, I watched in awe as those forces held hands and threw us into a spiral of chaos, a cycle of indignation begetting demonstrations, stirring indignation, begetting more and bigger demonstrations, begetting media coverage, begetting more indignation, begetting more and bigger demonstrations...
On March 13th , 2016, over a million Brazilians took to the streets to ask for Dilma's head.
How did Brazil find its way out of it?
The 2016 Coup
Some people will try to argue. Some will shake their heads in disapproval. At this point in time, some will even be angered... However, I stand by my opinion. What happened in 2016 was a Coup.
Dilma was found guilty and removed from office on account of disregarding budget laws. A technicality. However, that was never the point. Ineptitude is not an impeachable offense. We had been hearing about getting her impeached from the day she got reelected, that budget laws thing was almost an afterthought, it was simply the best argument they could come up with to justify the sentence, the outcome which had been previously settled and agreed upon.
The impeachment trial was broadcast live, and the politician's votes were basically about how the economy was in tatters, how corrupt her party really was... you get the idea. The whole thing had an unsettling feel to it, like it was a spectacle, like it was entertainment. Congressmen seemed to be ecstatic with the idea of playing their role in front of the cameras, and many were not able to restrain themselves. It was like a party. Even as I watched, I thought it was all very weird. Fair or unfair, they were removing an elected president from office. They were in the nation's Congress, acting on behalf of Brazil, before the eyes of their countrymen and the judgement of History. Were they not aware of what was in stake? How grave and significant that moment was? Judging from their big smiles and jokes, that sombering thought never crossed their minds...
The complexity of the process and its various aspects mean it could, has and will continue to be discussed; the legal factor, the geopolitical factor, the historical context, the role and ambitions of each major player...
I insist on calling it a Coup - and I'm reminded of Saint Perpetua and the water jug - because that is what it was. In the end, to me, it boils down to this: the proposal which was chosen by the majority through voting was forcibly removed from office, and replaced by the proposal which had lost.
Dilma's vice-president, who took office after her impeachment, had publicly manifested his discontent with her, and had spoken of a neoliberal plan as a means to rescue the country's economy. The opposition party, which had lost the previous 4 elections, was only too glad to embark on a government very much like the one they themselves had in mind, and wholeheartedly applauded and helped implement it, even as they were offered ministries right off the bat, and got to hold five of those positions at one point.
What I'm saying is, they did not remove the individual who had comitted a crime - which is what an impeachment should be about - but a whole way to do politics; A way which, right or wrong, good or bad, had been chosen by the majority; and they replaced it with the model of government which had lost the previous four elections; I sincerely can't think of any argument, legal or otherwise, around this very basic truth.
Dilma was savagely and bluntly sabotaged by Congress. In spite of her past mistakes and general lack of political prowess, the cruel treatment she got made me feel sorry for her. It's not that her administration was either virtuous or disastrous, and I tend to lean towards the latter, it's the realization that she couldn't get anything done at all. She was imobilized, stabbed, and then left to bleed in full public view. The process amounted to a public execution, a hanging, and the crowds gathered to watch, cheer and applaud.
Enter Jair Bolsonaro
But I digress...
To make a long story short, the Temer government, that took over from the ashes of Dilma's impeachment and the Worker's Party tenure, implemented a neoliberal agenda in a historical oligarchy. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer. Operation Car Wash accused, convicted and arrested Lula on corruption charges. Two years and a heartless labor laws reform on, the 13 million who were unemployed are still unemployed. The austerity package, which included a suicidal 20-year cap on expenditure, hasn't really done much for ordinary people's daily lives. On the contrary. We still haven't made it out of that spiral of chaos. Temer's approval ratings are at incredible 4%. Is that what they impeached Dilma for?
Brazil got fed up again, and is hungry for its fix of some "great new thing".
Enter Jair Bolsonaro...
I'm sure you have personally witnessed and understand the power of mass media in the making of a politician. Celebrities - and I use the term loosely - have an impressive starting advantage in electoral races, don't ask me why. I myself don't think just because a person is good at one thing, that it means they're good at another. Being a good cook doesn't make you a good singer, and being a competent heart surgeon doesn't mean you can dance. However, being famous does help people get elected. Singers, actors, comedians, pundits, show hosts... pretty much anyone who is ( or has been at some point ) regularly seen on tv can dream about having a shot at it. Lately, YouTubers are starting to join the club.
