[WSMDiscuss] (Fwd) Bolsonaro ditches foreign minister Ernesto Araújo after Itamaraty diplomats finally revolt, while BRICS geopolitical sands keep shifting - so what did that two-year reign of error represent?
Patrick Bond
pbond at mail.ngo.za
Sat Apr 3 10:46:13 CEST 2021
(After Ernesto Araújo crossed the line by rejecting the World Health
Organisation's half-assed Covax phramacorp-vaccine distribution plan,
for the WHO allegedly being part of a "globalisist" conspiracy, here are
just three sentences from the scathing screed - google-translated in
full below - sent by Brasilia's undiplomatic diplomats... to which one
really must add that today, *Brasilia sickeningly still lines up 100%
with Biden-BoJo-Brussels still voting in the World Trade Organisation
against allowing Intellectual Property rights waivers on Covid-19
vaccines and treatments*, as proposed by India, South Africa and more
than 100 other poor-country delegations. As the letter complained:
/Itamaraty faces an acute budget crisis and a series of diplomatic
incidents, with *serious damage to international relations and the
image of Brazil.* The Covid-19 crisis has revealed that mistakes in
the conduct of foreign policy bring concrete losses to the
population. In addition to more immediate problems, such as the lack
of vaccines, supplies or the prohibition of Brazilians from entering
other countries, *long-term damage accumulates in the country’s
international credibility.*/
10 Ways to Fix America's Ailing State Department – Foreign Policy
We'd all, no doubt, also hope for /precisely that same outcome/ -
"long-term damage accumulates in the country’s international
credibility" - when contemplating *Washington's post-9/11 imperial
legacy*, stretching nearly seamlessly from Bush-Rumsfeld-Powell-Rice to
Obama-Clinton-Kerry to Trump-Tillerson-Pompeo... and beyond. Apparently
when it comes to many foreign policy adventures, Biden-Blinken are
speaking from the same garbled paleocon/neocon/neolib 'script as their
predecessors
<https://progressive.org/dispatches/biden-foreign-policy-ten-problems-davies-benjamin-210313/>,
and where that's not the case, such as addressing the climate crisis,
the promotion of yet more deviant policies - termed by critics
"/privatisation of the air/" - appears imminent
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/01/biden-kerry-international-climate-politricks/>.
Anyhow, looking at all this from far away, I find it quite
impressive that *Araújo's unifying BRICS-speak actually grew much more
fluent* after a few months of coaching, notwithstanding the bloc's
crumbling mortar, especially on the Sino-Indian and international trade
fronts. Hence a man as unhinged as Araújo could, in 2019-20, learn a
few
new talking points: some reactionary, but some quite sensible, just as
often happens to scholars and NGOers
<http://aidc.org.za/brics-africa-either-table-menu/>, too, within the
BRICS-centric echo-chamber ghetto of supposed "South-South"
International Relations.
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
But BRICS 'spalling' - illustrated at the right - cannot be disguised,
no matter how suave the rhetoricians. Remember this cringe-worthy
interview <https://vigiljournal.com/en/new-world-order>, where Brazilian
philosopher-lawyer Roberto Mangabeira Unger tells it like it is,
unvarnished by BRICS blahblah?:
/“*Our whole tendency is to accept the general blueprint of the
market economy* imported from the North Atlantic world and then to
compromise it or qualify it with elements of state capitalism,
political authoritarianism and compensatory social democracy –
that
is what we do. It is a set of *compromises, qualifications and
evasions, rather than strong national projects*. We lack these
projects//. Not only we have *political and plutocratic elites that
subordinate national interests to the self-serving objectives, *but
in the midst of *all our bluster about national self-searching we
are all tainted by mental colonialism. *What is shocking to see in
these countries is that the intelligentsia and the political elites
are to a very large extent *servile, they are submissive to the
intellectual fashions* and alternatives that are imported from the
Academy of the North Atlantic countries.”/
This critique applies to far too many foreign policy scholars whom
I've met at BRICS events over the last decade, as well as the diplomats
themselves. And so in other words, instead of what we'd we had expected
in early 2019 when he came to power as a bumbling paleocon clown, Araújo
shifted his rhetoric - i.e., learning to /bluster about national
self-searching - /so as to fit neatly within the now-predictable
talk-left walk-right BRICS narrative. Again, just to recall how this
maniac began, as interpreted by Andre Pagliarini in /Jacobin, /way below/:/
/“Araújo ingratiated himself to the United States by proposing *an
alliance between the world’s three largest Christian countries* –
Brazil, the United States, and Russia – to counter what he called
*‘the globalist axis’ made up of China, Europe, and the US left.*
Other symbolically important gestures include Brazil’s withdrawal
from the UN Compact on Migration; equivocation over whether it will
abandon the Paris climate accord; its stated intention to move its
embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, irking important
trading partners in the Arab world; and its participation in the
aggressive international campaign to isolate and ultimately remove
Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Brazil’s new willingness to cede its
hemispheric leadership is linked to a desire to*defer to a Trump-led
United States*.”/
This was not a misreading: Araújo favoured
Trump-Biden/Pompeo-Blinken raw-imperialist power politics. For example,
in the last speech he gave to the BRICS foreign ministers, he supported
Washington's strategy of immolating the Arab region's paper-thin unity,
in order to shore up Israel's oppression of Palestinians:
/"//I would like to also address the issue of the Middle East. We
are encouraged from developments in that region. Especially, the
recent *agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates*.
Those are steps towards a better atmosphere that can lead to
realistic, pragmatic and lasting solutions." /
As far as I can tell, there is /no /BRICS foreign ministry helping
Palestinians on this front anymore, though Itamaraty under the PT and
even Pretoria under the prior foreign minister - Lindiwe Sisulu -
retracted their ambassadors from apartheid Israel. But that seems like
another age entirely, given Netanyahu's subsequent empowerment by Trump,
and Israel's lucrative business dealings across the BRICS bloc.
Recall that dependency theorist Ruy Mauro Marini explained
Itamaraty's role following the U.S.-supported coup in 1964, and began
/“collaborating actively with imperialist expansion, assuming in this
expansion the position of a key nation.” /That's why Marini's version of
"subimperialism" as a term still works in particular conjunctures;
though other geopolitical theorists such as David Harvey have updated it
for more general applications within global uneven development
<https://www.cadtm.org/Subimperial-BRICS-enter-the-Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa-Era>./
/
//In his last BRICS speech, Araújo did not fail on that front,
especially joining Washington's game of delegitimising the
democratically-elected Venezuelan government:
//
/Brazil is committed to a prosperous, democratic and open South
America. Venezuela currently, unfortunately, does not fill a single
one of those criteria. Worse, it exemplifies the growing threat
represented by the conjunction between certain currents of politics
and organized crime in our region. Brazil is a neighbor of
Venezuela, as you know, and we know what is going on there. We feel
it in the flesh. Venezuela became a hotbed of organized crime and
terrorism. It lives out of drug trafficking and gold trafficking. I
urge you, colleagues, and your countries, to help in finding a way
out for Venezuela. All of us here can play a key role. *You can play
a key role. It is in no interest to any of us to keep the current
situation. The current regime is not capable or willing to provide
the conditions for free and fair elections in that country. *The
solution, in our view, is for those who hold power presently to step
down and agree to the formation of a national union government. Our
commitment to fight terrorism, or the joint commitment of BRICS
countries to fight terrorism, should be translated into helping the
Venezuelan people out of a regime which supports terrorism, lives
out of it, uses it as an instrument of state power. We must live up
to the principles which shape, for example, the BRICS
Counterterrorism Strategy and our commitment to fight organized crime./
Yet disappointment for Araújo followed this gambit: Beijing, Moscow
and even Pretoria don't see it the same way. Marini's other famous
phrase - "/antagonistic/ cooperation" - must be kept firmly in mind when
analysing BRICS geopolitics, as Brazilian colleagues Ana Garcia, Miguel
Borba and I try in this recent /New Politics /essay
<https://www.cadtm.org/Western-Imperialism-and-the-Role-of-Sub-imperialism-in-the-Global-South>
on "Western Imperialism and the Role of Subimperialism in the Global South."
On the other hand, being a member of the BRICS foreign ministers
network allowed Araújo - just like many BRICS-from-the-middle academics
and NGOs - to disguise Brasilia's subimperial posture with some
smoke-and-mirrors expression of grievances:
/Dear colleagues, BRICS language on this issue of the *reform of the
Security Council *that we are discussing must evolve. As a group,
BRICS cannot continue to circumvent this question. It has to clearly
address this topic in order to maintain its consistency and
political relevance.////Brazil stands for democracy in the
international system and domestically as well. Those two dimensions
should not be separated. International democracy requires not only
more participation of all countries, big and small, in international
governance, but also the empowerment of nations in regard to the
bureaucracy of international organizations. Reform of the
multilateral system is urgent to bring it back to the path of real
international cooperation and not super-nationalism by stealth./ //
In reality, the official weasel-word language /won't/
evolve, and
BRICS' statements of multilateral democratic reform more generally
/should not be considered politically "relevant" - /for the simple
reasons, in this case, that if the three other BRICS were really strong
candidates to join Beijing and Moscow - plus Washington, Paris and
London - as permanent UN Security Council members with veto power, then
/Chinese and Russian power would be diluted/, plus we would also expect
Berlin and Tokyo to gain overdue membership as well, and in any case the
likes of Bolsonaro, Modi and Ramaphosa would too often side with the
West on critical geopolitical matters. So BRICS globo-reform language
will always remain aspirational, with no concrete strategy to expand
that body.
