Brazil Under the Far Right | Idelber Avelar

Institute for Ethnic Studies Author

11/17/2021 Added

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Idelber Avelar gives the talk "Brazil Under the Far Right".

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[00:00:02.340]Joy Castro: How about now okay excellent.
[00:00:08.849]Joy Castro: Wonderful well good afternoon or evening everyone and welcome I am Joy Castro and I direct the Institute for Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.
[00:00:20.720]Joy Castro: The Institute for Ethnic Studies, an interdisciplinary academic unit focusing on indigenous and racial justice comprises 2010 year line faculty members.
[00:00:32.520]Joy Castro: and offers two majors seven miners and graduate specializations at the masters and PhD levels as well as co curricular events like this one throughout the year.
[00:00:44.190]Joy Castro: Our Institute will celebrate its 50th anniversary next spring, with a lineup of terrific events, including a keynote lecture by historian keyshia blaine author of until I am free Fannie Lou hammers and during message to America forthcoming from beacon next month.
[00:01:03.900]Joy Castro: On Thursday October 14 at 6pm central you can join institute faculty members and graduate students and the dean of nebraska college of law for a discussion on zoom.
[00:01:16.920]Joy Castro: What is critical race theory anyway, and why do politicians care, I will drop the link in the chat now, if you would like to join us.
[00:01:33.840]Joy Castro: Each fall the Institute brings a visiting distinguished fellow to teach a one week one credit hour graduate course ethnic studies 890.
[00:01:42.750]Joy Castro: In an area that our own faculty members don't cover in order to enrich the experience of ul graduate students from across the disciplines.
[00:01:51.900]Joy Castro: This week renowned International expert, Professor it'll there of a lot of tulane University in New Orleans is teaching the course AmerIndian perspectives which I have already heard one ul doctoral student described as mind blowing.
[00:02:08.010]Joy Castro: In a moment, my colleague Dr Ingrid Robin a marvelous scholar of Latin American literature's and an assistant professor in latinx and Latin American studies and modern languages and literature's.
[00:02:20.040]Joy Castro: will introduce Dr avelar whose lecture is supported in part by generous donations to the Ralph hv he'll seminar series fund and we'd particularly like to thank donor Miguel carranza a past director of our Institute for his contribution.
[00:02:37.350]Joy Castro: And if I could just pause for a moment of real talk most of you know that only a small portion of public higher education is now publicly funded by taxpayer dollars.
[00:02:48.540]Joy Castro: Events like our lecture this evening are made possible by the supportive donors people, just like you value our work for indigenous and racial justice and donate small or large amounts to see that it continues.
[00:03:02.160]Joy Castro: I will drop a link in the chat so you can look at the possibilities for you to have a role in ensuring the future of our work, there are some really beautiful opportunities there.
[00:03:14.940]Joy Castro: i'll just finish by saying that land acknowledgments are insufficient, but they are a start.
[00:03:23.100]Joy Castro: And so we acknowledge and honor the pawnee Wonka odo mazria omaha Dakota lakota arapaho cheyenne and call people's as well as the relocated whole chunk.
[00:03:37.770]Joy Castro: iowa and SAC and fox peoples upon whose homelands now reside, the campuses and programs of the University of nebraska a land grant institution and we recognize the legacies of violence displacement and survival that bring us all here today.
[00:03:57.720]Joy Castro: Ingrid.
[00:04:01.620]Ingrid Robyn: Thank you joy for your generosity.
[00:04:05.670]Ingrid Robyn: Thank you all for coming good evening Good afternoon, depending on where you were you are right now so i'm here today to introduce our guest Dr DELGADO avila and I would like to start by thanking him for making time to be here with us this week, and especially today.
[00:04:23.610]Ingrid Robyn: At this busy time of the Semester, so I will make a very brief introduction that not make justice to his wonderful.
[00:04:33.450]Ingrid Robyn: work as color and then we will proceed with his presentation at the end of the presentation, there will be a Q amp a section that you can already see there where you can post questions.
[00:04:46.530]Ingrid Robyn: and Dr joy caster and I will choose a few questions for Dr are allowed to answer, so let me start with the presentation.
[00:04:57.270]Ingrid Robyn: Dr avila received his PhD from Duke university and he's a renowned scholar in the field of Latin American literature and cultural studies.
[00:05:07.260]Ingrid Robyn: He has an impressive record of publications which includes over 100 articles and an equally impressive record of public lectures delivered all over the globe and it literally mean that.
[00:05:20.580]Ingrid Robyn: Alongside his scholarly work he's also one of the most respected public intellectual intellectuals in Brazil and beyond.
[00:05:28.740]Ingrid Robyn: Having published numerous journalistic pieces and Portuguese, Spanish, English and even Bengali that when I know his translator because, as much as a polyglot hears he does not currently speak Bengali.
[00:05:44.400]Ingrid Robyn: His scholarly work moves from Joyce to cope an hour from blackboard to Pinochet as a good leader Eric Cree he goes way beyond letters themselves.
[00:05:55.020]Ingrid Robyn: Dr avila is the author of several books, including the landmark the untimely present posted Pretoria Latin American efficient and the last task of morning that's by Duke university pressed 1999.
[00:06:08.520]Ingrid Robyn: And the equal influential the letter violence essays on narrative ethics and power by palgrave 2004.
[00:06:16.230]Ingrid Robyn: And these books have been translated to both Spanish and Portuguese in expanded additions, so this is the Spanish one for the second one I mentioned it's quite large compared to the English one.
[00:06:30.870]Ingrid Robyn: doctor Belarus latest book, which relates to today stock is titled anything nos historical antagonism coolidge culebra zero circumvention.
[00:06:40.710]Ingrid Robyn: I will translate that as them in US rhetoric and political antagonism resume the 21st century, which is right here, as you can see, already full of marks.
[00:06:53.460]Ingrid Robyn: This rather provocative and necessary book was published earlier this year by his Torah hackers not to be confused with him to hit core the TV channel and resume and is already in its second edition, the first edition sold out pretty fast.
[00:07:12.960]Ingrid Robyn: The parabola has consistently served as a cultural translator regarding us politics in Brazil, as well as Latin American politics and culture in the international arena.
[00:07:23.460]Ingrid Robyn: He has a very strong presence in the media and has been an outspoken advocate of human rights, indigenous sovereignty and environmental justice in Latin America, the US and the Middle East.
[00:07:35.640]Ingrid Robyn: On a personal note, I got his scholarly work through his first major book, but my admin admiration for him grew through his blog will be scored two female master.
[00:07:47.430]Ingrid Robyn: which was closely followed by thousands of resilience and was a great inspiration in terms of how can we academics put our scholarly knowledge into action and make a concrete interventions society.
[00:08:01.590]Ingrid Robyn: Property there were other last remark more achievements speak not only to his work as established scholar, but also to his commitment as a public intellectual, so please join me in welcoming Dr that we have a lab here at you now.
[00:08:16.440]Idelber Avelar: Thank you, thank you Ingrid for this so generous introduction.
[00:08:23.190]Idelber Avelar: I would like to thank, first of all, the Institute of ethnic studies, particularly Professor Ingrid Robin Professor joy Castro.
[00:08:32.040]Idelber Avelar: and Professor Lisa Danielle who made this happen, this was an invitation that had been made to me right before the pandemic, so the idea was that I would be able to be with you in Lincoln.
[00:08:43.920]Idelber Avelar: The pandemic made that impossible so i'm particularly happy to be with you, virtually at least.
[00:08:52.110]Idelber Avelar: We agreed that I would speak to you for about 50 minutes at the most 55.
[00:08:59.880]Idelber Avelar: In attempting to give you.
[00:09:03.930]Idelber Avelar: A sense of how Brazil has gotten, to the point that we see today.
[00:09:11.520]Idelber Avelar: it's a difficult task, because what I will try to do is to be ample and didactic and clear enough to tell the story to people who are not familiar with Brazil, that I know are also part of the audience.
[00:09:28.350]Idelber Avelar: Or that are not specialists in Brazilian politics, but also at the same time, I hope to be making points and making sense to the specialists who are also in the audience.
[00:09:41.250]Idelber Avelar: And who would like to know my position about particular scholarly debates on Brazil.
[00:09:48.750]Idelber Avelar: So let me start by saying that.
[00:09:52.680]Idelber Avelar: We all I think in this Community and by we I mean the scholarly community and the community of those gathered here today are in agreement, I believe that both somebody small the far right coalition that has governed Brazil, for the past 33 months.
[00:10:12.570]Idelber Avelar: represents unprecedented devastation.
