Understanding the rise of fascism in Brazil

I grew up in a small town in the interior of Minas Gerais, in a safe and peaceful environment. But, as disturbed as Brazil’s history is, it wasn’t always like that and is no longer like that. Not only that, lots of corruption cases are becoming public and the whole country feels like it can’t take it anymore, which leaves a vacant spot for a national hero. To understand Brazilian’s feelings, it is important to know a tiny bit of their history.

Brief History

During the cold war, there were movements in all of South America countries to keep the communism (the “enemy”) away. These movements, sponsored by Uncle Sam, were supported by military dictatorships that devastated every country in “mysterious” ways. Particularly, in Brazil, many people died/disappeared and are missing ‘till this day. Even worse, government information from that time is still kept as a secret.

After 21 years of dictatorship, the military have delivered the power back to it’s people (through an indirect election), leaving a huge external debt to them. This led to a lost decade, in which Brazil’s currency (at the time Cruzeiro, Cruzado and Cruzado Novo) suffered high inflation rates. Inflation affected people so much that in the beginning of a day you could buy a bread for a certain price and a higher one at night.

After this, there were lots of attempts to restart the country’s economy, many of which failed, including Plano Collor, an economic plan that confiscated people’s savings, reducing the amount of circulating money and, as a consequence, how much money people could spend daily, which slowed down inflation. It is not strange to say that people didn’t like the feeling of losing their money. As if it wasn’t sufficient, Brazil’s then president Fernando Collor was accused of corruption by his brother and was impeached in 1992.

As time went by, Brazil was recovering from it’s dark times, as Plano Real stabilized it’s economy in 1994. For some time, a Brazilian Real (BRL) was as valuable as an United States Dollar (USD — which was a bad thing, although it doesn’t seem so). In 2002 ex-president Lula was elected and really scared investors. They were so afraid of his proposals that you needed 7 BRL to buy a single US Dollar (corrected by inflation since that time).

Fortunately, it was the most prosper moments any Brazilian could have ever lived. Unemployment rates were decreasing, their money was becoming even more valuable, there were investments in basic social needs… People were buying their own houses, lots of universities (public and private) were created constantly, people were getting a university degree using government scholarships and public student loan. Everything was great for Brazilians.

After Lula’s government, came Dilma’s. Her first government was still seeing the results from her partner’s government, as unemployment rates were still decreasing and more and more Brazilians dreamed of a brighter future. But as messed up as Brazil’s history is, lots of corruptions cases that occurred during both of their governments were made public (such as Mensalão — a corruption case in which congress support was bought by monthly payments — and Lava-Jato — involving the big state company Petrobras). Needless to say, the population did not approve this.

More recently, Dilma was elected president again in a difficult dispute (getting roughly 51% of votes against Aécio Neves who got 49%) and things started to go wrong. People were losing their jobs, their money was losing value, fuel prices were getting too high… Everything was wrong. But with a reason: the members of the congress were articulating themselves to reduce the president’s support. Soon enough, nothing she tried to do got approved in the congress.

The situation was only getting worse for the average Brazilian and, as divided as people already were since elections, Dilma’s support only decreased. People were unsatisfied and started blaming her (and Lula’s) government (and Workers Party — PT) for all that was going wrong. The perfect scenario for the opposition to start an impeachment process. It was December 2nd 2014 and the name was Eduardo Cunha, former president of the congress (who is today arrested by Lava-Jato).

Months later, Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment process concluded and she was replaced by vice president Michel Temer, whose actions as president are the complete opposite from Workers Party. His deeds were so unpopular that his two years of government is approved by roughly 4% of the population.

Understanding people’s feelings

As Brazilian people were watching all these events, criminality was rising and seemed uncontrollable. In some interior cities, robbers were exploding banks, assaulting people and stores and, after some time, even farmers were being robbed in their small and far from city farms. A feeling of insecurity was rising between Brazilian people, who were trying to understand why their small cities had only a few policemen with small guns and little resources. Worst than that, why these people that were constantly robbing weren’t going into jail and, when they were, why it is that they were back to civilization in a matter of days.

Now people are not only unsatisfied with Workers Party government (and militating against a fifth Workers Party government), but they are also frightened. And this is when Jair Bolsonaro caught people’s minds, with speeches like “a good bandit is a dead bandit”, “people should be able to buy weapons and protect their families” and “military must fire their weapons to kill”.

