I’ve been trying to decipher what I wrote on the pad for hours. It happens often, and on those occasions I always remember the old calligraphy notebooks I hated to fill. Behold, after much pondering over a “t” that looks like an “l”, from the hieroglyphs I take a hasty reflection that said: “Pontius Pilate is one of the most abominable characters in the Gospels. A man who was unable to make a simple, obvious moral choice. I respect those who make the wrong choice more than those who omit themselves. It’s not time to wash your hands.”
And it’s not!
The problem with this kind of reference to Pontius Pilate, even more so when applied to a specific circumstance, the obvious political choice between Jair Bolsonaro and Ortega’s friend Lula is that someone always appears to make the fateful and dishonest reservation that one of the objects of choice it’s not Jesus. And I do not know?! Do I look like an idolater? I want to answer, but I don’t. It was an observation of this type that made me give up making the reflection public, reducing it to a few scribbles in a notebook.
And forcing me to be more explicit than the General Law of the Chronicles authorizes. The contemporary pilatinhos who turn up their nose to say that, between Bolsonaro and Lula, they prefer to wash their hands and stay at home cooking the rooster or even going to the polling station just to admire what they consider a depressing spectacle, are not making a choice. between the Son of God and a little bandit. Even because that was not the choice that Pilate omitted to make. He did not know of the divine character of Jesus. The reality as he saw her in that situation, therefore, presupposed a simple and obvious moral choice between two men: one he knew to be a bandit (and, it is said, even a murderer), and another in which he saw no sign of guilt.
Look at this: it is not cowardice that bothers the ponciopilatism that liberals or conservatives of high standing suffer. On the other hand, it is the arrogance, arrogance and arrogance of those who consider themselves unworthy of getting their hands dirty in Bolsonaro’s “crassness” to prevent the return of Daniel Ortega’s friend, who neither won nor assumed and is already showing his character. authoritarian.
Back to Pontius Pilate, a character that I can’t get out of my head, I’m here thinking about what he would do if he hadn’t the option to wash your hands. To go off on a tangent. From puffing out my chest to say “I won’t even get up from my chair”. To face queues just to say that you don’t prefer either one or the other. Cynics will say that Pilate would have chosen Barabbas anyway. The faithful of the Coptic Church believe that he would have chosen Jesus. That’s why they made Pilate a saint.
Likewise, I wonder who those who confess their self-indulgent option for the null/white vote or abstention would vote for if they were thanks for making the choice. Neither “A” choice nor a choice: this choice that we have before us today, between the flawed, sometimes unbearably and disgustingly flawed man, and an archetypal barabbas. Between the fabricated image of a threat to democracy and the proven reality threat to democracy. Between a defender of life who swears and shrugs his shoulders at the liturgy of the position and an abortionist who promises picanha and beer for the people.
More than a supposed orphanage ideological on the part of the root-conservatives, ponciopilatism is born from the aforementioned arrogance, and also from the vanity and moral laxity that are the trademark of the intellectuals (apud Millôr) Brazilians. Including and above all those who claim the title of “right-wing intellectual”. The vanity is that of not wanting to be seen as a kind of political leper by his peers; and moral laxity is the one that looks for the perfect quote to justify the null vote that, he knows, I know and we know, tends to favor Lula .
Not that my esteem has any value in the big or small scheme of things, but in fact I respect those who explicitly opt for the Barabbas of Garanhuns more than those who wash hands, leaving the decision to the crowd. After all, as wrong as they are and are, the PT exemptions (sic) at least assume responsibility for their own choice – a wrong choice, but one that he doesn’t hide himself under the cloak of arrogance.
Furthermore, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but it’s quite likely that your peers will look at you with disapproval regardless of your vote. And, on the wall, whether real or symbolic, that quote from the philosopher Xis or the political scientist Ypsilon that you, a conservative, chose so carefully to justify your now very clean hands – and also very silent, very immobile, very dead hands will be of no use to you.