The day thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to protest against corruption, the UNE (National Students Union) did not leave home. That’s because the UNE was counting money. The PT government has now passed on to these henchmen over 10 million reais (US$ 5.9 million).
And will give them another 40 million reais (US$ 23.8 million) so they can build their 13-story headquarters, which will be occupied by their void of ideas, their moral void, their ethical void.
The day thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to protest against corruption, the CUT (Unified Workers’ Central) did not leave home, no! That’s because the CUT was counting money.
The PT government has decided to pass on to the labor unions a part of the shameful tax levied even on non-union workers. Moreover, lots of managers in these unions hold important posts in the federal machine.
The day thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to protest against corruption, the MST (Landless Workers’ Movement) did not leave home, oh no! That’s because the MST was counting money.
The movement exists only because the government maintains it with public funds. They’d rather protest against the modernization of agriculture.
The day thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to protest against corruption, the so-called social movements didn’t leave home at all!
That’s because the social movements were counting money.
They’d rather insist on their odd protest in favor, called “The Shout of the Excluded.” In fact, they are “included” in the PT (Workers’ Party) world.
The thousands who took to the streets, with rare exceptions, have no party, do not belong to groups, do not recognize a leader, do not follow the herd, do not behave like a pack, do not wave red flags, do not worship corpses of fake martyrs or are lured by bungling prophets.
The thousands who took to the streets do study, work, pay taxes, have dreams, want a better country, are fed up with the thievery, hate ignorance, dishonesty, fight for a better life and know that real achievement is that one that’s the fruit of effort.
The thousands who took to the streets can’t take collusion any more, they are disgusted with the crooks who have raided the country, they no longer believe the official propaganda, they reject politics as an exercise in lies, and they call impostors those who in the name of fighting against poverty, plunder the country, work swindles, get involved in political machinations that are far from the public interest.
You saw that the thousands who took to the streets were accompanied only by their own peers, who, like them, also took to the streets. It was the true No Politician Movement. Not that politicians could not show up there. The PSOL (Socialism and Liberty Party) tried to lend their flag to the protests, but those present would not accept it. That was a movement from the streets, not from last-century utopians, who still have the gall to tell us, holy God, about “socialism with freedom.”
If politicians had showed up to also protest – not to lead the people – they would have been well-received, but they did not show up because they haven’t realized yet that something is brewing, that a movement is underway, that something is moving inside the Brazilian society’s womb.
The week when thousands of Brazilians gave proof in social networks, blogs and news sites that they are fed up with the intrigue, government supporters and opposition were holding whispered small talks to try to fill the next vacancy in the Union’s Audit Office. Choosing someone for the post has become part of the articulations for the 2014 presidential race…
Government supporters and opposition that get involved in this kind of articulation, the way it happens, are not realizing that a movement is being born, which already includes thousands of people who no longer accept this minuet of arrogant government people and dodgy oppositionists. These people, from one side and the other, have become hopelessly old at heart.
The painted faces, this time, could not count on the machine of opposition governments, as it happened with the Movement for Direct Elections Now and with Collor’s impeachment. This time, and this will go on for a long time, people were by themselves. Yes, something is moving inside the society. And it ‘s useless to turn in for “steer” the movement.
Marina Silva was quite capable of noticing the wave, but she was wrong when she bet that others didn’t notice her own wave. This movement, Dona Marina, is not born through media relations, image consulting, political consulting and strong financial support. Your non-partisanship, candidate, is fleeting; that of the Brazilians who took to the streets is a condition of freedom.
The thousands who took to the streets, treated with disdain on TV’s evening news, made the biggest demonstration against the PT regime in the nine years they are in power. And something tells me that this will continue and the tendency is for it to grow.
We pay one of the world’s highest taxes to have one of the world’s worst public services. We pay for politicians who are among the most expensive in the world to have one of the worst political classes in the world. We have, believe me, one of the world’s most expensive educations to have one of the world’s worst schools. We have one of the world’s strongest states to have one of the world’s largest kleptocracies.
The No-Party Movement does not reject the parties’ democracy – even because, without them, there is only the One Party dictatorship – but it wants to know if anyone is actually ready to break this cycle of convenience and connivance. The thousands who took to the streets defied the risk of being demonized by the henchmen of officialdom. They lost their fear.
Yes, in a not-so-recent past, in 2007, a group tried to organize a reaction to the corruption that was getting widespread. It did not get to grow like this one now, but it made itself noticed. They had a kind of keyword to identify the indignant: “I got tired!” The movement was mercilessly ridiculed.
I wrote about it at that time. The movement was treated as something for ladies of leisure, for dazzled people dissatisfied with what was said to be the “democratization” of Brazil. There were stupid people saying they were wealthy people who couldn’t stand to see poor people getting to fly in airplanes – as if the aviation chaos would punish only the wealthy.
The smallest attempt to answer to the excesses of the so-called “progressive” was received with a stick. In the daily Folha de S. Paulo, Laura Capriglione went as far as to ridicule a rally of students at USP (University of São Paulo), held on the university campus, protesting against strikes. Those who wanted to study were treated like a bunch of reactionaries. Those who got indignant about corruption and deception have now lost their fear.
Attempts of disqualification will happen – in fact, they have already happened. Vehicles for hire, dedicated to the officialist subjournalism, fueled by public money, are already poking fun at the demonstrations. The television channels gave less air time to the protests than they would give a demonstration of discontent in, let me see, Bahrain! It seems that there are people who think that democracy is an important thing in Egypt, Libya and Syria, but not in Brazil.
It is useless! The thousands who took to the streets don’t need the opposition, they don’t need subjournalism, they don’t need that journalism sympathetic to the protests in Yemen … The dynamic today is something else.
May the no-party, no-groups, no-leader, no-pack, no-red-flags, no-martyrs, no-prophets folks persevere. The opposition, if they wish, may join them. Who knows, maybe the opposition will learn to be free and may learn to say without ambiguity: “No, you can not!”
Reinaldo Azevedo writes for Veja, the weekly news magazine with the largest circulation in Brazil.