But today that’s not the only thing that supports him. Now, in the second part of Brazil’s elections, you’ll find Jair Bolsonaro against Fernando Haddad, a member of PT (Workers Party).

Who is Jair Bolsonaro?

Jair Bolsonaro is a former army captain (now in army reserve) that spent his last 28 years as a congressman. In all those 28 years, he did:

• approve 2 projects;
• put his whole family in public life (his sons are members of the congress and city councilors);
• vote in favor of rising his own salary;
• vote in favor of diminishing workers rights;
• vote against Plano Real;
• vote against a law proposal against nepotism.

To the regular Brazilian he seems to be just another politician. He has some extreme opinions, like:

• population should have the right of having weapons to defend themselves;
• the police must shoot to kill;
• people should avoid taxes.

A while ago, during an interview, he even said that, if elected president, the first thing he would do is shut down the congress, an organization that, in his words, is useless (but didn’t mind working there for 28 years), and would be the next dictator.

“Women should be paid less because they get pregnant.” — Jair Bolsonaro

What people doesn’t seem to know (or just ignore) are his homophobic, sexist and racist speeches. This man says that women should be paid less because they can get pregnant and once said to a woman “you’re so ugly you don’t deserve to be raped”.

He strongly believes that the last 100 and so years since African people gained a citizenship title that now everyone is born with the same opportunity. As if public schools offer the same quality as a private schools and everyone could afford everything. He once visited a quilombo, a community formed by African descendants in Brazil that fought and escaped slavery, and said that “the most lightweight person there weighted about 15 arrobas (a weight measure for cattle)! They sit in their on asses and do nothing all day!”

Lastly but just as important, he says the worst things about LGBT community, but says he is not homophobic! He once said “I’d rather have a dead son than a gay son”.

“If I see two men kissing each other in front of me, I’ll beat them.” — Jair Bolsonaro

Bolsonaro gets lots of support from religious people with popular sayings like “people don’t follow a morality anymore”. His campaign slogan is “Brazil above all. God above everyone.”. These are the people that strongly support arming the population and have the freedom to kill whoever they judge bad people. Just like Jesus and the church taught them.

The problem

The problem is that Brazilian people are divided between two candidates: Fernando Haddad, from Workers Party, and Jair Bolsonaro. There is a class of people that is tired of Workers Party governing their lives and can’t stand to have another president from this party. Most of them are rich people or middle class people. Other supporters of Bolsonaro want him because of his speeches about safety and arming society.

Some other people support Bolsonaro because of his speeches, as last sunday occurred the first part of elections and Bolsonaro got 46% of all valid votes (almost getting elected) and some “special” supporters are already seeing themselves in the right of attack people that have a different opinion of them. And so news of Bolsonaro supporters beating people for wearing red (Workers Party color), beating gay people, woman and even killing these people took over social media. Videos with people saying things like “Bolsonaro is going to kill all gay people!” or “you’re lucky I don’t have a gun yet”.

Not enough for them, a woman was attacked by Bolsonaro supporters and marked her with a swastika (yes, the Nazi symbol). While seeking help from the police (an organization in which are lots of Bolsonaro’s supporters) the officer concluded that the symbol wasn’t Nazi, but buddhist of love and, in conclusion, nothing was done.

It is wise to think that these non-isolated cases would make people have second thoughts before voting in a man that justifies aggression, killing, hating, authoritarianism, sexism, racism and homophobia. But that’s not true. Most of his voters, who won’t vote in Workers Party just because “not Workers Party” believe that this portion on Bolsonaro’s supporters is small and will not be in anyway expressive.

Some say that all these problems were always there and it isn’t voting on Bolsonaro that people will become more violent. But why is it that a large number of violent cases including his supporters caught social media since last sunday (the first election day)? How can they assure that most part vote on him because they’re really tired of PT (and corruption), and not for hate speeches?

What really seems to be now is that people don’t care. It won’t affect them. They are not afraid of dying or losing a close relative or friend for his supporters. None of them is threatened. So, why should they care? Why should they believe that Bolsonaro’s government will do any harm to anyone?

Brazilian people is so tired of corruption and linked corruption to Workers Party (as if it was the only corrupt Party in Brazil — like Bolsonaro’s party isn’t) and paying high taxes for social investment that they will vote for a fascist politician, knowing everything about him and doing nothing about it.