Photo Essay: How the Right-Wing Attack in Brazil Looked on the Ground

Editor’s Note: This podcast was originally published by MintPress News.

The MintPress podcast “The Watchdog,” hosted by British-Iraqi hip hop artist Lowkey, closely examines organizations about which it is in the public interest to know – including intelligence, lobby, and special interest groups influencing policies that infringe on free speech and target dissent. The Watchdog goes against the grain by casting a light on stories largely ignored by the mainstream, corporate media.

On May 24, an 18-year-old gunman fatally shot 22 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Police reportedly refused to confront the killer, locked him in a room full of children, physically prevented parents from getting involved, and even allegedly rescued their own children first.

The massacre has once again brought the United States’ unique obsession with firearms to the fore, with renewed calls to ban assault rifles. But even among gun-control advocates, few realize the connections between the Second Amendment and white supremacy.

Today’s guest is Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Originally from Oklahoma, Dunbar-Ortiz is a writer, historian and activist, possibly best known for her 2014 classic book, “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States.” She argues that the context behind the Second Amendment is that the newly-independent United States needed “well-regulated militias” of white men to “kill Indians and take their land,” or to form slave patrols that would hunt down Black people fleeing their captivity. It was out of these slave patrols that the first police departments were formed.

 

Ultimately, she argues, the need for such armed militias arose from the fact that the white colonists were on recently stolen land, surrounded by hostile groups who were trying to get their land back. As she notes, it was a crime to give or sell a gun to a Native American.

An activist for over 50 years, Dunbar-Ortiz has argued that for any progress to be made, Americans must stop worshiping a 234-year-old document written by slaveholders. Today with Lowkey, she also discussed how it was that the National Rifle Association was taken over by reactionary political actors and how it came to be that the United States is a country with 4% of the world’s population but half of the world’s guns.

“The Constitution is so embedded in white supremacy that there is no way to amend it to change that. It is everywhere…This is so obvious if you just face what U.S. history is and not leave so much out,” she told Lowkey.

A revolutionary and a feminist, Dunbar-Ortiz’s life’s work has taken her across the world, including to Mexico, Cuba and Nicaragua, where she documented the U.S.-sponsored Contra War against indigenous groups. She is Professor Emerita of Ethnic Studies at California State University, East Bay. Among her other notable books include, “Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment”; “The Great Sioux Nation: Sitting in Judgment on America”; and “Not ‘a Nation of Immigrants’: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion.”

Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.

RECIFE, Brazil—On election night, the city of Recife erupted in cheers of joy.

In the capital of the Workers’ Party presidential candidate Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva’s home state of Pernambuco, thousands roared as the vote count showed Lula overtaking his rival, right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. While supporters set off fireworks over the Atlantic Ocean, others made the “L” sign with their fingers and thumbs to indicate support for Lula. When buses couldn’t get through the crowd of revelers, drivers gave up with beaming smiles, making the L as well.

Brazilians had just voted in their most consequential election since democratization.

But, just as after the first-round election, cheers soon turned into murmurs as people lowered their eyes to their phones to see if Lula would retain his lead. This was far from certain, given events earlier that day. The Federal Highway Police (PRF) had conducted over 500 operations by pulling over buses and cars. The miles of traffic jams that ensued impeded people from reaching voting booths, especially in northeastern states like Pernambuco. Then news broke that these operations were part of a plan the Bolsonarista-led PRF had hatched in the presidential palace.

While the Electoral Commission (TSE) condemned this, it did not take action to compensate for lost voting time. By contrast, in the first round, the TSE extended voting for the large Brazilian diaspora in Lisbon, Portugal, after someone wearing the green and yellow colors many Bolsonaristas adorn, broke into a voting booth to double vote, annulling dozens of votes.

“It’s as if,” Rômulo Cavalcante, a lawyer from the northeastern state of Alagoas, told Toward Freedom, ”[the TSE in the second round] was afraid of provoking some kind of conflict.” Due to the highway police’s unprecedented actions, Calvacante believes “democracy in Brazil remains more fragile than ever.”

Contrary to the TSE and PRF’s assurances, the operations stopped some people from voting. Yet, Lula retained his lead. He became the first candidate to beat an incumbent since Brazil emerged from a military dictatorship in the 1980s, but also won with the smallest margin since then (1.8 percent).

“[I] didn’t just defeat a candidate,” Lula proclaimed. “[I] defeated the entire machinery of the Brazilian state.”

