Merval's inauguration

By Hildegard Angel, from Journalists for Democracy

Visibility, fame, and power are good, but they also have their downsides. Yesterday's inauguration of Merval Pereira as president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters was the first in history to include a protest on the sidewalk in front of the institution. 

The FIST - Internationalist Front of the Homeless - carried banners with slogans like "Out with Bolsonaro" and made noise against the price of gasoline. Although the protesters were few in number, the discomfort among the immortals was considerable.

As a rule, their ceremonies are, as the word suggests, solemn. Even the most crowded ones are elegant and well-organized. I am referring, of course, to the induction of the new immortals into their respective chairs. 

Merval, already immortal and long-established, inaugurated his term as president with a formal celebration, which is unusual. How many presidents of the ABL, whose term is a mere two years, have taken office discreetly, at most with a ceremony among peers and a press release? 

The new management of Vênus Platinadas is exuberant, in keeping with the Third Millennium, which enthrones a new crop of celebrities every minute. 

Those curious enough to search on Google will not find photographic records of an "inauguration of the president of the ABL" prior to Merval's. But, as another colleague of Pereira, a global colleague, Ibrahim Sued, would say, "the dogs bark and the caravan moves on."

Merval Pereira's caravan inaugurates a new old era, with long dresses and tuxedos in Rio at 40°C, to the sound of trumpets, the cries of protest from FIST against hunger and the price of gasoline, the rumble of bombings, and the terror of wars that kill even pathogenic migratory birds.

With best wishes for a fruitful and successful term, because the Machado de Assis House deserves the best, and nothing, absolutely nothing, can diminish the prestige it deserves for the memory and achievements of the illustrious, notable, and exemplary members of its history, such as Evandro Lins e Silva, Rachel de Queiroz, Jorge Amado, Sabato Magaldi, Origenes Lessa, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Carlos Heitor Cony, Euclides da Cunha, Barbosa Lima Sobrinho, Antônio Houaiss, Aluísio Azevedo, Guimarães Rosa, and other members who succeeded them.

Le roi est vivant!