#20359 - L6 Bolsonaro's Brazil - Modern Latin American History

BOLSONARO’S BRAZIL

Jair Bolsonaro – Biography

• Family and military

• Born 21 March 1955 in Glicério, in the state of São Paulo

• Born within a year of Vargas’s suicide

• Family mostly descendants of Italian immigrants in 1870s, some German ancestry

• Graduated from Escola Preparatória de Cadetes do Exército (the prep school of the Brazilian Army), 1977, as artillery officer; went onto Physical Training School in Rio de Janeiro and served in the 21st Field Artillery Group and the 8th Paratrooper Field Artillery Group

• Served army for 15 years, rose to rank of Captain

• Left army, in December 1988, to begin his political career, after two-year investigation into misconduct

• Political rise

• Bolsonaro entered politics in 1988, elected city councilor in Rio de Janeiro, representing the Christian Democratic Party (PDC)

• Two years in the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro, give visibility to military causes, such as retirement benefits for former officers

• 1990 elected as federal deputy for the Christian Democratic Party. He served seven consecutive terms, from 1991 to 2018. He has been affiliated with several other Brazilian political parties over the years

• January 2018, Bolsonaro abandoned the Social Christian Party (former PDC) and switched to the Social Liberal Party (PSL). After his arrival, the PSL adopted conservative and right-wing positions, and its social liberal group Livres announced its departure from the PSL

• 22 July 2018, the PSL nominated Bolsonaro for president in the 2018 election.

• Bolsonaro was stabbed in the abdomen on 6 September 2018 while campaigning and interacting with supporters in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais

• Stops holding public rallies for rest of campaign thereafter; uses MSM, television and social media

2018: Campaign and election victory

• Two main points of his campaign strategy were political corruption and rising crime

• Tough stance on crime, restore security, defense of "traditional family values;” tax cuts across the board, particularly on inheritances and businesses, to generate growth and tackle unemployment; austerity measures and (unspecified) cuts in government spending; shrink federal government's size and bureaucracy through wide-ranging deregulation; stamp out political corruption won him huge popular support

• Most popular causes – crime (i.e., personal security) and corruption (associated with the Worker’s Party)

• Workers' Party candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, arrested in April 2018, Bolsonaro became the front-runner in the election

• First round of the election, 7 October 2018, Bolsonaro = first place with 46% of the popular vote (49.2 million). Since he failed to win 50%, he faced the second-place finisher, Haddad (PT), in a runoff held on 28 October 2018

• Bolsonaro won the runoff election with 55.13% of the votes and was elected the 38th president of Brazil. He took office on 1 January 2019

Bolsonaro campaign, British press

• Lilia Schwarcz, a Brazilian historian, and writer who witnessed Bolsonaro’s address as she left an art gallery near Sunday’s rally, said she had been disturbed by his inflammatory rhetoric.

• “The way he spoke … he is asking people to be violent – this is not democracy,” Schwarcz said.

• “He speaks like a very authoritarian leader – it reminds us of other regimes … We know this film. We know this kind of movie. It is a very authoritarian one.”

• José Roberto de Toledo, a political journalist from the magazine Piauí, said: “It’s an escalation. As Mussolini would say: ‘If you pluck a chicken one feather at a time, people don’t notice.’”

Bolsonaro – the politician

• right wing conservatism

• religious nationalist

• supporter agri-business

• populist

• pro-life

• pro-gun

• misogynist

• homophobic

• Bolsonaro’s opinions are probably more known than his policies, and they caused controversies

• At a political level though his politics can generally be described as right wing conservatism

• His one area of policy that is best known, and globally, is as a supporter of agri-business. This has resulted in the rapid deforestation of the Amazon rain forest, and on an unprecedented scale

• Bolsonaro’s brand of politics is also populist. He rarely addresses questions of policy when speaking publicly and relies instead on often polemical rhetoric

• As a Catholic with a big Pentecostal following he is anti-abortion, but not untypically of this type of religious nationalism also pro-gun

• He is known for his openly misogynist and homophobic comments even in congress

• These violent words do not always translate into policies, but they have legitimised acts of violence outside congress

• Femicide is on the increase and there was an assassination of the Rio de Janeiro councillor, Marielle Franco, a black women and lesbian

