The elections are here.
It's time for the race to find out who will become
president, governors, representatives and senators.
We know what happens in an election year:
all social struggle is discouraged
so that life revolves around choosing
who will run the country
and make decisions about how our lives will be.
In so-called Brazil, not even a pandemic
that killed more than 700,000 people
and a historic economic crisis
that brought the country back to the hunger map
were enough to disrupt the pacification
of the social movements orchestrated by the parties
that control many of them
and feed off the general apathy and passivity.
But not everyone has endured this peace,
which is no peace at all,
since it means the extermination of poor, black,
indigenous, women, and queer people.
The people, movements,
communities and organized soccer supporters
that dared take to the streets to protest
and demand basic rights during the health crisis,
fought on their own.
Without the solidarity of a left that
chose to embrace "stay at home"
for its entire political practice,
giving up street action and self-organization,
to wait for new elections
like someone waiting for a vaccine against a virus.
One of the justifications for "staying home"
and just waiting for better days
was the idea that confronting the supporters
of this fascist and militarized government
would provide a pretext for repression
or a coup by Jair Bolsonaro.
As if police violence, repression,
and coups needed pretexts.
Once again,
the struggle has been pushed aside
to await the outcome of the elections
or an unlikely impeachment.
Before long,
we will find out who will win the elections
and will make the laws and policies that affect all of us.
Or, we will see that coup d'état,
announced, planned and rehearsed in broad daylight,
with the support of the military
and the permission of the three powers that are supposed
to watch over and protect the health of democracies.
This year, the struggle for the office of president
is being presented as more decisive than ever.
As if the future of democracy itself
were at stake.
In fact,
for many marginalized people,
Bolsonaro's victory
could mean a matter of life or death.
For another large portion of the population,
a new Lula government
is the hope of a return
to a past where the poorest people
had better access to education and income,
and extreme poverty was almost eliminated.
But can we trust that
electing a few professional politicians
would be enough to make our lives really better?
Does anyone believe that Bolsonarism will retreat from the streets,
the barracks, the institutions,
and the hearts of millions of people
if a new leader occupies the president's office?
If we analyze recent history,
we will see that a victory at the ballot box
is no guarantee of anything.
It's not even enough to ensure that elected leaders
will remain in office.
As in the case of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil
or Fernando Lugo in Paraguay.
Who were removed from office through impeachment
by elites who could not defeat them in the elections.
Or the indigenous chief Marcos Xukuru,
who was elected the first indigenous mayor
of the city of Pesqueira, in Pernambuco State.
But was barred from taking office for months.
Just voting doesn't do much
to guarantee a free and equal life,
or our self-determination as a people.
As the recent election of Boric
as president of so-called Chile shows us.
He, who made a career in the student movements,
presenting himself as a radical leftist,
in a few months,
tried to criminalize the social movements
and declared a state of exception
in the territories of the Mapuche people.
In the so-called United States,
even the election of Joe Biden was not enough
to stop the advance of conservative agendas,
such as abortion,
which went from being a right nationwide
to becoming a heinous crime in some states.
Both capitalism
and political representation in democracy
are in crisis because they do not convince anyone
that they benefit the majority of the population.
A proof of this is that, every year,
less and less people
bother to vote.
- The number of abstentions in this election
was the highest in the last 20 years.
- 30 million voters didn't turn out to vote.
The history of Brazil is not a democratic history.
The First Republic was established in 1889
through a military coup that overthrew the Empire.
In the 20th century there were two other coups d'état.
The first, in 1930,
put Getúlio Vargas in power.
And in 1964, a brutal military coup
inaugurated a 21-year regime
of torture and murder,
which was never defeated, only retreated
to act in the shadows of democracy.
The current government of Jair Bolsonaro,
a project of the generals heirs to the dictatorship,
has more military personnel in public office
than any other Brazilian military government in history.
The "natural order" in Brazilian democracy
is made of coups, dictatorships and militarization.
The democratic process is tolerated
as long as the privileges
of a small elite are not threatened.
Waiting for "Bolsonaro to melt down"
to defeat him at the polls
proved to be a flawed strategy.
While the left gambled
on the democratic vote and institutions,
Bolsonaro had time
to dismantle the vote and institutions,
place military personnel to "watch" and question
the legitimacy of elections.
The various crimes of Bolsonaro and his government
raised by the Covid Congress investigation,
and many others, were simply filed away.
We cannot mistake
a radical critique of the elections,
one that' denounces class domination
through representation,
for the opportunistic criticism against the electronic voting booths
propagated by Bolsonaro and the far right.
Fascism questions the democratic system,
the institutions, the powerful, the super-rich,
only when it is useful to present itself
as a radical, disruptive change,
when in fact
it is just a more authoritarian and violent form
of maintaining the privileges of the elite.
The far right
is a threat constantly used
to make us accept what they say
is the only viable alternative
to their authoritarianism and fascism,
the only way to stop it:
the election of a minimally progressive government
that promotes a new conciliation
with the dominant class,
or even a classic neoliberal government.
But there are not only two options,
as they would have us believe.
A supposed alliance with the ruling class
is not the only alternative
to living under the violent oppression
of this same elite.
We can choose to resist and create a new world.
If there is one thing that the uprisings of 2013 and 2014
showed us, it is that a radicalized
and decentralized popular uprising
has the power to shake the structures of a regime.
If there was a mistake at that time,
it was in retreating and allowing
the right to occupy the streets
and not continuing to radicalize and increase tension.
Creating a culture of resistance and struggle.
A new Workers' Party (PT) government
is far from being a victory.
Besides the fascism that will remain active
in the streets, in the Congress and in religious fundamentalism,
we cannot forget
that Lula and Dilma's governments
meant an increase in the prison population,
police pacification units in the favelas,
the eviction of entire neighborhoods
and millions of reais invested in mega-events,
the halting of the agrarian reform
and demarcation of indigenous lands,
as well as the criminalization of social movements
that confront all these issues.
Let's draw inspiration from the feminist struggle
that didn't leave the streets
until the Argentine state decriminalized abortion.
Or in the indigenous movement in so-called Ecuador
that forced the government
to lower fuel prices.
It was a mistake for us to wait for elections
to get Michel Temer out of the presidency
to save us from the advance of conservative politics.
It was a mistake for us to allow Bolsonaro
to reach the end of his term.
Whether or not you vote
to remove the far right and the military from power,
we cannot delude ourselves
that this will be enough to guarantee
a more just life for all of us.
It will take a lot of struggle and organizing.
Starting now.
The Other Campaign recalls the calls
of the Zapatista Movement in so-called Mexico
who rose up for self-determination
and invites all people
to organize permanently,
beyond election years.
Proposing another political practice
that rejects representation and the division of society
into rulers and ruled.
Whether you choose to vote or not matters little.
What matters is what we do in spite of it!
Regardless of whether in the coming years
we will be facing capitalism
and police repression
commanded by Bolsonaro and his militias
or by yet another Lula government and its partner elites,
what we need to know is how we will organize ourselves
as movements, collectives, and communities.
What we cannot do is to believe
that we will be safe
by handing over all our power of action
to elected representatives
and trust that they will do something for us,
and that they will eliminate fascism from society.
Fascism has never gone away with a defeat in the elections,
because it inhabits the feelings and practices
of ordinary people, not just leaders.
Find and join grassroots movements,
support indigenous communities struggles,
communities, quilombos and squats in resistance.
Join forces with anti-fascist groups.
Or create your own collective
or organization with people
with whom you have political affinity
and common goals.
And no matter who gets elected,
become ungovernable.