From good friends

The vast majority of my childhood friends have become staunch right-wingers; most of those friends from street football, art at school, or the church youth group are now, believe it or not, militant volunteers for the most sordid and orthodox liberalism imaginable.

They, my friends, are good people! They have a good sense of humor, play pranks, and have excellent conversations. The problem is when they start talking about politics, human rights, socialism, social justice, and similar terms, then... things get out of hand.

But some of the things I hear are hair-raising! I remember one who defended with frightening conviction that the "Landless Workers' Movement" should be shot in a public square; another told me, all tearful, that Brazil is already a communist country; and another, very dear to me, sees the only way out for the country with the election of Bolsonaro.

I'm trying to understand where so much hatred, so much resentment and political backwardness comes from, but I confess that interpreting this immense melting pot of reactionary ideas is no easy task, and worse, analyzing those for whom we have good feelings is even more serious and difficult.

But, thinking is necessary, and who are my childhood friends? Well... I never had rich friends, except for one or two with better conditions, they are all children of salaried workers; of farmers and; of informal workers. Usually from large families whose origins go back to the interior of the country, especially Goiás and the North/Northeast.

Generally speaking, they were Black and mixed-race; orthodox Protestants and practicing Catholics, and they never got more actively involved in political issues. I hardly remember any of them in student unions or in any particular cultural activities; My friends?

My friends were forged in very patriarchal worlds, with a lot of hierarchy, punishment, and above all, material deprivation.

Whenever I can, I follow their political positions on these social networks. I'm no longer surprised by the wide range of bizarre things that this group propagates here, and honestly, I don't blame them for carrying in their judgments a vast jumble of political, ethical, and moral shards of the worst kind, of the worst tradition and class betrayal, of the clearest ruthlessness towards the poor and unfortunate of this perverse country, and the strangest thing is, I admit that I still like these "characters" all the same!

It is a difficult coexistence to manage, since respect presupposes recognizing and more or less remaining silent in the face of the other's absurdity, considering that, based on this social convention, the other has the "right" to announce what suits them and in the way that is most opportune for them.

What my friends forget (if they ever learned this!) is that the freedoms of expression, demonstration, or communication can only truly be exercised if they promote others, human diversity, human rights, equality, and justice.

All this paraphernalia of rights and possibilities only gains real meaning when combined with historical efforts to combat human wickedness, violence against the poor and dispossessed, and oppression and perversion against the vast majority of people on this devastated planet. That is why law exists; that is why mechanisms such as the exercise of freedom of political, religious, or intellectual positions exist. It's not about making things worse, but about giving life a chance.

In other words, these civilizational achievements were conceived not to cause us to regress as a people or as a society, but, on the contrary, to advance in our difficult experience of existing as human beings and living with other human beings.

But, I confess, I don't blame them. They are expressions of a time, they reveal a time and even more... They are, in themselves, a time of deprivation, violence and much repression.

Would it be strange to claim that these mental formations are directly related to Brazil's tragic history? To this inhumane and outdated economic model? To this classist and autocratic type of state? Certainly not! Friends remain important!