"Victory" and "I'm still here": art representing the country.

It is frightening to see how the militia has been rapidly taking over the Brazilian state. Its representatives, who control a large part of the country's peripheries and important sectors of state public security, have also been extending their dominion for some time, reaching public positions in all spheres of public administration, including parliament and the executive branch.

In Rio, militias have always been associated with lower-ranking politicians. There are reports of the Bolsonaro family's connections to some of these militiamen. One of them, Adriano da Nóbrega, was honored in 2005, at the initiative of then-state deputy Flávio Bolsonaro, with the "Tiradentes" medal from the Rio de Janeiro State Legislative Assembly (ALERJ). A detail: the honored militiaman received the most important decoration from the Rio de Janeiro Legislative Power while in prison, as that was where he was at the time.

As we know, Adriano da Nóbrega was identified in 2019 by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Rio de Janeiro as the leader of a group of hitmen known as the "Crime Office".

Militias, organized crime, and a corrupt state integrate and interact in a society abandoned to its own fate, which day and night tries to survive stray bullets, extortion by militiamen, and the brutality of unprepared and venal police officers.

The film "Vitória," by filmmaker Andrucha Waddington, is a cruel portrayal of this reality that affects a large part of civil society.

The film tells the true story of a lonely woman living in Copacabana who, in 2005, through her tireless determination, manages to record on video a drug trafficking scheme with the corrupt complicity of police officers.

The film's protagonist, Fernanda Montenegro, at 95 years old, delivers an intense and impeccable performance in one of the most powerful roles of her masterful career.

The film ended with the audience seated and silent for several minutes. An even greater impact than that of the award-winning "I'm Still Here".

I left the screening room stunned by the lack of perspective in a country captured by organized crime, militias, and numbed by the lies and hate speech of the new Brazilian fascism. It is disheartening to see that at the moment when we most need a parliament ready to meet the nation's needs, including and especially regarding the proposal of laws that help combat the entrenched crime within the state itself, we witness the pathetic scene of one of the country's most voted parliamentarians abandoning his mandate to lash out at democracy and bolster fallacious narratives against the Brazilian Judiciary.

It was pathetic to see Eduardo Bolsonaro's grotesque portrayal of himself as a victim of persecution that neither he nor his family ever experienced. It is unthinkable, dear reader, that someone who claims to be a political victim could participate in demonstrations like the one we saw last Sunday in Copacabana... a "flop," it's true, but not by any means due to any hindrance or persecution by the justice system.

Finally, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro fled to the United States, where he seeks to ally himself with his peers—those who make Nazi salutes, white supremacist signs, and consider Latinos an inferior “race.”

Eduardo speaks of human rights for the coup plotters of January 8th, but at no point did he demonstrate empathy or indignation for the inhumane treatment that the Trump administration (whose boots he licks) provided to Brazilians deported in degrading conditions: chained, mistreated, and without the right to a bathroom or food.

Unfortunately, a country divided between humanists and fascists is the ideal scenario for the advancement and perpetuation of militias and organized crime.

It falls to us, the democrats and humanists, to repeat: we are still here!