• This violent, right wing rhetoric was not just a political turn taken during the presidential campaign. Bolsonaro has a long track record of courting controversy by celebrating the atrocities committed under military rule

• Here, in congress in 2014, as a counter narrative to the ceremony marking the 50^th anniversary of the coup d’état that initiated the period of military rule, Bolsonaro and his son waved the Brazilian flag in a public gesture of national pride

• Perhaps even more notorious, when speaking before his vote in favor of President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment amid the massive corruption scandal, Bolsonaro paid homage to Colonel Brilhante Ustra, an agent of Brazil's military dictatorship, and announced on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies that he was dedicating his pro-impeachment vote to Ustra's memory

• Ustra had headed the DOI-CODI torture unit where Rousseff was tortured during the military dictatorship

• Congressman Jean Wyllys spat at him after his statement during the same session

PROTESTS OF 2013

Understanding contemporary Brazil, chapter 7

• Introduction - overview of 2013 protests, domestic and international context; indicators of continuity and change

• “collective mobilization and public protest have deep roots in Brazil” (121)

• “what seems to be clear is that the ways in which people organize, and their reasons for mobilization, appear to be changing.” (123)

• Roots: Brazil’s legacy of resistance (1500-1930) - outlines indigenous resistance to colonisation, slave rebellions and resistance colonial and imperial period; social movements of the First Republic, and rise of workers movements

• “it was not until the end of the Old Republic that organized labor and what we today call social movements truly emerged […] The rise of Getúlio Vargas opened new pathways for these groups, but they operated under heavy restriction from the Brazilian state.” (127)

• “Brazil remains a hotbed for social mobilization” (135)

• Mobilization: political opportunities and resource mobilization (1930-1985) – Vargas era and trabalhismo; the rise of MST and Afro-Brazilian organizations; social movements under military rule, CEBs; theories of social movement theories (Tilly, Miller); return to democracy “watershed moment” which leads to “surge in collective mobilization that spawned a new era in social activism.” (130)

• Democracy: the rise of Brazil’s ‘new’ social movements (1985-2013) – identity vs class based organisation; 3 defining features (i) “post-material objectives” (ii) “diverse organizational tactics”, (iii) grassroots/diy mobilization (132), MNLM; neoliberal interpretations: “fizzled out”, “lack resources” (133), intersectionality, individualizing claims, “vulnerable to internal fissures as well as co-potation by state actors”, “NSMs have missed opportunities to produce broader, structural social change” (135)

• “it is possible that conservative and rightwing groups may become involved with collective mobilization” (139)

• The twenty-first century: social movements going forward – broader global trend of middle class discontent, “underwhelming opportunities and poor state governance”, “insufficient and/or poorly distributed resources” (136); criticised for lack of organisation, “clear political message” and “have accomplished little” (136); social media, connect globally, fund raise, broad based participation but “critical role of space”, tasks accomplished online; critical “affinity bonds” and antagonistic civil discourse; fringe and extremist groups; “The protests of 2013 hailed yet another watershed moment for collective mobilization.” (139)

2013: Another watershed moment?

• 2013 protests, Brazil - own Wikipedia entry

• Previous national protests – “coalesced around one, single issue” (121)

• 2013 “infinite number of demands” (121); “can hardly be called organized social movements” (136)

• Begin Jan. 2013, bus fare increases, Porto Alegre (RGdoS); Movimento Passe Livre (MPL)

• June 2013 – MSM showing police violence, millions take to streets every night; “diverse sectors”, “little in common”, “political parties sidelined”; right wing groups take part too

• ‘How to make sense of protests?’: growing middle class dissatisfaction, emerging countries, “broader global trend”, “underwhelming opportunities”, “poor state governance” (136)

• 2015: “Brazil’s streets filled again” – this time with common political goal of “ousting President Dilma Rousseff’s Worker’s Party government” (123)

• Corruption scandals, misuse of public funds, Confederations Cup 2013, World Cup 2014, Olympics 2016, economic crisis

• Social media, new information technologies, “profoundly altered coordination tools of mass mobilization (136), “new era for collective action, in Brazil as elsewhere” (137)

Protests 2013: levels of participation and casualties

• Over 2 million[1]

• 300,000 in Rio de Janeiro

• 100,000 in São Paulo

• 100,000 in Manaus

• 100,000 in Belo...