Fernando Alcoforado*
Brazil is currently facing the greatest crisis in its history, represented by the Coronavirus pandemic, the greatest stagnation of the economy in the entire history of the country, the neo-fascist threat to democracy and the large-scale impoverishment of the Brazilian population. Brazil faces the four knights of its apocalypse. The first knight of the apocalypse is represented by the Coronavirus pandemic that further aggravated the economic, political and social catastrophes that have existed in Brazil since 2014 to the point of transforming them into the second, third and fourth knights of the country’s apocalypse where the greatest horrors are practiced by the Bolsonaro government to the detriment of the vast majority of the Brazilian people.
It is worth noting that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are characters described in the third prophetic vision of the apostle John in the biblical book of Revelation that are Pest, Death, War and Hunger. In this view of the apostle John, the white horse and its rider represent Antichrist in his early years of political rule. During this period he will present himself as if he were the promised Messiah and deceive the chosen nation. The red horse is a symbol of war and the bloodshed that comes from it. The black horse symbolizes mourning and spiritual darkness. The yellow horse symbolizes death.
The Coronavirus pandemic can be associated with one of the apostle John’s Apocalypse Knights, the Plague. The indispensable condition for a nation to win the war is to be united against the common enemy, the Corinavirus. In Brazil, this condition is not respected because whoever should lead the fight against Coronavirus, the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, is opposing it by systematically disrespecting all restrictive measures to the agglomeration of people adopted by governors and mayors under the pretext of that it is also necessary to save the Brazilian economy from the debacle. In his action to compromise the fight against Coronavirus, Bolsonaro says that people must go back to work to keep their job. Even with social isolation in Brazil, many companies and people are returning to work to survive since the Bolsonaro government does not offer them the conditions necessary for their survival. The result of the Bolsonaro government’s action will be the horror of the catastrophe of the collective murder of the Brazilian people by the Coronavirus.
Brazil’s economic catastrophe can be associated with one of the Knights of the Apocalypse of the apostle John, Death. Brazil is a country that had its economic system in a terminal stage before the spread of Coronavirus. The economic catastrophe experienced by Brazil is reflected in the meager GDP growth since 2014, which is expected to worsen in 2020 with a negative growth of 6%. The drop in GDP growth in 2020 should result from the drop in consumption by the population caused by the massive mass unemployment aggravated by the Coronavirus, a fall in private investment as a result of the country’s economic stagnation and the terrible political environment and the fall in public investment due to the existing fiscal crisis and the government’s effort to reduce the State’s participation in the economy with its neoliberal policies. The result of the Bolsonaro government’s action will be the horror of the economic catastrophe characterized by the bankruptcy of the Brazilian economy with the widespread bankruptcy of companies and mass unemployment unprecedented in the history of Brazil.
The political catastrophe of Brazil can be associated with one of the Knights of the Apocalypse of the apostle John, the War. The political catastrophe is being processed by Bolsonaro with the attempt to implant a fascist dictatorship that threatens to happen in Brazil in the near future on the political plane. In the escalation of fascism in Brazil, an alliance was made between the conservative elite, broad sectors of the middle class and the fascists, which was consummated with the support offered to the candidate Jair Bolsonaro for the Presidency of the Republic who presented a typically fascist government proposal because his speech it was based on the explicit cult of order, state violence, authoritarian government practices, social contempt for vulnerable and fragile groups and anti-communism. The Bolsonaro government itself has intensified the conflict between the Presidency of the Republic and the other powers of the Republic and the confrontation with its opponents to justify the implantation of a dictatorship in Brazil to govern without the obstacles currently imposed by the 1988 Constitution. The result of the action of the Bolsonaro government will be the horror of the political catastrophe characterized by the end of democracy and the implantation of a fascist dictatorship in Brazil.
The social catastrophe of Brazil can be associated with one of the Knights of the Apocalypse of the apostle John, the Hunger. Brazil’s social catastrophe already existed before the Coronavirus pandemic and is being worsened by it. Before the pandemic, the Bolsonaro government did nothing to solve the problems of poverty and mass unemployment that were registered in Brazil. Extreme poverty has increased in Brazil and already totaled 13.5 million people surviving with up to R$ 145 a month, before the economic crisis generated by the Coronavirus, a situation that worsened with the pandemic. The number of poor people has been growing since 2015 and has grown even more with the economic crisis generated by Coronavirus. The rise in unemployment, the reduction of spending on social programs and discrimination against the Northeast of Brazil, the poorest region of the country, in relation to the Bolsa Família Program increased the gap of the poorest that worsened with the economic crisis generated by the Coronavirus. Poverty mainly affects states in the North and Northeast of Brazil, especially the black and brown population, without education or with incomplete basic education. Before the economic crisis generated by the Coronavirus, unemployment corresponded to 12.7 million workers with an underutilized economically active population of 27.6 million workers, 44% or 40 million workers in an informal situation, that is, without enjoying rights labor. A study by Ibre / FGV (Brazilian Institute of Economics of Fundação Getúlio Vargas) points out that the covid-19 crisis will leave 12.6 million people unemployed in the country, raising the rate to 23.8%. The current level is 11.6%. This means that we will have 25.3 million unemployed workers with the economic crisis generated by Coronavirus. The result of the Bolsonaro government’s action will be the horror of the social catastrophe characterized by mass unemployment and the increase in extreme poverty in Brazil.
There is no possibility that the Bolsonaro government will overcome the consequences of the pandemic because by opposing the social isolation of the population it contributes to the increase of those infected and killed by the Coronavirus. There is no possibility for the Bolsonaro government to overcome the horror of the economic catastrophe because, when adopting neoliberal economic policies, the government’s only action in the economy is to adopt budgetary adjustments and bureaucratic reforms that are not able to overcome the crisis generated by the Coronavirus and they are not engines of economic growth in Brazil. There is no possibility that the Bolsonaro government will overcome the horror of the political catastrophe that threatens democracy in the face of its purpose of implanting a dictatorship in Brazil. Finally, there is no possibility for the Bolsonaro government to overcome the horror of social catastrophe because the measures adopted by the government to help the most vulnerable populations and to maintain jobs with resources are insufficient to meet the needs of the vast majority of the Brazilian population in the current situation of spreading the Coronavirus and much less to overcome the problem of unemployment, hunger and misery of the population due to its neoliberal policies.
Brazil is, therefore, facing the greatest crisis in its history with the four Knights of the Apocalypse that are demanding from their people committed to the defense of life against the Coronavirus and the country’s economic, political and social progress, great commitment and determination to beat anyone who menace against their future.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, 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 author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).
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