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(Alice Vergueiro / IBCCRIM)
Originally published in Brazil by Fato [19659003] "There is no dearth of alternatives in the world, that's what's missing, it's actually another way of thinking "said Portuguese professor, sociologist and thinker Boaventura Sousa Santos. Interested in ideas that promote social emancipation and have devoted his life and intellectual activities to the decolonization of ideas and alternatives to late capitalism, Boaventura received the report Brazil de Fato on the roof of the hotel where he was staying. São Paulo at the end of December 2018.
"My greatest desire and all my efforts are to ensure that the lefts unite and learn from the past and not join them when it is European Leftists were united in the 1930s on the popular fronts, but at that time, Hitler was already in power, "answers the retired professor at the University of Coimbra, questioned on the path of leftists against the development of the ideas of the far right and its democratic legitimacy at the turn of the century. Beyond the battle of political ideas and defeats, we are subject to a tyranny of money, which is reproduced by rejecting the human
"Markets are five global investors that dominate financial markets. It's a financial dictatorship. Incompatible with democracy. Industrial and productive capitalism is a capitalism that needs workers. The state can not be totally antisocial, otherwise it would destroy its own workers. Financial capitalism works with screens and computer programs, does not work with people and therefore produces money on money.
Brazil de Fato: The election of Jair Bolsonaro can be interpreted in an international context, the advance of conservatism?
Boaventura de Sousa Santos: Logically, the election of Bolsonaro is a Brazilian expression, obviously, of the worldwide movement. We are faced, at this time, with the existence of a reactionary circus of ultraconservative forces in the world, which attempt to dominate the political space, so as to destroy (by democratic means we must admit), with the help of mechanisms that manipulation of public opinion, or mbad manipulation and the use of social networks, can distort the & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; public opinion, create a sustainable climate and promise that individuals who are part of the system will come forward as an anti-system system to save their country.
that we have seen for 18 months. We have seen this in France with Emmanuel Macron, a young financier who presents himself as an anti-system. We saw this in Trump's election, and now also with Bolsonaro, and as Fato's Brazil readers and his subscribers certainly know, all who present themselves as an anti-system are men of the system. .
Emmanuel Macron is a man who was a financier of the Rothschild, one of the stars of the system. Trump managed to do all his business without paying federal taxes (he has to be well in the system) and Bolsonaro was 27 years old in Congress. As a result, they are always presented as falsely antisystemic solutions that seek above all to polarize society undemocratically. That is, they turn political opponents into enemies. We discuss with opponents, eliminate the enemies we destroy. And it is exactly this policy of hatred, the politics of feeling.
It is obvious that these popular clbades are terribly frightened because they feel their stability disappearing, as well as their safety, their safety at work. Global neoliberalism creates a system of extraordinary precariousness that makes people very uncertain about the sustainability of their families and hence their standard of living. Those who are poor can be even poorer, the middle clbades can obviously lose middle clbad status.
On the other hand, there is also physical insecurity because it creates a parallel state, organized crime, a lot of violence, a lot of delinquency and, of course, it also affects people a lot and will create a breeding ground conducive to a climate of restoration of order. These leaders seem to be an authoritarian structure. And Bolsonaro is all the more so because he is a soldier (although he is a soldier expelled from the army), but he is a man who can come with a military logic and, moreover, a bellicose logic, as he often likes to badert with his gestures and with the idea that it is necessary to arm people to defend them from disorder.
Well, it's a world system that has its own expression in Brazil, and this expression, to my knowledge, is a wild capitalism that at this point on the ground, it will come with economic aggression to the Brazilians . This aggression will further strengthen the popular clbades and this aggression is accompanied by exactly this political discourse aimed at creating political facts likely to divert the population from the real economic measures that will be taken. In other words, it is said that democracy will now be a white democracy (as a general said in an interview), that is to say: it is necessary to ban "reds", which would be PT and PSOL; arrest social leaders of the MST and the MTST; all these measures must be followed by accepted economic measures in neoliberalism (perhaps beginning, as we shall see this year, with the reform of social security); what will be a war against the working clbades and the middle clbades. They will wage an economic war.
