Fornazieri: "2016 is not a year to be forgotten"
In an article, professor and political scientist Aldo Fornazieri argues that we should not make the mistake of forgetting 2016, when a parliamentary coup took place, and maintains that dialogue and a national pact will only be possible if the pension reform, labor reform, and the spending cap amendment are removed from the agenda, and if all political parties, including the PSDB, are investigated for corruption.
By Aldo Fornazieri, from GGN newspaper
The leftovers of 2016 against the paleness of 2017.
Contrary to popular belief, the year 2016 is not one to be forgotten. Human imprudence leads people to focus much more on the present and forget the past. Their hopes, always necessary, cause them to seek all the poetry of the times in the future. Political leaders, in general, also fall into these traps. Only a few prophets and stoic republicans projected hope from the warnings and pains of the past. Positivism, liberalism, scientism, and Marxism contributed enormously to forgetting the tragic sense of life and history and to the loss of perception about the ruinous nature of time. Even under the impact of recurrently terrible events, a progressive and optimistic view of history was established. Unfounded optimism causes people to see distant tragedies, the tragedies of others, but not those that are before them. This amnesic attitude towards life and history rejects learning from experiences and extracting lessons from events. Forgetting becomes a balm for failures, guilt, and even crimes.
Leaders, parties, businesspeople, and workers, in times of relative tranquility, forget the wiles of the goddess Fortune, the inconsistency of hard-won positions, and the changing course of winds and times. They do not summon prudence, neither to foresee the risks of the future, nor to build dikes to contain the turbulent and destructive rivers driven by the unforeseen, by chance, and by circumstance.
Well then. The year 2016 was prolific in dismantling the certainties of various "sciences," the arrogant haughtiness of the powerful, and hurled not only Brazil, but the world, into the seismic whirlwind of the imponderable and the unpredictable. Dubbed by some as the "cataclysmic year," it virulently brought forth fear, insecurity, and hopelessness.
Ashes over democracy
Focusing solely on Brazil, there's no denying that the impeachment coup has shrouded democracy in ashes. The events of 2016 will govern 2017 and the years to come. Anyone wishing to learn a lesson from what happened must understand that one cannot play at being a democrat. In the name of fighting corruption, the most corrupt gang in Brazilian politics rose to power. Many supporters of the coup accepted the argument that there was no constitutional reason to remove Dilma from power, but that it was necessary because she had lost the ability to govern. It is true that there was a high degree of ungovernability. But what we see now is an illegitimate government that is considered worse than the government that was removed, but which was legitimate. It is necessary to learn that one cannot assault popular sovereignty in the name of uncertainty and hidden interests. The country has been plunged into a worsening institutional crisis, with a government and a Congress attacking the Constitution that was the product of a Constituent Assembly, and with a Judiciary that is, to say the least, cowardly.
What we see now is the majority of the Brazilian population frightened about their future, disheartened by the prospect of old age, deprived of rights, and violated by the proposed pension reform. This enormous cloud cast at the end of 2016 by criminal politicians and technocrats disregards what it means to live the life of a small farmer who reaches 55 years of age crippled. It does not take into account what it means to work until 55 or 60 years of age in a factory, when the joints of the limbs ache and barely respond. Brazil is not France, and the level of technological development in France provides workers in that country with very different conditions from those of Brazilian workers. The usurping politicians and technocrats do not take this brutal reality into account, because their future is guaranteed by the privileges of power paid for by the people.
The dark shadows of 2016 have already thrown more than 12 million workers out of work. This number will grow. Pockets of poverty and hunger are reforming and expanding. The instruments of scientific and technological production are being destroyed. Funding for health, education, and housing is dwindling. The country is surrendered to the most voracious predatory capitalism. The burden of austerity is being brutally and mercilessly placed on the shoulders of the poorest.
The shameful silence of politicians.
What is most astonishing at this moment is the opportunistic and shameful silence of politicians regarding solutions to the crisis. Party leaders and parliamentarians, besides promoting their traditional privileges, are reduced to proclaiming the same old platitudes and redundancies, the skirmishes of low politics, declarations of empty principles, farcical formalities, and so on.
There is no voice to be heard. There is no clear path to follow. No fruitful words are heard. No energetic and mobilizing hymns are sung. There is no glorious past to restore. No exciting programs or strategies are read. Cornered leaders have tired faces. All sorts of scoundrels in Brasília promote all kinds of conspiracies. High-ranking state officials have risen to the status of vigilantes, defying the law. The parties are dead. Politics is dead, rejected as something abject by the majority of the population.
On the left, despite the fighting spirit of many activists and social movements, what we see is exhaustion with the parties and politicians who are there. The grassroots distrust the leaders. The youth who are fighting are orphaned of hope. The necessary localized, territorialized, specific struggles lack the capacity for universalization, as there is no unifying agenda or platform. The peripheries, with a few exceptions here and there, abandoned and isolated in relation to the parties, seek to forge their own paths, when and where possible.
Faced with the worsening crisis, there has been renewed talk of dialogue and national agreement. The problem is "dialogue"—between whom and for what purpose. It is not possible to validate a dialogue solely between the party leaderships that produced this crisis. A dialogue without a central position from civil society and social movements should not be validated. In Brazil, dialogues and agreements have always resulted in frustration and deception for the people. Any dialogue that aspires to be legitimate must start from the following premises: 1) withdrawal of the proposed pension reform; 2) withdrawal of the proposed labor reform; 3) suspension of the spending cap amendment; 4) investigation of all parties and politicians involved in corruption, including the PSDB. If social movements and progressive activists give their approval without this premise, they will be walking towards self-deception. Only by accepting this premise could a way out of the government crisis be sought.
Aldo Fornazieri - Professor at the School of Sociology and Politics.