And when trying to "democratise" other multilateral institutions
such as the IMF, the BRICS showed repeatedly their willingness to stand
on the heads of smaller, poorer countries when it came to portioning out
increased voting shares for the subimperial bloc, while weaker countries
took huge hits to voting powers, such as Nigeria and Venezuela which
lost 41% of their membership weight in 2015 when China increased its by
37%, Brazil by 23%, India by 11% and even Russia by 8%.
The reason for the BRICS' rise within the Bretton Woods
Institutions - and the utter failure to reform the IMF and World Bank,
aside from letting the yuan serve as a reserve currency in 2015 - was
exactly what Marini predicted: /“collaborating actively with imperialist
expansion, assuming in this expansion the position of a key nation.” /
That's generally the same in the WTO, too, dating to BRICS'
spalling in various rounds since the early 2010s. Now, the current/anti-
<https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/474720/covid-19-vaccine-makers-have-complained-about-south-africa-in-a-letter-to-joe-biden-heres-what-it-says/>/imperialist
effort
<https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/474720/covid-19-vaccine-makers-have-complained-about-south-africa-in-a-letter-to-joe-biden-heres-what-it-says/>
to end Covid-19 vaccines IP by India is explained by its vast generic
pharmaceutical production capacity; China and Russia are not supporting
the masses' demands for IP waiver for obvious reasons; while the South
African role pushing this initiative can be explained in large part by a
particularly passionate diplomat
<https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-11-27-pretoria-boykie-is-leading-a-global-crusade-to-get-wto-to-make-covid-19-products-accessible/>
but word has it that he's being redeployed.
That expansion meant, for Araújo, capital accumulation
possibilities for Bolsonaro's corporate backers, e.g. agro-industrial,
timber and fossil-fuel firms:
/Brazil is of the view that we should *increase business and trade
promotion activities in BRICS.* The Memorandum of Understanding
among our trade and investment promotion agencies, signed during the
Brazilian chairmanship, could be explored for that goal. Our
decision last year to host the latest *BRICS Business Council back
to back to the Summit* proved useful to stimulate contacts among our
business communities and to allow our leaders to hear their
aspirations and ideas. Further business exchanges and a *closer
relationship between the Business Council and the New Development
Bank* are also useful in this context. In particular, I am glad to
report that the NDB regional office in Brazil is now fully
operational, as our Congress has approved its host country agreement
with Brazil./
All of this is entirely consistent with BRICS-from-Above elite
deal-making. But even after 2019's chaotic BRICS academic and think tank
events, when Bolsonaro hosted the summit in Brasilia, and which left
Civil BRICS completely dumbfounded and without any foreign ministry
mooring, and hence had no meeting, Araújo again showed his
BRICS-reversal capacity. An extraordinary brics-from-below riff was
permitted to enter his speechwriter's repertoire:
/Let me also say a word regarding the people-to-people exchanges.
Brazil sees this aspect as essential to a successful cooperation, as
our peoples should be the ultimate beneficiary of cooperation and
also key actors in cooperation. *We are full believers in bottom-up
approaches in dealing with every major challenge facing our
societies. *The interaction of people, with their dynamism and
ideas, can be the most efficient way nowadays of generating the
necessary drive to put our economies back to work. *Our civil
societies are resilient *enough to overcome the momentary
difficulties posed by the pandemic—those are immense, but we can
overcome them— and to be ready for *an even stronger cooperation
later.* For that to be true, initiatives in this area should
genuinely be the result of joint efforts by representatives of our
five countries./
In sum, the curious two-year career of Ernesto Araújo as
Bolsonaro's foreign minister at least confirms one thing we all know:
the BRICS are becoming more and more surreal, the more they spall.)
***
/The Guardian/
Brazil's foreign minister, who bashed China and praised Trump, resigns
Ernesto Araújo’s resignation ends the most calamitous chapter in the
history of the country’s diplomacy, critics say
Tom Phillips <https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tomphillips> in Rio de
Janeiro
Mon 29 Mar 2021
Jair Bolsonaro’s ultraconservative foreign minister has resigned after a
rebellion from diplomats and lawmakers who accused him of demolishing
Brazil’s international reputation and putting Brazilian lives at risk by
vandalizing relations with China and the US during the coronavirus pandemic.
Ernesto Araújo, a 53-year-old career diplomat famed for his bashing of
Xi Jinping’s China and devotion to Donald Trump, tendered his
resignation on Monday, ending what critics call the most calamitous
chapter in the history of Brazilian diplomacy
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/25/brazilian-diplomats-disgusted-bolsonaro-pulverizes-foreign-policy>.
“One thing’s for sure, he’s the worst foreign minister Brazil
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/brazil> has ever had,” said Celso
Amorim, who held the post between 2003 and 2011.
Just hours after Araújo’s resignation, defence minister Fernando Azevedo
e Silva announced he was also leaving government, a shock move that
added to the sense of crisis surrounding the Bolsonaro administration,
which is facing growing domestic anger over its catastrophic response to
Covid
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/25/brazil-coronavirus-bolsonaro-300000-deaths>.
Araújo was picked as foreign minister in November 2018, a fortnight
after Bolsonaro’s stunning presidential election win, despite never
having served as an ambassador.
Brazilian diplomats 'disgusted' as Bolsonaro pulverizes foreign policy
Under his watch, Brazil’s internationally respected foreign office –
known as Itamaraty <http://www.itamaraty.gov.br/en/> after the
19th-century Rio palace it once occupied – took a hard-right tack
on
issues such as reproductive rights and the environment and became a
bunker of hardcore Bolsonarian ideologues. Brazil courted rightwing
nationalists such as Donald Trump and the Hungarian prime minister,
Viktor Orbán, and ditched its hard-won position as a global climate
leader. Araújo and other top Bolsonaristas, including the president’s
son, Eduardo, also trashed ties with Beijing.
Brazil’s top diplomat – who once declared Trump “the saviour of the
west” – repeatedly assailed China’s Communist party leaders and called
coronavirus the “communavirus”. More recently Araújo
irked Joe Biden by
calling the pro-Trump extremists who stormed the Capitol “upstanding
citizens” and taking a holiday
<https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/internacional/2021/01/12/interna_internacional,1228227/ernesto-araujo-tira-ferias-na-semana-de-posse-de-joe-biden.shtml>
during the US president’s inauguration.
Jamil Chade, a Geneva-based journalist who covers Brazilian diplomacy,
said diplomats had long regarded their boss’s submissiveness to Trump
and the Bolsonaro family with disdain. Among foreign envoys Araújo – who
has pushed baseless conspiracy theories about the origins of Covid –
generated “perplexity”.
But opposition to Araújo’s 27-month stint as minister finally exploded
this month with the deterioration of Brazil’s Covid catastrophe, which
has killed more than 312,000 Brazilians. Many blamed Araújo’s
mishandling of relations with China, India and the US for Brazil’s
failure to secure sufficient quantities of vaccines and vaccine
components. During a parliamentary hearing last week senators chided the
foreign minister with one telling him
<https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/politica/2021/03/25/interna_politica,1250450/ernesto-araujo-e-pressionado-ao-ouvir-de-senadores-pede-para-sair.shtml>:
“Quit, you’ll save lives”.
Days later diplomats broke ranks in an open letter
<https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mundo/2021/03/grupo-de-mais-de-300-diplomatas-publica-carta-para-pedir-saida-de-ernesto.shtml>
denouncing the “serious harm” Araújo was doing to Brazilian interests.
One exasperated diplomat told
<https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mundo/2021/03/grupo-de-mais-de-300-diplomatas-publica-carta-para-pedir-saida-de-ernesto.shtml>
the Folha de São Paulo newspaper that Araújo, once considered an
“eccentric loony”, was now widely seen as a “nefarious, criminal
character”. On Sunday, with Bolsonaro under growing pressure to sack
Araújo, one senator, Kátia Abreu, declared: “Brazil cannot keep showing
the face of a delinquent to the world.”
Amorim, who served under former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
saw
little hope of a major foreign policy shift under Araújo’s successor
given that Bolsonaro would remain in charge. “In the best
hypothesis//we’ll go from awful to very bad,” he predicted, adding:
“Brazil is utterly isolated … It will take a long time to
recover our
credibility.”
Chade said Araújo left a toxic legacy of politically-driven witch-hunts,
upended allegiances and unpaid embassy rents: “He leaves Itamaraty in
ruins.”
“Ernesto’s departure doesn’t ensure Brazil’s foreign policy will
change,” Chade added, “but there is no way of changing Brazilian foreign
policy without Ernesto Araújo going.”