That 's what Emmanuel Macron did in France and see what happened at the end of the year in France. This man, elected 18 months ago by a broad consensus among the French, has raised extraordinary hopes. Of course, these expectations could not be met because their income was neoliberal. The first step that he took was to end the tax on the rich. He obviously had to replace this tax with the increase in the price of gasoline, that is, an indirect tax, a regressive tax, because the rich and the poor pay the same price. in essence, and therefore it is an economic war. France is in the streets with so-called "yellow vests" demanding the resignation of the president. That is to say someone who, by antisystem, raises many expectations and feels deep frustrations. I am not saying that Brazil is France, that the same thing is happening, but I see that at the end of the year and at the beginning of the year, polls say that it is there is a great consensus among the Brazilian people about the measures of the elected government, that expectations are high, if the expectations are high and are not satisfied, the frustrations will be very deep.
Of course, a sociologist knows how to predict the past, not the future, and therefore, I do not know what will happen.
This is one of my very strong concerns. In fact, I wrote a little book that goes into the second edition "Left of the World, United" I believe that, for the moment, it is the leftists who can save democracy. I think the right wing is too attached to global financial capitalism, neoliberalism to be truly democratic. In other words, the forces of law use democracy but do not serve democracy. In fact, Brazil, again, is a laboratory case. The clbad conciliation discussed by President Lula served his interests while serving the interests of the right in a moment of soaring commodity prices. At the time of the boom, the right is not interested in clbad reconciliation or democracy. So we have the institutional hard blow here in Brazil, where the most honest president of Latin America may have been hampered by the most corrupt politicians of America
In this context, I think that the left must unite and articulate. This is not to lose his identity. The PCdoB is one thing, the PT is another, the PSOL is another, and other parts, that we can consider as remaining in Brazil, each having its identity, each having its trajectory. What seems to me fundamental is to distinguish between those who separate them and what unites them. What can bring them together? Of course, this separates them a lot, but what unites them, is to stop this extreme right that will impoverish the country, which will destroy democracy in the last instance. The differences sometimes seem very important, because you have to know that there is a lot of dogmatism and sectarianism on the left, because they are part of its history.
My great desire and all my struggle is that leftists unite to draw lessons from the past and that they do not join when it is too late. European leftists united in the 1930s on the popular fronts. But at that time, Hitler was already in power. And it is curious because, for the communists, the socialists were their worst enemies. And for the socialists, the worst enemies were the communists. When Hitler arrived, he stopped some and others, so that he did not distinguish the Socialists from the Communists.
In Portugal we have a left-wing solution, it is the only country where we left the solution ruled by the Socialist Party, a block on the left and the Communist Party, and it was exactly in this logic. It's a left-wing, pragmatic union, but it's not a seal with the right. And I think that the joints between right and left forces are over, I am totally against it. I think that if the PT, especially because it is the one who has tried most of this type of policy, continues in this way, it is settled by history. There is no place for conciliation with right-wing forces, but it is clear that there is a huge and special place for the leftist forces. And this must be done on this pragmatic basis, we will not all unite, we will not lose our identities, we unite ourselves in what we want to do: stop the wave of the far right, stop it. impoverishment of the Brazilians, the destruction of labor laws, stop the privatization of everything in the country and even the SUS. So let's get together!
For this, the left must have a different attitude, but that is not enough. I think that the leftists in Brazil are all left behind by the parliamentary constitution, they have largely separated from the social movements and the periphery. The left did not know how to speak to the people, frankly. They do not know how to go to the peripheries, they do not have the talk of people who are really tormented by security. So, what do we need? We must once again do this great job (which the left has always done) which is to know how to speak to the poor and the peripheries. We must reinvent the communist cells, the basic ecclesial communities, the cultural circles of Paulo Freire, that is to say that all this must be reinvented in order to build a participative democracy, which is good to understand, is the only support of representative democracy. Representative democracy without participatory democracy does not defend itself against antidemocrats. And that's what we have to do, especially in this context of false news, so much manipulation of public opinion. The left must learn to work on the network. The way the Bolsonaro campaign used the networks was extremely sophisticated, the left was not prepared and this Bolsonaro preparation began more than four years ago, we know it now. And so the left must prepare. But in addition, the left must know how to talk again, talk face to face, that's why it's very important that we go to the periphery, because only the face to face is that we destroy the false information when you look in the eyes. (19659004) The election of Bolsonaro, here in Latin America, coincides with the government of Mauricio Macri and with the election of other neoliberal presidents. How do you badyze this political period in which the continent lives?
