Good morning, most kind and dear friend, reader of this present post, too! How are you? This is a post I have been trying to write since this Tuesday or so... and it has been quite hard to think on what to develop into a more substancial thought. There is a lot that I would like to talk, and I was terrified of starting a post, only to delete it and leave it at that, it happened time and again, and it destroys me for the moment. I don't know why such a strong repulsion against starting a thought and not knowing how to end, not finding a good way to conclude. Perhaps it is fear of fatigue. Or of being mistreated. But I do have an ongoing trend that I perceive, I really, really wanted to mention it.
I did start the year a bit annoyed with the 2016 nostalgia, and on that line, I said that it was more of a 1989 year than 2016. I said it due to the capture of Maduro, the (ongoing) second Iranian Revolution and war, the immense losses the left suffered across latin America, that brought so much joy to my heart, and I for example followed very closely and in short breath the victory of Madame Fujimori in Peru, that narrow difference not only making her success a triumph, but showing that such moment of turn in the continent still is fragile and volatile. But for us in Brazil, things were looking rather grim for the most of the year. As it turns out, not anymore.
It is not 1989 in Brazil, it is veritably Christmas 1991. It is the fall of the soviet regime in Brazil. Some weeks ago, you had to be careful not to say the wrong words, so to speak, not in public, not online, least you provoke the ire of the left. God knows I have feared, I did write about it on my blog, mentioned in one or two talks, but I felt demoralized and neutralized. Least of all, my Mother knocks at my door and shame me. The issue is not being shamed, because I am very much firm on my ideas, bur rather, the conflict, the angry faces, the awkward heavy mood in the household. It is not merely love of Mom, as I do love mom a lot, but it is fear of reprisal, backlash, vendetta, because people that are marxists develop a different face when their own "virtues" are the center of the conflict.
As it turns out, like in the soviet union, fear can only do so much. At a moment, the path towards getting groceries, paying the bills, having the chance to escape mediocrity and decline, that path moves you across the minefield you were trying before to avoid stepping in. In a matter of days, due to the "miracle of the Ipiranga" as I will call it, things not allowed to be said are now being broadcasted in national tv, by the same networks that were before in agreement with the regime. In the soviet union, just before the fall, the term "return to capitalism", "bring back the free market", and so on, in one week those were not even rhought of, the other week, rhey were everywhere, in firework lights, and the more times said, the more one wants to say it. Brazil is having its fall of the soviet union moment. It is terrifying the country took so long to make this move, and that it allowed to descend so much into economic isolation and hermetic seal, really almost like a iron curtain of prices and services, and it is glorious, even for a flickering moment, the tide switched.
I don't know how this assumption will age, no one can tell how this moment will keep unfolding. What I know is that there is hope and enthusiasm, a vitality where once we could only see resignation. I went there to vote for the right wing candidate, and I saw him almost winning on the first turn! And rhere are real chances he may win in the end, even if one should never lower the guards. I am terrified, because as with Fujimori, it is a magnificent yet fragile moment. Such hope, first flicker in years! Hope for the opening of the economy, the end of the regime of fear, where you don't know what you say that can put you in jeopardy. Really, hope for the end of communism as a political force. End of the critical theory, the elimination of Paulo Freire in schools.... really, just a return to what the country hasn't seen perhaps in ever: normalcy, classical liberalism, opening to the world once again... I am exhausted, not of sadness, but of daydreaming. I suspect I am not the only one.
I think this is what I wanted to say... just that we are in 1991, I pray this opportunity may not be wasted. As said, I am exhausted, I am writing as it unfolds. Good and bad News are wild, everywhere, all at once, again and again. Perhaps this is what caused me to not be so sad: the loud "enough" we all said against the left. God knows if it will get somewhere. All I know is that I rather be tired for daydreaming too much than of not being able to rest because of the nightmare of decline. 1991, hope it is a Poland 1991 for us, and not a Russia 1991. One had a slow but resilient morning that bear fruits today. The orher had a false dawn, and it is what we see today, ib a seemingly unending night...
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