Brazil’s “Saddest Day”: the parliamentary coup

And it happened that in those days, hired assassins disguised themselves as Senators, a significant number, but not all, and decided to attack an honorable and incorruptible woman who blocked their path to State power. Once in power, they would do what they had always done: take the public goods for their personal enrichment, escaping the reach of Justice and carrying on with their privileged situation, as always, at the expense of the people they want to exclude, and marginalize, as a useful reserve army for their services, as chattel.

They took sadistic pleasure in hurting an incorruptible and honorable woman, on the pretext that some of her fiscal practices had been criminal, something that the great majority of legal and economics specialists denied. They staged a farce and betrayed the Constitution. Removing a President without having proven a crime is a coup. The correct term for it is: a “parliamentary coup.” They were petulant, hypocritically claiming that it made them feel bad, even as they spoke of ushering in an “era, a new spring, the beginning of a new Brazil, prosperous and just.” A lie!

The plan, “A Bridge to the Future”, is in fact a bridge backwards, because it would eliminate the gains that the workers, women, Blacks, indigenous peoples, the LGBT communities, the poor and the invisible, had won for the first time in our history in terms of social inclusion, better salaries, health, education, labor law, retirement and access to technical and higher education. And what is worse: they want to keep the people illiterate, so that they will be silent and unable to demand their rights and dignity.

Now it is the Market that matters. Someone who wants medical treatment must go to the Market; and pay.

Whoever wants to go to a University must first go to the Marker, and pay. Everything will be turned into merchandise to be bought and sold. Can dignity be bought? Can solidarity be bought? Must love be purchased? It doesn’t matter. Those things do not count for them. But can someone live and be happy without them?

At the beginning of the conquest and domination of Mexico, there was “the saddest night”, in 1520, when much of the Spanish army was destroyed. Now we have “the saddest day” , in 2016, when a woman President was unjustly divested of the power she gained through the ballot.

In the Senate chambers and in the hallways there is spilled blood. A “political sad night” has fallen on Brazil, stealing hope from those who had climbed out of misery, and who now risk falling back into it.

And those who struggled to consolidate democracy of a social kind and to respect the will of the people, as expressed at the ballot boxes, were betrayed again. This is the day of “the long daggers” that were raised against an honorable woman and that gravely wounded the sovereignty of the people.

Today, August 31, 2016, is a day of sadness. Those who mounted that spectacle and the assassin-Senators will carry the stigma of golpistas and frauds for the rest of their lives. Their consciences will haunt them, and their legacies will be destroyed. The will to condemn cannot replace reason, that leads towards truth. They smothered truth under the mantel of injustice.

They will be in sinister company, the company of those who, years ago, assaulted the State, oppressed the people, tortured many, as they have done now with President Dilma Rousseff, and murdered those who sought to restore democracy.

And, at the end of their lives, they will face a greater Judge, who will expose all the injustice they have consciously committed.

Leonardo Boff Theologian-Philosopher,Earthcharter Commission

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Die Amtsenthebung einer würdevollen und unschuldigen Präsidentin durch ein mental und finanziell korrupter Putschs

Es war einmal eine Nation, die groß war in Bezug auf ihr Territorium und ihre fröhliche Bevölkerung, welche jedoch ungerecht behandelt wurde. Das Volk litt Not vor allem in den großen Peripherien der Städte und im tiefen Landesinneren. Jahrhundertelang wurde es von einer kleinen reichen Elite regiert, der das Geschick der Armen nie am Herzen lag. Wie ein Historiker, ein Mulatte, es ausdrückte, war das Volk sozial „wieder und wieder kastriert; wieder und wieder am Ausbluten“.

