Fernando Brito writes a letter to Brizola requesting PDT's support for Lula in the first round.

By Fernando Brito, from brick - Today, at 18 PM, at the Engineers' Union in downtown Rio, veteran Brizola supporters will gather to affirm their decision to support Lula's candidacy for President in the first round. Therefore, and for reasons that the text itself will indicate, I decided to write a letter, unfortunately imaginary, to the one who, in the end, is the one who brings us together and will continue to bring us together in this decision: Leonel Brizola himself.

Dear Governor,

Only in the future, at a time I can't even say exactly when, will I be able to personally deliver this short letter.

As we have done over the years, we will certainly revise the text, debating and amending some words, as we did for hours on end during two decades of Tijolaços. But, as back then, I hope I am interpreting your thoughts correctly, although without the same sharpness.

Governor, although we miss you very much, I would prefer that you were no longer here.

Because it is very sad to see what they have done to our country. Hunger, helplessness, poverty and misery everywhere, terrifying political violence and many regressions to the past in everything, even in the polio vaccine, something monstrous for our children.

I keep thinking about how many times we would use words from his unusual vocabulary: "energúmenos" (energumens) and "paquidermes" (pachyderms) would come out of him by the dozens, with his unmistakable accent, to refer to the crude and insensitive people who are at the elite of this country.

At 100 years old, even for you, accustomed to the most brutal struggles, facing what we are experiencing today would be a daunting task. For us, at least, it is.

Because we have reached the concluding phase of our lives having to, as we do today, present ourselves for combat, instead of being in a night of camaraderie with old comrades. Or not, because perhaps that is precisely what makes us brothers: the struggle, from which we never desert.

I don't need to explain what's going on – you must be seeing it even more clearly from up there – nor do I need to talk about ideology: I remember your phrase saying that it was indispensable as a compass when reality was hazy, but that when the vision was clear and clean, it was in our eyes and in social references that we should trust.

Everything is clear, Commander. The common people, just like in those glorious times of your campaigns for governor of Rio, have already chosen who will be your instrument, and nobody bought your conscience with a bowl of lentils – and mind you, the hunger is great.

Lula was chosen, if not for so many other reasons, then for the one that, in '89, the invincible Darcy Ribeiro gave us: that from the mouth of the metalworkers' leader, "we will no longer hear talk of the foolish pride of being the second largest agricultural economy in the world, producing soybeans to fatten pigs in Japan, but indifferent to the hunger of the people."

There are small-minded people who are confused and do not heed the call that the Brazilian people are making to us. Pretentious people who believe themselves to be the owners of the truth and despise the social process that should guide us. People who prefer to remain on the sidelines and, worse, vociferously oppose the popular choice, forgetting what you always told us: trust in the wisdom and memory of the people.

Of course, we haven't forgotten the disagreements and conflicts we had with Lula. But we also remember, as if it were yesterday, the moment when, despite all that, you licked the wounds of the 89 defeat and didn't let a single vote be diverted from you, from the millions that came from Rio, from Rio Grande, and from wherever else there was a Brizola supporter.

There were differences, and we are not, as the man said, all little white lambs being shepherded.

No! We are good firewood, the kind that sparks. Loyalty to the Brazilian people and to the thread of History, which has never been untied from our lives, brings us here today and will always bring us here, as long as we live in a country that is not the homeland of education, justice, freedom, the homeland of all that the social struggles of the Brazilian people represent.

I do not usurp your decisions, Governor, especially when they can no longer be made on this plane where I still am. Therefore, I will not say what you would do. But, after so many years, I know very well which side Brizola would be on, the man who taught me that we are merely apprentices of socialism, whose master was the people themselves.

You called us together, boss, and here we are. We don't question the decisions of the PDT, so small and faded today. Like in that sad description Drummond made of the dispossession of the historic acronym of laborism, we too can do nothing more with the three letters, which we loved so much and which today, how painful they are.

But we must do for your name what you did for laborism: not allow this idea to be lost in electoral opportunism and insane personal selfishness. It will not be put, as it never has been, to confront the Brazilian people. Much less by the hand of someone who was, while you were in these parts, an occasional ally, but not your party colleague, as we all were.

We are here, Governor, to say that it will not be in your name or in the name of Brizolism that the Brazilian people will be divided, that freedoms will be risked, and that democracy will not give a political reprieve to this rabid pachyderm who says "so what?" to the death of our brothers.

Not in your name, Brizola, not in our name, which is yours.

Brizola forever, Lula now.

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