Almost three weeks later, Bolsonaro still has not explicitly conceded. His supporters have staged roadblocks around the country, sometimes aided by the PRF. João, a tourist landlord in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte, told Toward Freedom that he believes “the election was stolen.” That echoes a false belief still held by much of the Bolsonaro camp, said Danny Shaw, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Professor at the City University of New York. “[That camp] lives in a parallel universe of half-truths, misinformation and propaganda.”

“But,” as Shaw said, “the fact that Washington recognized [the election results] so early on, put pressure on Bolsonaro and his supporters.” The chances Bolsonaro could stage a successful coup—which his camp was “constantly measuring”—have diminished rapidly.

Beyond Bolsonaro

Talk of a Bolsonaro coup has subsided. In the last few days, he and his sons visited the Italian embassy to apply for citizenship, and Bolsonaro has told allies he may leave Brazil on Lula’s inauguration, to be held on New Year’s Day. This may be because he will lose political immunity. “I think he is planning to ask for exile in another country, like Hungary, where [President Viktor] Orbán is his friend or even Italy because he is going to be charged in Brazil,” Cavalcante predicted. That is partly because Italy’s governing party (Brothers of Italy) is far-right, and an iteration of a fascist party.

It seems more likely that Bolsonaro will flee while signaling as little clarity as he can about the result, than stage a coup. He has shown with basic questions—such as whether he’s received a Covid vaccine—that he can maintain strategic obfuscation, and observers have predicted he is likely to do the same with the election’s legitimacy.

Depending on what happens to the charges of wrongdoing that are likely to be brought against him, that could be how he hopes to return to politics in future.

And whatever happens to Bolsonaro, the right will have decent prospects at the next election. It remains to be seen how united it will be. Some elements prefer the anti-institutionalism and inflammatory cultural rhetoric of Bolsonarismo. While others prefer the more rationalized “Third Way” discourse of candidates like surprise third-placed Simone Tebet, who in this campaign was promoted by a significant section of the right-wing media. Both approaches have close ties to agro-business and prioritize what Brazil’s most-read newspaper recently called “fiscal responsibility” over reducing the country’s hunger crisis, in a recent op-ed attacking Lula for prioritizing tackling hunger. The anti-redistributive right in Brazil has been resilient, even when it had to get behind a leader who oversaw hundreds of thousands of avoidable Covid deaths.

The media will have a significant impact on Brazilian discourse over the next four years. Cavalcante explained Brazilians like himself “were successfully manipulated by the media” when former President Dilma Rousseff was deposed in a 2016 procedural coup. And he told Toward Freedom that the media will need to hold accountable politicians who espouse violence, in order to return Brazil to a time when “political polarization [didn’t involve Brazilians] being threatened by their bosses, neighbors and strangers in the street.”

Neoliberalism’s Future in Brazil

The president-elect faces significant struggles, particularly in reducing the hunger crisis. He has proven credentials, but faces a hostile climate.

Lula’s “Bolsa Família” program of conditional cash transfers during his 2003-11 presidency was cited as a major factor in the 28 percent decline in poverty rates in his first term. Bolsonaro ended Bolsa Família and, despite enacting a different cash transfer scheme, has presided over a huge increase in hunger, from 19 million in late 2020 to 33 million now. This, despite being the fourth-largest food producer in the world.

“Brazil is now back on [the United Nations’] Hunger Map,” Ediane Maria, a newly-elected Socialist and Liberty Party state legislator in São Paulo, told Toward Freedom. “People who eat breakfast today are not sure they can have dinner. Lula started the Zero Hunger programme [including Bolsa Família], which got Brazil off the Hunger Map; but [under Bolsonaro], our country is in a worse state than during the biggest hunger crisis of recent memory in 1993.”

And unlike in the 2000s, Brazil is not benefitting from a commodity boom, increasing pressure from the large section of Brazilian media who advocate smaller state expenditure.