***
Subimperial BRICS enter the Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa Era
13 March 2020 by *Patrick Bond*
*Summary *
The concept of subimperialism has been explained by Ruy Mauro Marini and
David Harvey using characteristics ranging across class structure,
geopolitics and the displacement of overaccumulated capital, to which we
add a vital component: select middle-income countries’ contributions to
neoliberal global governance. One of the best examples of the phenomenon
is the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) bloc, which for a
decade from 2009-18 has rhetorically asserted an ‘alternative’ strategy
to key features of Western imperialism, while in reality fitting tightly
within it. This fit works through amplified neoliberal multilateralism
serving both the BRICS and the West, the regional displacement of
overaccumulated capital, financialisation, and persistent
super-exploitative social relations. In short, in spite of what some
term the ‘schizophrenic’ character of subimperialism, the
BRICS /all/
generally promote extreme spatio-temporal fixes and the predatory
condition known as accumulation-by-dispossession. But these amplify the
world’s ‘centrifugal’ capitalist crisis tendencies, instead of providing
a coherent bloc and a purported alternative to Western power. While Xi
Jinping and Vladimir Putin remain Washington’s most durable potential
competitors, the other BRICS are splintering in unpredictable ways.
Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist defeat of the Congress Movement
in
2014, Cyril Ramaphosa’s replacement of Jacob Zuma in 2018 and Brazilian
president Jair Bolsonaro’s ascension in 2019 together confirm the
rightward political drift. The ‘anti-imperialist’ potential of the
BRICS, if it ever existed, is exhausted, although fierce debate
continues over the merits of subimperial theory. All told, a much more
brutal period appears on the horizon, in social, political, economic and
ecological respects – unless ‘brics from below’ forces can make more
coherent their resistance.
Contents
* 1. Introduction: BRICS diverge upon shifting subimperial sands
<https://www.cadtm.org/Subimperial-BRICS-enter-the-Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa-Era#1_introduction_brics_diverge_upon_shifting_subimperial_sands>
* 2. A conceptual apparatus for centrifugal, subimperial times
<https://www.cadtm.org/Subimperial-BRICS-enter-the-Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa-Era#2_a_conceptual_apparatus_for_centrifugal_subimperial_times>
* 3. Contested BRICS narratives: anti-imperial, subimperial or
inbetween?
<https://www.cadtm.org/Subimperial-BRICS-enter-the-Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa-Era#3_contested_brics_narratives_anti_imperial_subimperial_or_inbetween>
* 4. Western-BRICS power relations during World Bank and IMF ‘reform’
<https://www.cadtm.org/Subimperial-BRICS-enter-the-Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa-Era#4_western_brics_power_relations_during_world_bank_and_imf_reform>
* 5. Conclusion
<https://www.cadtm.org/Subimperial-BRICS-enter-the-Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa-Era#5_conclusion>
<https://www.cadtm.org/Subimperial-BRICS-enter-the-Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa-Era#outil_sommaire>1.
Introduction: BRICS diverge upon shifting subimperial sands
Renewed political tensions within the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South
Africa (BRICS) network of countries were no better reflected than when
in March 2019, Brazilian foreign minister Ernesto Araújo announced he
would use the bloc – specifically Moscow and Beijing – to
help Donald
Trump rid neighbouring Venezuela of its president, Nicolás Maduro. As
Araújo told the /Wall Street Journal/, “Brazil has a unique
responsibility in foreign affairs. It is a matter of common sense.
Nobody wants an ally like Maduro. These countries [Russia and China]
have a reputation to preserve” (Trevisani and Pearson 2019). This
strategy had, naturally, no hope for success, but it was not surprising,
for the reactionary Jair Bolsonaro – who assumed power in Brazil on
January 1 – had chosen Araújo precisely for such aggressive reasons, to
become what /Jacobin/ magazine recognised as “the worst diplomat in the
world” (Pagliarini 2019). [1
<https://www.cadtm.org/Subimperial-BRICS-enter-the-Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa-Era#nb2-1>]
[1
<https://www.cadtm.org/Subimperial-BRICS-enter-the-Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa-Era#nh2-1>]
In 2018, according to Pagliarini (2019), “Araújo ingratiated
himself to
the United States by proposing an alliance between the world’s three
largest Christian countries – Brazil, the United States, and Russia – to
counter what he called ‘the globalist axis’ made up of China, Europe,
and the US left. Other symbolically important gestures include Brazil’s
withdrawal from the UN Compact on Migration; equivocation over whether
it will abandon the Paris climate accord; its stated intention to move
its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, irking important
trading partners in the Arab world; and its participation in the
aggressive international campaign to isolate and ultimately remove
Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Brazil’s new willingness
to cede its
hemispheric leadership is linked to a desire to defer to a Trump-led
United States.”
However, there are probably limits to this revival of Washington’s
dominance, as John Reimann (2019) points out: “Bolsonaro reversed
his
previous position and said that a US military base in Brazil would not
be allowed. This reversal followed opposition from Bolsonaro’s own
military high command. The practical meaning of this is that a US
invasion of Venezuela would have to come through Colombia, from the sea
or from the air; it could not come through Brazil. The reason for the
opposition from Brazil’s military brass is that, as opposed to the
Brazilian Trump – Bolsonaro – the military leaders know how explosive a
US invasion anywhere on the continent would be. There would be an outcry
throughout Latin America so huge that it would threaten regimes
including Bolsonaro’s.”
rest here:
https://www.cadtm.org/Subimperial-BRICS-enter-the-Bolsonaro-Putin-Modi-Xi-Ramaphosa-Era
***
Ministers of Foreign Affairs – 4 September 2020
Speeches by Minister Ernesto Araújo at the Meeting of the BRICS
Ministers of Foreign Affairs – 4 September 2020
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Published in Sep 04, 2020 11:26 PM Updated in Sep 04, 2020 11:27 PM
_Session I: Global situation overview - new threats and challenges,
regional hotspots, BRICS cooperation on international fora, key issues
on the 75 UNGA agenda_
Thank you very much, Minister Sergey Lavrov,
Dear friends and colleagues,
Minister Sergey Lavrov,
Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar,
Minister Wang Yi,
Minister Naledi Pandor,
I thank the Russian chairmanship and especially Minister Sergey Lavrov
for organizing this meeting. As much as we regret not being able to
enjoy the Russian hospitality in Moscow, the current circumstances
require maximum caution.
Once again, we meet against the backdrop of the tragic loss of lives,
the suffering, and the economic effects of COVID-19. All our countries
have been deeply affected in different moments and intensities. My
deepest sympathy and that of my government to the families of the
victims. Since our last virtual meeting in April, the enormous
challenges that COVID-19 poses to economies and societies have only
become more evident.
As national measures are concerned, it is essential to recognize the
complementarity between health and economic initiatives to protect the
lives and livelihoods of our peoples.
Much like domestic realities, the international scenario that will arise
from the worldwide pandemic is bound to be different. The Chair has
asked us to reflect on the biggest challenges and threats facing the
international system. For Brazil, no challenge is more urgent than
ensuring that the upcoming system is based on freedom, transparency and
human dignity. It is up to nations like ours to shape this new scenario.
Nation states should be the driving force of international
transformations. National states where people are actually empowered are
the drivers of real change. The international system that will arise
will either be based on the ideals and aspirations of the peoples and
communities that constitute states or it will risk losing its
legitimacy, for not putting people’s wills and interests to the forefront.
I have noted in our last meeting as well that the world is undergoing a
crisis of confidence and governments are required to provide answers to
their populations. The nature of our choices and answers to those
questions will affect the world for decades to come.
For Brazil, those answers reside in working to take the best of the
diversity of our identities, not to fall prey to the standardization of
a characterless international society. They reside in pragmatic
cooperation and sovereign dialogue, not in the promotion of
one-size-fits-all solutions conceived in international organizations.
Dear colleagues, 75 years ago, our five countries fought against
intolerance, oppression, and evil. While recognizing the contribution of
each soldier of every nationality that joined forces to defeat
Nazi-fascism, including 25 thousand Brazilian troops sent to Europe, I
would like to honor the heroism, resilience and suffering of the Russian
people during the war.
The 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the creation
of the United Nations represents the proper occasion for taking stock
and reflecting on whether the current system is indeed providing the
benefits that one could expect and which our forefathers fought for.
As a coincidence, here in Brazil, we are celebrating the 75th
anniversary of the creation of Brazil’s diplomatic academy, as you can
see in the banner behind me, and this inspires Brazil to present new
ideas and perspectives for the renewal of the international system.
We believe that Brazil can help transform the international scenario on
the basis of the experience of our own process of transformation. We are
replacing a system of corruption and backwardness with a system of
people’s empowerment, a true democracy and economic opening, with
the
reaffirmation of freedom, sovereignty, and independence. We are
convinced that only freedom can be the way to material progress in a
healthy society and we want to bring that perspective to the world.
A more democratic governance needs a reformed UN Security Council, with
an enhanced and permanent contribution by countries like Brazil. If we
as a group insist on the importance of the UN, we must recognize that
its effectiveness and its central role in the multilateral system depend
on the effectiveness, representativeness, and legitimacy of the Security
Council.
Brazil stands for democracy in the international system and domestically
as well. Those two dimensions should not be separated. International
democracy requires not only more participation of all countries, big and
small, in international governance, but also the empowerment of nations
in regard to the bureaucracy of international organizations. Reform of
the multilateral system is urgent to bring it back to the path of real
international cooperation and not super-nationalism by stealth.