[00:10:16.620]Idelber Avelar: It represents unprecedented devastation in a number of areas, this devastation is visible it's been reported in the press it's clear to millions of Brazilians and it's well known by specialists it's devastation that is environmental sanitary diplomatic.
[00:10:37.320]Idelber Avelar: Political, economic and fundamentally overarching social in many, many ways, Brazil is witnessing today devastation that it has not seen before, even though, let us say, the economy has been worse than it is today, and it's pretty bad today.
[00:10:57.510]Idelber Avelar: Let us say in the period of hyper inflation.
[00:11:01.230]Idelber Avelar: Or, there were periods, where the politics was more authoritarian them today let's say the height of the dictatorship 1971 However, the particular combination of sanitary collapse political collapse social collapse and environmental collapse.
[00:11:19.500]Idelber Avelar: is unprecedented I think we all are in agreement of that on that and I will try to give you a brief description of what that devastation looks like today, that will be a little later on in the beginning, I would like to first of all present to you.
[00:11:35.700]Idelber Avelar: At the risk of oversimplifying things the two schools that explain how this devastation took place.
[00:11:45.030]Idelber Avelar: Because from the fact that we all have agreement that the far right coalition of both one of these represents unprecedented devastation that doesn't mean that there is agreement on what that devastation actually is and specially where that devastation came from.
[00:12:04.950]Idelber Avelar: So, at the risk of oversimplifying, let me just present two schools, and of course there are combinations between those two schools and that are people that are at moments in one at moments in another.
[00:12:17.520]Idelber Avelar: But that are, I believe two ways of understanding the devastation that has overtaken Brazil, since the election of the far right coalition in October November of 2008.
[00:12:32.760]Idelber Avelar: There is a school that sees this catastrophe as emerging from some sort of trick from some sort of fraud from some sort of cool from some sort of original sin.
[00:12:46.530]Idelber Avelar: In the history of the past eight years, or of the past five years, depending on where they locate that original sin that trick that moment when the rules of the game were transgressed.
[00:12:57.540]Idelber Avelar: And were tricked in such a way that after that things went to hell in a handbasket that step school, for example.
[00:13:05.640]Idelber Avelar: If you look at how know em Chomsky just to speak of the foremost representative of this tendency explains the Brazilian prices what you will get is a story of how the Workers Party Government good all these incredible things for poor people and the elites in an insurgency.
[00:13:27.270]Idelber Avelar: Of conspiratorial nature toppled former President Rousseff and undid all those great things.
[00:13:36.240]Idelber Avelar: What I am caricaturing a little bit they don't know.
[00:13:40.710]Idelber Avelar: What Chomsky in fact doesn't tell you, is why did they take 14 years to do it, then, because the Workers Party administration lasted for 14 years in Brazil.
[00:13:52.230]Idelber Avelar: There is a major Brazilian sociologist.
[00:13:56.430]Idelber Avelar: Arguably, the foremost left-wing sociology in Brazil says Sosa.
[00:14:01.980]Idelber Avelar: who argues precisely that point in relation to the corruption investigations named carwash that started at some point in 2014 and progressed towards.
[00:14:15.900]Idelber Avelar: The indictment and later incarceration and former President Lula he locates the original sin there as again an elite conspiracy that turned things around.
[00:14:28.080]Idelber Avelar: Because the previous administration was threatening elite interests that's the first school, the first school locate some sort of original sin some sort of tricking of the rules of the game that have happened in the past seven or eight years that have then led to the catastrophe.
[00:14:50.280]Idelber Avelar: One of the.
[00:14:53.490]Idelber Avelar: manifestations of this school.
[00:14:58.500]Idelber Avelar: planes, for example, that the 2018 election was a fraud was an electoral fraud or was robbed in some sort of way.
[00:15:10.770]Idelber Avelar: There were violations of electrical law in Brazil in 2018 there were, for example, bulk massive distribution is that messages on what's up which.
[00:15:19.710]Idelber Avelar: violate President elect for a law, let us grant that but that doesn't really make the 2018 election any last democratic than the 14 or the 10 or the oh six elections for the old two elections or the 98 election.
[00:15:36.690]Idelber Avelar: The difference in the election is, naturally, that of political force that threatens to destroy democracy, once and for all, was elected.
[00:15:46.710]Idelber Avelar: But the nature of the elections was not any less than the previous one, in fact, one could argue the opposite the power of massive amounts of public money, for example in TV ads was less decisive than in the 14 election.
[00:16:05.040]Idelber Avelar: In any case, my.
[00:16:09.060]Idelber Avelar: alliance or my allegiance, I should say, is with the second school and what the second school.
[00:16:16.770]Idelber Avelar: argues is that both, and it is boom, it is an unprecedented devastation, but it also is the expression of real experiences real antagonisms.
[00:16:31.650]Idelber Avelar: embrace Brazilian society that there's an anthropological truth to what molson it is what does there's a reason why he did merges.
[00:16:38.310]Idelber Avelar: And it does not involve a moment in which malignant political subject strict the rules of the game against political science subjects who work ultimately victims that there is a reason why this far right coalition which represents unprecedented devastation in Brazil triumph in 2018.
[00:17:00.330]Idelber Avelar: I will attempt in the next 40 minutes to describe to you the conditions that lead this far right coalition to triumph, but let me first try to describe what it is.
[00:17:14.130]Idelber Avelar: And many scholars have both on these will have pointed out that it has the form of a mosaic, it has the form of a patchwork.
[00:17:22.470]Idelber Avelar: The patchwork is a collage of social sectors.
[00:17:28.050]Idelber Avelar: That.
[00:17:30.240]Idelber Avelar: are in and of themselves not natural allies, but that saw themselves allied with each other in 2018 in a sort of expression of a patchwork in which all of them had interests.
[00:17:52.920]Idelber Avelar: In this book that I that the that Ingrid related to you and upon which this talk is based, the book that you can get in Portuguese in kindle edition at Amazon and not any other bookstore um.
[00:18:08.370]Idelber Avelar: I argued that that are six parts to this coalition, and I call them parties like political parties, precisely to indicate.
[00:18:19.560]Idelber Avelar: that both of these more represents a collapse, a failure in the Brazilian political party system, so the traditional parties.
[00:18:29.730]Idelber Avelar: represented through these acronyms bmt be PSC be dt these parties have become increasingly less relevant and less important.
[00:18:40.200]Idelber Avelar: One of the one of the characteristics of the Brazilian political system is that there are 30 of them represent more than 30 of them represented in Congress, so the six parts of this coalition that elected.
[00:18:55.140]Idelber Avelar: Again in the normal rules of the game, the Bolsa Nada coalition in.
[00:19:02.280]Idelber Avelar: Were the party of oxen the party of cattle.
[00:19:07.170]Idelber Avelar: The theocratic party.
[00:19:09.930]Idelber Avelar: The militia police party.
[00:19:12.870]Idelber Avelar: The party of order.
[00:19:15.150]Idelber Avelar: The party of the market and the party of Internet Trolls those are the six components of that coalition and i'll try to describe in the next 10 minutes or so what they are.
[00:19:29.820]Idelber Avelar: The party of cattle represents the agro business sector of Brazilian society.
[00:19:37.170]Idelber Avelar: which was the first one really that declared allegiance to both on auto in back in 2013 back in 2014 both or not, it was not the most important name of the Brazilian far right.
[00:19:50.880]Idelber Avelar: There were other people that were more relevant preachers like mama fi mako feliciano these were the stars of the far right back in 2013 2014 in Brasilia Bolsa nado had been a deputy a.
[00:20:07.530]Idelber Avelar: Member of the House of Representatives for 28 years but he was a nobody he had never approved any projects, he never really debated much in legislation, he had been a complete zero.
[00:20:23.430]Idelber Avelar: throughout his career.
[00:20:25.920]Idelber Avelar: But in places such as bibles.
[00:20:32.070]Idelber Avelar: The Center of the rodeo culture of Brazil, he was already a popular figure right.
[00:20:40.290]Idelber Avelar: The second component of the bulls on at Easter patchwork is the theocratic party and by here I don't mean the dozens of millions of Brazilian evangelicals even though both on auto had an astounding when amongst evangelicals in the election of.
[00:20:59.820]Idelber Avelar: I mean the theocratic party in the sense of Chiefs preachers pastors political leaders that are making those churches instrumental in a political project that's why I call them theocratic.
[00:21:14.970]Idelber Avelar: And not evangelical block in Brazil to talk about Congress, for example, people sometimes use the expression evangelical block I don't use it, because it's not all evangelicals.
[00:21:24.990]Idelber Avelar: that are part of this block and it's it's a block that contains Catholics, not many but Catholics are part of it.
