What I expect for Brazil
From December 19, 2019, to here, many things have changed in Brazil. I never imagined that an unimportant piece of news, of an international event, could stay present in our lives for so long. Yes, I am talking about the first news I read about the new coronavirus, when it appeared in Wuhan, China.
The G1 story was not prominent, so far there was 50 people infected in Wuhan, which continued its business operations as usual. At that moment I believed it would be something like swine flu or at most like H1N1, I never thought it would be such a powerful virus. Despite not being so deadly, the strain spread easily, creating several outbreaks of the disease in large urban centers. The continuity of the virus showed us that in a pandemic many times the disease is not the main threat to the survival of the population, but the self-interest of the capital and the people who benefit from it.
The news of the spreed of the coronavirus in its first wave in Asia and Europe shocked me, but today nothing is more shocking than the reality that we live in Latin America. Following the terrible example of the former US president, many world leaders have carried out a genocidal policy agenda that has killed thousands of people around the world. Controlled by the interests of capital, which is above the law and democracy, these leaders were and continue to be deniers of the pandemic, even with several scientific evidences and orientations from the international community.
It is difficult to be a thinking brazilian these days. If you can leave the most important survival issue of the last days on stand by while you live your life, congratulations. I think too much, and that is not even half of the problem.
A year and a half since the news of the discovery of the new coronavirus and if things have changed, it is for the worse. Not only because today we are the epicenter of the disease, but also because our internal events could not be at a worse time. The rise of the far right was something I watched in 2018 with the same shock and awe as I watched Covid-19 spreed in Asia and Europe. Our animal instinct makes us recognize imminent threats to our survival, even if sometimes it is already too late for some. I also felt this the first time I was told that water might run out, in 2004, during the school environment week. Those who were born in the 90s already fear global warming since childhood.
And yet nothing has been done by those who can really make changes on a large scale. This is where the boards of large multinational corporations, shareholder councils, the entire financial market, policymakers, law enforcers and military forces come in. Organized civil society has done its part, but it cannot compete with the speed of exploitation provided by the capital. How long will it take to reforest the Amazon that was burned and looted during Bolsonaro’s government? While we stare in astonishment at the absurdities of his mismanagement during the pandemic, we fail to look at the many other problems that the incumbent president will leave to his successor.
And so I tell you what I hope for Brazil: I hope for a new president.
I hope that the investigation that has been done into his crimes during the pandemic will be sufficient so that he cannot run for president in the next election. It would be a sweet irony of fate, a cosmic karma taking the minimum price for the actions of the dictator-wannabe, ill-mannered, misogynist, homophobic and despicable human being that we have today as the head of the executive branch. I hope Brazil gets rid of all evil, including the Bolsonaro family. The feeling I get when I think that somehow this man will manage to get reelected is the same adrenaline rush we get when we face death. If we were living the Christian apocalypse Jair “Messiah” Bolsonaro would be the false messiah.
I hope that the next president of Brazil has the strength to “hold the rojão” and that he or she is aware that the people will demand it. In this balancing equation between people and the capital, someone always loses. Someone is going to be taken away from someone. So let it be those who will not starve to death if they lose. I hope that there will be an extensive and thorough review of all the environmental laws that were changed during Bolsonaro’s government and full reparation of the damage. I hope that the lands of the indigenous peoples are demarcated and respected, that they get justice for the muders of so many of their family members by miners and “grileiros”, and that the white men who exploit their lands leave never to return. Not only that, but I hope that corporations are stopped in their abusive exploitation of the environment and that all people be valued for their work.
I hope for Brazil’s prosperity, salvation, and a good memory not to forget how things really happened so as not to fall again into the traps of history. I hope that income is better distributed and that people stop having children, because we have no more resources. Furthermore, I hope that the socio-environmental crisis can be contained and that together we will draw strategies based on science and common knowledge, so that finally we can all evolve as human beings. I hope all the best for us and for the whole world. At least I can hope so.