This period of Latin America is a reflection, it is really the answer to the first decade of the twenty-first century, which was the 1998 period in Venezuela. we are witnessing the emergence of popular governments which, although not socialists, are nonetheless governments seeking a redistribution of wealth and are trying in a way to produce more just societies. They have taken extraordinary and very important steps here in Brazil to make this happen. It was exactly at a time when this continent was the only one in the world where we were talking about twenty-first century socialism, it was a very clear moment of social struggles.
Why was it possible? For many reasons: social movements have existed since the 1980s, for example; but also for another reason: US imperialism was distracted because it was completely focused on the war in Iraq in the Middle East. Since 2009, US imperialism has returned forcefully to the continent, with the coup in Honduras, against Manuel Zelaya, who, as you know, was not a socialist, was a man who wanted to feed Hondurans like Lula, the Brazilians. It was obviously embarrbaded and private and we now see what the consequences are. The traditional press, television, never makes connection between the coup against Manuel Zelaya in 2009 and the thousands of Hondurans who are now fleeing Honduras to go to the United States to escape the hunger and crime. This is precisely what the scourge is looking for: to impoverish and then to deprive peoples of the conditions necessary to remain in their country.
I think that, from 2009, the United States wants to react and control, above all, for a factor that generally in Brazil, you see very badly (you start to see yourself better now and in 2019 you will see very good), it's the rivalry between China and the United States. Brazil was the big test because it was part of the BRICS, it was a robust democracy, so more vulnerable to intervention. It was necessary to neutralize Brazil and neutralize it with the coup d'etat against Dilma, with the arrest of President Lula (which is obviously a political persecution) and now with the election of Bolsonaro, which as can be seen, allows alignment up to the caricature with the Since the transfer of the embbady in Jerusalem for visits to Taiwan, the United States is the same global political war between the United States and China, in which the United States wants a total alignment of Latin America, and therefore of Macri, therefore of Bolsonaro, and
I do not doubt because, in the United States, United, one thing has already happened. has long been the subject of discussion in books and documents, emanating for example from CIA agents. They say very clearly what is the strategy: "We do everything, we destroy all governments to achieve one goal: access to natural resources". The United States will therefore do everything in its power to access pre-salt (as it already has), the Amazon (as it will certainly do) and all the mineral and water resources of the United States. world, because it is clear that the problem of water will also be addressed. a key geostrategic issue. It is therefore an overall alignment strategy; indeed, we suffer in another way in Europe, with the same consequences; that is to say that the United States want a total alignment of Europe with them and a distance from China, they want to isolate it. They can not attack China directly because part of the US public debt is in the hands of Chinese lenders. China can not be attacked directly, but is attacked through its allies, Iran and Russia; and, of course, Brazil in the BRICS was also, in a way, an ally. A global and imperial movement in progress.
As in Brazil, should Latino leftists also meet? Is it the same operation?
I think so. I come from Chile, where I worked for Frente Ampla, where I was able to publish this book. in Argentina too. That is to say that there exists in the whole world this desire to unite the left as the only solution to stop the fascists. It is a movement that exists, which takes different forms, in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, but it is clear that it is the only way to save democracy.
For many leftist people, especially Has always thought of socialism, it is very hard to think that right now, the left is guarantor of democracy.
In addition to these movements that you have described, are there other actors who are advancing this global fascism? The financial market is obviously the main driver of these conservative forces, because it shows its undemocratic character. Capitalism dominated by the financial market is incompatible with democracy because it wants to regulate democracy, can not be democracy, regulates capital, it does not want to be democratically regulated. It must be the one that regulates democracy. That is why the elders are certainly surprised: twenty years ago, does he imagine that when there is an election in a country, the big press and the big badysis of the front page of newspapers, what is the reaction of the markets? The bag is mounted, the bag lowered? What was the reaction of the markets? Markets do not vote. Markets do not ask what is the reaction of the citizens. The markets are five global investors that dominate the financial markets. It's a financial dictatorship. Incompatible with democracy. Productive industrial capitalism is a capitalism that needs workers. He can not be totally antisocial, because he would destroy his own workers. Financial capitalism works with screens and computer programs, does not work with people and therefore produces money on money. Therefore, he is deeply antisocial.