[00:21:32.070]Idelber Avelar: Conservative ultra conservative Catholics, the theocratic parties I choose to call it that, because it is, it represents a particular project of taking over the state right it's a theocracy means.
[00:21:47.040]Idelber Avelar: Those two first components of the bolts on these two patchwork bring respectively.
[00:21:54.630]Idelber Avelar: money.
[00:21:57.120]Idelber Avelar: And masses, the party of oxen party of agribusiness brings money.
[00:22:03.630]Idelber Avelar: And the theocratic party brings suburban suburban in Latin America Latin American sense right peripheral peripheral masses of for poor and lower middle class positions.
[00:22:16.710]Idelber Avelar: The interesting thing about those two is that they were never in the opposition during the Center left administration of the Workers Party, on the contrary, the party of agribusiness and the theocratic party, they were.
[00:22:33.930]Idelber Avelar: Very important alliances that allowed lily's mo to manage to administer Brazil for 14 years.
[00:22:43.320]Idelber Avelar: The reason why those blocks sort of.
[00:22:47.430]Idelber Avelar: This big I don't know said this big I don't see this but i'm dead on the, the reason why they came out of the least impact.
[00:22:55.890]Idelber Avelar: And started doing opposition to it is a very complex story it's a story that happens slowly over the past few years and it represents this resentment.
[00:23:07.110]Idelber Avelar: That bruise in within the least impact within the least the coalition within the workers party coalition over the course of 14 years we'll talk more about that, but the third.
[00:23:21.120]Idelber Avelar: The third component of the bolts on ideas to patch work is the original nucleus of Bolsa nado and his family in the West zone of Rio de Janeiro, and that is what I call in Portuguese bachelor the Bali Malaysia.
[00:23:38.400]Idelber Avelar: Police lalique militia party, because what we call militia Brazil is actually you know, organized crime, based on extortion, the providing of security and oftentimes drug trafficking to, even though they emerged to combat drug trafficking.
[00:23:57.960]Idelber Avelar: Those collectives that are responsible for countless acts of atrocity killings, etc, in Rio.
[00:24:06.690]Idelber Avelar: They are composed fundamentally by former policeman, and by former sheriff's and so forth, that.
[00:24:17.970]Idelber Avelar: coalition of State I, and I call it call me Lisa precisely to indicate.
[00:24:25.350]Idelber Avelar: That, if there is inseparable the work of these militias becomes inseparable from the work of law enforcement itself, because these militias, even though they are criminal organizations they're paralegal in every sense, they are also.
[00:24:41.970]Idelber Avelar: Arms arms arms arms weapons of the state.
[00:24:49.740]Idelber Avelar: In so far as they are filled with politician interests with former policeman with former sheriff's and so on and so forth that's that's where the boats on our family comes from.
[00:25:03.270]Idelber Avelar: And that is the sort of nucleus of organized crime, from which the family springs, and they started, you know electing himself and electing his his sons.
[00:25:12.930]Idelber Avelar: deputies and city councilmen and and eventually even senators.
[00:25:18.180]Idelber Avelar: The fourth the fourth component.
[00:25:21.660]Idelber Avelar: Of the balsam at east of patchwork is the car wash investigation that call it the party of order.
[00:25:28.140]Idelber Avelar: And it's also connected with the judicial system, just like the party of of beliefs militia.
[00:25:34.320]Idelber Avelar: But it's now the sector of the party of order that knows how to use fork and knife and know how to use Italian expressions or French expressions and it's represented by basically federal police.
[00:25:49.740]Idelber Avelar: investigators and ministerial public who Members, that is to say, the members of the judiciary, the upper Echelon of the judiciary.
[00:26:03.090]Idelber Avelar: Which during the Lula years and even the enemies of the Workers Party administration's recognize this during the lawyers gained a lot of autonomy, a lot of freedom to act and better working conditions that sector of the judiciary.
[00:26:22.710]Idelber Avelar: becomes the representative of the ways in which the Brazilian political system and the Brazilian elites respond to the Brazilian spring to the Brazilian movement of.
[00:26:34.200]Idelber Avelar: insurgent masses that happened in June of 2013 that investigation creates it's built upon the creation of that cost and it reinforces that cost when the anti corruption.
[00:26:50.280]Idelber Avelar: Measures of the carwash investigation and prison, the imprisonment of politicians begins to give Brazilian society, the shoe songs the enjoyment of seeing for the first time the theft of political money being of public money being punished with prison.
[00:27:11.280]Idelber Avelar: However, that block of those four elements it could never have been elected, without some sort of sanction in the so called market.
[00:27:24.720]Idelber Avelar: There there needed to be somebody to sign off on that coalition in the market to sort of sell both sonatas credentials to the market or that coalition would not have been electable I don't think.
[00:27:42.600]Idelber Avelar: Those are difficult credentials, those were difficult pretentious to sell because also natl had never been a free marketer.
[00:27:49.710]Idelber Avelar: In fact, he was all the opposite, he was there in Congress basically to protect the pensions and extraordinary privileges of the military in their pension funds in there, for example, pensions to unmarried daughters of the military so on and so forth.
[00:28:08.460]Idelber Avelar: And he had voted against the the play him that eventually stabilized Brazilian economy, the reality plan.
[00:28:18.360]Idelber Avelar: He actually had a patrimony list voting record, he was no liberal know classic liberal.
[00:28:27.240]Idelber Avelar: But one, Brazilian economist with transit in the market with transit and financial market.
[00:28:35.970]Idelber Avelar: took up that task and that's follow gadgets still today, the Ministry of the economy and he is this is really the only party, the only block of the Boston ad stuff patchwork that is represented by one man, he went out and basically.
[00:28:57.690]Idelber Avelar: subscribes to the bonanno candidacy and as the President elites we're looking for their their ideal candidate.
[00:29:06.450]Idelber Avelar: In the 2018 elections, none of those ideal candidates would take off into pools, and they eventually chose or landed on on the lap of However, you want to phrase, it also not that's the party of the market, the fifth now.
[00:29:24.300]Idelber Avelar: This coalition would never have won the election if they spoke with the language of the party of the market if they spoke like follow gauges.
[00:29:32.730]Idelber Avelar: They would never have won won the election, obviously, because the Brazilian electric may be very conservative in.
[00:29:39.060]Idelber Avelar: behavioral questions and cultural questions, but it is, it tends to be very progressive in social economic matters most Brazilians are in favor of universal.
[00:29:48.600]Idelber Avelar: free education most Brazilians are in favor of single payer health system which you already have in Brazil, the suits the universal health system which is public and free.
[00:30:01.440]Idelber Avelar: Mostly Brazilians are in favor of.
[00:30:05.640]Idelber Avelar: a hefty minimum wage, and so on and so forth right.
[00:30:10.680]Idelber Avelar: So speaking neoliberal language would not have won both on out of this election so where the language come from.
[00:30:19.230]Idelber Avelar: And this is part of what I tried to do in the book, which is to describe that language he comes from one particular block which I called.
[00:30:26.970]Idelber Avelar: In Portuguese by cheadle do strolls the party of Internet Trolls and here there's an explanation of what a troll really is there's a misconception that a troll is somebody who.
[00:30:40.500]Idelber Avelar: kicks the door of a virtual house and insults you and yells etc a troll can be that.
[00:30:46.860]Idelber Avelar: But what really characterizes the troll is the intervention in a conversation with the purpose of dynamite in the conditions of possibility of that conversation.
[00:31:00.000]Idelber Avelar: That is what a troll is right, this army usually they usually attack impacts this army that is constantly asking for sources, making a false claim to distract you.
[00:31:14.670]Idelber Avelar: Going in a complete tangent to deviate you from the matter at hand the asking for your credentials in such a way as the conversation becomes impossible and in the Brazilian Internet there was for quite some time brewing a movement of people of all kinds.
[00:31:40.530]Idelber Avelar: monarchists flat earth folks in cells.
[00:31:48.780]Idelber Avelar: Ultra right wing students of.
[00:31:54.210]Idelber Avelar: Right wing guru level ticket value.
[00:31:57.780]Idelber Avelar: All these tribes that were completely off the radar of the Brazilian social sciences, with a few exceptions, of a few researchers.
[00:32:07.980]Idelber Avelar: i'm eventually produced the language that would lead, both on auto to power.
[00:32:16.830]Idelber Avelar: Again in I I insist in an election, there was not any less democratic than the previous ones, so why that so, then the question becomes and then it is really the question.
[00:32:30.120]Idelber Avelar: That has occupied scholars and that every Brazilian in a way, in one way or another, has asked in the past few years How did we end up here in our terms here, why did.
