set 20 2024 | Nº. 135

Editorial

While the Federal Reserve this week lowered interest rates in the United States for the first time in over four years, the Brazilian Central Bank board voted unanimously to raise them by 0.25 percent. This is the first time interest rates have gone up under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has complained vehemently about sky-high interest rates during his first year in office. Although interest rates remain manageable and unemployment steady, the Central Bank decided to act with an eye toward a future in which higher-than-expected economic activity could produce inflationary pressure. In the short term, increased interest rates are a disappointment for Lula and Finance Minister Fernando Haddad. In the medium to long-term, however, declining interest rates in the United States bode well for Brazil. 

Amid these economic discussions, environmental issues remained at the forefront of political debate as the Lula administration races to show that it is up to the task of reigning in fires that threaten natural biomes in several parts of the country and contribute dramatically to pollution in cities and rural areas alike.  On Tuesday, September 17, during a meeting with representatives of the other two branches of government, Lula announced that he would be asking Congress to release R$514.4 million to investigate and combat the criminal activity widely believed to be behind the raging fires. Environment Minister Marina Silva said she is also considering the creation of a National Climate Security Council with the participation of representatives from the three branches of government, civil society, and the business community. Unlike the administration of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whose policy was environmental degradation, the Lula government proved this week that it is eager to take varied steps to address the environmental calamity. The question is whether it will have the resources and political buy-in to do so.

Twitter/X was briefly operative in Brazil again this week even as it remains legally circumscribed by an official order from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. By Thursday, there were indications that Elon Musk, Twitter’s erratic right-wing owner, was taking steps to comply with Moraes’ demands that the company acquire local legal representation. Twitter has never been the largest social media in Brazil, but it has an outsized influence among a politically engaged cohort on the left and right. For that reason, its status in Brazil has been a major news story as the country prepares for municipal elections in a matter of weeks.

Highlights

• Conservative pressure. A group of five U.S. congressmen sent a letter to the White House criticizing the legal measures that Brazil has been taking against company X, a network whose operations in Brazil were suspended by order of the Brazilian Supreme Court after the company's owner, Elon Musk, refused to designate a legal representative in the country, which violates local legislation. Musk complains about the orders that have been issued by the courts in recent years to remove content posted by far-right activists investigated for involvement in the failed coup attempt of January 8, 2023 and other alleged crimes. The letter is signed by Maria Elvira Salazar, Rick Scott, Carlos A. Gimenez, Christopher H. Smith and Carlos A. Giménez. The deputies also presented a bill that proposes to prohibit entry into the United States of people abroad who have violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which deals with freedom of expression.

• Political violence. José Luiz Datena, a candidate for the mayor of São Paulo, attacked Pablo Marçal, one of his rivals, during a live debate broadcast by TV Cultura. The incident occurred when Marçal mentioned a sexual harassment complaint filed in the past by a former employee of Datena when he was the host of a popular television program in which he spoke about violent crimes and police operations. The harassment complaint was withdrawn by the accuser herself before a trial could be held, but Datena's mother-in-law committed suicide at the time of the scandal. Marçal brought up the case in the televised debate and launched several insults at Datena, calling him a “coward” and a “scumbag.” Datena threw a chair at Marçal. Both are conservative candidates. Marçal is technically tied with Guilherme Boulos (Lula's candidate) and Ricardo Nunes (Bolsonaro's candidate). They have 23 percent, 21 percent, and 24 percent respectively, while Datena has 8 percent.

• War in Ukraine. President Lula spoke by telephone on Wednesday, September 19 with  Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine. Both discussed a joint plan by Brazil and China for a ceasefire in the conflict. In October, the Brazilian and Russian presidents will be together at the BRICS summit – a group originally formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – in Kazan, Russia. The Sino-Brazilian proposal is to hold a peace summit with equal participation of Russian and Ukrainian representatives. A more detailed version of the proposal may come to light during the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

   

• Betting market. The Superior Electoral Court approved this week a resolution that prohibits betting companies from promoting games based on the results of the elections. This will make electoral betting illegal in the country. At least six companies have been operating this online service. Gambling has been banned in Brazil for decades. The country does not have casinos and has prohibited bingo, but foreign betting companies have been authorized to explore the betting market and are now major financiers of the biggest sports competitions and the main Brazilian soccer clubs.

• Sexual harassment. Supreme Court Justice André Mendonça – one of the eleven who make up the highest court in the country – accepted a request from the Federal Police and opened an inquiry to formally investigate the conduct of Silvio Almeida, the now former Minister of Human Rights in the Lula government. Almeida was accused by the Me Too organization of harassing co-workers. The Minister of Racial Equality Anielle Franco was reportedly one of the victims. Lula fired Silvio on September 6. The Government Communications Secretariat said the case was “serious”. Anielle did not file a formal accusation and said she would prefer the case to be forgotten. The former minister says he is the victim of a conspiracy and that he himself supports the investigation to clarify the facts.

