by Vinício Carrilho Martinez
Associate Professor at Federal University of São Carlos – Brazil, Member and Leader of BRaS’ Constitutional Studies Research Group
Translated and Reviewed by Matheus Lucas Hebling
Amid the 2019 carnival, the federal government had reduced the participation of civil society in the deliberative spheres of power, and thus, entered (through the back door) in a classic phenomenon of Political Anthropology: the Carnivalization of Politics (DAMATTA, 1983) or, as we call it here, the cannibalization of CF88.
In summary, the various executive ministries installed in 2018 emptied councils, commissions, committees, and other forms of collegiate management. In practice, with immediate effect, it means that the Public Power once again failed (and has been destroying) the Federal Constitution of 1988 and, thus, continues to act against the law – since 2019, it is worth mentioning. Certainly, what is preserved by the Constitution is achieved, concerning the restriction to the removal of civil society from public affairs. The Political Charter says the opposite because it instigates inclusion, participation, social control, political pluralism, and emancipation.
The Constitution guarantees as a duty or “public obligation to do” the deepening of the forms of participatory democracy and management through popular representation, notoriously, as the power of the decision of the main social policies. The data speaks for itself: there were about 40 Councils, some consultative and others normative, like the National Environment Council. Although the majority of councils were created in the 1990s – shortly after the promulgation of the Constitution – the Health Council, for example, dates from 1930. The same public health that, by direct and premeditated action of Necrofascism, in the way of facing the 2020 pandemic, received the seal of “devastating” by the UN (United Nations) – a fact, undoubtedly, that is directed as a genocidal deliberation and that reminds the Füher in the last days of the Reich – when condemning the people German to total extermination, for being “weak”.
Following the same political symptom, in 2020, we were labeled (and condemned) as an “environmental outcast”. With these nicknames, what will we say to future generations – starting from the present tax – when we have to say that the agent was urged to the International Criminal Court, for proclaiming himself as the instigator of genocide?
The episode of the National Committee for the Prevention and Combat of Torture is even more symptomatic: its members were elected, but they did not even take office. Prison monitoring and delivery of reports on psychiatric hospitals have already been affected, as well as the definition of public policies aimed at the elderly, disabled, and indigenous people.
The National Council for Indigenous Policy and the Amnesty Committee were not even listed by the government. The National Council for Solidarity Economy has been wiped out, thinner, reduced to tripartite representation, in which government, workers, and employers now have the same number of members – as if the action of capital on labor incurred isonomy of forces.
Another one that suffers restrictions is the National Council of Workers in Family Agriculture, observing the ineffectiveness of Condraf (National Council for Sustainable Rural Development) and Cnapo (National Commission for Agroecology and Organic Production). The National Council for Food and Nutritional Security (Consea) was abolished.
Therefore, there is a serious emptying of the participation channels of the people and their professional and technical representations and, as a result, it is easily concluded that the more averse to the democratic norm, the more indifferent, distant, and anti-popular, is the Public Power. Another assessment, as clear as possible, is that, possibly, political measures and actions of the displeasure of the people are more easily taken – by removing the “obstacle” of participation and social control.
It should be noted, specifically, the areas where the dismantled councils were most affected, are, notoriously, related to the Ministries of Citizenship, Agriculture, Human Rights, Women, and Family. Many other conjectures can be made and, although lessons from factual data are relevant, we will bring just a few examples: in agriculture, members of civil society may / should be against the use of pesticides, exactly those prohibited by the main health regulatory agencies in Brazil and internationally.
Whoever has the least constitutional intelligence (socially and morally adept at the Civilizing Process) knows that, when an international inquiry is received at the Human Rights Council (UN), ethical and human defeat already accompanies the proposition and, therefore, not the condemnation – it is also known that “absolution” does not bring redemption from guilt or deceit. It is worth noting that the same accusation applies to “systemic racism” that makes Racialfascism rules; in addition to the fact that we kill prisoners and hunger victims.
It has become routine to observe the moral cancellations coming from international institutions, on several subjects, including “ordinances on abortion” (typical janitorial or porter rules) that hurt any republican basis or principle. There are also serious condemnations of human rights violators, in the name of some unbalanced faith, and severely punished by the Supreme Court: note that in this case there is medieval torture, in the name of some alleged nefarious deity.
When ministries and institutions are charged by the UN (Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women), notably, on the urgency of complying with the legality of public acts and declarations, it is because National Fascism has dug a very deep civilizing gap. Another example of this is the accusation in the multilateral organization that the Government does not recognize – and, therefore, does not act against – structural racism.
This is just a residual summary of the current situation of Necrofascism in the country, invoking Nero to watch over the Amazon and the Pantanal – besides the fact that, within the Empire, even women of power are encouraged, religiously, to be submissive to macho interests.
The worst, however, is to watch the country internationally deny human rights. Internally, ministers of state action “secretly” to violate the law and court decisions.
In this sense, the probability is much greater that hunger is a chronic sensation among women, blacks, and browns – that is, the vast majority of the population will be able to know the state of misery, chronic hunger, due to the neoliberalism applied in the course of the pandemic. . We can and must consider and accentuate many of the historical problems of the National State – from the pristine eras of the formation of the Nation-State – but are we a nation? Isn’t the Patriarchal State the result of Casa Grande and the denial of citizenship? Isn’t bachelorhood still a disguise to racism and segregating elitism, founder of public places like Paraisópolis and Higienópolis? Whose paradise, who’s cleaning – and not what …?
Hasn’t political parochialism ever wiped out any project for professionalizing the state? Doesn’t all this stem from the atavistic colonial combination between Capitalism and slave labor? All of this, now, have no effects exacerbated by the sociopathy of financial capital and incorporated by genocidal state practices?
Finally, it is worth mentioning that we are dealing here – evidently – with some intricacies of the state structures of National Fascism, especially in 2020. There is no doubt that public institutions are articulated around a fascist State project.
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BRANCO, Guilherme Castelo (Org.). Terrorismo de Estado. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2013.
BRASIL. Constituição (1988). Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil. 13. ed. Rio de Janeiro: DP&A, 2003.
CALDAS, Álvaro. Um abominável legado de tortura. Jornal O Estado de S. Paulo. Caderno Aliás, p. J5, 02 set. 2007.
DAMATTA, Roberto. Carnavais, Malandros e Heróis: para uma sociologia do dilema brasileiro. 4ª ed. Rio de Janeiro : Zahar Editores, 1983.