[00:32:44.820]Idelber Avelar: That particular coalition that particular patchwork created.
[00:32:51.690]Idelber Avelar: The conditions for its triumph in 2018.
[00:32:56.190]Idelber Avelar: And why was it able to win.
[00:33:00.720]Idelber Avelar: That is the second half of the talk, which starts now and how did it happen.
[00:33:13.110]Idelber Avelar: When I tried to describe the Brazilian political system to folks that are from Spanish America I usually make a distinction that I think easy for non specialists to understand, which is.
[00:33:26.850]Idelber Avelar: Unlike, for example, Central America or Columbia, which have had traditionally a binary political system Liberals versus conservatives and that binary organizes the political field.
[00:33:38.340]Idelber Avelar: Unlike chili which has had traditionally a dry attic political system, the right wing left wing and the Christian Democracy in the middle.
[00:33:49.290]Idelber Avelar: In that triad organizes the political field, unlike Argentina, where at least since the early 20th century one major political force.
[00:33:59.700]Idelber Avelar: organizes the entire political field around itself, like the radical is of the first half of the 20th century right, the liberals and bid on these most since then.
[00:34:14.040]Idelber Avelar: In Brazil, the rule has been that political antagonisms are exiled to a door to a room of closed doors, where those antagonisms are negotiated in backs that rely primarily on forgetfulness that rely primarily on amnesia packs that are predicated on.
[00:34:40.650]Idelber Avelar: blackmail.
[00:34:43.320]Idelber Avelar: i'm.
[00:34:47.040]Idelber Avelar: The veto power of the members of those coalition's and the negotiations behind closed doors.
[00:34:55.530]Idelber Avelar: That means that, for example.
[00:34:58.620]Idelber Avelar: No political party in Brazil, since the democratisation of the 80s ever elects the President with the majority in Congress, the majority in Congress is constructed April stereo story, as if you were in a parliamentary system right.
[00:35:14.490]Idelber Avelar: What that creates is a an immense block and Portuguese would call it syndrome an immense block.
[00:35:22.590]Idelber Avelar: That has no political color it's not the Center it has no political color so that's why I call it sin stones the Sentinel was not the Center.
[00:35:29.460]Idelber Avelar: The same town can be the Li of let's doing government have a right wing government of any kind of government, because they are there to protect their own interests and to reproduce the system.
[00:35:39.060]Idelber Avelar: right they sell their political support April stare yori as the government is being arranged, of course, that could be changed that could be reformed, with the political reform.
[00:35:49.620]Idelber Avelar: And when the Workers Party was elected when Lula was elected in 2002 being inaugurated 2003 the expectation was that the Workers Party was going to carry out that reform.
[00:36:03.570]Idelber Avelar: Instead, the arrangement, the arrangement remained more or less the same that arrangement has been described by me.
[00:36:14.580]Idelber Avelar: These with that words that I asked you please joy or Ingrid to circulate it to people that word basically describes this arrangement, according to which Brazilian democracy functions.
[00:36:33.030]Idelber Avelar: By.
[00:36:35.160]Idelber Avelar: exiling all political antagonisms to a closed room where.
[00:36:42.210]Idelber Avelar: Those political antagonisms will be processed in a corruption machine, they will be processed in a machine that basically produces packs.
[00:36:53.310]Idelber Avelar: That rely on.
[00:36:55.470]Idelber Avelar: buying out and blackmailing the other members of the coalition as a self sustaining system right.
[00:37:03.180]Idelber Avelar: It doesn't change from the Center right ministrations have been underway, he could got those when the 1990s.
[00:37:11.400]Idelber Avelar: To the central left administration's of presidents Lula and Dilma in the 2000s until 2016.
[00:37:20.280]Idelber Avelar: Those arrangements remained in such a way that all of these oligarchs that are in this block of blackmailers.
[00:37:30.150]Idelber Avelar: They played roles in the cardozo government and they played roles in the lumen government Homeowners who are.
[00:37:37.020]Idelber Avelar: The great oligarchic leader of the state of whole Dima was the leader of the cardozo government was the leader of the Lula government, I could go on and on, with a list of infinite list of political bosses that served in both governments.
[00:37:53.670]Idelber Avelar: That arrangement collapses in Brazil that arrangement collapses, and it collapses over the course of many years with many things happening between the beginning of that collapse.
[00:38:06.990]Idelber Avelar: And the election of the far right coalition eight years unfold between the first signs that there was inflation that there was the fiscal crisis until in 2013 Brazil lives it's Arab Spring right under President Dilma Brazil lived the most multitudinous.
[00:38:31.380]Idelber Avelar: protests of its history, they were not against the government of President doma they were not.
[00:38:40.350]Idelber Avelar: The multitudes of 2015 we're yelling for the impeachment of recently re elected president doma but the multitudes of 2013 they were a varied.
[00:38:53.580]Idelber Avelar: Collection of demands from society that included the militarization of police the legalization of drugs, better public services, less spending in in.
[00:39:06.060]Idelber Avelar: Grandiose events like the World Cup hank going hand in hand with the beginnings of the right wing understanding of what corruption was they were also represented in the streets.
[00:39:18.660]Idelber Avelar: My own thesis is that.
[00:39:21.720]Idelber Avelar: If you have to look for a moment in which things took a turn and led to a sequence of events that was no longer in a healthy democratic direction, one would have to go back to how the political system responded to peaceful immense protests in June and July and August of 2013.
[00:39:53.070]Idelber Avelar: The repression of those protests was uniform with brutal doesn't matter if it was the state administration of the Workers Party Center left or the state of beneficent of the PSD be the Center right.
[00:40:07.710]Idelber Avelar: In all states and led by all political parties, the present a political system basically responded in two prong fashion.
[00:40:19.230]Idelber Avelar: severe repression criminalization of protests jailing of protesters and a lot of violence.
[00:40:29.280]Idelber Avelar: And on the other hand, a parliamentary executive response that simply took the motto of anti corruption.
[00:40:41.460]Idelber Avelar: and implemented it in punitive fashion and a number of laws were voted about collaboration with the police about anti corruption strategies and so on and so forth, that led.
[00:40:54.030]Idelber Avelar: To what we call the carwash investigations, the Brazilian political system chose to or was not able to converse with very reasonable and relatively clear demands that were coming from the body politic and the response was repression and the penal capturing.
[00:41:20.760]Idelber Avelar: Of those desires right those and masturbatory desires were progressively being captured by the punitive penal machine of the state.
[00:41:33.840]Idelber Avelar: And Brazilian society supported it, it wasn't a sight of became increasingly enthusiastic about that punitive machine because, yes, the corruption that it was pointing out had indeed happened.
[00:41:48.120]Idelber Avelar: Even though President Lula was never guilty in the sense that they decreed um and.
[00:41:56.730]Idelber Avelar: what they were doing was in fact being cheered by a substantial substantial majority of Brazilian society right so at that point um the streets of Brazil would become something else the streets of Brazil would become something else, and when the President is reelected.
[00:42:19.980]Idelber Avelar: In 2014 with a strongly left wing discourse with on on on the shoulders of a massive defamation campaign against black Amazonian environmentalist candidate Medina Silva.
[00:42:33.930]Idelber Avelar: and promising that, unlike the then understood as ultra right wing candidate is humanity's she would not privatized anything, she would not take away any rights so forth.
[00:42:46.320]Idelber Avelar: She was reinvigorated and proceeded to do with exactly what she had accused her Center right opponent planning to do then.
[00:42:59.070]Idelber Avelar: hell broke loose and millions literally millions took to the streets and beginning in January, beginning in March 15 2015, that is to say 75 days after per second inauguration is President.
[00:43:15.600]Idelber Avelar: At that point, a political crisis that unfolds, and over the course of 18 months leads to her impeachment proceedings um but at that point Brazilian political the presenting political system had already collapsed that way of managing antagonisms.
[00:43:35.820]Idelber Avelar: That had been.
[00:43:39.840]Idelber Avelar: valid since the early 1990s had collapsed.
[00:43:45.870]Idelber Avelar: In its in the ability to express the real antagonisms of Brazilian society because those real antagonisms that existence decide that are part of the body politic they are excellent.
[00:43:57.780]Idelber Avelar: To close, door rooms, where the politics of me to be more take place right i'm the clash.
[00:44:08.880]Idelber Avelar: Or the shattering of that political system leads or creates the conditions that allow for some of these more to emerge in 2018 but why this form right, why does it take this form that both and it takes.
[00:44:27.600]Idelber Avelar: It is, for example, filled with people who have perfectly social democratic views of what education and health should look like.
[00:44:36.630]Idelber Avelar: And they voted for Bolsa nado it's filled with people who are, let us say.