News from the WBO, Organizations and Social Movements

Brazil Conference. The WBO and Georgetown University will hold the “2024 Washington Brazil Conference,” with the panel “The Rise of the Far Right: Challenges to Democracy in Brazil and Abroad”, on Tuesday, September 24, at 3:00 pm (local time) in the Arrupe Multipurpose Room at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Registration to participate in the event can be done at this link. There will be a live broadcast on the WBO YouTube channel.

Retrospective. The Pact for Democracy published its 2023 annual report, which contains a retrospective on the challenges faced by democracy in Brazil. The organization, which brings together more than 200 civil society organizations, says that “the year in which the country envisioned the rescue of its democratic construction was also the moment in which the ongoing autocratic process reached its peak through an attempt to break the rule of law on January 8”. The report can be read at this link.

Food security. The Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (ABONG) co-promoted an event held on Thursday, September 19, in New York to discuss food and nutritional security in the context of the climate crisis. The event featured presentations by two Brazilians: Henrique B. Frota, executive director of ABONG, and Mariana Macario, a food security specialist and member of Ação da Cidadania.

Violence in the countryside. The Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns Human Rights Defense Commission and Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) visited the Douradina region in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, where attacks against members of Indigenous communities have been taking place. The organizations reported the death of a young Kaiowá man, who was shot by the Military Police on September 18. The Indigenous people of the region are fighting over land ownership with local farmers. The court has ruled in favor of the farmers. The organizations are asking the state governor to intercede on behalf of the Indigenous people who live in the region, who are demanding possession of their ancestral lands and have been attacked for this. Read more at this link.

Feature Article

The Danger of the Far Right and the Need to Confront It

By  Paulo Abrão and Bryan McCann

On September 24, the Washington Brazil Office (WBO) and Georgetown University will hold an event to discuss the current expressions of the far right and the challenges that this sector poses. The debate will feature the participation of two eminent Brazilian colleagues who are dedicated to researching the topic in Brazil – Flávia Pellegrino, from Pacto Pela Democracia, and Guilherme Casarões, professor of International Relations at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas/São Paulo – in addition to Professor Elcior Santana from Georgetown and Democratic Congresswoman Kamlager-Dove. This will undoubtedly be a great opportunity for us to reflect on the moment we are going through. We would like to take this opportunity to present some important topics that should mark this debate, which everyone is invited to follow, either in person or via the online broadcast on the WBO YouTube channel.

First, it is important to state clearly that the far right is a political force that is growing all over the world. This growth is occurring in the gaps of democracy’s shortcomings and imperfections. It is a growth led by new leaders – populist, demagogic and truculent leaders – who manipulate the frustrations that their voters show they have regarding democracy to offer them the response of completely destroying everything that gives meaning and support to these same democracies as we know them. In other words, the far right is proposing a scam: it gains support from those who want a better democracy, but in the future it delivers no democracy at all. Anyone who has any doubts about this need only look at the failed coup attempts that took place in the United States on January 6, 2021, and in Brazil on January 8, 2023, when two major figures– the American Donald Trump and the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro – attacked with all their might the electoral system of their respective countries, as well as the institutions responsible for safeguarding this democratic heritage.

This is a very well-coordinated movement internationally. It is also a movement that has robust funding and the communication support of some of the world's biggest businessmen. Social media has become the territory in which this unstoppable advance against democracies is expanding and deepening. From these solid support points, orchestrated attacks are conducted on the checks and balances of democracy: the judicial bodies, Congress, the press, academic institutions, human rights organizations, opposition political parties, the electoral systems, and the bodies that protect it. In the dilapidation of democracy, this extremist political sector demands for itself total freedom to act. It is a sector that distorts and subverts individual freedoms in order to entrench in power personalistic, narcissistic, and violent politicians who, once in office, begin to deny their opponents all the rights and freedoms they demanded for themselves.

It is also a sector that promotes and incites political violence, whether by irresponsibly defending the expansion of the use of firearms in society, or by praising past regimes of force, or by evoking a militaristic ideal and by suppressing those considered too weak and sensitive for a new society marked by the vulgar use of force. In this sense, the rights of minorities begin to be attacked. The misogyny that oppresses begins to be redeemed in the discourse of the extreme right in the name of a threatened masculinity. The LGBTQIA+ community is treated as a threat to the family and to a supposed normality closely linked to a limited conception of religiosity.

We have witnessed increasingly structured exchanges between ideologues and operators in this sector. Brazil and the United States are perhaps at the forefront of this cooperation. Brazilian extremists have been strengthening ties with businesspeople and congressional members in this sector in the United States. The work of these operators seems to be moving towards a structured internationalization of the movement, based not only on contacts, the exchange of experiences and declarations of mutual sympathy, but also on the exchange of increasingly aligned strategies and the creation of a tolerant global environment conducive to these coordinated attacks.

Democratic resistance to this movement must be equally robust and coordinated. By holding this meeting in Washington, we hope to make a valuable contribution to all those who follow, study, debate, and formulate strategies to deal with the far right in the world in order to preserve, promote, and defend democracy.

*Paulo Abrão, executive director of the WBO and Bryan McCann, professor history at Georgetown University.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.