In light of recent events in Brazil surrounding the election of far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro as President, CSMCH co-hosted a discussion with Edinburgh University Amnesty International to discuss Brazil’s future and the historical trajectory of Latin America more broadly. The discussion was chaired by Jake Blanc (Lecturer in Latin American History and CSMCH Steering Committee member) and consisted of a panel comprised of Emile Chabal (Reader in History and CSMCH Director), Maya Mablin (Lecturer in Social Anthropology) and Raquel Ribeiro (Lecturer in Portuguese). Mathew Nicolson reports.
Maya began by speaking about her research in the North East of Brazil, a regional stronghold for former President Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party (PT) which voted strongly against Bolsonaro in October’s election. Reporting on views from the region, she described the sense that Bolsonaro merely represented elite interests and came to power without any meaningful agenda, relying instead on the language of violence and Christian values to win the election. Such appeals were ‘cheap and easy,’ allowing Bolsonaro to eschew a detailed policy agenda which would tackle the social and economic problems facing Brazil today. Of these, Maya pointed to a mounting crisis in Brazilian healthcare, exacerbated by an exodus of Cuban doctors from the North-East in response to Bolsonaro’s virulent anti-Cuban and anti-Communist stances.
Broader trends in Latin American history were the focus of Raquel’s contribution. She described the ‘pink tide’ of the late 1990s and early 2000s whereby socialist leaders came to power across the continent. However, during the last few years this tide has seen a dramatic rollback, with Brazil only the latest example of a Latin American electorate electing a right-wing leader after similar results in Argentina, Chile and Columbia, although Bolsonaro remains the most extreme of these figures. Raquel explained how these geopolitical dynamics have led Venezuela, now facing a collapsing economy and mass emigration, to become a scapegoat for many of the continent’s right-wing movements; Bolsonaro regularly compared the PT to Venezuela, referring to both as ‘the enemy.’ Consequently, Latin American electorates have become polarised along a left-right axis. Only in Mexico has this resulted in the election of a leftist after Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s landslide victory earlier this year.
Emile added to the discussion by drawing several parallels from his own research in France, India and across Latin America. While France has so far rejected the far-right, he suggested India’s recent history may provide an insight into Brazil’s immediate future. Since coming to power in 2014, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has utilised religious rhetoric to shore up its popularity and attacked institutions where it might find opposition to its rule, especially – as in Brazil – universities. Indeed, support for mob violence has been a hallmark of several recently-elected authoritarian leaders. Most notably, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte has been accused of allowing death squads to conduct thousands of killings as part of his ongoing drug war. Based on his campaign rhetoric, there is a real risk that Bolsonaro will allow Brazil to fall into a similar pattern of escalating, state-sponsored violence.
Finally, Jake explored the implications of the PT’s rise and fall on Bolsonaro’s election. After emerging as a vehicle for defending workers’ rights during and immediately after the military dictatorship, in power from 1964-85, the PT went on to win an unprecedented streak of election victories between 2002 and 2014. However, in doing so, it consolidated a cult of personality around Luiz “Lula” Inácio da Silva and failed to sustain grassroots development during its period in power. Thus, after Lula’s imprisonment on corruption charges earlier this year, a leadership vacuum emerged. The PT’s presidential candidate Fernando Haddad failed to establishe himself as a substantial candidate, in part due to his own decision to bind his campaign to Lula’s image in the hope of benefitting from the former President’s popularity. Jake therefore suggested that Bolsonaro’s victory may have been as much a vote against the PT as it was an endorsement of his own candidacy and worldview.
During the discussion period, perhaps reflecting a sense of external shock and surprise at Bolsonaro’s victory, much of the conversation was spent attempting to explain the election result. Corruption was frequently raised as a crucial factor that reduced the electorate’s trust in both the PT and its more conventional right-wing and neoliberal opponents, allowing Bolsonaro to present himself as an alternative option untainted by recent scandals. Successive governments’ failures to deal with crime was also suggested as an element in the appeal of Bolsonaro’s hardline stance on law and order.
Political connections with the United States were also highlighted, most prominently through social media and think-tanks such as the right-wing Atlas Network. Other contributions focused on the underlying contempt for the working class which Bolsonaro merely gave voice to rather than created, in addition to the role of democracy in exacerbating rather than healing communal tensions.
The discussion underlined the importance for those of us outside Brazil to remain informed about the unfolding situation and to stand against erosions of human rights, particularly regarding minority groups and academic and journalistic freedoms. Fortunately, Amnesty International provided an immediate opportunity to do so by organising a group photo in solidarity with groups and individuals threatened by Bolsonaro’s presidency.
More information on Edinburgh University Amnesty International’s campaigns and activities, among which Brazil and Latin America will likely continue to remain prominent, can be found on their Facebook page and Twitter account.
Mathew Nicolson is a PhD student in Scottish History. His research interests focus on the politics and culture of postwar Scotland with particular emphases on its ‘peripheral’ island groups and imperial connections. His thesis explores the politics of culture, identity and constitutional change in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles from 1969 to 1999. He is a CSMCH steering committee member.