[00:44:43.350]Idelber Avelar: middle class enlightened university folks who voted for both right, it is filled with lower income populations that have been severely damaged by the far right government in the past 33 years 33 years, God forbid.
[00:45:06.510]Idelber Avelar: The best 33 months right um, why do they vote for both right and then again we go back to the beginning of the talk and i'm going to lead to my conclusion will open up the Q amp a.
[00:45:21.480]Idelber Avelar: It does, because it comes to represent to millions of Brazilians the very possibility of antagonizing the very possibility of a real antagonism.
[00:45:35.070]Idelber Avelar: And this is the difference between both one of the formal rhetorical differences between both of these more than any other political current in Brazil, both on it will needs antagonism 100% of the time.
[00:45:50.970]Idelber Avelar: It needs to have an enemy 100% of the time it needs to attack 100% of the time it needs to be attacking somebody.
[00:46:00.720]Idelber Avelar: 100% of the time, why because it was its historic vocation, so to speak, was to represent antagonism in the ruins of a political system that had not been able to translate these antagonisms in healthy democratic fashion.
[00:46:18.120]Idelber Avelar: Let me just describe to you what that inability looks like in a in a very simple.
[00:46:23.760]Idelber Avelar: In a very simple particularity of the Brazilian political system in Brazil, we have, for example, we've have had until very recently.
[00:46:37.200]Idelber Avelar: coalition's in proportionate elections, that is to say coalition's in elections for City Council people or for the House of Representatives.
[00:46:47.280]Idelber Avelar: In state and federal levels, that means that, in the mess of political alliances that you see in the country, you often see, for example, the PT the Workers Party.
[00:47:00.450]Idelber Avelar: allied with BP Progressive Party, who is not progressive at all it's ultra right wing party filled with theocratic preachers and so forth.
[00:47:12.150]Idelber Avelar: That alliance, however, often happened throughout the 21st century, because it's satisfied local interest of political bosses that creates a system in which you may very well vote for a Workers Party LGBT leader and help elect a theocratic preacher of the of the Progressive Party right.
[00:47:38.040]Idelber Avelar: That is the behemoth that has made Brazilian political system function for the past 30 years and that collapsed under its own ability to respond to real democratic.
[00:47:56.400]Idelber Avelar: desires expressed in the streets of 2013.
[00:48:01.560]Idelber Avelar: In the Brazilian Arab Spring.
[00:48:06.210]Idelber Avelar: This is just one example of how real political antagonisms, just like the one I used with the LGBT leader and the theocratic preacher.
[00:48:16.470]Idelber Avelar: Real antagonisms that exists in society that have traditionally been represented through political parties in a somewhat stable system in mature democracies.
[00:48:29.430]Idelber Avelar: And then have represented themselves in binary or try attic systems that are relatively stable in America, when there is no dictatorship, have not really been the rule in Brazil, so what we are witnessing is also the collapse of a political system.
[00:48:46.170]Idelber Avelar: That was not able to translate real antagonisms existing in society in.
[00:48:55.170]Idelber Avelar: Healthy democratic fashion.
[00:49:00.870]Idelber Avelar: Both another knows that he's the product of very unique and particular circumstances, he knows this.
[00:49:10.080]Idelber Avelar: There is a there's an interview he gives to none de moda who is ultra right wing youtuber who speak, who spoke at that time already to millions of people, a million people on YouTube.
[00:49:22.950]Idelber Avelar: He said something like this, like if I keep if I keep or he had this idea if I keep the militia police people from Rio with me and I keep the agro business folks who already like me and plus the church people.
[00:49:41.910]Idelber Avelar: Plus, the Internet, the only thing missing is somebody to sign me off on the market, and he got that he got that Impala gadgets, the result was a victory that was very improbable it reminds one and that connection has been made before me i'm not the first make it.
[00:50:00.990]Idelber Avelar: There reminds one of Karl marx's classic right the 18th premiere of Louisiana path, which is a book that attempts to explain how bona bona about the third right the louie louie.
[00:50:15.060]Idelber Avelar: emerges, even though he's an idiot it's precisely because he's an idiot a sort of tabula rasa avoided of content that he's able to express.
[00:50:26.730]Idelber Avelar: That particular.
[00:50:29.490]Idelber Avelar: idiosyncratic circumstantial event.
[00:50:34.830]Idelber Avelar: And that's why he was elected, now the consequences of it and that's the description of the.
[00:50:42.150]Idelber Avelar: The final 910 minutes of the talk the consequences of this have been catastrophic to an unprecedented degree.
[00:50:53.730]Idelber Avelar: millions and millions of Brazilians are hungry again.
[00:50:59.460]Idelber Avelar: Dozens of millions have gone back to living under the poverty line above which they weren't till recently.
[00:51:08.760]Idelber Avelar: The Amazon.
[00:51:11.160]Idelber Avelar: entered into a phase in which the previous destruction became peanuts, because now we have reached the point where even the agro business.
[00:51:22.440]Idelber Avelar: sector of the coalition that is even the Minister of Agriculture named, it is a Christina is worried about the fanatical ultra right.
[00:51:33.930]Idelber Avelar: Destruction of the Amazon, which is bad for business, the business needs some destruction, the Amazon, but not to the extent that it's being done in the past 33 months because it's bad for the image of Brazil it's bad for business, so we have reached the unprecedented situation.
[00:51:52.200]Idelber Avelar: that the Minister of Agriculture is doing the business that should be the business of the Ministry of the Environment our Minister of the Environment is.
[00:52:03.240]Idelber Avelar: A criminal involved with the worst projects of devastation in the Amazon.
[00:52:09.780]Idelber Avelar: So the environmental devastation is unprecedented, even though it has been pretty bad for 500 years.
[00:52:18.360]Idelber Avelar: The diplomatic collapse is.
[00:52:22.140]Idelber Avelar: One of the most tragic aspects of it all, because as a Brazilian and those Brazilians who travel around the world that are in the audience can can attest to this.
[00:52:30.510]Idelber Avelar: As a President, we are, we are used to being very well received, we are used to being able to participate.
[00:52:38.520]Idelber Avelar: In conversations between Mexicans and US Americans between Israelis and Palestinians between Iranians and US Americans, and now we have had.
[00:52:49.530]Idelber Avelar: In one of the most respected diplomatic houses in the world, the Brazilian a sort of ultra right wing fanatical 13th century type of mentality taking over and leading the country to become an international pariah.
[00:53:09.570]Idelber Avelar: The sanitary collapse is obviously unprecedented Brazil is almost the leader of world of deaths by kuvan and it is the most catastrophic handling of the pandemic.
[00:53:23.190]Idelber Avelar: If you consider the point at which the country was, and it was and what he was already capable of doing with its excellent universal public health system.
[00:53:37.860]Idelber Avelar: The.
[00:53:40.440]Idelber Avelar: Judicial collapse has included the Attorney General.
[00:53:47.460]Idelber Avelar: And the public prosecutor, the Federal public prosecutor being completely captured by the far right coalition and.
[00:53:56.700]Idelber Avelar: Basically, become instruments in the president's desire to stop the investigations against his sons.
[00:54:06.480]Idelber Avelar: His sons and himself, are we all know, involved in a practice, at least in the practice called harsh genia a form of corruption in which a deputy or city councilman hires a number of assistance with public money.
[00:54:23.430]Idelber Avelar: and demands that those assistance return part of the money to them in exchange for not work right that practice is financed the sort of small peanuts corruption that is it the origin of societies.
[00:54:41.190]Idelber Avelar: is now being investigated by sectors of the judiciary, that have not been yet captured by this machine.
[00:54:54.150]Idelber Avelar: The economic collapse includes a return of inflation to levels that we had not experienced and the progressive weakening worsening of working folks everyday food.
[00:55:10.950]Idelber Avelar: To add to that the rhetorical machine of both on it has moved.
[00:55:17.460]Idelber Avelar: requires a constant production of discursive wars constant online shavings constant attacks constant.
[00:55:31.110]Idelber Avelar: utilization of bellicose language to disqualify to intimidate and to exclude from political debate all of the sectors that don't fall in line with it.
[00:55:49.170]Idelber Avelar: The political collapse, also has included the return of all those political oligarchs that both are not who promised to govern without.
[00:56:03.870]Idelber Avelar: Brazil has seen in the past several months, a number of impeachment requests presented to the the Congress.
[00:56:17.430]Idelber Avelar: and none of those have gone forward, because the Chiefs of this political arrangement do not have an interest in pushing them forward boson it still has about 25% of the country with him.
[00:56:33.750]Idelber Avelar: He has lost popularity Yes, he the graphs of his popularity are like that.