Another aspect to be taken into account is that new technologies provide
the whole world today the opportunity to become more democratic and also
individual societies to exert the right to achieve the dream of more
connectedness, to become more productive more creative and happier. And
this immense opportunity should not be lost.
Dear colleagues, BRICS language on this issue of the reform of the
Security Council that we are discussing must evolve. As a group, BRICS
cannot continue to circumvent this question. It has to clearly address
this topic in order to maintain its consistency and political relevance.
The elimination, also, of all weapons of mass destruction is a
legitimate aspiration of peoples around the world and concrete and
measurable progress in disarmament should be achieved on the basis of
commitments that are taken seriously.
I would like to also address the issue of the Middle East. We are
encouraged from developments in that region. Especially, the recent
agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Those are steps
towards a better atmosphere that can lead to realistic, pragmatic and
lasting solutions.
I want also to stress and express Brazil’s solidarity with Lebanon.
Brazil feels as a brother country to Lebanon, as we are home to more
than 10 million Lebanese and their descendants. And we believe that all
our countries here can contribute not only to Beirut’s reconstruction at
this moment, as it is already happening, but also to a future of peace,
independence, and prosperity for Lebanon.
One key issue that touches the Middle East, but not only, is the issue
of religious freedom. Brazil considers that it is essential for the
international community to work harder in promoting and protecting
religious freedom and freedom of belief around the world.
Freedom and human dignity cannot be afterthoughts in the resolution of
crises and conflicts. Political and diplomatic means should also be at
the service of delivering societies from the suffering resulting from
tyrannical governments.
Here, it is necessary to remember the suffering and repressed
aspirations of the Venezuelan people. Brazil is committed to a
prosperous, democratic and open South America. Venezuela currently,
unfortunately, does not fill a single one of those criteria. Worse, it
exemplifies the growing threat represented by the conjunction between
certain currents of politics and organized crime in our region.
Brazil is a neighbor of Venezuela, as you know, and we know what is
going on there. We feel it in the flesh. Venezuela became a hotbed of
organized crime and terrorism. It lives out of drug trafficking and gold
trafficking. I urge you, colleagues, and your countries, to help in
finding a way out for Venezuela. All of us here can play a key role. You
can play a key role. It is in no interest to any of us to keep the
current situation. The current regime is not capable or willing to
provide the conditions for free and fair elections in that country.
The solution, in our view, is for those who hold power presently to step
down and agree to the formation of a national union government. Our
commitment to fight terrorism, or the joint commitment of BRICS
countries to fight terrorism, should be translated into helping the
Venezuelan people out of a regime which supports terrorism, lives out of
it, uses it as an instrument of state power. We must live up to the
principles which shape, for example, the BRICS Counterterrorism Strategy
and our commitment to fight organized crime.
Coming back to the issue at hand, the COVID pandemic, I would like to
stress that the COVID pandemic brought to the fore the question of the
role of international bodies in this worldwide crisis. Brazil considers
that the World Health Organization has not fulfilled, unfortunately, its
tasks of being responsive, transparent, and of promoting the free flow
of information for the common good. As we encourage the WHO to take all
necessary measures to correct the shortcomings already identified, we
hope that this case stands as an example that international
organizations should not be seen as having the monopoly of knowledge,
science, and righteousness.
Unfortunately, again, WHO helped foster a “health only” approach to the
pandemic. In Brazil, from the beginning, President Jair Bolsonaro
stressed that we had to protect lives and livelihoods, jobs and the
health of people at the same time, and this approach is now considered
the right one by the World Health Organization itself, but we still feel
that it is too little, too late.
In that sense, I would like to also stress that multilateralism should
not be an automatic response to the current crisis. Multilateralism is
not a magic word which just by being pronounced will solve our problems.
Multilateral institutions should serve as a space for coordination among
countries, but it is not an answer to the deep challenges emerging from
the pandemic, certainly not the only one. It is part of the answer, but
not the only one.
As I had the opportunity to say yesterday in the G20 meeting, I think
all of you colleagues were there and allow me to repeat, Brazil is
ready, of course, to cooperate with every nation, in all geometries, to
fight the consequences of the pandemic, and we thank the corporation
received from your countries here represented in many different ways. We
thank India, China, Russia, and South Africa and we stand ready to
enhance that cooperation.
But we are also convinced that the bulk of the response to the
consequences of the pandemic comes from the efforts of Brazilian
themselves. To give an example, to keep the production of agriculture
goods in Brazil, which can feed more than 1 billion people around the
world and which we are shipping to all our trade partners in spite of
the pandemic. This is maybe our largest contribution – to fight the
poverty consequences of the pandemic.
Minister Lavrov, dear colleagues,
To end, Brazil is confident that BRICS will respond to the post-pandemic
scenario with its usual result-oriented approach, guided by mutual
respect and sovereignty. More than ever, we should focus on the
potential of our BRICS cooperation in areas that result in tangible
solutions to the challenges that our societies and economies are facing
and will continue to face as a consequence of the pandemic. The New
Development Bank (NDB) is a valuable tool in this regard.
Brazil also trusts that BRICS will continue to exchange views on
different situations around the world, even where our views may differ.
And exactly there I think is where our dialogue is more important. We
should continue to do that with the full understanding of the
possibilities of contributing from different angles and perspectives to
reach agreements among ourselves and to help other countries to reach
agreements and solutions.
As the international agenda becomes ever more complex and national
positions evolved, BRICS has to emphasize the larger picture over
punctual differences and to concentrate on the convergences.
BRICS cooperation can result in significant progress when we converge
around common goals. Overall, all nations need to work today, in all
geometries, to address the new challenges and opportunities and BRICS is
an excellent example to the whole world of that possibility of working
in different formats.
Thank you very much.__
Minister Lavrov,
Friends and colleagues,
Thank you, Minister Lavrov, for your very encompassing report. Brazil is
very encouraged by the chair’s engagement. The Russian presidency
deserves our full appreciation for, despite the pandemic, being able to
keep the momentum and to promote constructive discussions. In spite of
the unfavorable conditions, video conferences have made possible
ministerial meetings, like today, technical work and, most importantly,
have kept our dialogue alive.
Having had the presidency last year, Brazil and myself, we understand
the burdens of the chair and we praise its effort to address so many
demands and to fulfill so many expectations of which the Russian
chairmanship has proved totally capable.
Colleagues, last year, with the support of all of you, Brazil privileged
intra-BRICS cooperation activities that could have a positive impact on
the lives of our populations. We firmly believe that mutually
beneficial, pragmatic, and sovereign cooperation was an important legacy
of last year’s work, and we see that the same spirit presides over the
Russian chairmanship.
We are encouraged to notice that the Chair is fostering continuity and
emphasizing initiatives that concretely benefit our societies. Brazil
looks forward to a successful Summit in November, as just announced by
minister Lavrov, with the adoption of relevant deliverables, which help
our citizens overcome social and economic challenges caused by COVID-19.
We are committed to work with the Chair in order to arrive at the Summit
with an important set of results. We support the Russian presidency,
therefore, in its goal of aiming for meaningful deliverables, of
streamlining the calendar and of focusing on those meetings that are
essential to our leaders’ dialogue in coming November.
Allow me, please, to briefly touch upon two deliverables and
developments related to the main areas of dialogue and cooperation.
First, BRICS counter-terrorism strategy: unfortunately, and as I had the
opportunity to mention in the previous panel, terrorism is now very much
present in our region, in South America, not only because of Venezuela,
but mainly because the Venezuelan regime harbors and promotes terrorism
among other challenges. So, Brazil views a cooperation to fight
terrorism not as an abstract endeavor, but as essential to our own
well-being and security. Moreover, we need to bear in mind that drug
trafficking is today one of the main sources of financing for terrorist
organizations. More and more, terrorism and drug trafficking become not
two different phenomena, but the same phenomenon. Thus, by fighting
strenuously against drug trafficking in our region, as our government is
doing, Brazil is contributing in no small measure to the fight against
terrorism worldwide, and, given the multi-continental nature of this
terrorist drug trafficking phenomenon, we are in need for joint
strategies and coordination among all concerned nations, and BRICS is,
again, a good example of progress in that direction.
Second, the BRICS Women Business Alliance: Brazil congratulates Russia
for the holding of the first meeting of the BRICS Women Business
Alliance (WBA). We value this initiative, as it relates both to
inclusive economic growth, since it aims at strengthening women’s
role
in business and entrepreneurship, and at enhancing social interactions
among our societies. Despite being the majority of the Brazilian
population and very active in many fields of the economy, women are
still underrepresented in positions of command in companies and
international trade, as we know. Promoting their perspectives on
business issues is an important and necessary complement to the business
discussions in BRICS. We encourage the Alliance to decide on its agenda
and priorities. Decentralized contacts are more important than
governmental inputs in this context. At the same time, the WBA and the
BRICS Business Council should not duplicate their efforts, but work in a
complementary form.
Brazil is of the view that we should increase business and trade
promotion activities in BRICS. The Memorandum of Understanding among our
trade and investment promotion agencies, signed during the Brazilian
chairmanship, could be explored for that goal. Our decision last year to
host the latest BRICS Business Council back to back to the Summit proved
useful to stimulate contacts among our business communities and to allow
our leaders to hear their aspirations and ideas. Further business
exchanges and a closer relationship between the Business Council and the
NDB are also useful in this context. In particular, I am glad to report
that the NDB regional office in Brazil is now fully operational, as our
Congress has approved its host country agreement with Brazil.
