The choice of Ricardo Melo to head EBC.

I'm thinking about Ricardo Melo, who has just been reinstated as president of EBC by a decision of Minister Dias Toffoli of the Supreme Court. It's clear that the injunction won't be immediately accepted by the Temer administration. An appeal is possible, and that means the coup plotters will do whatever it takes to overturn the decision in the full court.

Nevertheless, Ricardo Melo is authorized to resume his post. I don't know him. And perhaps that's why I can't help but imagine what's going through his mind at a time like this.

It is always an arduous task to return to a land devastated by plague, to settle again in the ruins of a devastated square without the armistice having been signed.

How many have left EBC in the last few days?

What is the morale of the troops in the current situation?

What is the role of a public communications company in the Precambrian perspective of this pseudo-government, more inclined towards vassalage and cronyism than to the ideals of transparency and democratization of information?

If I were Ricardo Melo, I would have the impulse, once the case is won, to send everything to hell, EBC and the whole circus of horrors that governs Michel Temer's proto-government. Yes, I know that EBC has a statute that guarantees its independence, and so on. But the act of trampling on this autonomy and removing its president in the first days of this misrule clearly shows what we should expect from this group's social communication policy. And it warns of the possibility of further outbreaks. Will there be an atmosphere conducive to doing decent work under these conditions?

In fact, this seems to be the general tone of Temer's misgovernment.

What can we expect from a Ministry of Culture that ceased to be a ministry with the stroke of a pen and was reinstated due to popular pressure? What value does Temer actually place on this ministry?

What can we expect from a Ministry of Education that, in its first public meeting, receives the associate professor Alexandre Frota?

What can we expect from a Secretariat for Women's Policies that seems more comfortable with psalms and verses than with debating women's sexual and reproductive rights?

Will Flávia Piovesan, the Minister of Human Rights, be able to do a minimally decent job with Alexandre de Moraes as her boss, the same man who criminalizes protests and authorizes the police to beat students?

The situation is so overwhelming that Ricardo Melo's eventual departure would be easily justifiable. A sovereign, spontaneous departure, by choice. The departure of someone who could stay, but doesn't want to. On the other hand, the choice to remain is even bolder, more courageous, more militant. It represents the choice of the most difficult path, the path of resistance.

If he remains in his position, Ricardo Melo will have to endure two challenges. Besides performing the intense work of maintaining and improving the quality of a public communications company in a country domesticated (and anesthetized) by a corporate media that is not always committed to ethics and democracy, Melo will also face the challenge of preserving autonomy and independence in a management that sees him as an adversary, a thorn in its side. Not surprisingly, this is a management that has its most solid and robust foundation precisely in the corporate media.

A personal episode from 1975 bears a certain resemblance to this one. I am the son of a former political prisoner. My father was in his third year of medical school at USP (University of São Paulo) when he was arrested. He was imprisoned from 1970 to 1975. Upon leaving prison, he was prevented from resuming his studies by the university administration. USP had expelled him for abandoning his studies and failing to attend the registration period. The fact that he was imprisoned, and therefore unable to attend, seemed a mere detail in the Kafkaesque eyes of the rector.

My father had given up studying medicine during his time in prison, but he considered his right to resume his studies non-negotiable. He went to court, secured his right to return to his place, and only then announced his departure. The roles had been reversed. Now, it wasn't the Medical School closing its doors to him, but he closing the doors to the Medical School. The following year, he enrolled in a journalism course, also at USP (University of São Paulo). It may seem like a small thing, but it isn't. It's primarily about guaranteeing rights. It has to do with something that's out of fashion, but retains a certain charm: democracy.  

In that sense, I'm glad Ricardo Melo has the chance to choose. Whether he's at the head of EBC or not, I already consider him a great guy.