A date almost similar to that of the assault on the US Congress in January 2021. Protesters who denounce a stolen election without supporting evidence. A man in head-to-toe make-up and feathered attire, making him look like a cousin not too far from Washington’s most recognizable rioter.
Since Sunday, you don’t have to look too far to find similarities between the violent revolt of the last few days in Brazil, launched by followers of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, and that which took place two years ago in the States. United, in support of a Donald Trump who denied his defeat at the polls.
As if History had the hiccups. As if we were reusing the same recipe by simply changing a few ingredients. As if we were refining a modus operandi of the radical right and the extreme right to be used again and again throughout the world to undermine democracy after democracy.
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This rather frightening observation is not just a figment of the imagination, believes the American ethnographer Benjamin Teitelbaum, author of War for Eternity (war for eternity), a essay dealing with the rise of the populist right and the traditionalist values that underpin it in the United States, Brazil and Russia. “Yes, we see the potential of a globalized movement emerging [de la droite populiste] which multiplies the attempts of coups d’etat. For the moment, these attempts have failed, but that may not always be the case, he told me in a telephone interview. The style of the demonstrations and the theatricality deployed show that the participants of the various countries look at each other and that they draw lessons from their experiences”, supports the one who has been interested in the subject for years. His curiosity does not bring him only flowers. For security reasons, he asked me not to reveal his whereabouts at the time of the interview.
In addition to the Brazilian and American riots attacking state symbols and resulting in mass arrests, Mr. Teitelbaum lumps together the plot that was foiled by law enforcement in Germany at the beginning of last December and led to the arrest of 25 people who dreamed of bringing a fallen aristocrat to power. The goal in all three cases is to destroy the civilian process of handing over power, argues the expert. To put an end to democratic institutions by force.
To understand the somewhat ironic internationalization of this populist right which nevertheless slays globalization, he notably interviewed Donald Trump’s former strategist, Steve Bannon, for more than 20 hours in the two years following his departure from the House. -White, in 2017.
It was during these same two years that the figurehead of the American populist right traveled around the world, seeking to create alliances sometimes in Europe, sometimes in Latin America.
In Brazil, he found in Jair Bolsonaro and his son Eduardo true brothers in spirit whom he has frequented many times since 2017.
PHOTO ERALDO PERES, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Jair Bolsonaro
Monday, the day after the assault by pro-Bolsonaro rioters on the Brazilian Congress, the palace housing the office of the president and the Supreme Court of the South American country, Steve Bannon, who is today the mastermind of the podcast series War Roompraised the courage of these Brazilian “freedom fighters”, an appellation that Bolsonaro, the king of the incendiary formula, did not dare to use to speak of his faithful.
That said, this political kinship does not make the pro-Bolsonaro movement an identical twin of the American radical right à la Bannon. “The anti-immigration rhetoric doesn’t really resonate in Brazil and the far right hasn’t taken it up,” Viktor Chagas, a political culture expert and professor at the Federal University, told me. Fluminense from Rio de Janeiro. “On the other hand, anti-communist rhetoric and the use of all kinds of means of disinformation have been at the heart of Bolsonaro’s re-election campaign. »
Family resemblances, therefore, but following the contours of the national context.
Dazzled by the similarities between the two rebel movements, it would be easy to overlook the more marked differences between them. “The political objectives in Brazil seem less clear than for January 6,” notes David Morin, professor of political science at the University of Sherbrooke. In the United States, rioters attacked Congress to stop the certification of the vote while elected officials were on Capitol Hill, while in Brazil, protesters ransacked places of power on a Sunday, a day off, he notes. -he.
Another major difference is the role of the military police and the army.
While law enforcement in the United States was initially taken by surprise before adjusting, in Brazil it ignored all red flags and is now accused of acting in support. to bolsonarists. The rioters also took advantage of their outburst to ask the army to intervene to overthrow the new government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, awakening the specter of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil until 1985.
Unlike in the United States where the rebellion was contained in a single day, in Brazil the sky is still a political storm and the calls to demonstrate continue.
The recipe used by the Brazilian demonstrators may be very similar to that of Washington, but the end result threatens to have a completely different taste.