You might also have come across the famous quote "the problem with political jokes is they get elected". Well...
A former army captain of, expectedly, conservative views, Bolsonaro's beliefs and defense of the rights of the military have earned him a political career, and he was voted city councilor in Rio de Janeiro in 1988. In 1990, he was elected a federal congressman, and has been reelected and serving terms there ever since. In these 26 years, he has only managed to pass two of his proposals into law. He claims to be persecuted by the left-wing parties. I believe it means he has no talent to argue, talk, debate, negotiate and convince his peers. That is to say, he's not a good politician.
However, he has made an impression on people on account of his ability to say... - I'll be conservative - inappropriate and controversial things. Some people, believe me, would call his remarks disgusting or downright criminal, and that's just for starters, as some of the adjectives I've heard are not fit for publication.
That's exactly what has earned him a place in the spotlight in these past 3 decades. He was often interviewed for the shock value of his answers, sometimes even to be laughed at. But earn a place in the spotlight he did.
Now think back for a moment on the general meltdown I explained and described to you so far. Consider how the rise of a New Right and their neoliberal agenda are being spread through social media and trending among young people, and how we are all trying to find that "great new thing" which will finally drag us out of this swamp. Think of how the ghost of communism has come back to haunt us in Brazil, how all evil comes from the left, and how the military could save us again, like they did in 1964. Rampant crime also calls for the use of force, right? What could be better than someone from the military? In a time of crisis, we need someone with an iron fist, right? What could possibly go wrong? And thus Bolsonaro came to embody the "great new thing"...
I do believe I've mentioned Brazil is huge, continental and complex, and that it has over 200 million citizens. I've also mentioned, I'm sure, Brazil is not for beginners.
Is this familiar? An unknown politician who suddenly becomes the superhero who could fix all our problems overnight. He never says much about his plans and doesn't take part in debates, and yet he has led the polls throughout the campaign. He speaks a language of slogans and truisms. But he looks good on those "Bolsonaro's Best Moments" compilation videos.
I have my own "favorite" moment. Colonel Brilhante Ustra was a torturer during the dictatorship years, a particularly nasty one, who was said to enjoy bringing his victim's small children to witness what his technique had inflicted upon their naked, spanked parents lying on the floor. As a young woman, Dilma had fought against the dictatorship and been arrested. She had met Colonel Ustra during her imprisonment. At her impeachment trial, when the time came for Bolsonaro to cast his vote, he dedicated it, among others, to "the memory of Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra" - and he enunciated the full name with satisfaction - adding, then, what amounted to a title: "The Dread of Dilma Rousseff!". A man standing by him - I think it was one of his sons who is also a politician - could be seen moving his lips along with Bolsonaro's enunciation, an indication the speech had almost certainly been previously rehearsed. A person who is capable of, in a calculated manner, utter such sadistic, lacking-in-compassion words, in my opinion is not fit to govern anybody. I would not vote for such a man.
However, I don't think he'll mind it terribly. Bolsonaro already has a legion of followers so loyal his detractors call them "Bolsominions". They are proud of the nickname. They found their leader. His agressiveness is perceived as candor. It's no use trying to criticize him, trying to show them the horrible things he has plainly and repeatedly said. Statements that have earned him all kinds of names, including "proto-fascist". It's no good. His followers wear those adjectives like badges and medals. They are proof their captain is fighting the evil left-wing conspiracy, that is why they attack him. Every single piece of criticism can be dismissed as a misunderstanding, distortion or outright lie. I've had smart people I admire, respect and care for defend him. It's not about neoliberal policies, they had reasonable, experienced candidates for that. It's mass madness, it's personality cult. It's terrifying. Think "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956).
If he wins and keeps his promises, they're not even going to be able to say they were tricked and lied to, or that they had no warning. Their conscience will forever demand they carry their part of the responsability with them. "There's none so blind as those who will not see".
