Fernando Alcoforado*
In 45 days of government, it is possible to identify the nefarious character of the Bolsonaro administration for Brazil. This nefarious character is identifiable, not only in Jair Bolsonaro’s lack of preparation for the presidency of the Republic, but also in the initial deplorable actions of some of its ministers like Sérgio Moro, Damares Alves, Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez, Ricardo Salles e Paulo Guedes.
Numerous jurists, politicians and academics committed to civilizational norms classify as grotesque the project of the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Sergio Moro, to combat against corruption and crime. The arrest of the defendant after a conviction in the second instance, before a final decision, and therefore in violation of the Constitution, and the almost permission to kill that is intended to be given to police officers have been questioned come by the press that recently idolized the judge symbol of Lava Jato. The Moro project gives autonomy to the Federal Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office to sign international agreements directly, without the scrutiny of the National Congress or the President of the Republic in evident attack on national sovereignty.
Moro’s project demonstrates disapproval of custody hearings, ignoring the decision of the CNJ (National Council of Justice) that testifies to the necessity of the procedure that is the procedural instrument that determines that every prisoner in flagrante must be taken to the presence of the judicial authority, within 24 hours, in order for it to assess the legality and necessity of maintaining the prison. What is guiding the project of Sergio Moro is a punitive ideology that will not solve the problems of the country, and will worsen many of them. The former judge of Operation Lava Jato pleads for criminal primary, according to numerous jurists. Much of what he proposes is already being addressed in bills. Another part of what he proposes could not be dealt with in bills. And another part of what he proposes are setbacks that have already been defeated in the Federal Supreme Court or in the National Congress itself. Moro may have been a good judge of first instance, but he does not have the necessary qualification to carry out the Ministry of Justice and Public Security.
The new minister of the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights, evangelical pastor Damares Alves, said in a series of videos on YouTube, that Brazil lives a gay dictatorship and denies that “millions of women” die with abortions, it is against abortion and says that the main role of women in society is to be a mother. At the beginning of the new government, the phrase “Boys in blue dress, and girls in pink dress”, said by her the same day she took office and videotaped by supporters, demonstrates her retrograde view of the development of society. Old recordings of yours have also spread over the internet, causing outrage. One of them, from 2013, shows the current minister bemoaning the fact that the evangelical church has lost ground “when it let the Theory of Evolution into schools,” the theory that is scientifically proven. All this shows the retrograde character of Minister Damares Alves and his inability to hold in office.
For the new minister of Education, Colombian Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez, moral and civic education should be the basis of Brazilian education. According to Rodriguez, “the Brazilian traveling is a cannibal. Steal things from hotels, steal airplane life-saving seats; he thinks he leaves the house and can carry everything. That’s the kind of thing that has to be reversed in school. This statement caused Minister Rosa Weber of the Federal Supreme Court to notify Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez to explain an interview in which he said that the Brazilian becomes a cannibal when traveling. Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez said that the student will learn what it is to be Brazilian and what the national heroes are. Vélez Rodríguez also said that ideological doctrines should be reserved only for higher education and that at this level, the duty of the university professor is to teach students all ideological positions and put in parentheses their point of view, not to induce the student to adopt the master’s point of view.
In announcing the fight against “cultural Marxism” that he characterized as “a materialistic ideology, alien to our most valued values of patriotism and religious view of the world”, Minister Rodriguez does not recognize that Brazil is a democratic state of law, secular and pluralistic, which embraces without distinction the most diverse views of the world, including nihilistic, atheistic, agnostic visions, etc. consolidated by the Constitution of 1988. Promises to act as guardian of the legitimate customs of Brazil and executioner of the Marxist-materialist ideology say little if nothing is proposed on the arduous and imperious path towards the qualitative turn that our education needs so much. Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez effectively translates the retrograde character of the Bolsonaro government and its inability to manage Brazil’s education.
It is this retrograde vision of the education of the Bolsonaro government that is leading to the militarization of schools in the Federal District adopted by the new government of the Federal District that, in parallel to the cut of the students’ free pass, makes a portaria for a military intervention in four public schools. The militarization of schools is not new. There is a clear difference between military college and a military intervention, Military college is a structure that has as criterion a proof of selection that reproduces privileges. It is like a funnel, where only those who already dominate the main contents pass. In addition, military colleges have almost three times more resources than regular colleges. All this makes it difficult to compare them with the colleges in general and doubts their effectiveness, since they have a structure that is not the reality of Brazilian public education.
What is presented in the Federal District is an authoritarian and undemocratic intervention, hurting existing laws without broad dialogue with the community. Public education is the responsibility of the education secretariats, not of the military police. Having police officers in the management of education is a deviation from function, since they have no pedagogical training. They present themselves as shared management and throw away democratic management, school boards, and student councils. They hurt, because they impose a single style of behavior, with cut of hair and clothing that inhibit the individuality of each, the plurality of individuals. There is no denying that there is a challenge in Brazilian education. However, it is not with the police that it is resolved. A school that punishes critical thinking, in which it cannot express what it is and how it is, is a repressive space seen perhaps, only in prison spaces.