Let me also say a word regarding the people-to-people exchanges. Brazil
sees this aspect as essential to a successful cooperation, as our
peoples should be the ultimate beneficiary of cooperation and also key
actors in cooperation. We are full believers in bottom-up approaches in
dealing with every major challenge facing our societies. The interaction
of people, with their dynamism and ideas, can be the most efficient way
nowadays of generating the necessary drive to put our economies back to
work. Our civil societies are resilient enough to overcome the momentary
difficulties posed by the pandemic—those are immense, but we can
overcome them— and to be ready for an even stronger cooperation later.
For that to be true, initiatives in this area should genuinely be the
result of joint efforts by representatives of our five countries.
We need to be open to the people in our countries. Allow me the
redundancy, but people, not governments, must be the essence of
people-to-people exchanges.
I renew, Minister Lavrov, Brazil’s commitment to the success of the
Russian presidency and welcome, once again, the constructive spirit of
continuity that has been presiding our initiatives this year. Let us
focus on our most fundamental priorities for 2020, so we can have a
fruitful and successful Summit.
Thank you.
***
BRAZILIAN DIPLOMACY
(HTTPS://NCEMTMFV4POZJKUSBESRQCYJ3E-JJ2CVLAIA66BE-WWW1-FOLHA-UOL-COM-BR.TRANSLATE.GOOG/ESPECIAL
/2019/DIPLOMACIA-BRASILEIRA) *
*
***Group of more than 300 diplomats publishes letter to ask for
Ernesto’s departure *
Manifesto accuses current foreign policy of causing serious damage to
international relations and to Brazil’s image
27.mar.2021 at 15h15 PRINT EDITION
(https://ncemtmfv4pozjkusbesrqcyj3e-jj2cvlaia66be-www1-folha-uol-com-br.translate.goog/fsp/facsimile/
2021/03/28/) *
*
*SAO PAULO **
*
*Patrícia Campos Mello
**(https://ncemtmfv4pozjkusbesrqcyj3e-jj2cvlaia66be-www1-folha-uol-combr.translate.goog/autores/patricia-campos-mello.shtml)*
A group of more than 300 diplomats published on Saturday (27) a letter
accusing the current foreign policy of causing “serious damage to
international relations and the image of Brazil” and asking for the
departure of Ernesto Araújo from the head of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.
“We hope, with these reflections, to offer more elements so that the
necessary and urgent changes in the conduct of foreign policy gain
greater support in society”, says the letter, obtained by *Folha *. “The
Covid-19 crisis has revealed that foreign policy mistakes bring concrete
damage to the population.”
Ernesto is going through its biggest crisis since taking office at
Itamaraty. He is threatened with resignation due to pressure from
Congress
(https://ncemtmfv4pozjkusbesrqcyj3e-jj2cvlaia66be-www1-folha-uol-com-br.translate.goog/mundo/2021/03/apos-encontrocom-
bolsonaro-pacheco-aumenta-pressao-e-diz-que-politica-externa-ainda-esta-falha.shtml)
, the military, agribusiness and big business
(https://ncemtmfv4pozjkusbesrqcyj3e-jj2cvlaia66be-www1-folha-uol-combr.
translate.goog/colunas/painel/2021/03/empresarios-criticam-ernesto-araujo-em-reuniao-com-lira-e-pacheco-e-aumentampressao-
sobre-ministro.shtml) .
Among the authors of the manifesto, which circulates among congressmen,
there are at least ten ambassadors, top of the Itamaraty’s career.
However, they cannot identify themselves, because if they did, they
would be violating the Foreign Service Law.
Article 27 of the rule stipulates that it is necessary “to request, in
advance, the consent of the competent authority, in the regulatory form,
to manifest publicly on matters related to the formulation and execution
of Brazil’s foreign policy”.
One of the signatories to the letter told *Folha *that, although
insufficient, the chancellor’s departure is fundamental for reversing
Brazil’s loss of credibility on the international stage and an important
signal to unlock fundamental future cooperation possibilities in this
pandemic moment.
According to another diplomat who supported the publication of the
manifesto, the objective is to render accounts to Brazilian society,
showing that a good part of the civil servants is not in accordance with
the guidance currently given to the ministry. According to her,
Itamaraty “is not Ernesto” and can do much more for the country.
The diplomat also says that the general feeling in the portfolio is
“shame and frustration” and questions which foreign interlocutors would
like to talk to someone who refers to the coronavirus as “comunavirus”
(https://ncemtmfv4pozjkusbesrqcyj3e-jj2cvlaia66be-www1-folha-uol-com-br.translate.goog/mundo/2020/04/em-blogernesto-
araujo-escreve-que-coronavirus-desperta-para-pesadelo-comunista.shtml)
and who frequently criticizes what he himself defines as globalism
(https://ncemtmfv4pozjkusbesrqcyj3ejj2cvlaia66be-
www1-folha-uol-com-br.translate.goog/mundo/2018/11/contra-o-globalismo-e-o-pt-conheca-frases-do-novochanceler-
brasileiro.shtml) .
One of the creators of the letter says that, due to the diplomats’
discipline and a strong sense of hierarchy within Itamaraty, until now
there had been no organized resistance movement, despite growing
discontent with Ernesto “since the first absurdities of his administration”.
According to this diplomat, however, the situation in recent weeks “has
crossed all limits”. He cites, as an example, the fact that Ernesto
tried to leave Brazil outside the Covax, the WHO mechanism for the
distribution of vaccines to developing countries
(https://ncemtmfv4pozjkusbesrqcyj3e-jj2cvlaia66be-www1-folha-uol-com-
3 of 6 4/3/2021, 7:57 AM
br.translate.goog/equilibrioesaude/2021/03/nova-entrega-de-vacinas-contra-a-covid-ao-brasil-pelo-consorcio-covax-vaiatrasar.
shtml) , because he thinks that this is a globalist initiative.
Thus, he says, the accumulation of situations that “verge on criminal
irresponsibility” led to these public demonstrations, something that he
classified as atypical and exceptional. Also according to this Itamaraty
employee, there is a very strong feeling of revolt and helplessness,
something he says he hears every day, from ambassadors abroad to
colleagues in Brasilia.
Finally, the diplomat reports hearing weekly jokes from foreign
colleagues, because “nobody takes Ernesto seriously”. Now, however, with
the explosion in the number of daily deaths by Covid, he says that many
understood that he was not just “an eccentric lunatic”, but “a nefarious
figure, a criminal”.
The letter points out that, in the last two years, “examples of conduct
incompatible with constitutional principles and even with the most
elementary codes of diplomatic practice have increased.”
“In addition to more immediate problems, such as the lack of vaccines,
supplies or the ban on the entry of Brazilians in other countries,
long-term damage accumulates in the country’s international credibility. “
According to another signatory, at no other time in Brazilian history,
not even during the military dictatorship, was the Itamaraty so
isolated, “kidnapped by a sect, distant from society.”
“It is important for society to know that this is not the fault of
diplomats and that our silence is not complicity. “
Read the full letter below.
/Brasília, March 27, 2021,/
/In the last few days, Brazil has surpassed the tragic mark of 300
thousand deaths due to COVID-19, and the role of the Foreign Ministry in
responding to the pandemic has gained great relevance in the national
debate. Right now, on the eve of the diplomat’s day celebration, there
is nothing to celebrate. On the contrary, it has never been more
important to reaffirm the constitutional precepts that guide the foreign
relations of the Federative Republic of Brazil, defined in article 4 of
the Federal Constitution of 1988, as well as the best traditions of the
Itamaraty./
/Historically, Brazilian foreign policy has been characterized by
pragmatism and professionalism. The diplomatic corps, formed by public
tender since 1945, has always invested in respectful and constructive
dialogue, with internal and international interlocutors, with the press
and Parliament. The 1988 Constitution enshrined fundamental principles
by which our diplomacy must be guided, including national independence;
prevalence of human rights; the repudiation of terrorism and racism; and
cooperation between peoples for the progress of humanity./
/In the past two years, examples of conduct incompatible with
constitutional principles and even the most elementary codes of
diplomatic practice have grown./
/Itamaraty faces an acute budget crisis and a series of diplomatic
incidents, with serious damage to international relations and the image
of Brazil. The Covid-19 crisis has revealed that mistakes in the conduct
of foreign policy bring concrete losses to the population. In addition
to more immediate problems, such as the lack of vaccines, supplies or
the prohibition of Brazilians from entering other countries, long-term
damage accumulates in the country’s international credibility./
/In this context and given the gravity of the moment, we feel it is our
duty to complement the warnings issued by academia, business, social
movements, mayors, governors and the National Congress, regarding
serious errors in the conduct of current foreign policy. It has never
been more important to call for change and the resumption of the best
traditions of Itamaraty and constitutional precepts /- /achievements of
our society and indispensable instruments for the promotion of
prosperity, justice and independence in our country./
/This letter was drawn up by active diplomats who are unable to sign it
as they wish due to provisions of the Foreign Service Law, which by the
way should be reexamined taking into account their flagrant
unconstitutionality. With these reflections, we hope to offer more
elements so that the necessary and urgent changes in the conduct of
foreign policy gain greater support in society, thus contributing to
efforts to overcome the health, economic, social and political crises
faced by Brazil./
/
/
***
The Worst Diplomat in the World
By
Andre Pagliarini <https://jacobinmag.com/author/andre-pagliarini>
Jair Bolsonaro’s chief foreign policy architect is combining rabid
nationalist rhetoric with pathetic submissiveness to the United States.
