Apocalypse Brazil

Jair Bolsonaro was not elected because of his political policies. He was chosen because of hate, his dictator sympathies, his views on torture, racism, homophobia, misogyny and even murder, especially for “the reds”. Behind this election strategy lurks the shadow of Mr. Trump’s damned soul, Mr. Bannon, who has been establishing himself in Europe for some months.

This election will not help the poor in the favelas, or the working class, or the indigenous people, or the landless farmers, or the women, or the middle-managers. The profiteers will be the President of the large agribusiness sector, and the anti-biodiversity timber dealers, publicly traded big-businesses, evangelists and the military, private militia and certain mainsream media. In Bolsonaro, Mr. Trump finds a new ally in the heart of Latin America. One who is against the Paris Agreement, supports Israel and is both anti-Venezuela and Cuba.

The final months of the electoral campaign emphasized all the evils of the crisis that is eating away at Brazil. In refusing to debate the Worker’s Party candidate, Fernando Haddad, Bolsonaro not only showed his incompetence and inconsistency but also his fundamental rejection of the essence of democracy, thus showing a conflict between his ideas and his intentions. Bolsonaro’s politics gained traction in 2008 following the global economic crisis. His status was further elevated during the 2016 coup d’État against Dilma Rousseff. She had been criticised and accused of impudence for summoning a constituent and wanting to create a national truth commission to expose human rights violations perpetrated by the state under the dictatorship, a dictatorship which Bolsonaro defends. There’s also the economic recession, the disastrous Temer Government and the phony operation “clean hands” that merely imprisoned Lula to keep him out of the election, despite opposition from of the UN. This was the Brazilian version of “ Hitler rather than the Popular Front”.

This latest tremor in the geopolitical world risks the arrival of violent clashes due to the rejection of the Paris Agreement, support for militarisation and the expansion of competition for agricultural exports to Europe. Also, the new model of independence of so-called “emerging” BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) risks being called into question. Furthermore, American powers find a new ally in creating the conditions to destroy every European alternative construction project. Consequently, countries will be able to enhance their financial powers and reinforce their position at the heart of an economic crisis which is worrying many liberal circles around the world.

The political debates in Brazil and Europe must sincerely reflect upon what just happened and find the reasons for this new conflict. The Brazilian democrats, workers, trade unionists and progressives must not await our intervention and need to stop this apocalypse. We must thwart the spreading of this nauseating wave, both here and around the world.