Doch allmählich begannen sich die Armen Brasiliens zu organisieren. In jeder Form von Bewegung sammelten sie soziale Macht an und nährten den Traum von einem anderen Brasilien. Es gelang ihnen, soziale Macht in politische Macht zu verwandeln. Sie trugen zur Gründung der Arbeiterpartei, PT (aus dem Portugiesischen Partido dos Trabalhadores) bei. Eines ihrer Mitglieder, ein Überlebender der großen Leidenszeit und ein Maschinist, wurde Präsident von Brasilien. Trotz des ausgeübten Drucks und der Konzessionen, die er durch die national und übernational begüterte Klasse erlitt, gelang ihm eine beachtliche Öffnung des Herrschaftssystems, was ihm ermöglichte, eine humanere Sozialpolitik zu schaffen. Ein Teil der Bevölkerung, so groß wie die ganze Bevölkerung Argentiniens, wurde aus Hunger und Not gerettet. Die Schwarzen und die Armen bekamen Zugang, was zuvor nicht möglich war, zu mittlerer und höherer Bildung. Doch vor allem spürten sie, dass sie ihre Würde zurückbekamen, die ihnen immer verwehrt worden war. Sie betrachteten sich nun selbst als ein Teil der Gesellschaft. Sie konnten sich sogar ein Auto oder eine Einrichtung kaufen oder mit dem Flugzeug fliegen, um entfernt lebende Verwandte zu besuchen. All dies irritierte die Mittelklasse, die um ihre Privilegien fürchtete. So kam es zu Diskriminierung und Hass unter ihnen.

In ihrem 13. Jahr hatte die Lula-Dilma Regierung in Brasilien weltweiten Respekt gewonnen. Doch die Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise, da systembedingt, erreichte uns und verursachte ökonomische Probleme sowie Arbeitslosigkeit, was die Regierung dazu zwang, starke Maßnahmen zu ergreifen. Die endemische Korruption Brasiliens verstärkte sich in Petrobras und bezog nicht nur die oberen Schichten der PT ein, sondern auch die der großen politischen Parteien. Ein voreingenommener, selbstgerechter Richter konzentrierte sich fast ausschließlich auf die PT. Die Massenmedien, insbesondere deren konservativer Flügel, schufen ein Klischee der PT als Synonym der Korruption. Dies ist jedoch nicht wahr, denn es setzt die eigentliche Mehrheit mit einem kleinen korrupten Segment gleich. Doch die verwerfliche Korruption diente als Vorwand für die reichen Eliten und ihre schon historischen Verbündeten, einen parlamentarischen Coup zu schmieden, denn sie hätten niemals demokratische Wahlen gewonnen.

Aus Angst, die den Armen zugewandte Politik könnte sich konsolidieren, entschieden die Eliten, diese zu liquidieren. Die Methode, die sie zuvor gegen Getulio Vargas und Joao („Jango“) Goulart benutzt hatten, wurde nun aufs Neue in Betracht gezogen unter demselben Vorwand der „Korruptionsbekämpfung“, tatsächlich aber, um ihre eigene Korruption zu verbergen. Die Golpistas bedienten sich des Parlaments, von dem 60 % wegen Verbrechen angeklagt sind, und respektieren nicht die 54 Millionen, die Dilma Rousseff gewählt hatten.

Es ist wichtig klarzustellen, dass sich hinter diesem parlamentarischen Coup die kleingeistigen und unsozialen Interessen der Machthaber verbergen, in Allianz mit der Presse, die die Fakten verdreht und die schon immer mit jedem Staatsstreich in Verbindung stand, gemeinsam mit den konservativen politischen Parteien, einem Teil der öffentlichen Ministerien und der Militärpolizei (die die Panzer ersetzt) und einem Bereich des Obersten Bundesgerichts, dem es an Würde und an Neutralität mangelt. Der Coup richtet sich nicht nur gegen Präsidentin Dilma Rousseff, sondern gegen die Demokratie von partizipatorischem und sozialem Charakter. Es geht hier darum, zum schamlosesten Neoliberalismus zurückzukehren und fast alles dem Markt zu überlassen, der stets dem Wettbewerb unterworfen ist, nicht der Kooperation (darum ist dies Konflikt geladen und antisozial). Zu diesem Zweck beschlossen sie, die Sozialpolitik zunichtezumachen, das Gesundheitssystem zu privatisieren sowie das Bildungswesen und das Öl als auch die sozialen Errungenschaften der Arbeiter/innen anzugreifen.

