Gregório Duvivier: Temer's first name is Fora (Out)

Vitor Nuzzi, from RBA - Fernando Morais, who will turn 70 in a week, and Gregório Duvivier, who turned 30 in April, met today (15) and converged on their assessments of the Dilma Rousseff government, the interim Michel Temer, Congress and the pitfalls of democracy – and also on a certain degree of self-criticism of positions taken, or abandoned, by the PT in power. For the actor and comedian Duvivier, one of the roots of the current crisis lies in what he calls Brazil's "psychoanalytic problem," which does not deal with its past. "Rio built the Museum of Tomorrow in a place where slave trade took place. There is no museum of yesterday," he commented. The writer and journalist believes that, in two months, the interim government is causing even more damage to citizenship and workers' rights than in two decades of dictatorship. And he believes that the coup plotters will only be satisfied if they neutralize Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's candidacy in 2018.

The meeting between the two took place on Friday morning at a seminar promoted by the São Paulo, Osasco and Region Bank Workers Union, preceding the category's state conference. Morais recalled his banking origins: his first job with a formal employment contract, 55 years ago, was as a messenger at the defunct Banco da Lavoura de Minas Gerais. He also began his journalism career there, writing for the bank's house organ. "I couldn't imagine that, with a white beard, I would again be facing a dictatorship," he stated, promising to "dedicate what remains of my energy to driving these people out." "The only way for us to get out of this mess is to dedicate ourselves full-time to overthrowing them. We cannot give this scum any peace."

He cited a list ("Very superficial, without any study") of measures taken by the "usurper" government led by Temer that are detrimental to the country and its workers: pension reform, exclusion of Petrobras from pre-salt exploration, "destroying Mercosur," weakening the BRICS bank ("The bank is already being dehydrated by Brazil"), cuts to social benefits, handing over the Central Bank to a "jurist," in the sense of an interest collector, Ilan Goldfajn, a partner at Itaú, and handing over the Institutional Security Secretariat to a general (Sérgio Etchegoyen) whose father was accused by the National Truth Commission of human rights violations during the dictatorship and who has an uncle responsible for the "House of Death" in Petrópolis (RJ).

Morais also highlights the attacks on Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC). "The objective is to transform EBC into a propaganda agency for the Presidential Palace or to shut it down," he stated. The writer cites further measures: reduction of the SUS (Unified Health System), adjustment of social spending limited to the previous year's inflation, decrease in investments in the Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My House, My Life) program, and "dehydration" of the BNDES ("A development bank, to finance development projects") and the Sovereign Fund.

Another measure taken by the interim government, he points out, is to try to silence alternative media by cutting advertising funds. "The government doesn't need to censor the mainstream press. The mainstream press is a partner (in the coup)," says Fernando Morais, for whom the internet today is equivalent in some measure to the "small" press that operated during the dictatorship.

The current government's stance is also similar to that of the authoritarian period, he compares. "The first measure the military took to cut off the source of newspapers was economic, it was to pressure advertisers. On the other hand, far-right groups planted bombs in newsstands that sold alternative newspapers. We haven't reached the point of bombs (now), because there are no more newsstands, because we are on the internet."

For him, the coup is not yet complete. This will only happen, says Morais, "when they disqualify Lula from running in the next election." And there is no need for imprisonment, he adds. "There's no need for the paraphernalia that Judge Moro has been using. One slip-up, 10 reais, and you turn Lula into a convicted felon and disqualify him." The writer considers self-criticism necessary for the PT governments for not having advanced in the democratization of the media and continuing to supply the main companies with "generous" public funds. "For years we fed the crow that is now eating our eyes," he stated.

Institutional chaos
Gregório Duviver also made this reservation about the PT (Workers' Party). "Instead of investing in public television, they invested in Globo. It was self-sabotage." He criticized the party for helping to elect, this week, Congressman Rodrigo Maia (DEM-RJ) as president of the Chamber of Deputies. "If it's a coup, how can they be supporting a coup plotter?", he questioned. While considering the attempt to demonize the PT "imbecilic," the actor affirms that "this so-called realpolitik has to have some limits."

The current "institutional chaos," as he defines it, is mainly caused by the Legislative Branch. "Congress is 90% male, 97% white, 99,9% heterosexual, and made up of businesspeople. When you see that face, compared to the majority of the people, you realize that Congress does not represent the Brazilian people, it represents Brazilian money. The president of Brazil cannot remain in power without two-thirds of Congress. Impeachment is basically the Legislative Branch removing the president, without a crime. We are at a very primitive stage of our democracy."

By calling Temer a "being of the shadows," Duvivier said that the interim president doesn't need popularity. "He doesn't need the people, because he doesn't govern for the people," he stated, adding that homophobic and racist sectors see themselves represented in the current government, which represents the so-called plutocracy. "Nobody says 'stay, take over, long live Temer.' It seems like his first name is 'Out,'" he quipped.

Duviver and Morais converged again in highlighting the challenging role of art and the Temer government's attack on the cultural sector. "The main enemy of humor is fear (of death, of oppression). Culture is in that same place, it goes against fear," states the actor. "Ridendo castigat mores," adds the writer, translating: "It is with laughter that you punish fears."