[00:56:41.580]Idelber Avelar: But there is a solid one fourth of the country that has been fascist stylized in ways that we had not seen before, so it is a it is still.
[00:56:55.950]Idelber Avelar: A mass movement and the situation of the President elections of 2022.
[00:57:03.060]Idelber Avelar: is uncertain, former President Lula leads the polls by a healthy margin overall so nado both and ours is still a strong candidate to be in the runoff the Brazilian elections are the present an executive elections are.
[00:57:18.300]Idelber Avelar: carried out in two parts.
[00:57:22.980]Idelber Avelar: there's a runoff with the two better voted candidates if nobody reaches 50% in the first round, so that is the situation at the moment, so very.
[00:57:32.760]Idelber Avelar: Dramatic painful difficult moment the explanations of how we got here are complex, and I hope i've given you a sense of what.
[00:57:46.650]Idelber Avelar: Of what that history is thank you that's 15 minutes i'll stop here and we can take questions from from the audience and keep the conversation going that way thanks.
[00:58:02.880]Ingrid Robyn: Thank you, we there were there was fantastic That was a very.
[00:58:07.890]Ingrid Robyn: good summary.
[00:58:11.160]Ingrid Robyn: I see a few questions here, let me see.
[00:58:18.720]Ingrid Robyn: I believe this the first one was somewhat answered in the last section of your speech um.
[00:58:30.000]Ingrid Robyn: Oh there's a part of a question that I find very interesting so it's about battling asks about the election and then she add another question which is do you see that moolah as candidate reinforces the political antagonism in Brazil that having him as a candidate.
[00:58:48.420]Idelber Avelar: right that that has been the topic of heated debate in Brazil, let me present Thank you it's a better Isabella it's about it.
[00:58:55.440]Ingrid Robyn: he's out.
[00:58:56.220]Idelber Avelar: he's out daughter, thank you, is that data for for that question because it has been the subject of a very heated debate.
[00:59:03.750]Idelber Avelar: In Brazil.
[00:59:08.190]Idelber Avelar: Former President Lula supporters complain, with good reason, when people present also nowadays more and more as.
[00:59:18.540]Idelber Avelar: symmetrical extremes right.
[00:59:21.450]Idelber Avelar: As sort of.
[00:59:24.120]Idelber Avelar: opposites that somehow occupy symmetrical positions of the political spectrum, that is.
[00:59:33.360]Idelber Avelar: False right only both, and it was an extremist discourse the the Lula coalition and then the Dilma Rousseff coalition government for 14 years without threatening democracy in any way.
[00:59:49.740]Idelber Avelar: So they are not, they are not.
[00:59:56.130]Idelber Avelar: extremes in a linear in a in a linear.
[01:00:03.240]Idelber Avelar: arrangement, but they have a way of feeding off of each other right feeding off of each other, because also, it is also legitimize itself as the Member seeds of release more at a moment when anti lily's mo became the strongest political force of Brazil dry.
[01:00:27.570]Idelber Avelar: The masses the masses and masses of people that were in prison and streets in 2015 and 2016.
[01:00:37.050]Idelber Avelar: can already be characterized as and to Lisa anti least as they had you know mockery images of Lula these mockery images of dillman so on and so forth, but they didn't have a political leader, they were.
[01:00:52.530]Idelber Avelar: organizations of civil society, they were.
[01:00:57.210]Idelber Avelar: A civil insurgency that had no political bosses, because the political bosses of the Center right opposition at that point they didn't want to embark on that they didn't want to rock the boat they didn't want to teach them at first.
[01:01:15.090]Idelber Avelar: They were forced into a corner by a phenomenon that is unique, which is, for the first time in 50 years in Brazil, the streets belonged to the right.
[01:01:26.070]Idelber Avelar: It was right wing masses of people, they were now already clearly right wing in 15 and 16 not in 13 but in 16 they were and the thing unfolds over 18 months and, by the time of March of 2016.
[01:01:43.860]Idelber Avelar: The leaders of the Center right opposition of the party that we call the gunners the PS, to be the Social Democratic Party, which is Brazil is the Center right party.
[01:01:54.720]Idelber Avelar: I asked you navvies the farmer candidates for President defeated in 2014 shows so have former Governor of some Paulo.
[01:02:02.520]Idelber Avelar: All coming the one of the most recent governors of some Paulo those folks attempted to join the multitudes and they were yelled out of there.
[01:02:13.470]Idelber Avelar: They were shouted out of there because those moderate Center right leaders already appeared to that multitude as being in the end, the same thing as Workers Party.
[01:02:26.250]Idelber Avelar: They were intellectuals, they were into universities that they were almost five gene, yes, as we say in Portuguese the time the the pretty shiny well dressed dandies.
[01:02:42.600]Idelber Avelar: Those masses waited for two years for a fundamentally right wing candidate to embrace and that was also nado.
[01:02:52.980]Idelber Avelar: march of 16 massive massive manifestation at least I have, and you both Sinatra was received with hugs and hurrahs and he is scared on people's shoulders because they saw in him.
[01:03:10.110]Idelber Avelar: And anti least figure that they could embrace.
[01:03:17.310]Idelber Avelar: um so the anti Luis de sentiment.
[01:03:23.340]Idelber Avelar: bruise and Brazilian society for a long time without having a person to represent.
[01:03:30.270]Idelber Avelar: The masses of people have 2015 2016 already right when they were looking for an entire list of figure to embrace they were looking for their Donald trump.
[01:03:43.110]Idelber Avelar: So that makes the Workers Party.
[01:03:49.200]Idelber Avelar: Have.
[01:03:50.940]Idelber Avelar: particular interests in the 2018 election, which was to have both an otter with the runoff to create a polarization and there are several.
[01:04:00.390]Idelber Avelar: Workers Party leaders explicitly saying we want bulsara in the runoff because then we can offer ourselves as the only alternative to fascism right.
[01:04:10.320]Idelber Avelar: So that has created a sort of mutual reinforcement I call it they're mutually reinforcing each other, which does not mean that the polarization is a polarization between extremes, because an extreme is not the same thing as a Pole right.
[01:04:29.310]Idelber Avelar: And an election can be polarized between the extreme right and the Center left like the Brazilian 2018 elections, so extreme and pole are not synonyms so Luna supporters are correct in complaining when the media presents them as extreme.
[01:04:47.250]Idelber Avelar: But there is an undeniable relationship of mutual reinforcement.
[01:04:58.020]Ingrid Robyn: That was a wonderful answer and actually answers some other questions that we have here, we have one too many questions.
[01:05:07.320]Ingrid Robyn: Given this last comment you made, I think i'm going to pick this one by half, I would also verify gurus i'm not sure.
[01:05:17.070]Ingrid Robyn: In other opportunities, he says, you defended the category of resentment as a much more adequate want to describe also not is more than the category of hate.
[01:05:28.500]Ingrid Robyn: Which is the mostly because people use can you explain a preference of resetting men over hey.
[01:05:37.380]Idelber Avelar: Thank you have file for that wonderful question, yes i'll be glad to what I see Well, first of all, the resentment is a concept right the philosophical concept, it means a hatred, is just like Oh, these are the people there hateful.
[01:05:51.930]Idelber Avelar: I again i'm stereotyping things a little bit better normal a.
[01:05:57.810]Idelber Avelar: lot of analysts have spoken of.
[01:06:02.430]Idelber Avelar: Both on it, as well as.
[01:06:05.220]Idelber Avelar: hate discourse hate speech right so odd you in in hatred in the Brazilian political discussion around bulls, and it is more comes from precisely the English language hate speech discord for Georgia.
[01:06:23.250]Idelber Avelar: What I understand what people mean when they say that, and it is true that also nado himself is an audio spurs a hateful person.
[01:06:35.100]Idelber Avelar: But that doesn't make hate.
[01:06:38.070]Idelber Avelar: A useful.
[01:06:40.590]Idelber Avelar: category for analysis, because.
[01:06:45.360]Idelber Avelar: It is very difficult to argue that the basis of the balls on the coalition are spewing hate speech all the time, unlike other political force, no that's not that that that's not it right when you go to the actual.
[01:07:03.480]Idelber Avelar: gestation of that discourse you'll see normal people every every President has a grandmother a cousin and uncle or an aunt who became of olson auto follower everybody has their family they're perfectly normal people it's not.
[01:07:18.930]Idelber Avelar: A situation in which people are necessarily spewing hate discourse all the time, hate speech all the time, it is true that the Bolsa nautical alicia.
[01:07:30.060]Idelber Avelar: depends on antagonism all the time.
