Echoes of Silence: Reflecting on Brazil’s Military Dictatorship 60 Years On
Editor’s Note: This is an opinion essay.
Editor’s Note: This is an opinion essay.
During his presidential terms, Lula consistently advocated for the two-state solution, supporting the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. He also vehemently criticized Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, viewing them as a hindrance to peace. However, Brazil maintained diplomatic and trade relations with Israel, illustrating the intricate political and economic considerations that influence the country's foreign policy. Lula emphasized the importance of multilateralism and international diplomacy in the quest for a peaceful and equitable resolution to the conflict. The article explores how this approach reflects Lula's pursuit of autonomy and sovereignty in Brazilian foreign policy, while also highlighting challenges and criticisms faced during his diplomatic journey.
Printed books, in addition to their honorable utilitarian functions, immediate or not, make up an important collection of documents and testimonies of the culture and history of different human societies. For these same reasons, books are published, collected, preserved, disseminated, guarded, recommended, coveted, lent, republished and, it must be said, controlled, prohibited, censored, and destroyed.
There are no Human Rights without democracy; without a Republic, dictatorship, ignorance, contempt for public policies, health, and education prevail; without the Democratic State of Law, only the autocratic, authoritarian, abusive and denialist forms of Humanity itself thrive.
Even though the Federal Police have said that there are no masters in the barbaric murders of the English journalist Dom Philips and the Brazilian indigenist Bruno Pereira, who are the actors interested in the physical elimination of opponents, defenders of nature, and the codes of social life?
"Brazil needs a Constituent Assembly (National Constituent Assembly) in 2023!" – say some sectors dissatisfied with the reforms induced in the Federal Constitution of 1988 and with the worst institutional and social results provoked.
Without virtues, vicissitudes can either occur as "alternatives" or as mere instabilities; vicissitudes without virtues run through the logic of exclusion. But what will be the political cost? Let's imagine a war in which the commanders say that they were neither wrong nor right, in the choice of means and strategies. Even if all war is unnecessary, how many people would have died, unnecessarily, by the mistakes of the command?
War is a human typology. But it's not the worst side of the human being, it's just its expression/extension. We are just that: belligerents. This may shock some, but humanity is just that: wars x wars. What varies over time are the justifications or interpretations. What does not change is the fact that war is a constant, a kind of prehistoric social fact.
President Jair Bolsonaro seems to be somewhat confused on how to tackle the Ukraine-Russia conflict in a way that aligns with his interests. This essay discusses his new move on framing the conflict as an opportunity to reduce Brazilian dependency on fertilizing exports. This framing resulted in the approval of urgent character for processing the lar project PL 190-2020, which will open indigenous territory for a mining concession. If the law is approved, this can put the indigenous communities in bigger threat as well as push for an unsustainable model of extractivism development within Amazon.
Taking stock of 2021 is a hard task, especially for Brazilian justice. However, if we needed an image to depict such a challenge, it would be the ocean waves pounding the rocks on the shore, the perpetual drive against barely movable obstacles.