Regarding the Venezuelan regime, Lula surprised in an interview by saying: “The notion of democracy is relative.” When asked if he thought Nicolás Maduro’s government was democratic, he replied: “In Venezuela there are more elections than in Brazil.”
Lula insisted that Maduro could only step down from power “if he is defeated in the elections,” implying that Venezuela’s elections were under an authoritarian regime that created misery in one of the world’s oil-rich countries have taken care of, have been democratic.
The Brazilian president’s statement sparked even more surprise and concern as his own election came against the backdrop of the disastrous presidency of far-right Jair Bolsonaro, an enemy of democratic values and nostalgic for dictatorships.
Lula had already surprised negatively when he officially received Nicolás Maduro at the seat of government last May and described this visit as “historic”, but at the same time accused the accusation that Nicaragua was a dictatorship as “rhetoric”.
Lula’s new statement seems more serious considering that in different parts of the world, starting with Europe, there is growing nostalgia for former authoritarian regimes and the far right, who are questioning the values of democracy that are considered to be one of those regimes greatest achievements of civilization.
Lula’s statement about the presumed relativity of the concept of democracy in today’s world was all the more surprising as he did not attempt to criticize the possible decay of democracies, but rather to challenge the concept of democracy by defending at least authoritarian politics and that generates misery and fear.
Perhaps as a consequence of my work as a reader advocate at this newspaper years ago, I have always been very attentive to the letters from readers of reputable newspapers around the world, helping us to listen to the voice of the street, which usually carries important wisdom. naturally.
That’s why today I read carefully the three letters that will be published today in the newspaper O Globo, the country’s highest-circulation newspaper, about Lula’s surprising declaration in defense of dictatorships like those of Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Under the title “Democracy and Time,” Márcio dos Santos Barbosa writes: “To say that the concept of democracy is relative is a complete disgrace for the far right.” only arouses nostalgic times of the military dictatorship in Brazil”, should apologize.
Carlos Eduardo Berendonk, on the other hand, insists that Lula should “apologize to the Brazilians”. In the third letter on this subject, Luciano de Oliveira e Silva dismisses the statement: “Although democratic practices may vary from country to country, democratic foundations are essential and cannot be relativized.”
Lula’s career from his earliest union activity to the present: Running the country has always been a target of the far right and authoritarian affairs.
Undoubtedly, the current situation in Brazil is paradoxical, since an extremist regime was defeated there, which aroused in the country a dangerous nostalgia for a law that touched on fascist and even Nazi elements.
To govern this time, Lula must make dangerous concessions to a parliament with strong undertones and a right-wing majority that sees in the old trade unionist the return of a communism this country never saw.
For all these reasons, Lula should undoubtedly clarify his ambiguous statement that democracy, which is increasingly demonized today, is more of a relative term.
It is not. Precisely because democracy is in jeopardy, it must be claimed and defended as civilization’s greatest asset, at a historic moment when the ghosts of old nostalgia for political cannibalism are struggling to revive it.
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