Back to barbarism. The choice will be ours.

When the topic of conversation is how society is organized and governed, some doubt that we are dangerously regressing towards barbarism, to the detriment of democracy.

Barbarism is a state of disorder, violence, or lack of civilization, where the law of the strongest prevails, without clear rules or respect for human rights. It is often associated with brutality, the absence of institutions, and contempt for life and human dignity.

Democracy is a system of government based on popular participation, respect for the law, freedom of expression, and individual rights. It involves solid institutions that guarantee a balance of powers, fair elections, and respect for diversity of opinions.

In summary: barbarism is the absence of civilized rules, while democracy is a system that organizes society in a more just and participatory way.

And to be fair, I cannot claim that, at this moment, in Brazil and in the world, there is a total collapse of the values ​​and ideals of democracy, nor of the instruments and tools it uses to assert its power. Proof of this is the indictment by the Attorney General's Office, which, with robust arguments, has just accused former President Bolsonaro and his cronies of a long list of crimes. If we carefully examine the items on this list, we will realize that they all belong to the nefarious list of abuses and atrocities associated with barbarism. Coup d'état, tearing up the Constitution for personal gain, planning assassinations of legally constituted authorities, blatant lying, organizing terrorist acts aimed at the physical and ideological destruction of the Three Powers – none of this is part of the universe of Democracy. These are barbaric acts that characterize a state of barbarism. 

However, we came dangerously close, much closer than we imagined, to seeing our country and our lives once again plunged into the terror of an autocratic dictatorship.

Many people today, throughout the world, and not just in Brazil, share this serious concern regarding the security of democracy. This includes leading military figures. 

About two decades ago, in Rome, I watched an interview on Italian television with the then Chief of Staff of the British Armed Forces. He spoke about the possible return of most of the world to barbarism, and his predictions were quite grim. That general, whose name I don't remember, believed – and stated loudly and clearly – that by the middle of this 21st century, all of Africa would regress to a very primitive state of social, political, sanitary, civic, and cultural organization – to barbarism, in short. The same for all of Latin America, from the northern border of Mexico to the wastelands of Patagonia. In the north of the continent, the United States and Canada, unified, would build a gigantic wall made of iron, fire, and advanced technologies to remain isolated from the rest of the world, in relative comfort and security. On the other side of the Atlantic, Europe would do practically the same, to prevent the entry of hordes of millions of destitute people from Africa, Eastern Europe, and other countries victimized by natural disasters and the overwhelming outbreak of new forms of barbarism. Throughout Asia, the General believed that only Japan had a chance of self-preservation. Lost in the vastness of the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand would be the areas with the greatest possibility of escaping the global plague of neo-barbarism.

The Italian reporter then asked: Is there a chance we can avoid this? “Yes, remote chances, but they exist. They will depend on our ability to face with courage and decisiveness the great dilemmas that are already quite visible today: injustice and social imbalances, unsustainable exploitation of environmental and planetary resources, increasingly uncultured and incompetent planetary leaders eager for autocratic power, more or less widespread structural corruption on a global level, accelerated loss of notions of civility by populations, erosion of ethical value scales, etc.” The English general was evidently referring to all those attributes that characterize barbarism, which are increasingly strong and valued today, to the detriment of the hard-won values ​​of democracy.  

Twenty years later, last year, it was the turn of another British Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Patrick Sanders – who served in the post from June 13, 2022 to June 15, 2024 – to make impactful statements about the need to prepare for possible future conflicts. Speaking to Italian journalist Antonello Guerrera in the newspaper La Repubblica on January 24, 2024, he warned that the United Kingdom should be ready to face a land war against Russia, highlighting that the global situation is becoming increasingly unstable. Sanders emphasized that the country needs to recruit and train an army of citizens ready for battle, and suggested that we are in a pre-war period. These statements resonated around the world, reflecting a growing concern about global security and stability, and the need – according to the British military officer – to be prepared to prevent a return to barbarism through military force and mobilization.

Now, just a few months ago, the current British Chief of the General Staff, General Roland Walker, added fuel to the fire by declaring to the BBC that: "The United Kingdom needs to be prepared to go to war within three years." No, this is not just any soldier: this is a general who currently holds the highest position in the UK military hierarchy. On that occasion, he warned against a whole list of threats looming over what he calls "an increasingly volatile world." Walker concluded by stating, as he could not fail to do, that war was not entirely inevitable, and that "the British Armed Forces have just enough time" to prepare in order to avoid conflict! A central measure to this would be to double the combat power of these Forces by 2027 and triple it by the end of this decade.  

In the speeches of these British military officers – who, incidentally, each seem to be echoing the discourse of their predecessor – the dilemma of "Democracy or Barbarism" is always implicit. This question is recurrent in almost all political and cultural debates. The central idea is that society may be at a turning point where it must choose between maintaining democratic values ​​or succumbing to forms of authoritarianism and violence.

It is a fact that barbarism, in its various contemporary forms, threatens human civility and democracy. Authoritarianism, fundamentalism, extremist political movements, and intolerance are some of the manifestations of this barbarism that can – and in many cases already are – replacing dialogue and democratic politics with hatred and violence and their consequent authoritarian practices.

Barbarism is a crucial issue of our time. Democracy or barbarism seems to be the dilemma hanging over our lives. Barbarism, in its contemporary variations, threatens us at every moment: authoritarianism, neoliberalism, fundamentalism, oppression, neofascism, intolerance, monocultures, discrimination, exploitation, prejudice, etc. The risk of barbarism emerges as a danger to human civility, as it prohibits conversations, dialogues, freedoms, and political-cultural disputes inherent to democratic life, and introduces hatred and violence, both symbolic and physical, in place of politics, while seeking provisional consensus through conflicts legitimized by rules of the game agreed upon in a pact. This is the chess game being played at this moment in the Palestinian question and in Ukraine.

Today, I drove along Rua Amaral Gurgel in the morning, under the Minhocão elevated highway, in downtown São Paulo. The traffic was very heavy and slow: three city hall trucks parked on the shoulder forced cars into a single lane. It was scorching hot. On the median strip, a small battalion of about twenty uniformed workers – protected by some armed police officers – was carrying out a “general cleanup,” collecting the belongings of the crowd of homeless people who gather there under the protection of the elevated highway. They were taking everything to the truck beds: broken furniture, mattresses and blankets soaked by rain and downpours, huge piles of disassembled cardboard boxes scattered everywhere. The homeless gathered in groups near what were once their little houses of paper and plastic. Among them were all kinds of people: young, old, women, children.

Following some superior instruction, the employees didn't remove a few essential belongings: some bundles of clothes, still-dry blankets, buckets of clean water, and food packages. Seconds before maneuvering to enter the single lane, I had a final vision that I recommend no one see: a small red plastic table, the kind you see in cheap bars. On it, two bags of food, a bunch of bananas, about three still-sealed aluminum food containers, and, right in the center, the cherry on top: a can of Ninho powdered milk, with its striking canary yellow label. Next to it, an empty baby bottle.

And some believe that barbarism has not yet arrived...