Serenity and Determination

The images published on social media show the vandalism carried out by the neo-fascist movement last Sunday, destroying public – and cultural – heritage at the headquarters of the Three Branches of Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil. This attack was coordinated by Bolsonaro's leaders, operating from local and international bases, as recently denounced by the researcher. Pedro Costa JuniorThis causes great sorrow to each of us Brazilians who fought for the restoration of democracy in Brazil, in a struggle in which many of our comrades paid with their lives, others were subjected to physical and psychological torture, in addition to those who suffered the loneliness of exile and the loss of their life plans.

The lethal brutality with which the gang of Bolsonaro-supporting scoundrels invaded – facilitated by the district military command, under the coordination of Anderson Torres – the architectural spaces of the three branches of the republican government, had a mission determined by its leaders. To deny and destroy Brazilian democracy along with its national symbols: To break, ruin, tear, defile, poison our democratic memory. A similar situation occurred with the generals, when they reacted against the National Truth Commission, an official instrument for rescuing memory through which Brazilian citizens can reclaim their recent history. It is no coincidence that, in his vote in the Chamber of Deputies on April 17, 2016, in favor of the coup, the fascist captain Jair Bolsonaro applauded the torturer Brilhante Ustra. On that occasion, the serpent's egg of neofascism began to hatch on the Brazilian scene.

Yesterday, January 9th, President Lula once again demonstrated his firm civil leadership by bringing together the 27 state governors, the presidents of the two federal legislative houses, and the ministers of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) to seal with them the necessary institutional unity to confront political and social terrorism. Prior to this meeting, the heads of the branches of government had already issued a joint statement highlighting their serenity and determination to confront, institutionally and with the full force of the law, the troublemakers, their financiers, and their mentors.

Serenity is having the ability to act, in the face of conflicts and threats, with tranquility and clarity in order to adopt the best measures to confront such situations, not being carried away by irrational impulses, but acting in a thoughtful and just manner. Determination, in turn, requires the courage to face the struggles and the persistence to achieve what one has set out to do, firmness in adopting measures capable of consolidating the stipulated purpose, establishing the necessary limits for the reestablishment of the democratic order threatened by political terrorism. Therefore, let us remain firm, mobilized in our popular bases, in total support of President Lula and our republican institutions to unwaveringly defeat this gang of infamous enemies of democracy.