Brazil's elite was not very fond of Bolsonaro at first, they'd rather have someone more... - how can I put this? - refined. But they know "you can't have your cake and eat it too", so they've adapted. Anything is better than those Worker's Party communists! If you ever have the chance to talk to a rich German industrialist from the late 1920's, I'm sure he'll be able to tell you all about it.
Many of Brazil's prominent televangelists have also publicly declared they support Bolsonaro because of his conservative values. And there you have it!
The Bolsonaro wave has been building momentum all over the internet and social media for at least a couple of years. How much of this is spontaneous, "an idea whose time has come", and how much of it is a carefully thought-out plan, backed and paid for by shadowy interest groups? These are worrisome times for democracy globally, because although mass media has frequently been used as a means to manipulate public opinion, recent technological tools we have not yet fully mastered and understood could take the concept of "rigging elections" to new and unimagined Orwellian heights. It is not the ballots or their vote count which is being tampered with, but the voter's very mind, conscience and opinion, through personalized, direct (mis)information sent straight to him. There's the Facebook - Cambridge Analytica scandal; The suspicions surrounding the Brexit vote and the accusations of Russian interference in Donald Trump's election to the presidency of the United States. None of these, the most notorious examples, has yet been fully explained, proven, analysed or understood. In the past few days, Brazilian press denounced and has been reporting on illegal bulk messaging of - to use the trendy term - "fake news" aimed at harming Bolsonaro's opponent's candidacy.
Who is this opponent? Haddad is - hold your breath - the Worker's Party candidate. I do wish we had not come to this. We did have 13 candidates to choose from, you know? Left-wing, right-wing, all shapes, sizes and colors; but Brazil chose to indulge a bit longer in its self-destructive behavior and pit two unrelenting political forces against each other.
If Bolsonaro wins, Lula must take some of the blame. He must have seen the signs, the writing on the wall... they should not have run for the presidency this year, thinking people and every poll foresaw this: the Worker's Party still had enough in him to make it to the second round against Bolsonaro, but then we'd come to this Russian roulette. I really think they should have stepped back and let another left or center-left candidate have a go at it. What saddens me is that the facts point at this being Lula trying to avoid losing his party's hegemonic grasp on the Brazilian left-wing to some other rising star. I'd like this to somehow not be true.
If Bolsonaro wins, I believe we will, at best, have another Collor. I think he will make a series of bad mistakes, his neoliberal policies will make him lose public support very quickly, ominous storm clouds will soon and swiftly fill the sky. And that's a best-case scenario. Considering his statements, it could be much, much worse.
Pray for Brazil.
A Few Parting Words
I warned you about this country and plot twists;
There's an image that sums up well what we are going through in this year of 2018. On the night of September 2nd, our 200-year-old National Museum burned down. The statue of Emperor Pedro II ( yes, we had two emperors ) at the front, his back understandably turned to the tragic spectacle, seemed to helplessly preside over the flames' sad and unstoppable feast. It looked beautiful against the night sky. It was as if Fate were making fun of us, holding a mirror up to our face and, as she laughed, pronounced our inescapable sentence: "Look what you've done to yourself!".
So here we go again... What could a single human being do? All in all, not that much, I'm afraid. This, too, shall pass... But for now, I'm stuck here in this place, in this time, watching these events unfold. Miserably powerless, in a painfully human way. Powerless... For someone who grew up - how did I put it? - "surrounded by and bathed in" the redemocratization, being forced to witness the events of the past 5 years in this country is enough to make a grown man cry. So here we go again...
COME ONE! COME ALL! SEE! Brazil actually choosing all of this! WATCH! as we take a bath, put on our best clothes, dab some perfume on, and smile cheerfully, vigorously waving to the crowds as we embark on Titanic's maiden voyage! Yet again! Knowingly! WITNESS! as unpredictable future events unfold!
Me? Don't pay any attention to me, ma'am. I'm not important. I'm just someone taken along for the ride, even though I didn't buy the ticket... ( speaker sighs deeply... )
So... What will happen in the next episode? Will this novela have a happy ending? Stay tuned and find out!
For now, children, repeat after me:
This, too, shall pass...
This, too, shall pass...
This, too, shall pass...
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