While the French team is losing to the Australian team in Qatar, I receive a message from a friend. She informs that, as expected, President Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign filed a representation at the TSE (Socialist Electoral Court) asking for an investigation that, if carried forward, in theory (and thesis goes into it!) could change the outcome of the election. And the fate of a country for the time being condemned to the tragedy of a third presidential term for Lula.
There began a conversation just like the one that must still be echoing between you and your friends and family at home , bars and social networks of life. “And do you happen to think this is going to amount to anything?” I ask. I soon regret the “by chance”. It sounded aggressive, as if her friend’s insistent hope for “due process” was a sign of madness. Is not. The friend is smart and knows that the representation will not prosper. The Soberbo Eleitoral Tribunal will never admit any problem with the Brazilian voting system.
The dialogue takes on other contours when, less aggressive (I hope), I confess not knowing how to deal with all the promises of electoral turnaround that punctuated the news since the beginning of November. On the one hand, it bothers me the feeling of feeding readers a false hope that circumstances as a whole will change from one day to the next, thanks to a silver bullet, an ace in the sleeve, a representation in the TSE or a gesture crazy. On the other hand, who am I to take people’s hope away?! Nobody.
Besides, I confess now, at the very moment France draws the game, that part of me wants me to be wrong. Very wrong. Ridiculously wrong. Part of me wants you, the reader, to be able to mock this hopeless text in the very near future, saying something like: “you lost it, you facasomaniac loser“. But, of course, you would be incapable of such rudeness.
Longs of hope
I think of the desperation that leads people to cling to any shred of hope in front of the barracks, on the roads and on social media. It is admirable and at the same time worrying. A lot of people manifest themselves just because they want their idea of the world to prevail. But among the protesters there are also many (among which I include myself) whose despair has another translation: fear that Brazil will become an Argentina, a Nicaragua or a Venezuela.
It is a legitimate fear of who fears being unable to bequeath current wealth to future generations. And I don’t just mean financial wealth here. I also think of the tradition and moral values that are at risk in a PT government in collusion with the Judiciary. And no end date. Back to the questions though. How to recognize and alleviate this fear that plagues millions of Brazilians without feeding false hopes and conspiracy theories? How to help people not to fall into a despair that can easily turn into a chronic revolt – even a revolt against God?
I have no intention of resolving this dilemma with a single text. Even because I myself often catch myself feeding ridiculous hopes – for which I am still forced to hear colleagues calling me a “con artist”. It would be even easier and above all more pleasant to wake up and discover that the silver bullet hit the target or that the card in the hole was the highest in the deck or that Alexandre de Moraes fell of the horse.
But maybe God, in his infinite wisdom, is giving the Brazilian people what we need, and not what we want. Perhaps from us, in this troubled moment of our history, God is demanding the sacrifice of the tireless and daily struggle for the same four years – or for the duration of what I already consider a de facto socialist dictatorial regime .
(Until the end of this text, not only did France’s national team turn the tables on Australia, but Alexandre de Moraes also responded cynically to Bolsonaro’s campaign representation, arguing that the ballot boxes used in the first and second rounds were the same and giving 24 hours for the coalition to present the audit of the first round. Otherwise, the representation will simply be ignored. That if Alexandre de Moraes does not decide that the request for investigation is an anti-democratic attack on institutions, of course).
