Brazil’s Parallel Reality

In the movie Avengers: Endgame, the villain Thanos wipes out half of the living beings on Earth to then destroy the so-called Infinity Jewels, which would allow the situation to be reversed. In the movie, every time the past is altered, a parallel universe arises, where everything happens differently thanks to the transformed past.

But you don’t have to be a movie buff to see that this has been the ideal of the fascist government in Brazil. And not only from the changes – “reinterpretations” – of the dictatorship past that fascism has made in our history. But also in the civilizational achievements that we have obtained in the Lula and Dilma governments, such as the transformation of the world of work, the advances of the Universal Health System, universities for all, funding for the arts and cinema.  The fascists in power have destroyed the past in order to exterminate the people of Brazil, such as the destruction of the Amazon forest, the handing over of indigenous lands to mining, and thus destroying more than half of Brazilian life.

No need to be clairvoyant, the evil is exposed and developing. For Parallel Reality is the political reality in Brazil under Bolsonaro. There have been crimes, disrespect, mockery, ridicule, theft and robbery with punishment and penal framework, but a Congress chained by millionaire funds excuses, prevaricates, pretends that nothing happened, in its cynical reinterpretation of the crimes committed by the presidency. None of this should come as a surprise, however. This is a nightmare that is so predictably self-fulfilling. Where is the outrage that fascism acts like fascism?

The corporate elite and their pet and service media have created the monster. But the monster turns out to be bigger than they imagined, Against Lula and the democratic gains for the population, everyone stood against it. The devil was that the monster jumped off the script. To the great surprise of businessmen and the media, who are now scandalized. Today’s news is a pang of the greatest cynicism and contempt.

In Folha de São Paulo: “Sérgio Camargo suggests that leftist blacks be sent to Africa”. In Globo’s G1, an IFood worker declares: “I’ve worked with hunger several times carrying food on my back”. Now letters from readers are coming to light asking “where is our future? It is not. What can we say about yet another outrage and contempt for the federal constitution? The Cabinet of Institutional Security, headed by Minister Augusto Heleno, responded to O Globo newspaper that it would not be able to give the details about Bolsonaro’s meetings with evangelical pastors who collected payments in gold to broker investments in schools:

“The request cannot be answered. It is observed, therefore, that the treatment of personal data collected in the case, the name and date of entry of visitors to the Presidency of the Republic, meets the specific purpose of security,

It has become a scandal. It is unbelievable the lack of composure of the vice-president, General Morão, about the overpriced Viagra purchase for officers of the armed forces: “I can’t use my Viagra. Then let them have sex with money taken from the misery of the Brazilian people. That is why we repeat: the media and businessmen have created their monster and are now amazed at the monster. They say and write in other words: “This is too much! This is out of line”.

On television, journalist Merval Pereira, now president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (!!!!!!!!!!), continues in his natural way to speak obviosities and reactionarism with the air of a serious person. But he is the president of the House of Machado de Assis! If there were nothing else tragic in the current Brazilian life, a non-writer in the presidency of the Brazilian Academy of Letters would be a finished portrait of the parallel world we have fallen into. Do we or do we not have a Brazil of parallel reality to the national we love?

The communist intellectual and writer José Carlos Ruy, in his necessary Machado de Assis Dictionary, still awaiting publication by Editora Anita Garibaldi, highlighted in one of his brilliant entries:

“Costa – An esteemed citizen of Itaguaí, who received an inheritance of 400 thousand cruzados, divided it into loans and, at the end of 5 years, was left with nothing; he passed from opulence to poverty. He was taken to the insane asylum as a madman. (The Alienist, 1882).

Only José Carlos Ruy and Machado de Assis can make us end this nightmare of Brazil with a laugh.

Uriarano Moto is author of the novel “Never-Ending Youth.”