The inaugural address of the new foreign minister of Brazil, Ernesto Araújo, points out that Brazil must break with the history of its foreign policy recognized worldwide for guiding its actions by some principles that it never gave up like those of nonintervention, self-determination of peoples and peaceful settlement of disputes. Araújo’s proposed Brazilian foreign policy moves toward an even greater alignment with the interests of the United States, leaving aside the initiatives of autonomous insertion into a multipolar world in which Brazil would have a much greater margin of bargaining. The new minister’s statement makes explicit that the same objectives of the foreign policy of the Trump government will be sought by Brazil, from now on. That is why Araújo intensifies the discourse against Venezuela, exalts Israel, and applauds conservative governments flirting with fascism like Italy (New Italy in the speech of the minister), Hungary (champion of xenophobia) and Poland (new NATO bastion ), in a factual way, said: “the allies of the United States will be our allies, and their enemies will be our enemies”. This speech by Araújo goes against the motto of the Bolsonaro government “Brazil above all else” by making Brazil subaltern of the United States.
Araújo promises that the Itamaraty will seek the interest of the Brazilian people through “technical” decisions. How to technically justify the protection of the strategic sector by denationalising one of the largest national companies with a high degree of technology that is Embraer? In addition, how does it justify alignment with Israel and the relocation of the Tel Aviv embassy to Jerusalem, putting at risk the export of Halal meat – considered the world’s largest producer and exporter of beef, the world’s second largest chicken and sales leader of Halal meat – for the Arab countries? Or, how to promise to protect the interest of the Brazilian people by not denouncing the sale of the Pre-Salt to foreign powers and the scrapping of Petrobras? Ernesto Araújo shows the subordinate character of the Bolsonaro government in relation to the United States.
Environment Minister Ricardo Salles admitted in TV Cultura’s recent show, Roda Viva, that he had never visited the Amazon and did not know Chico Mendes, but he had heard from “agribusiness” people that the greatest environmental hero in the Amazon was a profiteer who “Used the rubber tappers”. Trying to get rid of the controversy caused by the response, said what difference does it make who is Chico Mendes at this time? The last minister to be named in Jair Bolsonaro’s cabinet, Salles has been noted for positions that are openly contrary to the agenda of the Ministry of the Environment and for showing total ignorance of the environmental issue. As one of the first measures, it issued a letter stating the 90-day suspension of all agreements with NGOs, an illegal measure from which it had to withdraw the next day. He made a mistake by promising the press to buy a “satellite” of R$ 100 million to produce data that would guide the monitoring of deforestation. INPE (National Institute of Space Research) explained that it has done this in partnership with IBAMA since 2004.
In a month and a half ahead of the ministry, he has also declared that climate change is an “academic” theme and a concern “for the next 500 years,” defended transgenic soybean plantations in indigenous lands and reduced controls on pesticides, said that the blame for increased deforestation in the Amazon is from the “pyrotechnics” of environmental monitoring, he hinted that climate conferences only serve to luxury vacations of public officials in Europe and that NGOs do “terrorism to sell a lecture”. In summary, sadly, Salles is the perfect environment minister for Bolsonaro to Brazil’s disgrace.
Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, Jair Bolsonaro’s economic brain, is a neoliberal fundamentalist defending the opening of the Brazilian market without restrictions and unrestricted privatizations to pay part of the Brazilian public debt, is in favor of maintaining the macroeconomic tripod, with a fiscal meta of inflation, with floating exchange rate, in addition to defending a “brutal” tax simplification, towards a single federal tax. Guedes says he has to sell all the public assets. On companies that could move to private capital, which ultimately means surrendering to foreign capital, he indicated that, in principle, all would be eligible. That is, Petrobras and Banco do Brasil would be in line. The motto of the Bolsonaro government “Brazil above all else” is being replaced by the motto “Market and foreign capital above all else.” Guedes also defends the need to reform Social Security, emphasizing that he thinks of the creation of a new regime, based on a capitalization system, different from the current tax regime that means, ultimately, to take public servants and workers from the private sector to misery at the end of their lives. With the new Social Security Plan, companies would not have to pay for the charges and workers would have assets and capitalization in their names. Paulo Guedes therefore advocates the adoption of an anti-national and anti-social neoliberal economic policy.
The nefarious character of the Bolsonaro government results, therefore, from having one unprepared at the helm of the nation, from having incompetent and retrograde ministers, and from adopting antidemocratic, anti-national, and anti-social policies.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, holder of the CONFEA / CREA System Medal of Engineering Merit, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 14 books addressing issues such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and Climate Change, The Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and The Great Scientific, Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.
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