Präsidentin Rousseff wurde kein einziges Verbrechen zur Last gelegt. Administrative Fehler, die ebenso von vorigen Regierungen begangen worden waren, wurden zur Regierungs-unverantwortlichkeit hochstilisiert, was zur Grundlage für die Amtsenthebung gemacht wurde. Dies ist so, als würde man einen Präsidenten wegen eines geringfügigen Fahrradunfalls zum Tode verurteilen, eine völlig unangemessene Bestrafung. Von den 81 Senatoren, die über sie urteilen werden, sind mehr als 40 in andere Verbrechen involviert bzw. es wird gegen sie ermittelt. Sie zwangen sie auf die Anklagebank, wo diejenigen sitzen sollten, die sie verurteilen. Unter ihnen befinden sich fünf frühere Minister.

Dies ist nicht nur eine Korruption des Geldes. Am schlimmsten ist die Korruption ihrer Herzen und Gedanken, die voller Hass sind. Die Gedanken der Senatoren, die für die Amtsenthebung sind, sind korrupt, denn sie wissen, dass sie eine unschuldige Frau verurteilen. Doch Blindheit und die Interessen der Großkonzerne stehen nun einmal über den Interessen des ganzen Volkes.

Hierzu passt gut das harsche Urteil des Apostels Paulus: „Der Zorn Gottes wird vom Himmel herab offenbart wider alle Gottlosigkeit und Ungerechtigkeit der Menschen, die die Wahrheit durch Ungerechtigkeit niederhalten“ (Röm 1,18). Die Gesichter der Golpistas werden für immer das Kainsmal tragen, der seinen Bruder Abel umbrachte. Die Golpistas töteten die Demokratie. Ihr Andenken wird wegen des von ihnen begangenen Verbrechens verflucht sein. Und Gottes Zorn wird auf ihnen lasten.

Leonardo Boff ist Theologe, Philosoph und Schriftsteller.

THE IMPEACHMENT OF AN INNOCENT PRESIDENT: CORRUPTION AND THE CORRUPTED

President Dilma Rousseff is being impeached by a Tribunal of Exception for a National Congress where 60% of its members face criminal charges. The Senate that judges her lacks moral authority: more than half of its members, 49 senators, are accused of various crimes. And not a single crime has been proven against President Rousseff.  That is why other excuses were invented, like the “body of work”, that contradicts the substance of what the Chamber issued: simply a few 2015 Governmental actions.

Economist Luiz Gonzaga Belluzzo summarized the tone of this perverse process: «It is about a conservative reaction, retrograde, that is expressed in authoritarian attempts to impede the advancement of society.  We are a profoundly antidemocratic society, prejudging, and, above all, culturally deformed. We are witnessing now the further degeneration of what was already corrupt. Ideals of democracy and the Rule of Law do not prosper here. Everything occurs with truculence, arbitrariness, including everything supposedly done in the name of the law» (in Carta Maior 06/27/2016).

Another forceful criticism comes from sociologist Jesse Souza, ex-president of the Instituto de Pesquiza Economica Aplicada, IPEA, who wrote the stimulating book: The stupidity of the Brazilian intelligentsia, (A tolice da inteligência brasileira, Leya, 2015): «It was a coup against democracy as the organizing principle of society. The coup was by the very small moneyed elite, that with no major interruption has dominated us since our slave-ocracy past. Ever since, Brazil has been the scene of a dispute between these two projects: the dream of a great country, forceful for the majority; and the reality of a rapacious elite that wants to drain everyone’s work and sack the wealth of the country for the pockets of half a dozen» (A coup by whom and for whom, in FSP, 04/2016).

What we are witnessing now is a renewal of this second project, socially perverse and adverse to our sovereignty. It is enough to observe the truculence of the minister of foreign relations, who is nowhere near a diplomat. He is an agent of privatization and the re-alignment of Brazil to the logic of the neoliberalism of the great powers, separating ourselves from our allied neighbors of Mercosur, and betraying the ideals of an «active and proud» diplomacy, in dialogue with all peoples and ideological tendencies.