Brazil’s new proto-fascist president
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/10/jair-bolsonaro-quotes-brazil-election>
has struggled to control the narrative during his first month in office.
Jair Bolsonaro
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/brazil-bolsonaro-security-guns-sivuca-militias>
has issued several controversial decisions only to retreat shortly
thereafter; his vice president has publicly contradicted him on several
occasions; and he badly botched his first international appearance at
the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The latter was
particularly humiliating for a country like Brazil that craves
international recognition.
By
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/world/americas/bolsonaro-populist-davos-forum.html>
all
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/22/jair-bolsonaro-flavio-brazil-davos-scandal-gangs>
accounts
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/01/23/brazils-new-president-fizzles-his-overseas-debut/?utm_term=.6feee0d00c22>,
Davos’s rarefied crowd of plutocrats and philanthropists were
unimpressed by Bolsonaro’s shockingly brief and stilted remarks. Heather
Long, a /Washington Post /correspondent at Davos, called
<https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1087724006252388362>
Bolsonaro’s performance a “big fail,” noting that
“he had the entire
world watching and his best line was to tell people to come vacation in
Brazil.” Another journalist shared
<https://twitter.com/BrazilBrian/status/1087724766352543749> the
reaction of a friend present for Bolsonaro’s speech: “Never experienced
anything like that with a President here.… Really bizarre.”
Investors
eager to capitalize on Brazil’s new business climate had hoped for a
firm commitment to reforming the country’s pension system, among other
regressive measures, but were left wanting by the president’s amateurish
presentation. Bolsonaro, instead of attempting to fix the damage, took
to Twitter to celebrate news of the openly gay leftist congressman Jean
Wyllys fleeing the country in fear of his life.
While Bolsonaro stumbled abroad, political scandal mounted at home.
Reports of suspicious financial transactions involving the president’s
wife and an aide to one of his sons, a recently elected senator, had
been lingering in national headlines since before Bolsonaro’s
inauguration. Then, as Bolsonaro schmoozed with prominent businessmen
<https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-satya-nadella-dinner-davos-far-right-brazilian-president-jair-bolsonaro-2019-1>
and politicians
<https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair-defends-posing-far-13900701>
in Switzerland, one of Brazil’s main newspapers linked his son Flávio to
members of a Rio de Janeiro death squad known as the Office of Crime.
The same militia was allegedly involved in the assassination of Marielle
Franco, a leftist Afro-Brazilian city councilwoman murdered in March 2018.
Despite the increasing media focus on these scandals, the Bolsonaro
clan’s broader political project
<https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/brazil-election-fascism-bolsonaro-haddad-pt>
remains unscathed. Their intensely reactionary agenda is defined by a
domestic component that has been amply covered and a foreign policy
component that has generally received less attention.
The domestic component is undoubtedly the most menacing aspect of
Bolsonaro’s presidency. The foreign policy, however, is worth exploring
for what it reveals about the role Brazil is establishing for itself at
a moment when radical right-wing forces have amassed more real power
around the world than at any time in several decades. This is of
particular importance considering Brazil’s leadership role in Latin
America and everything that is at stake as the Pink Tide
<https://jacobinmag.com/2017/05/how-to-change-the-world> era comes to an
end. Brazil’s new foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, is the key player in
this particular drama.
Eleventh-Hour Crusade
Since taking office, Araújo has foregone any pretense of conciliation
with Bolsonaro’s international critics. He’s instead eagerly translating
the president’s reactionary views into a churlish and imprudent foreign
policy. Already he has shifted Brazil’s international relationships in
ways that have raised red flags among key trading partners and erstwhile
allies — with the notable exception of the United States, which sees
Bolsonaro as a natural partner. Araújo seeks to satisfy the reactionary
fervor that has seized the Brazilian body politic by asserting a new
vision for Brazil on the world stage. In doing so, he is crippling the
country’s global standing in the name of a radical domestic project
epitomized, but not fully expressed, by Bolsonaro’s shallow bellicosity.
As Rosana Pinheiro-Machado and Lucia Mury Scalco have _noted
<https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/brazil-election-bolsonaro-corruption-security-pt>_
in /Jacobin/, Bolsonaro “employs hatred as a political mobilizer and
even incites violence directly against his political competitors.”
Araújo, who fancies himself a deep thinker, is up to something
different. In his mind, Bolsonaro’s presidency is an eleventh-hour
crusade to shore up the besieged edifice of Western civilization.
He has not been shy about articulating the stakes as he sees them. In a
revealing /Bloomberg /op-ed
<https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-07/brazil-s-bolsonaro-brings-foreign-policy-revolution-says-araujo>
published shortly after taking office, Araújo excoriated
twentieth-century Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein for
drafting an “/avant-la-lettre/ postmodern deconstruction of the human
subject” that established “the philosophical roots of our
current
globalist totalitarian ideology.” Understanding Araújo’s intellectual
idiosyncrasies is key to understanding the crude zealotry and
intellectual depravity of Bolsonaro’s Brazil.
Imperialist Prerogatives
Araújo’s evolving foreign policy is a wholesale rejection of
the
approach implemented by the Workers’ Party (PT) governments in power
from 2003 to 2016. Beginning under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
(2003–2010), Brazil took on a proactive role in global affairs, breaking
from the stark neoliberalism of the previous decade when the government
sold off valuable state assets and embraced austerity in exchange for a
$41.5 billion rescue package from the International Monetary Fund.
Lula’s government was particularly active in Latin America. In 2005,
Brazil blocked the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a
long-running US project to link North and South America and the
Caribbean (except Cuba) into a commercial arrangement like NAFTA.
Progressive forces in Latin America resisted what they recognized as a
neoliberal imposition from the United States.
The Lula government, with a key ally in Argentina under Néstor Kirchner,
had enough political capital to sink the agreement. Instead of accepting
a Washington-designed free trade framework, Lula opted for regional
integration. He worked to strengthen MERCOSUR, a South American trade
bloc that timorous Brazilian policymakers had paid little attention to
since its creation in 1991.
While the PT in power unequivocally supported other Pink Tide
progressive governments — Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia,
Uruguay, among others — it devoted so much attention to Latin America
that some of Brazil’s neighbors came to _complain
<https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/world/americas/brazils-rapidly-expanding-influence-worries-neighbors.html>_
of an overbearing, quasi-imperialistic streak. “It’s obvious that Brazil
just wants our resources,” said Marco Herminio Fabricano, a member of
Bolivia’s Mojeño indigenous group, in 2011. “[President] Evo [Morales]
feels like he can betray us to his Brazilian allies.”
In addition to such objections, PT governments faced escalating
_criticism
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/feb/01/brazil-dilma-rousseff-hydroelectric-dam>_
for their failure to contemplate a horizon beyond a purely extractivist
development model, a tendency that became even more acute under Lula’s
successor Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016). Then, in 2016, the PT’s
long-running attempts to mitigate class conflict by co-opting prominent
members of the industrial and financial elite collapsed entirely.
Under the PT, Brazil also deepened its commercial, cultural, and
political ties with Africa. As Benjamin Fogel observed
<https://africasacountry.com/2018/11/what-the-jair-bolsonaro-regime-in-brazil-means-for-africa>,
“By the end of Lula’s second term Brazil had 37 diplomatic missions in
Africa, the most after the United States, France, Russia and China,
while Brazil’s African trade rose from $4 Billion to $24 Billion,.”
Brazil’s prominent global role as part of the BRICS geopolitical bloc
(Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa) brought international recognition.
So did it earn a degree of reticence from the United States’
conservative establishment.
In 2012, Dov Zakheim, writing for Henry Kissinger’s /National Interest/,
_worried
<https://nationalinterest.org/commentary/old-empires-rise-again-7074>_
that not enough was being made of “Brazil’s inheritance of the
Portuguese Empire’s mantle in Africa, facilitated by its own increasing
economic clout.” Zakheim, who worked in the Department of Defense
under
presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, saw “no indication that the
sense of empire, and of the entitlement that accompanies it, is waning
in [Brazil].”
Since the Cold War, the US foreign policy establishment has always
distrusted independent South-South diplomacy, particularly when it was
the official policy of a nation as large and economically important as
Brazil. Indeed, alarmist assessments of Brazil’s leadership in global
affairs were evident both in the Republican administration of George W.
Bush and the Democratic administration of Barack Obama
<https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/05/18/the-turkey-brazil-iran-deal-can-washington-take-yes-for-an-answer/>,
revealing a continuity of American imperial prerogatives underneath
otherwise shifting official discourses.
