'National sovereignty does not exist without popular sovereignty,' say religious leaders and scientists in a joint article in Folha de S. Paulo.
"Usurping the official commemoration of the bicentennial of Independence for electoral gain and as part of a personalistic exaltation is unacceptable," they state.
247 - The September 7th celebrations called for by Jair Bolsonaro (PL) appear “to have been meticulously planned to serve as a show of force less than a month before the elections, precisely by someone who has been threatening not to recognize their results,” say Dom Walmor Oliveira de Azevedo, president of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB), José Carlos Dias, president of the Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns Commission for the Defense of Human Rights - Arns Commission, Helena Nader, president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), Octávio Costa, president of the Brazilian Press Association (ABI), and Renato Janine Ribeiro, president of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC), in a jointly signed article in Folha de S. Paul.
“Usurping the official bicentennial celebration of Independence for electoral gain and as part of a personalistic exaltation is unacceptable. Even more so in a country that cries out in hunger. Where unemployment remains extremely high in almost all sectors, throwing millions into the streets or, at best, into informal work. Where millions of children suffer from learning setbacks and school dropout, without public policies aimed at resolving this situation. Where prejudice and racism continue to punish the Black and poor population, Indigenous peoples, and those who are different. Where femicide statistics stubbornly continue to rise. And, we cannot forget, where the official mortality rate from Covid-19 is approaching 690 lives lost, leaving a trail of despair throughout the country,” the authors emphasize.
"Faced with such a serious situation, we understand that the time has come for Brazilian women and men to claim the bicentennial date for themselves, taking into their own hands something that history confers upon them and, at the same time, demands of them: the defense of democracy," the text emphasizes. "Without democracy, the lights go out, the mirror breaks, the nation is lost," the authors conclude.
"It is important to reaffirm something crucial: national sovereignty does not exist without popular sovereignty. The entities represented here call for the bicentennial of Independence to be understood not only as a celebration of something that happened 200 years ago, but as a task, a mission, a project for the future that finally guarantees the Brazilian people will be the protagonists of their own destiny," they conclude.
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