Lula will not have the resources, power, and potentially the will, to transition significantly away from neoliberalism in Brazil. Neoliberalism is the systematic movement of public resources under private control. As Jemima Pierre, the Haiti/Americas coordinator for the U.S.-based Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), told Toward Freedom, “Even though [recent Latin American election-winners have produced] leftist governments, they’re still following the lead of the U.S. in terrible neoliberal policies. So, I think it’s a good thing that Bolsonaro lost. But I also think people need to hold Lula’s feet to the fire.” Pierre worries that “the left is so relieved that Bolsonaro lost that they’re not going to push Lula, because the fear is that if you go against Lula, then you’re going to get this right-wing government back. So, the left is really stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

As long as Lula governs effectively enough to implement key progressive policies, despite his obstacles, he could continue to increase popularity of such politics in Brazil, paving the way for further progression after his term.

Lula’s Global Moves

Advocates of multilateralism and environmentalism view this election positively.

For instance, U.S. human- and labor-rights lawyer Dan Kovalik told Toward Freedom Lula’s victory “would help bring about the multipolar world that we need.”

Lula already has touted creating a cartel of rainforest-endowed countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia, to motivate conservation.

“Lula’s first foreign policy visit will be to Argentina to increase and expand the BRICS,” Shaw said, referring to the group of states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) that are trying to counter U.S. control over international finance. Lula also advocated the creation of a South America-wide currency—the Sur—during this campaign.

Like any leader, Lula will need to be held to account to meet his stated goals. As Pierre states, “We are happy that there’s a leftist president, but we also remember that it’s the same leftist president who was behind the snuffing out of Haiti sovereignty as it was trying to bring Brazil on the international stage,” referring to the 2004-17 Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping occupation of Haiti, where Brazilian troops abused their power and stayed for years after being asked to leave. Upon Washington’s re-intervention in Haiti this year, Pierre explains that the United States “has worked with leftist governments [like Mexico] to get its work done… What we’re worried about is that Lula will fall into this trap.”

Lula’s victory could probably be considered the crowning achievement of the leftist Pink Tide’s resurgence across Latin America. That’s something BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka believes “represents the continued shift of power away from the international colonial ruling classes”—as long as Lula has learned geopolitical lessons from the 2000s.

Inauguration is over a month away. Lula faces strong economic, political, international, environmental and societal pressures that can hinder progressive policymaking. But, just like on election night in Recife, if you’re a progressive or simply espouse democratic values, now is the time for cautious celebration.

Richard Matoušek is a journalist who covers sociopolitical issues in southern Europe and Latin America. He can be followed on Twitter at @RichMatousek and on Instagram at @richmatico.

SÃO PAOLO, Brazil—What began as loud cheers mellowed out as election results were announced outside the CNN Brasil headquarters on October 2. Laughs merged into murmurs as onlookers began to hug each other.

It had become clear to the crowd of hundreds of “petistas,” or Workers’ Party (PT) supporters, that PT presidential candidate Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva—whom the Brazilian left had rallied behind—would have to fight a second round on October 30 against incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro.

Two middle-aged female petistas mourned when their state—Rio—elected a Bolsonarista governor.

“The poor don’t know how to vote,” one snapped in response to her friend, who had her face in her hands.

Some Brazilians’ desire to climb class rungs has helped win votes for Bolsonaro and his Liberal Party (PL) colleagues at the local and legislative levels of government. This, despite an appetite for progressive politics after four years of what City University of New York professor Danny Shaw described to Toward Freedom as the “underpinnings and trappings of fascist rule” as well as hundreds of thousands of avoidable COVID-19 deaths.

Lula’s Strategy ‘Has Not Paid Off’

Bolsonaro had garnered more votes than polls had predicted. During this year, neither of the leading pollsters—Datafolha and IPEC—showed Bolsonaro polling above 34 percent or 31 percent, respectively. In the end, Bolsonaro received 43.2 percent of votes and Lula 48.4 percent.

London School of Economics urban geographer Matthew Aaron Richmond said Bolsonaro’s base has remained relatively diverse as well, at least in income. In Rio, for instance, Bolsonaro has retained his strength in the low-income peripheries, where churches and militias with links to the police have a fair amount of authority. The same retention is true for the moderate-income settlements around Brazil’s most-populated southeast region, like Santo André in São Paulo.

“This suggests that Lula’s strategy of winning over such voters with a moderate pitch and coalition building has not paid off as hoped,” Richmond tweeted.

The Brazilian Right’s Advantage

Although many have posited Brazil-specific reasons for Bolsonaro’s continued popularity, one bloc has been encouraging—even coercing—others to vote for Bolsonaro because it would benefit from the inequitable policies he prioritizes, such as privatizing state firms like Petrobras, and supporting agribusiness in a way that has harmed the environment.