While Bush chafed at Brazil’s independence in Latin America, Obama
bristled
<https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/world/americas/25brazil.html> at
Brazil’s engagement in the Middle East, which former Iranian president
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said
<https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/world/americas/24brazil.html> could
“help in the promotion of peace and stability.” Whatever its faults and
achievements, the PT’s foreign policy was undoubtedly assertive, a
quality that, through the responses it provoked, exposed the
insecurities of twenty-first-century US imperialism.
Hail-Mary Pass
After the parliamentary coup that put Rousseff’s double-crossing vice
president, Michel Temer, in charge, Brazil took a giant step back on the
global stage. This was in service of a purportedly more realistic
foreign policy. “Pragmatic solidarity towards countries of the global
South will continue to be an important strategy of Brazilian foreign
policy,” Foreign Minister José Serra declared in May 2016, referring to
an approach to other countries that dispensed with broader political
projects — for instance, that the BRICS might serve as a long-term
counterbalance to global US hegemony — in favor of more narrow
interpretations of the national interest. “This is the right South-South
strategy and not the one that was practiced for publicity purposes with
low economic benefits and high diplomatic investments,” Serra argued.
In August 2016, US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Serra in Rio
de Janeiro and expressed his excitement at the changing of the political
guard produced by the parliamentary coup: “I think it’s just an honest
statement to say that over the course of the last few years, the
political discussions here in Brazil had not allowed the full
blossoming, if you will, of the potential of this relationship.” Temer’s
willingness to embrace a diminished role for Brazil unsurprisingly
suited the United States. Indeed, Temer’s foreign policy, emphasizing
immediate material interests over supposed ideological commitments,
foreshadowed Araújo’s supposedly “nonideological” stance on global affairs.
Unlike his predecessors, Donald Trump is unlikely to face a Brazilian
government that challenges his policy preferences. Bolsonaro has
signaled no effort to revive the independent streak that characterized
Brazil’s foreign policy under the PT and Araújo has hailed
<http://segundasfilosoficas.org/trump-e-o-ocidente/> Trump as “Western
Civilization’s Hail Mary pass.” During the presidential campaign, Araújo
ingratiated himself to the United States by proposing an alliance
between the world’s three largest Christian countries — Brazil, the
United States, and Russia — to counter what he called “the globalist
axis” made up of China, Europe, and the US left.
Other symbolically important gestures include Brazil’s withdrawal
from
the UN Compact on Migration; equivocation over whether it will abandon
the Paris climate accord; its stated intention to move its embassy in
Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, irking important trading partners in
the Arab world; and its participation in the aggressive international
campaign to isolate and ultimately remove Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
Brazil’s new willingness to cede its hemispheric leadership is linked to
a desire to defer to a Trump-led United States.
But beyond these considerations, Araújo’s personal ideological
proclivities are conspicuously bizarre. He is a fitting face for the
epidemic of weaponized falsehoods — for instance, that the PT wanted to
foist graphic sexual education upon young schoolchildren or that the
Left would ban red meat and heterosexual relations — that has
overwhelmed Brazilian politics, disseminated through unregulated
channels like WhatsApp and Facebook. Troublingly, Araújo’s asinine
ideological bent seems to be what landed him the job. The wingnut, in
short, has been elevated precisely for being a wingnut.
“Nothing Short of a Miracle”
At fifty-one, Araújo is exceptionally young by Brazilian standards for
the post of foreign minister. Although he has been a diplomat for almost
thirty years, holding some important positions over the course of his
career, he has never been an ambassador. The rank and file of Itamaraty,
as the foreign ministry is known, was reportedly not happy that such a
junior figure was given the top job.
Araújo may lack the traditional credentials for the role he now
occupies. But he is an avid disciple of Olavo de Carvalho, the
pseudo-intellectual guru of Brazil’s far right who has trafficked
for
decades in the conspiracies that helped fuel Bolsonaro’s rise. In
Brazil’s current political climate, that connection goes a long way.
Indeed, in his first official speech, Araújo gushed that, “after
President Jair Bolsonaro, [Carvalho] is perhaps the man most responsible
for the immense transformation that Brazil is experiencing.”
Carvalho readily agrees with accounts of his own importance: “This has
never happened in the history of the world — a writer who had this kind
of influence on the people,” he told
<https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/jair-bolsonaros-guru> Brian
Winter, the editor of /America’s Quarterly/. “It could only happen in
Brazil.” Carvalho hand-picked Araújo to be Bolsonaro’s foreign minister
(he also had a hand in approving or vetoing names for other appointments
in Bolsonaro’s government). Improbably, through its engagement with the
Brazilian government, the world must now contend with the fantastical
ideas of a hermit who lives not in Brazil, where his kingmaker role
might be more closely scrutinized, but in rural Virginia.
Carvalho has expounded on so many disparate topics that it is hard to
come up with a unifying theory of his worldview. But two interrelated
Carvalho tropes in particular have become commonplace on the Brazilian
right in recent years: (1) an unreasonably elastic definition of
communism combined with an insistence on that ideology’s continued
relevance as sociopolitical menace; (2) a simmering panic over “cultural
Marxism,” a hazy conspiracy theory positing that insidious leftist
puppetmasters exert near total control over almost every aspect of
thought in modern society.
It’s not entirely clear exactly why Carvalho’s ideas have
become so
prevalent, but there are a few elements to consider. The first and
arguably most decisive factor is the gradual right-wing radicalization
that took place over the course of the PT’s thirteen years in power.
After Lula’s party won four presidential elections in a row, millions of
Brazilians came to openly distrust democratic processes, whether because
they thought the elections were being rigged or that populist demagogues
had effectively purchased the loyalty of dim-witted voters through
government handouts.
As social psychologist Sander van der Linden has noted
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/moon-landing-faked-why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories/>,
“a number of studies have shown that belief in conspiracy theories is
associated with feelings of powerlessness, uncertainty and a general
lack of agency and control.” Such feelings were certainly experienced by
sizeable numbers of anti-PT voters and conservative elites since at
least 2010. Indeed, by the start of Rousseff’s second term, this crowd
lost whatever qualms it once had about openly contesting the results of
free and fair elections.
An explosion in internet access is another factor explaining the
proliferation of Carvalho’s conspiracy theories. Carvalho is an avid
YouTuber, posting frequent diatribes on the platform that sociologist
Zeynep Tufekci has called
<https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/youtube-conspiracy-radicalization.php>
“one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century.”
Finally, increasing rates of higher education under PT governments may
also have produced a larger audience for pseudo-intellectual historical
and sociological arguments. There is much more to be said on how
Carvalho has attained the reach that he has, but his influence is now a
reality that progressives in Brazil must confront head-on.
The argument that progressive forces exert decisive influence over
everyday norms and customs has thrived despite, or perhaps because of,
the actual retreat of the Left since at least the end of the Cold War.
While the PT transparently moved to the center to secure a historic win
in 2002, its inveterate foes claimed it had simply devised more
effective camouflage for its subversive agenda. More recently, the
notion that Marxists have stealthily won the culture war has become a
unifying article of faith for right-wing movements around the globe.
But Carvalho is no mere imitator. He has been railing against the
supposedly imminent threat of communism in Latin America for decades.
According to Carvalho, the most insidious manifestation of this secret
offensive is the Foro de São Paulo, a conference of left-wing political
parties from more than twenty Latin American and Caribbean countries
established in 1990. Steve Bannon, who has become
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-election-bannon/steve-bannon-endorses-far-right-brazilian-presidential-candidate-idUSKCN1N01S1>
close
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-02/jair-bolsonaro-s-son-joins-steve-bannon-s-nationalist-alliance?srnd=markets-vp>
with the Bolsonaro clan, has also railed openly against cultural
Marxism, calling
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/stephen-bannon-tries-rightwing-revolution-in-europe-a-1235297.html>
for a transnational union of white Christian identitarian movements.
A recent summit
<https://politica.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,steve-bannon-ex-estrategista-de-trump-visita-olavo-de-carvalho,70002684308>
between Bannon and Carvalho represented a meeting of two distinct yet
kindred strains of hysterical reaction. Interestingly, Bannon treated
Carvalho as the elder statesman in that encounter, suggesting that
Carvalho’s paranoid theorizations are having an organic impact on
global
politics. As currently invoked by archconservatives, cultural Marxism is
a reconstitution of the existential threat that fascism has always
needed in order to flourish. On account of his prolific writings and
YouTube presence, Carvalho should figure prominently in any future
analysis of the present conjuncture.
Araújo channeled Carvalho’s prolific writing and YouTube videos in a
personal blog he maintained before becoming foreign minister. In it,
Araujo referred to globalism as a product of cultural Marxism (a
connection
<https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2003/cultural-marxism-catching>
with clear antisemitic overtones). For the foreign minister, Carvalho
stands out as “perhaps the first person in the world to see globalism as
the result of economic globalization, to understand its horrific
purposes, and to start thinking about how to topple it. For many years
he was also the only person in Brazil to use the word ‘communism’ to
describe the PT’s strategy and everything that was going on in the
country, at a time when everyone thought communism was just a sort of
collectivism that had died with the Soviet Union, blind to its survival
in many other guises in the culture and in ‘global issues.'”
