Brazil goes right

The rise of the global Right has thrown up many terrifying figures, some of whom have even attained power such as Donald Trump in the US, Viktor Orban in Hungary and Matteo Salvini in Italy. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who cruised to victory in this past Sunday’s presidential election run-off, may be the scariest of the lot. Bolsonaro holds the same views as the rest of the extremist right-wing movement sweeping the world. He is viciously authoritarian, crudely misogynistic and homophobic and sees Muslims as the enemy. But his rhetoric is even stronger than that of his counterparts. A former military officer, Bolsonaro was a supporter of the US-backed military regime in Brazil and his only criticism was that it did not torture and kill enough people. He has called immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East “the scum of the earth” and wants remedial therapy for homosexuality. Brazil under the leadership of Lula da Silva offered so much hope to the global South but after years of what were essentially coups against the left-wing government it has now elected an unapologetic fascist

The burning question now is: how did the world take such a radical shift to the right? The answer can be found in the failures of liberal democracy. In Brazil, for instance, the stench of corruption was so affixed to every mainstream politician that a tired and angry population went for the outsider. In Europe and the US, years of recession followed by a recovery that only exacerbated income equality caused similar rage. This created an opening for extremists from the Right to lay the blame at the feet of immigrants. The political class was so invested in its capitalist societies that it refused to see the rot within. Subsequently, it has not been able to fight back. The world today is on a tinderbox. In the US, supporters of Trump have been mailing bombs to their opponents in politics and the media even as the president eggs on hatred of liberal institutions. Brexit in the UK has shown how starkly divided British society is. All around Europe, walls are coming up to keep out those of a darker hue. In a world that seems rigged against those who are not born into wealth and power, it is understandable – and even justified – that there will be a lot of rage and cynicism. That this anger has expressed itself in the election of demagogues like Bolsonaro may be the biggest tragedy of our age.