Brazil in Search of a Future
Augusto Jobim do Amaral is Professor in the graduate programs in Philosophy (School of Humanities) and in Criminal Sciences (School of Law) at the Pontificate Catholic University/Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS). He completed his doctorate in Contemporary Studies from the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Additionally, he has served as a Visiting Professor at the Universidad de Sevilla, Spain, and is a Research Fellow at the Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy. He is the author Politics of Criminology (Tirant lo Blanch, 2020) and is the editor of Algoritarismos and The City as a Biopolitical Machine (Tirant lo Blanch, 2022).
This text was originally written for issue 79 of the WBO Newsletter, published on August 11, 2023. Fill in the form at the bottom of the text to access and subscribe to the WBO weekly newsletter in English.
We find ourselves ensnared by a lingering sense of fear within our nation. This political disposition binds us to the cyclic retelling of familiar narratives – and most significantly, obstructs any potential for substantive transformation, instead favoring feeble reactions. This prevailing sentiment continues to drive the policy decisions of President Lula’s third administration. Even today, we remain unable to discern the concept of "coalition presidentialism," a phenomenon perpetually exposed through the exchange of positions within a frail base of support in the Brazilian Congress. The gradual co-opting of the political center as an indicator of representative politics appears incapable of success in light of overt parliamentary coercion. This form of coercion seems to have already coopted the familiar developmentalist agenda, hiding neoliberalism behind a more humane face.
In effect, what we are witnessing resembles a form of semi-presidentialism. Remarkably, the current government has been unable to substantially alter the previous administration's malevolent secret budget regime. Instead, it has substituted it with a variation of the same, conceding to the President of the Chamber of Deputies even before assuming office in January 2023. Half of the then-secret budget's value remains under the control of the budget bill's rapporteur, a consequence of Constitutional Amendment (EC) No. 126/2022, which formalized the regulation of "rapporteur amendments with their own budgets." The remaining half has been allocated to "individual amendments" that the government is mandated to implement, with values twice those of the Bolsonaro era. In essence, nearly the entire discretionary budget for investment in the country is now vested in the hands of the most conservative Congress in Brazilian history. The current government envisions taming this Congress through strategies that brought us to this point, albeit without any guarantee of support.
“It is imperative to remember that the Indigenous village/favela/Quilombo represents the unclaimed potential of future possibilities”
This is just one example highlighting the fact that the system of agreements that once underpinned the New Republic in Brazil has long been exhausted. The denial of this reality or the absence of a clear and effective alternative seems to sentence us to an ongoing cycle of intensified tragic repetitions. A pressing question emerges: how long will the fear of a potential resurgence of Bolsonarism (if anyone dares to believe it has waned) allow timidity to prevail over the courage necessary to mobilize political creativity, even in the face of potential setbacks?
Without a sense of agency and a well-defined vision, the scope for profound and necessary change within Brazilian society will remain limited. In a time of widespread exhaustion, coupled with growing disillusionment with the representative framework of liberal democracy, which should ostensibly offer an opportunity for experimentation, the prevailing reaction appears to be a cynical dismissal that is only content with crisis management. This stance intentionally disregards the latent potentials that continue to linger. For instance, consider the inevitable direct clash between militarization and punitive measures, constituting Brazil's exercise of democracy within a security context.
It is by no means groundbreaking today to find ourselves immersed in the news of more incidents involving military police massacres. These events have resulted in at least 14 deaths in Guarujá, São Paulo, 10 in the state of Rio de Janeiro, and 19 in Bahia over recent weeks. This style of governance is encapsulated by these occurrences and has, above all, become routine for marginalized populations across the country. Notably, one of the President's closest confidants and the Chief of Staff (Ministro da Casa Civil) previously held the position of governor in Bahia. His tenure was characterized by a record surge in deaths inflicted by law enforcement, exemplifying a lack of interest in altering the context of genocide and the persecution of Black youth in the nation.
The urgency within the realm of public security cannot be postponed. At the very least, it necessitates a discussion on the dismantling of police forces in Brazil – extending beyond mere demilitarization. This represents a practical policy that various movements in different countries are already advocating. In Brazil, however, progress remains tepid despite its historical status as home to the world's most lethal police force. Similarly, mass incarceration, perpetuated by the criminalization of individuals not yet charged by the State through criminal drug policies, exacerbates social control, warfare, and death within an illicit substance market. Incidentally, the ongoing Supreme Court deliberations regarding drug consumption decriminalization, as imperative as they may be, still fail to address the fundamental core of the issue – whether the comprehensive regulation of the presently illegal drug market or confronting the major ramifications of prohibitionism will have a significant impact on homicide rates driven by armed conflicts between rival groups vying for control of unlawful markets.
Unless we acknowledge the broad-scale demise of the agreement-driven framework of liberal democracy – as the extreme right has already anticipated and organized around – we will be confined to defending deteriorating institutions and repeatedly adopting the role of a party aligned with maintaining order when impending uprisings erupt. Only by breaking free from this cycle can we potentially foster substantive discussions, mobilize and organize agendas – including those mentioned and numerous others – to pave the way for a plausible political future. To radicalize the discourse, regardless of whether victories are achieved or setbacks endured through elections or popular revolts, one thing is clear: the struggle and the persistent force of political creativity must not dissipate. Brazil has become a case study, a laboratory for extreme right insurrections globally, largely due to this very reason: its popular extreme right managed to tap into discontent (mobilizing it through reactionary concepts) and continues to this day to maintain a state of imminent and effective upheaval, always poised to exert pressure on the government.
At the very least, striving to disentangle ourselves from the conventional approach that has confined hegemonic segments of the Brazilian left, which historically sought to align with enlightened bourgeoisie sectors and the democratic right (to say nothing of the privileges and the arbitrary nature of the judiciary) – requires a vigilant focus in Brazil on the intricate processes of politicization supported by novel experiences of self-organized collective life. These processes involve fewer sporadic electoral alliances and more "confluences" for concerted action. It is imperative to remember that the Indigenous village/favela/Quilombo represents the unclaimed potential of future possibilities. Naturally, these forces are not devoid of contradictions, yet they possess a transformative quality that cannot be reduced to government-sanctioned integration. The pursuit of producing disruptions that open the present to the future will inevitably demand a degree of audacity, given the circumstances at hand. Radical events, those that diverge from the familiar narratives, achieve this precisely because they are uniquely equipped to respond to the intolerable.