[01:07:33.300]Idelber Avelar: But I worry that and when analysts assign hate speech just to one political one political current right and never to their preferred political parties, if you look at the workers parties.
[01:07:49.440]Idelber Avelar: Foremost intellectual for a long time madalena shall we she go to Medina, shall we and type modeling go to YouTube and type Magdalena shall we classy manager and you will see moneylenders always speeches on the middle class.
[01:08:05.220]Idelber Avelar: And they are very intense indictments of the middle class as stupid ridiculous an ethical abomination the political abomination we do you play the video and you'll tell me is that hate speech.
[01:08:22.110]Idelber Avelar: Or the most it says, the only ones who engage in in hateful speech, that is a category that has not been properly grounded in my opinion, I think it's just not a category to begin with, I mean it's it's it's ultimately just an insult, they are.
[01:08:38.580]Idelber Avelar: responsible for hate speech we're not with resentment it's a little different because resentment resentment is a category that it's much more sophisticated I think and it's the category that more adequately describes what I have.
[01:08:54.420]Idelber Avelar: witnessed in researching about this in books and in human interactions in field trips and so forth, which is the least a pact that administration of antagonisms that.
[01:09:08.160]Idelber Avelar: rule the country until 2013 that slowly collapsed after that that arrangement that arrangement was slowly, I, like the Spanish word this big data right.
[01:09:20.610]Idelber Avelar: On attach it sectors of that packed slowly on attached themselves from that packed the party of oxen the theocratic party, the suburban masses, for example, that were led by the wonderful dream of peroni the fellowship program of the Federal Government that page.
[01:09:41.010]Idelber Avelar: Poor students to go to private universities.
[01:09:46.830]Idelber Avelar: And that land many on that basis to imagine that the university diploma was the tickets to prosperity well guess what they got the diploma in the moment when the country was already under Workers Party Government in a severe recession, in fact, the worst recession, of its history.
[01:10:06.330]Idelber Avelar: And the shattering of those dreams, the shattering of the dreams, for example, of evangelicals have dreams of being equal partners, they were partners in the coalition.
[01:10:15.780]Idelber Avelar: In the least the coalition, the evangelicals but with a fundamental difference, the the the political leadership negotiated with the preaching bosses right the preacher bosses, the heads of churches in a political arrangement of exchange veto and corruption.
[01:10:38.940]Idelber Avelar: And in the basis, their own Workers Party base basis treated the evangelical partners that coalition, a second city second class citizens.
[01:10:50.730]Idelber Avelar: As less sophisticated as problematic in the university, etc, you see the resentment brewing in the Brazilian in the Brazilian evangelical population over the least the years it's a tremendous story is the resentment that proves what is resentment just to limit.
[01:11:10.080]Idelber Avelar: The answer, because I know we have a lot of questions for nature resentful is the subject, who is unable to take revenge upon those who have inflicted pain on him.
[01:11:22.170]Idelber Avelar: The powerlessness to exert revenge right you've never exerted revenge, you are powerless to exert change so that.
[01:11:34.860]Idelber Avelar: Energy of the power lives.
[01:11:38.040]Idelber Avelar: becomes a political coalition in in the form of insanity is more than I saw.
[01:11:45.030]Idelber Avelar: That I saw happening not not this this sort of moral distinction between people who are hateful and people who are not hateful.
[01:11:54.150]Idelber Avelar: That that really doesn't hold any water, in my opinion.
[01:11:59.760]Idelber Avelar: I hope I have an answer to a file.
[01:12:04.620]Ingrid Robyn: Yes, absolutely I mean, I think we do have time for one more question, maybe and.
[01:12:12.450]Ingrid Robyn: There are several questions actually about the.
[01:12:16.230]Ingrid Robyn: relationships between the bulls, and it is more in Brazil, and of course trump isn't here and, in fact, Professor among the Gala from the English department.
[01:12:25.500]Ingrid Robyn: and notes the direct connections that exist but i'm going to read kristen's question just because it's shorter.
[01:12:34.170]Ingrid Robyn: What do you think about commentators who have compared trump's symbol to nachos popularity and who have raised concerns about the global resurgence of fast fascist and says is that a broader international context worth considering.
[01:12:49.080]Idelber Avelar: Oh, there is absolutely I mean there is certainly a broader international context, to consider.
[01:12:57.270]Idelber Avelar: I have written a little bit about the relations between trump and Wilson auto in the book a little bit.
[01:13:05.790]Idelber Avelar: But that is an area in itself that can that can be you know better investigated I.
[01:13:15.300]Idelber Avelar: I mean, I could I could list you know resemblances and similarities.
[01:13:21.990]Idelber Avelar: But i'm not sure that would be very useful um the, the problem with that.
[01:13:33.900]Idelber Avelar: Come connection I see happening, sometimes in the bibliography is people overstating the role of the US in the emergence of this far right coalition in Brazil trump was undoubtedly a.
[01:13:50.970]Idelber Avelar: inspiration, he was undoubtedly an inspiration for Bolsa nado right it happened two years earlier, he was mobilizing this again true resentment, as you as those of you who follow us elections know the 16 election was defined by.
[01:14:12.900]Idelber Avelar: midwestern white working class people who had voted for Obama and always had voted for Obama again in 12 and switch it to the Republican Party and 16 Wisconsin Pennsylvania and Michigan.
[01:14:28.230]Idelber Avelar: Those three states basically defined the election and resentment over NAFTA over the loss of well pay factory jobs over economic precariousness played a major role in trump's election that kind of parallel is very interesting to make.
[01:14:50.430]Idelber Avelar: I am a little wary of folks who over emphasize the role of, for example, Steve bannon as if the election of books in our in Brazil is not the result of a Steve bannon conspiracy I don't think anybody here thinks that but, but let me say it, because sometimes you get.
[01:15:09.780]Idelber Avelar: well intentioned, but very conspiratorial.
[01:15:14.730]Idelber Avelar: readings of the situation right So yes, there's one song doubles and Otto who is sort of.
[01:15:22.500]Idelber Avelar: tags along Steve bannon when he goes to Italy and they did exchange views and obviously trump was an inspiration, but if you want to look at the roots of what happened in Brazil.
[01:15:39.870]Idelber Avelar: They are fundamentally internal that is one position that I have taken into the bibliography.
[01:15:47.760]Idelber Avelar: as well, so I, but let me, let me use that to answer my my good friend, Sarah, who is a lobos who asks me.
[01:15:57.210]Idelber Avelar: I wonder if you see any similarity with a more regional turn to the right in the Southern Cone and, if so, what do you think might be the causes.
[01:16:07.110]Idelber Avelar: Professor said, who is a lobos is professor of Latin American studies at the University of Michigan.
[01:16:14.070]Idelber Avelar: And I think him for the question that I am unfortunately still unable to answer very well, and the reason why, is, I think there is a wave surely a wave to the right that includes the election in Brazil includes the election of marketing Argentina, there was then later overturned right.
[01:16:40.050]Idelber Avelar: and includes the the election of of being eight it live but.
[01:16:46.680]Idelber Avelar: They all happen, it seems to me.
[01:16:51.240]Idelber Avelar: In different temporality right, I mean in Argentina what you had was the very brief episode of the First Non peronists President ever to be democratically elected and conclude his term was the first marketing.
[01:17:08.070]Idelber Avelar: immediately replaced in democratic elections by a parent is government, who is now having a hard time of his own and might might lose it looks like we'll lose this year but within a what is essentially Sarah hill a normal functioning.
[01:17:27.840]Idelber Avelar: of our oligarchic democracies right in Brazil, we don't know if there's going to be any election.
[01:17:35.190]Idelber Avelar: So in in or if he loses the election if he's going to hand power over or he was going to attempt a coup, or if he's going to attempt.
[01:17:46.530]Idelber Avelar: Some sort of messing up of the election he's constantly attacking the Supreme Court attacking the electrical system, which is in Brazil perfect the the.
[01:17:56.250]Idelber Avelar: The telling of the votes happens in a couple hours and electronic system that's the world's MV Baba blah, the two things that undeniably Brazil has always done or has done for several decades.
[01:18:08.100]Idelber Avelar: pretty much better than anybody in the world is one vaccination in two elections, meaning the counting and the talent at the vote.
[01:18:16.440]Idelber Avelar: Those two things that both on autos administration has made it a point to destroy those two things completely.
[01:18:25.710]Idelber Avelar: Right, so I am only a little wary, I understand that that's not the spirit of question it's the spirit of the question is, what is the context that allows all these things to happen in different countries.
[01:18:38.910]Idelber Avelar: That is a very difficult question, but I also want to point out that there's unprecedented devastation in Brazil to the very fabric of the political system that I don't see happening elsewhere.
