31 August 2016 - 10:35 PM
The Brazilian Tragedy
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A band of "thugs," as the incisive and premonitory poem by Chico Buarque says—"official thug, candidate thug to federal thug, thug with a contract, with tie and capital"—just consummated, from its burrow in the Legislative Palace in Brazil, a coup (a so-called "soft" one) against the legitimate and legal Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff.

Former president Rousseff during a news conference in Brasilia

And we say "so-called soft" because as experience teaches us, in these type of crimes in countries like Paraguay and Honduras, what invariably comes after those overthrows is a savage repression to eradicate from the face of the Earth any attempt at democratic reconstruction. The "reactionary trident": the judiciary, the legislature and the media – all corrupt to the core – launched a pseudo-legal and clearly illegitimate process by which democracy in Brazil, with its shortcomings like any other, was replaced by a shameless plutocracy animated by the sole purpose of reversing the process that begun in 2002 with the election of Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva to the presidency.

The voice of command is to return to the Brazilian normality and put everyone in their place: the "povão" (plebs) accepting without question their oppression and exclusion, and the rich enjoying their wealth and privileges without fear of a "populist" spill from Planalto. Of course this conspiracy had the support and blessing of Washington, which for years had been spying, with a perverse purpose, on Dilma’s electronic correspondence as well as that of other state officials, beyond Petrobras. Not only that: this sad Brazilian episode is another chapter in the U.S. counter-offensive which aims to destroy the progressive and leftist processes that characterized several countries in the region since the end of the last century. To the unexpected victory of the right in Argentina is now added the blow against democracy in Brazil and the suppression of any political alternative in Peru – where voters had to choose between two variants of the radical right.

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It is worth remembering that capitalism was never interested in democracy: one of its main theorists, Friedrich von Hayek, said that this was a mere "convenience" admissible insofar as it does not interfere with the "free market," the non-negotiable needs of the system. So it was (and is) naive to expect a "loyal opposition" of the capitalists and their political spokespersons and intellectuals to a government as moderate as Dilma’s. From the Brazilian tragedy many lessons emerge, that must be learned and set in stone in our countries. I mentioned just a few. First, any concession granted to the right wing by leftist or progressive governments only serves to precipitate their downfall. And so it was with the Workers’ Party since Lula’s government, which didn’t stop to rectify this error, allowed even the unspeakable to be committed by finance capital, certain industrial sectors, agri-business and the most reactionary media. Secondly, don't forget that the political process does not only happens through the state’s institutional channels but also by "the street" – the turbulent world of commoners.

And the PT, from its early years in the government, demobilized its members and sympathizers and reduced them to the simple and helpless condition of an electoral base. When the right launched an assault to seize power and Dilma appeared at the balcony of the Palace of Planalto hoping to find a crowd in support, she saw barely a handful of dejected militants, unable to resist the violent "institutional" right-wing offensive. Third, progressive and leftist forces can’t fall again in the error of betting all their cards only on the democratic game. Don’t forget that for the right-wing, democracy is only a tactical option – easily disposable. So the forces of change and social transformation, not to mention the radical reformist or revolutionary sectors, need to always have at hand a "plan B" to confront the maneuvers of the bourgeoisie and imperialism that handle at their will the institutionality and the norms of the capitalist state. And this involves the organization, mobilization and political education of the vast and heterogeneous popular "conglomerate" of a wide array of forces – something the PT failed to do do.

Conclusion: when speaking of the crisis of democracy – a no-brainer at this stage of events – we need to point out the cause of this crisis. The left-wing has always been accused, with rigged arguments, of not believing in democracy. Historical evidence shows, however, that those who have committed a series of cold murders of democracy, worldwide, has been the right wing, which will always oppose with every weapon at its disposal any project to create a good society, and won't be daunted if in order to do so they have to destroy a democratic regime. For those who have doubts, there are, in recent memory, the cases of Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil and in Europe, Greece. Who killed democracy in these countries? Who wants to kill it in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador? Who killed it in Chile in 1973, in Indonesia in 1965, in the Belgian Congo in 1961, in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954?

Atilio Boron is a sociologist and political analyst, Argentine by birth and Latin American by conviction. He has a Ph.D. in Political Science at Harvard University. In 2009 he received the International Jose Martí Prize from UNESCO for his contribution to the integration of Latin American and Caribbean countries.

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