There are many forms of corruption. Let’s start with the word, corruption. Saint Augustíne explains the etymology: corruption is to have a heart (corazon, cor) broken (roto, ruptus) and perverted. The philosopher Immanuel Kant made the same observation: «we are such a twisted log that straight boards cannot possibly be made from it». In other words: there exists in us a Negative strength that leads to deviations. Corruption is one of the strongest.

Above all, the logic of capitalism here and around the world is corrupt, even though it is socially accepted. Capitalism imposes the domination of capital over labor, creating wealth by exploiting the worker and devastating nature. Capitalism generates social inequalities that are ethical injustices, permanently creating class conflicts. Therefore, by its nature capitalism is antidemocratic, because democracy presupposes a basic equality of all citizens, and a guaratee of their rights, that are here violated by the capitalist culture.

In terms of Brazil, we can say that the main corruption of our history is the fact that for almost 500 years, successive oligarchies maintained a great part of the population on the margins, and undertook a process of accumulation of wealth, the highest of the world, to the point that .05% of the population (71,000 persons), control much of the national wealth.

We have scandalous examples of corruption, denounced recently by the so called “Petrolao”, the Zealots and the Panama Papers. But, let’s not deceive ourselves. There are still worse things. The National Union of Attorneys of the National Treasury, in its “Evasionometro”, revealed that in only five months in 2015,  200 billon reales were lost to tax evasion, (Antônio Lassance, in Carta Maior 05/02/2015). This is more than was lost in “Petrolao”, and in just 5 months. This is where the biggest corrupters and the corrupted, who are always seeking to hide, can be found.

Roberto Pompeu de Toledo put it well in 1994 in the Veja Magazine: «We now know that corruption is as much a part of our power structure as rice and beans are part of our diet».

The impeachment pf President Dilma Rousseff will be recorded in this logic of corruption that empowered much of the political cast. What is being done to President Rousseff is an injustice without measure: condemning an innocent woman and an honest President.

History will not forgive them. Their biographies will carry the stigma of being golpistas, worthy of a sovereign revulsion by those who seek ethical and transparent paths for our country.

Leonardo Boff is ecotheologian and member of the Earthcharta Comission

Free translation from the Spanish sent by

Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar.

Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Uma santa que não acreditava em Deus

Tudo é político mas o político não é tudo. Há outras dimensões na vida que merecem a nossa atenção e que nos levam a refletir sobre a condição humana, mesmo de pessoas  que consideramos santas.Quero me referir  à noite escura que a recém canonizada Madre Teresa de Calcultá viveu e sofreu desde 1948 até a sua morte em 1997. Temos os testemunhos recolhidos pelo postulador de sua causa, o canadense Brian Kolodiejchuk num livro Come Be My Light (Venha, seja a minha luz).

Como é notório, Madre Teresa vivia em Calcutá recolhendo moribundos das ruas para que morressem humanamente dentro de uma casa e cercados de pessoas. Fazia-o com extremo carinho e completa abnegação. Tudo indicava que o fazia a partir de uma profunda experiência de Deus.

Qual não é a nossa surpresa, quando viemos saber de seu profundo desamparo interior, verdadeira noite sem estrelas e sem esperança de um sol nascente. Essa paixão dolorosa durou por quase 50 anos até a sua morte. Já em agosto de 1959 escrevia a um de seus diretores espirituais:”Em minha própria alma sinto uma dor terrível. Sinto que Deus não me quer, que Deus não é Deus e que Ele verdadeiramente não existe”.

Numa outra ocasião escreveu:”Há tanta contradição em minha alma: um profundo anelo de Deus, tão profundo que me faz mal; um sofrimento contínuo e com ele o sentimento de não ser querida por Deus, rejeitada, vazia, sem fé, sem amor, sem cuidado; o céu não significa nada para mim, parece-me um lugar vazio”.