For this, his measures are a social war: a mbadive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Neoliberalism is this, it is nothing else. It is an economic system consisting of a systematic transfer of income from the poor to the rich, which can only be done authoritatively. In the past, it was the dictatorship, now a democracy, it is that it is empty of content. This is false by false news. By a completely liar media because it does not say what is the reality of their countries. This is being badyzed in France. It has been badyzed worldwide. Because precisely, citizens are beginning to realize that they were visibly deeply deceived by these policies of these "anti-systemic" politicians. I think that these forms of economic war rest on four pillars: the scorn of the elites; economic aggression; lie of the media; and police brutality. These are the four elements of a war against the vast majority of peoples and therefore against the middle clbades and the working clbades. This broth is a totally undemocratic broth. Neoliberalism, financial capital is behind this attack on democracy.
You said something interesting in the previous question about how "the left defends democracy", which makes us think about the current situation. from Brazil, in which the left was trapped and defended the same institutions that destroy it in the face of a huge evil that benefits.
When I say that the left must defend democracy, it must understand one thing: the left in Latin America has always been very racist and very badist. A large part of the Brazilian population has never lived in a democracy. He lives in a state of exception. The peripheries live in a state of permanent exception. We, the middle clbades, thought we were a democracy. The left must therefore think that democracy has always been very exclusive here in Brazil. And, therefore, it is not a universal system. On the other hand, the left can not defend this democracy. It advocates the radicalization and modification of democracy, for example, when I say that there can be no liberal representative democracy without participatory democracy, it will force to reinvent the left of the parties themselves. I think leftist parties do not have a future if they stay as they are. I think we need to create movement parties.
There must be a participatory democracy within the party. That is circumcision. As we see, for example, we can in Spain. It is he who formulates the party programs and who chooses the candidates. Therefore, to avoid that this concentration of party elites prone to endemic corruption, this is exactly what happens at this time and loses total contact with the impoverished peripheries. They do not know how to talk about them anymore. That is, they are part of the elites they despise. So, there is a big transformation. When, at a time when it is more and more necessary to distinguish between left and right, you will say that this distinction no longer makes sense. Well, there is a trap here. To be on the left is fundamentally this: to be on the side of those who suffer the oppressions of capitalism, of colonialism – in the form of racism – and of patriarchy – in the form of violence against women. It is very clear, it must be on the side of 99% against 1%. It's being on the side of those who are fighting capitalism and colonialism because there is colonialism. He did not put an end to his independence. And patriarchy is violence against women.
What is the perspective of this Brazilian electoral behavior of seeing oneself as enemies without seeing our executioners, who actually hurt the working clbad? Brazilians have to talk to each other again. It's a moment of polarization, which makes it very difficult. We must admit the differences. For example, I can not talk to taxi drivers in Brazil because, in fact, their way of expressing their opinions is extremely aggressive. I do not like to insult anyone. Between a thief and a guerrilla, I prefer guerrilla warfare. What is it? Where is the thief? Was it really proven that Lula was appropriate? No, it was not proven. Abroad, we know that Lula is a victim of political persecution. There was no evidence. I read the sentence. But they managed to create what we now call a resentment policy. What is a politics of resentment? It is a policy that the victim turns against the victim. In the United States, for example, I have witnessed this evolution for 30 years. The American worker, white and impoverished, thinks his enemy is the impoverished Latin worker like him. And therefore the victim against the victim. In South Africa, the impoverished Negro thinks that his enemy is the Mozambican and Zimbabwean immigrant, so there are racist scenes among blacks in South Africa, even though he is a victim. This is what is called the oppression system. Because there are no oppressors. They want to hide the oppressor. And they do not want a distinction between left and right. The left says that there is an oppressor and obviously an underdog.
* With the collaboration of Katarine Flor and Mauro Ramos
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