Araújo also explicitly links Carvalho and Bolsonaro, proclaiming in a
piece <https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2019/1/now-we-do> for the
conservative /New Criterion /that
thanks to the internet boom, and especially the social media
revolution, [Carvalho’s] ideas suddenly started to percolate through
the whole country, reaching thousands of people who had been fed
only the official mantras. These ideas broke all dams and converged
with the courageous stance of the only truly nationalist Brazilian
politician of the last hundred years, Jair Bolsonaro, giving him a
totally unprecedented level of grassroots support.
This was the impetus Brazil needed to refashion itself into a
“conservative, anti-globalist, nationalist country.”
He also noted the importance of anti-corruption
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/10/corruption-bolsonaro-pt-populism-democracy-development>
investigations like Operation Car Wash, whose public face, Judge Sergio
Moro, was named Bolsonaro’s minister of justice after presiding over an
intensely political trial
<https://jacobinmag.com/2018/02/brazil-lula-conviction-roundtable-intro>
that led to the arrest of former president Lula. “The investigation into
the PT corruption scheme — perhaps the largest criminal enterprise ever
— evolved and started to throw light on the depths of PT’s attempt to
destroy the country and seize absolute power,” Araújo asserted,
recounting what has become conservative voters’
<https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/brazil-election-bolsonaro-evangelicals-security>
standard line for why they are motivated by more than just hostility to
the PT.
For Araújo, the increasing circulation of Carvalho’s musings
produced
something like national liberation: “we lived for too long thwarted by
left-wing globalist discourse. Now we can live in a world where
criminals can be arrested, where people of all social strata can have
the opportunities they deserve, and where we can be proud of our symbols
and practice our faith. The psycho-political control system is finished,
and this is nothing short of a miracle.”
What Araújo hails as foresight in Carvalho’s oeuvre is, in fact,
elementary conspiracy mongering. In a style that the foreign minister
clearly imitates, Carvalho invokes so many esoteric, obscure references
that his arguments can be hard to follow. This, of course, is almost
certainly the point: by appearing to draw easily from a deep well of
knowledge, Carvalho imbues a patina of sophistication to what is
essentially reactionary boilerplate.
To identify the PT in power as a communist enterprise, for example, is
to assert that words have no meaning. The 2018 presidential campaign was
infested with this kind of ideological nihilism, with a preponderant
swath of anti-PT voters unable or unwilling to defend Bolsonaro on the
merits of his inhuman proposals but eager to attack Fernando Haddad
<https://jacobinmag.com/2018/09/fernando-haddad-pt-brazil-lula-elections>,
the PT’s nominee, on absurd charges. Such is the context in which
Brazilian foreign policy is now being devised.
“I Know Who I Am”
The irony in all of this is striking: the Brazilian right long accused
the Workers’ Party of politicizing the federal bureaucracy and
conducting foreign affairs along sharply ideological lines. Now,
however, Araújo is turning Brazil away from virtually every major
industrialized nation except for the United States, claiming for himself
the mantle of reasoned and dispassionate policymaking despite the
existential stakes he has invoked in his pronouncements.
In the name of a murky anti-globalism, the seething foreign minister who
wants to be seen as a steady hand has drawn criticism both from
neoliberals at /_the Economist
<https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2019/01/12/the-contradictions-of-brazils-foreign-policy>_
/and liberals at the /_New York Times
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/opinion/editorials/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-trump.html>_/.
International investors who see Brazil primarily as an expansive market
and a producer of raw materials are hoping against hope that Finance
Minister Paulo Guedes, a dutiful neoliberal economist trained at the
University of Chicago, can implement business-friendly reforms despite
the authoritarian bloodlust of Bolsonaro and the civilizational crusade
envisioned by Araújo.
By playing up a reactionary global role for Brazil, Araújo is making
a
transparent bid to score political points at home as unabashed
conservatism roars back into the Brazilian mainstream. The stakes are
high as “the fight /for/ or /against/ global order has become a fight
for /control/ of the global order,” as Quinn Slobodian put it
<https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2019/01/rise-right-wing-globalists>
recently. The transnational reactionary wave to which Araújo has
committed Brazil may well have already crested. Meanwhile, he has not
demonstrated the chops to bring Brazil back from the fringe should the
winds of international diplomacy start to shift.
What will he do, for example, if Trump does not win reelection in 2020?
The relationships Brazil doubles down on today could easily make the
country a pariah tomorrow. Furthermore, Araújo may see a shared
civilizational struggle that puts Brazil on the side of the United
States, but American presidents have never treated Latin America’s
largest nation as an equal partner. Trump cares especially little for
Latin America. Notwithstanding Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s enthusiasm
<https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/29/opinions/us-should-go-big-on-brazil-rubio/index.html>
for the Bolsonaro administration, Araújo is deluding himself if he
thinks the United States will set aside a history of imperialism for the
sake of waging war on progressive values.
Araújo has used his office to loudly proclaim a new international role
for Brazil (and himself). “We’ve become diplomats who only do things
that are important to other diplomats,” he argued in his first official
speech. “This must stop. Let’s stop looking in the mirror
and look out
the window. Or better yet, let’s go out to the real Brazil. Let us not
be afraid of the Brazilian people. We are part of the Brazilian people.”
Araújo’s pledge to shake up Brazil’s official culture is not inherently
objectionable — Itamaraty is as elitist as any other institution in a
society as unequal as Brazil. But by appealing to a self-evident “common
sense,” Araújo is promising to align Brazilian foreign policy with the
reactionary premises of both the president and Olavo de Carvalho.
To that end, Araújo’s inaugural speech offered a distillation of his
emotional foreign policy vision: “Those who say that there are no
men
and women are the same ones who say that countries have no right to
protect their borders, the same who claim that a human fetus is a heap
of disposable cells, the same who say that mankind is a disease that
must disappear to save the planet.”
He continued with perhaps the most succinct articulation yet of the
reactionary wave sweeping the globe: “as a teenager, I heard a lot of
people saying, ‘The world is marching inexorably toward socialism.’ But
it did not. It did not march because someone went and stopped it. Today
we hear that the march of globalism is irreversible. But it is not
irreversible. We will fight to turn back globalism and push it back to
its starting point.”
Brazilians have long debated the proper balance between nationalist
self-assertion on the world stage and acquiescence with the dictates of
foreign powers. The dictatorship that governed the country from 1964 to
1985, for example, deferred entirely to Washington in its early years,
with Brazil’s ambassador to the US proclaiming that “what’s good for the
United States is good for Brazil.” As the regime wore on, more
forcefully nationalistic sectors of the armed forces prevailed and
sought to make the country live up to its potential as a hemispheric
power in its own right. So far, Araújo combines the headstrong talk of
the latter current with the submissive essence of the former.
It is possible that in the chaos likely to define Bolsonaro’s
presidency, Araújo may crash and burn. His smoldering self-importance
speaks to Bolsonaro’s aim of drastically altering Brazil’s foreign
policy orientation — indeed, both men draw from a deep well of egotism
in their belief that tough, assertive men can easily resolve intractable
problems. But it is hard to imagine Araújo ever garnering political
support independently from his president or his venerated intellectual
guru. A potentially fatal blow for Araújo, then, will be if Carvalho
or
his ideas are effectively discredited in the next few years.
The military could also imperil Araújo’s job. Already, disagreements
with the armed forces threaten to curtail
<https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mundo/2019/02/apos-crise-itamaraty-esta-sob-tutela-de-militares-do-governo.shtml?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=twfolha>
his influence. There’s no doubt that in a direct confrontation between
Araújo, the culture warrior who’s cast himself in a civilizational
struggle, and the cold-blooded pragmatists in the military, Bolsonaro
would side with the latter. After all, military men
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/10/bolsonaro-military-pt-haiti-lava-jato-lula>
now occupy an unprecedented number of high-ranking positions in the
current government. Still, Araújo’s crudely conspiratorial foreign
policy vision has already become an integral part of Brazil’s
international and domestic image under Bolsonaro. This is exactly the
face the current government seems intent on putting forward.
In his inaugural speech as foreign minister, Araújo recounted a lesson
he learned from Don Quixote by way of Olavo de Carvalho. At one point in
Cervantes’s classic, the title character finds himself lying by the
roadside somewhere in La Mancha, delirious and defeated. In this sad
state, Quixote mistakes a peasant ambling by for the Marquis of Mantua.
The exasperated peasant replies that he is no aristocrat, that he is
Quixote’s neighbor and has known him for years. The peasant then reminds
the man on the ground that he is not Don Quixote as he claims but Alonso
Quixano. Don Quixote stops, thinks, and replies: “I know who I am.”
For Araújo, the moral of the story is clear: “Some will say that Brazil
is not all that President Bolsonaro believes it is, and that I believe
it is, they will say that Brazil cannot influence the fate of the world,
defend the highest values of humanity, that we should just export
goods and attract investment, because after all we are a good country,
quiet and peaceful, but powerless. They will say that Brazil is just
Alonso Quixano. But Brazil will respond: I know who I am.” Whether
Araújo knows how the tale of Don Quixote ends is an open question.
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About the Author
Andre Pagliarini was a visiting assistant professor of modern Latin
American history at Brown University in 2018–19 and will begin a
lectureship at Dartmouth College this fall. He is currently preparing a
book manuscript on twentieth-century Brazilian nationalism.
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