Pira, pira, pira, piradinho... Jabor announces the end of times

247 - Just like Valdirene from the telenovela "Amor à Vida," Arnaldo Jabor is getting crazier and crazier. In his column this Tuesday, he announces the end of the "Lulist peace." He sees major crises on the horizon, but fears the victory of the same party (the PT) in 2014. Like Valdirene, he is "pure intelligence." Read below:

Suddenly, from a moment of stillness, drama unfolded. Thus, with a verse by Vinicius de Moraes, we can describe what lies ahead. No longer the paralysis of the country, so pleasing to the "alliance for backwardness" that has governed Brazil for ten years. It seemed they had achieved the miracle of social exclusion. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the cursed legacy of the PT exploded, and divergent paths opened up. What seemed like an assimilated failure gave way to enthusiastic expressions of desire. The sordid "Lulist peace" is over. What will happen to the country?

The story of my political life has always oscillated between two feelings: hope and disillusionment. I grew up hearing two theories: either Brazil was the country of the future or it was a nameless mess, a vulture falling into the abyss. I grew up at this crossroads. Furthermore, within this doubt, there was another: UDN or PTB?

I voted for Jânio, I confess. I was 18 years old and I wasn't interested in Lott, that general with the donkey face and stiff neck. Jânio fascinated me with his dramatic figure; he was a cross-eyed caricature full of dandruff and gave the impression that he, yes, was "left-wing," crazy, "off."

Months later, I was on the running board of a streetcar when I heard: "Jânio got drunk and resigned!" That was my first disappointment. Elected overwhelmingly, he left the government as if leaving a dive bar.

There, on the streetcar's running board, I understood that there was a profound Brazilian madness lurking beneath the surface of politics, stronger than rational programs: the curse of the Same. I realized that there was a "sub-history" that guided us beyond political upheavals. A secular anomaly that makes things "un-happen," that created "a country under anesthesia, but without surgery."

While at UNE (National Union of Students), I feverishly participated in the fight for the inauguration of Vice President João Goulart, which the "right wing" wanted to prevent. The Southern Army, with Brizola at the helm, guaranteed Jango's inauguration, and I became convinced that, with "legalist" military officers and leftist heroes, Brazil would ascend to its great future.

I lived in the hope of a red paradise that would take over the country, a replica of the socialist rumba of Cuba, the joyful revolution that would end misery and install culture, great art, beauty, with President Jango and his beautiful wife founding the "tropical Rome," as Darcy Ribeiro shouted in his utopia.

There would be no coups, because "the army is middle class and therefore in favor of the country" – the PCB taught us. It's chilling to remember the frightening political naiveté of that time.
On March 31, 64, I was at the UNE (National Union of Students). There was a show with Grande Otelo, celebrating the “victory of socialism.” A friend hugged me, shouting: “We defeated American imperialism; now, all that's left is the national bourgeoisie!”

Hours later, the UNE (National Union of Students) was on fire, and I was jumping around in the back under the gunfire of the "right-wing" youth brigades. I think I became an adult that morning, with the UNE in flames, with tanks taking over the streets. I had woken from a dream into a nightmare. The next day, before me, the "figure" of Castelo Branco materialized, like an olive-green alien.

However, Castelo Branco's sad military days still had a minimal democratic flavor, which even served to strengthen our political struggle. Now, the enemy had a face, and against it a cultural resistance refined by trauma was organized, a resistance that had lost the naive schematism of the pre-64 period. Ideas and arts were magnified by the curse.

Our powerlessness fueled a new hope. From then on, marches filled the streets, in a democratic movement that believed the military would yield to the pressure of the crowds. It was an illusion.

It was very windy in Ipanema in 1968 while Minister Gama e Silva read the text of Institutional Act 5 on TV, turning the country into a concentration camp. With a stroke of his pen, Costa e Silva, with his dumbfounded face, urged on by the crazy "Lady Macbrega Yolanda," closed the country for another 15 years.

Then came the suicidal battalions of urban guerrillas. During the years of the Brazilian economic miracle, romantic young people were either massacred by bullets or succumbed to the hope of the counterculture, while the more conservative ones filled their pockets with money during the "miracles" of São Paulo.

The scapegoat lasted 15 years, and democracy became an obsession. "When freedom comes, everything will be alright!", we used to say. We only thought about democracy, but nobody noticed that it was returning less because of rallies and more because of the two oil crises that created the global recession.

The military and international banks gave us back our freedom when it came time to pay the bill for the foreign debt. The military wanted to get rid of the hot potato of state bankruptcy and handed it over to civilians euphoric with Tancredo's victory. New hope! Then, a microbe flew in, entered Tancredo's intestines, and changed our history. And the great disillusionment began. With the return of democracy during the Sarney period, everything worsened. Our old vices reappeared. Terrified, I saw that democracy only existed in name; it wasn't ingrained in the institutions, which began to be plundered by the hungry corrupt who seized power – all "noble victims of the dictatorship." The dictatorship became an OMO (a brand of laundry detergent), to wash away scoundrels. From then on, only disillusionment and pain: inflation at 80% per month (remember?), the messianism of Collor, riding the mad horse of the Republic.

Then, new hope with the impeachment; then, more hope with the Real Plan, the victory of reformist reason with FHC, with Brazil winning its fourth World Cup title, blue skies, hope without inflation. I've never believed so much in my life.

But today, I am here, filled with fear and sad premonitions.

Dilma could have been a bridge between regressive stubbornness and a more liberal modernization; but she proved to be stubborn and arrogant on the one hand and a faithful "task-doer" on the other, dominated by the gang that wants to "change the State." Brazil's greatest enemy is the alliance between a "leftist unionist" ideology and the "right-wing" oligarchy – as it is today. Neither UDN nor PTB. Great crises are coming, but the victory of the party of the Same remains on the horizon.

Pira, pira, pira, piradinho... Jabor announces the end of times.