[01:18:55.200]Idelber Avelar: In Latin America right, I mean it's happening in in Hungary.
[01:18:59.430]Idelber Avelar: Right hungary's what hungary's with the model that we have to understand is going on in Brazil, I think you said feel for being here, thank you for the great question it's always a pleasure.
[01:19:12.720]Idelber Avelar: there's another question by much civil that.
[01:19:16.110]Idelber Avelar: um.
[01:19:19.080]Idelber Avelar: I would like to try to tackle is that okay.
[01:19:21.030]Ingrid Robyn: Okay, yes, read it.
[01:19:23.040]Ingrid Robyn: i'll read it at lie okay at loud my syllabus is actually my graduate student.
[01:19:28.440]Ingrid Robyn: And he says as a Brazilian I have seen the downward spiral of the loss of respect and civility in my own social cycles extended family and resident society in general.
[01:19:40.200]Ingrid Robyn: firsthand due to the extreme polarization that occurred with the rice rice of also an animal, do you believe in a possible reconciliation and ramification after the Bush era.
[01:19:51.900]Idelber Avelar: Thank you Marcello yeah that's the $1 million question right what For those of you who are not Brazilians are who were not followers of visiting politics.
[01:20:02.460]Idelber Avelar: The process that marcella describes is a process that has overtaken pretty much every present and extended family, maybe there are a little pockets in the south, where that are.
[01:20:14.760]Idelber Avelar: That are families that are entirely Bolsa natl followers and maybe there are some pockets in the northeast or in the north.
[01:20:22.710]Idelber Avelar: Where.
[01:20:24.360]Idelber Avelar: An entire extended family is Lula supporters composed the blue to support us but by and large, by and large, every Brazilian extended family has been.
[01:20:37.650]Idelber Avelar: torn apart by.
[01:20:43.860]Idelber Avelar: The political polarization brought about Bible studies.
[01:20:50.820]Idelber Avelar: And there are reasons for that right, I mean, as I was telling you during the talk, both on it depends on the incessant production of antagonism right.
[01:21:03.630]Idelber Avelar: liezel produced antagonisms, too, but it managed those antagonisms always sprinkling over them the counter antidote of moderation negotiation and so forth right.
[01:21:19.350]Idelber Avelar: So.
[01:21:22.170]Idelber Avelar: fathers who no longer speak to their children or grand daughters and grandsons would no longer speak to their grandparents cousins will no longer speak to each other there's an institution in Brazil.
[01:21:37.050]Idelber Avelar: doesn't really exist in the west of the same sense, with the Sunday the Sunday lunch.
[01:21:42.990]Idelber Avelar: The Sunday lunch is a big thing is where you cook all these great things that only Ingrid can cook these amazing pasta recipes is amazing chicken recipes and you eat, not only with.
[01:21:55.260]Idelber Avelar: Your partner and your children, but you eat with your cousins and uncles and aunts and or nephews and nieces and so forth right.
[01:22:03.480]Idelber Avelar: That institution has been fundamentally altered shattered and and what Marcel is asking is that if I believe in reconciliation under unification after the Posada era Marcello I don't not right away at least because.
[01:22:20.190]Idelber Avelar: This.
[01:22:23.520]Idelber Avelar: insurgency of right wing fanaticism is not going to go back to the gutters even if he loses the election, and even if he hands on power peacefully, which are two big gifts right.
[01:22:40.050]Idelber Avelar: The the wounds of this experience will remain with us for a while.
[01:22:48.540]Idelber Avelar: and any kind of reconciliation reunification of the country would have to include would have to include some sort of international tribunals were both on auto could be judged for crimes against humanity and the AmerIndian genocide.
[01:23:07.980]Idelber Avelar: That would be the beginning.
[01:23:10.440]Idelber Avelar: That would be the beginning, because there is no, there is no packing with that there is no i'm accepting that as oh just something that happened right so um I don't see that happening right away myself, I hope to be wrong.
[01:23:35.220]Ingrid Robyn: joy, do you believe we have time for one more question or various.
[01:23:39.960]Ingrid Robyn: No i'm tired.
[01:23:40.920]Idelber Avelar: i'm fine.
[01:23:41.700]Idelber Avelar: Grain should one or two.
[01:23:44.310]Ingrid Robyn: um.
[01:23:48.090]Ingrid Robyn: So no I already answered the question from this person Let me pick the question from my colleague with Rosa Rosa.
[01:23:58.380]Ingrid Robyn: And he's saying in other countries around the world that the far right one, some people say that it happened because the experts of the nail liberal elite lost their credibility.
[01:24:10.680]Ingrid Robyn: Is the collapse collapse of this legal team Brazil that resolved the political antagonisms behind closed doors, all these narrative to.
[01:24:19.800]Idelber Avelar: The neoliberal specialists.
[01:24:22.110]Idelber Avelar: yeah.
[01:24:22.410]Ingrid Robyn: i'm seeing credibility and.
[01:24:24.270]Idelber Avelar: losing credibility.
[01:24:26.220]um.
[01:24:31.380]Idelber Avelar: i'm not sure that the administration that really, really lost credibility, which was the Dilma Rousseff administration right.
[01:24:42.150]Idelber Avelar: That was extraordinarily popular and 2011 2012.
[01:24:47.790]Idelber Avelar: Up until June of 2013 with approval ratings of 60% 70% and then falling abruptly to 35% after the response to the mass movements of June 2013.
[01:25:04.380]Idelber Avelar: And then her progressive fall to 9% approval ratings, the support for her impeachment was 70%.
[01:25:15.390]Idelber Avelar: i'm not sure that that administration, which was the one that that.
[01:25:19.770]Idelber Avelar: during which this loss of credibility of the political system happen that administration would not call itself new liberal right implemented neoliberal policies, when it ran out of money in 2015 in 2015 you have spent so much it had been so.
[01:25:37.710]Idelber Avelar: develop mentalist.
[01:25:40.380]Idelber Avelar: And so strongly believing of the state's power to generate wealth by itself with subsidies and subventions and state intervention in the economy, and so on and so forth, it was so hooked with that notion.
[01:26:01.830]Idelber Avelar: That it ran out of money obviously right.
[01:26:06.360]Idelber Avelar: It built one hydroelectric dam of $40 billion belmonte it gave 300 300 million in subsidies.
[01:26:20.190]Idelber Avelar: etc, etc, etc, etc.
[01:26:23.880]Idelber Avelar: Those acts created a fiscal environment in 2015 where she had to save money, she had to cut rights to cut pensions to cut this to cut that and then in.
[01:26:37.830]Idelber Avelar: She called a neo liberal banker type shocking levy to tighten the belt, but that, at that point she was already doomed in a way, because she had been elected with a left wing discourse and proceeded to have to implement neoliberal policies of austerity, because you had run out of money.
[01:27:04.890]Idelber Avelar: That was the moment.
[01:27:07.440]Idelber Avelar: in which the political system shook under the impact of.
[01:27:13.950]Idelber Avelar: billions of people industries.
[01:27:17.160]Idelber Avelar: So the neo liberal types auto have a strange, they have a strange.
[01:27:25.770]Idelber Avelar: position in this discussion, they returned to the Workers Party Government in 2015 and in order to be elected Paulson Otto had.
[01:27:36.120]Idelber Avelar: to incorporate some sort of semblance of allegiance to neoliberalism, namely his Ministry of the economy follow gauges, who is like a university of Chicago type right a Chicago boy, just like the Pinochet types.
[01:27:53.940]Idelber Avelar: Also model, for example, for example.
[01:27:57.990]Idelber Avelar: had voted against privatizing stuff was always for 30 years who voted against privatizing everything every privatization measure, he will post right, so he had to do a one at in the matter of economic policy.
[01:28:16.650]Idelber Avelar: So all of this is to say that I don't in Brazil, I really don't see a period of like neoliberal dominance and then I break with neoliberalism and then some some posterior thing right.
[01:28:34.020]Idelber Avelar: hope I have answered all right.
[01:28:36.900]Ingrid Robyn: So he was excellent, thank you.
[01:28:39.420]Idelber Avelar: you're very welcome Thank you all at university of nebraska thanks everybody who's in Lincoln thanks everybody who's watching in Brazil.
[01:28:48.360]Idelber Avelar: Thank you, Professor Dr gusto Thank you Professor Ingrid Robin has been a pleasure.
[01:28:54.390]Joy Castro: Thank you so much Thank you everyone Thank you Ingrid Thank you it'll there everyone thanks for joining us take good care and good night bye.

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Brazil Under the Far Right | Idelber Avelar

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