Journalist and historian Benjamin Fogel said the election has revealed Bolsonarismo as a “solidified electoral bloc with a clear ideological vision—to dismantle what remains of Brazil’s diminishing state capacity by handing over the country to the police mafias, evangelical capos, big agro and all sorts of other dodgy private interests.”

This bloc began to show its might well before Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign, with the procedural coup against former President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and the unlawful incarceration of Lula in 2018.

These kicked off the phenomenon of “antipetismo,” a campaign attacking the PT that has damaged government institutions and redistributive politics.

Revelations during this year’s campaign have shown Bolsonaro and his family have engaged in corrupt activities, including secretly siphoning off billions of Brazilian reals in health funding to pay off congresspeople to stop him being impeached.

Despite this, and the overturning of Lula’s imprisonment, many Bolsonaristas genuinely believe Lula and the PT are more corrupt than Bolsonaro.

The interest of many sectors of capital in keeping Bolsonaro in Brasilia has also meant many employers have illegally encouraged or asked their employees to vote for him. This is especially true in agrobusiness. Stara, an agricultural equipment company, sent staff letters this week predicting layoffs under a Lula government. As lawyer Rômulo Cavalcante told Toward Freedom, this is illegal.

The Class Effect

Bolsonaro’s links to big capital and Lula’s track record of strong redistribution as well as his base among the poor have impacted voting patterns. Some Brazilians who see themselves as middle class or hope to climb into that class voted for Bolsonaro. Not all of these people fit theorist Karl Marx’s definition of middle class because they don’t accrue wealth through others’ labor. That doesn’t change the fact, as author Hadas Thier alludes to, that they culturally identify as such.

Bolsonaro—often called “Trump of the Tropics”—is a favorite among Brazilian college graduates, according to a widely reported Datafolha poll.

This reporter’s friend said when his mother—a lawyer—asked him how he would vote and he replied ‘Lula,’ she retorted: ‘How could you? You have a degree!’

Voting out the PT is being viewed as a condition of being part of a better-off class, which partly explains Bolsonarismo’s endurance in places like Santo André in São Paolo.

The Strength of the Brazilian Left

Analysis has also shown that vote-buying has occurred, and many of the congress people who Bolsonaro has paid off have then themselves bought votes through clientelism and corruption.

That said, this election has also demonstrated strong Brazilian support for the left.

Brazil’s northeast has again come out strongly for the PT. Rosa Amorim was elected to the state of Pernambuco’s legislature, making her the first deputy to have grown up on one of many settlements of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MTST), a housing-justice organization.

Further south in São Paulo, Guilherme Boulos, an MTST leader, received over a million votes as a Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) candidate for the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies.

Other PSOL candidates pulled through on Election Day, too. Sônia Guajajara is the first Indigenous person and Ediane Maria is the first domestic worker elected to São Paulo’s chamber. Erika Hilton, meanwhile, became the first transgender member of Brazil’s legislature.

Brazilians still support these movements that make Brazil a particularly fertile ground for progressive activism.

Capital’s Interests Beyond Bolsonaro

However, Brazil doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and it is not immune to the forces that affect any capitalist country.

As Shaw explained to Toward Freedom, “Six to 10 families control [Brazil’s] entire media apparatus.”

Some have suggested big capital’s interest goes beyond Bolsonaro. A third candidate, Simone Tebet of the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), received a disproportionate amount of airtime, suggested right-wing business advocate Brian Winter. Before the campaign, said Cavalcante, “she wasn’t known outside her state.” As journalist Brian Mier has suggested, a sector of capital wanted a viable candidate who wasn’t as incompetent as Bolsonaro, as redistributive as Lula, or as boring as candidate Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party.

After being knocked out on Sunday, Tebet endorsed Lula, who remains the favorite.

Back in front of the CNN Brasil headquarters on election night, Lula made an appearance after the crowd digested the result.

“It’s like destiny likes me having to work a bit more,” Lula said to a crowd that appeared to have grown to the low thousands because he showed up. “The campaign starts tomorrow… We are going to win these elections!”

As Maria told Toward Freedom, the left’s “abundant energy” will be up against a “giant force.” On October 30, we’ll find out which of the two will succeed.

Richard Matoušek is a journalist who covers sociopolitical issues in southern Europe and Latin America. He can be followed on Twitter at @RichMatousek and on Instagram at @richmatico.