Sabemos que muitos místicos testemuham esta experiência de obscuridade. Constatamo-lo em São João da Cruz, em Santa Teresa D’Avila, em Santa Teresa de Lisieux, entre outros. Esta última, tão meiga e expressão da mística das coisas cotidianas, escreveu em seu Diário de uma Alma:” Não creio na vida eterna; parece-me que depois desta vida mortal, não existe nada: tudo desapareceu para mim, não me resta senão o amor”.

Conhecida é a noite escura de São João da Cruz, tão bem expressa em seu poema “La noche oscura”. Ele distingue duas noites escuras: uma, a noite dos sentidos pela qual a alma vive sem consolos espirituais e numa severa secura interior. A outra é a noite do espírito “oscura y terrible” na qual a alma já não consegue crer em Deus, chega a duvidar de sua existência e se sente condenada ao inferno.

Especialmente a modernidade, centrada em si mesma e perdida dentro imenso aparato tecnológico que criou, vive também esta ausência de Deus que Nietzsche qualificou como “a morte de Deus”. Não que Deus tenha morrido, porque então ele não seria Deus. Mas é o fato de que nós o matamos, vale dizer: ele não é mais um centro de referência e de sentido. Vivemos errantes, sós e sem esperança.

Dietrich Bonhöffer, teólogo mártir do nazismo, captou esta experiência, aconselhando-nos a viver “como se Deus não existisse” (etsi Deus non daretur). Mas vivendo no amor, no serviço aos demais e no cultivo da solidariedade e do cuidado essencial. Pois esses são os valores sob os quais Deus se esconde. Quem os vive, mesmo sem o saber, está em Deus.

Suspeitamos que Jesus conheceu esta noite terrível. No Jardim das Oliveiras sentiu-se tão só e angustiado que chegou a suar sangue, expressão suprema do pavor. No alto da cruz, grita ao céu:”Pai, por que me abandonaste?” Não obstante essa ausência de Deus, se entrega confiante: “Pai, em tuas mãos entrego meu espírito”. Despojou-se de tudo. A resposta veio na forma da ressurreição como a plenitude da vida.

A noite escura de Madre Teresa a ponto de dizer:”Deus verdadeiramente não existe” nos deixa uma interrogação teológica. Ela descompõe todas as nossas representações de Deus. “Deus ninguém jamais viu”atestam as Escrituras. Portanto, não há como descrevê-lo. E quando o tentamos é apenas  o “nosso saber não sabendo, toda ciência transcendendo” no dizer de São João da Cruz. Crer em Deus não é aderir a uma doutrina ou dogma. Crer é uma atitude e um modo de ser no mundo com os outros, no amor, na solidariedade e no perdão; é aderir à uma esperança que é “a convicção das realidades que não se veem”(Hebreus 11,1), porque o invisível é parte do visível. Crer é a coragem de amar o invisível pois ele esconde o sentido secreto e último de todas as coisas. Crer é uma aposta no dizer de Pascal que conheceu também a sua noite escura, uma aposta que a vida vale mais que os bens materiais, que a luz tem mais direito que as trevas e que ao sentido cabe a última página da vida e da história.

Simone Weil, a judia que, na última guerra, se converteu ao cristianismo mas não se deixou batizar em solidariedade a seus irmãos condenados às câmaras de gás, nos dá uma pista de compreensão sobre onde encontrar Deus mesmo no meio da mais absoluta escuridão como aquela de Madre Teresa e de tantos homens e mulheres espirituais que vem um tormento interior: “Se quiseres saber se alguém crê de Deus, não repare como fala de Deus mas como fala do mundo”, se fala na forma da solidariedade, do amor e da compaixão. Deus não pode ser encontrado fora destes valores. Quem os vive está na direção dele e junto dele mesmo que o negue .

Madre Teresa de Calcutá, em sua noite escura, mas cheia de amor aos moribundos, estava em comunhão com o Deus abscôndito. Agora que já se transfigurou viverá em plena luz e saboreará a presença de Deus face a face na mais profunda intimidade e na comunhão sem fim.

Leonardo Boff é teólogo e articulista do JB on line